4 ms·

Reading this just reminded me how lucky we are to work in tech and have the ability to extract so much money out of the companies we serve. My girlfriend works

by md224 9y ago

Reading this just reminded me how lucky we are to work in tech and have the ability to extract so much money out of the companies we serve. My girlfriend works as a copy editor at a major online news site (it's in the US top 100 on Alexa) and her salary is essentially half of mine, even though her job seems more stressful and taxing. I'd love to make more money, but I also think it's ridiculous that people in other fields are getting screwed while we prosper. I wish there was a way that we could apply our skills toward fixing this injustice.

qdoop 9y ago
Enjoy it while it lasts. In less than a decade you will be replaced for sure for a younger one no matter how good you are. http://worrydream.com/#!/MeanwhileAtCodeOrg http://worrydream.com/#!/MeanwhileAtCodeOrg
- striking 9y ago
  This seems like an unproductive rephrasing of the comments made in the linked piece, ironically not unlike how people unproductively rephrased Papert's paper. (And even those comments are strawmen of what's posted on code.org, especially considering they're brief snippets of marketing material and not parts of a research paper.)
  - qdoop 9y ago
    Once there were coal miners. Today they are SW programmers. The INDUSTRY needs you!!!
- md224 9y ago
  Ugh, this is definitely a fear of mine. I'm 33, and the other day I realized that I'm one of the oldest employees of the startup I work at... older than my boss and possibly older than the founders themselves. It was a strange and slightly disconcerting feeling, realizing I was now the "old" guy. I know about the ageism in the industry, and I do worry that in 5-10 years I'll be struggling to find work. I hope I'm wrong.
  - qdoop 9y ago
    At your age also had this fear that turned true much faster since i come from GREECE. The only way i manage it is by putting my expertise on personal projects and sell my services really really cheap. Real example: Currently i am developing a lean version of a product for 2000Euro that a US company sells for 15000$ (That is the most a local client offered to pay) I invest my personal time with the hope that if works fine i could sell more of them for a decent profit.
nicolashahn 9y ago
I'm assuming you're some sort of programmer. There's a lot of people who can write/edit good copy, and a lot of people who want a job writing/editing copy, but a limited amount of jobs, and I doubt the market is expanding as fast as tech. Think of some problem that can be solved with software and you've just created X programming jobs, X = # of people required for that company's engineering department, whereas the value to society of adding another news site diminishes quickly. So there ratio of people who can write good code to programming jobs is lower. Also, and this is a huge assumption on my part, the # of hours you need to put in to be a competent programmer (at the level of money I'm also assuming you make) is greater than the hours to be skilled enough to produce decent copy (for the average person). So it's more difficult for the # of programmers to catch up to the # of programming jobs. Thus, the demand for programmers drives salary. This is all without talking about the subjective amount of value to society a programmer can bring compared to a copy editor. To fix this (I hesitate to call it injustice) we could raise taxes+implement UBI or increase funding to some other social welfare programs and raise the maximum income required to take advantage of them. But I think essentially, what careers people choose should be somewhat influenced by what society needs, and salaries can reflect that. Not saying that the demand for programmers isn't all fucked up because of startup speculation and other factors, but I think in general the tech industry provides a lot of value for the world.
open_bear 9y ago
> I wish there was a way that we could apply our skills toward fixing this injustice. Educate yourself on why does that happen. Main purpose of every company is to make money. As long as IT is making a lot of money programmers will be paid a lot. As soon as industry starts to cool down - our salaries will drop as well.

by md224 9y ago

qdoop 9y ago

Enjoy it while it lasts. In less than a decade you will be replaced for sure for a younger one no matter how good you are. http://worrydream.com/#!/MeanwhileAtCodeOrg http://worrydream.com/#!/MeanwhileAtCodeOrg

striking 9y ago
This seems like an unproductive rephrasing of the comments made in the linked piece, ironically not unlike how people unproductively rephrased Papert's paper. (And even those comments are strawmen of what's posted on code.org, especially considering they're brief snippets of marketing material and not parts of a research paper.)
- qdoop 9y ago
  Once there were coal miners. Today they are SW programmers. The INDUSTRY needs you!!!
md224 9y ago
Ugh, this is definitely a fear of mine. I'm 33, and the other day I realized that I'm one of the oldest employees of the startup I work at... older than my boss and possibly older than the founders themselves. It was a strange and slightly disconcerting feeling, realizing I was now the "old" guy. I know about the ageism in the industry, and I do worry that in 5-10 years I'll be struggling to find work. I hope I'm wrong.
- qdoop 9y ago
  At your age also had this fear that turned true much faster since i come from GREECE. The only way i manage it is by putting my expertise on personal projects and sell my services really really cheap. Real example: Currently i am developing a lean version of a product for 2000Euro that a US company sells for 15000$ (That is the most a local client offered to pay) I invest my personal time with the hope that if works fine i could sell more of them for a decent profit.

nicolashahn 9y ago

I'm assuming you're some sort of programmer. There's a lot of people who can write/edit good copy, and a lot of people who want a job writing/editing copy, but a limited amount of jobs, and I doubt the market is expanding as fast as tech. Think of some problem that can be solved with software and you've just created X programming jobs, X = # of people required for that company's engineering department, whereas the value to society of adding another news site diminishes quickly. So there ratio of people who can write good code to programming jobs is lower. Also, and this is a huge assumption on my part, the # of hours you need to put in to be a competent programmer (at the level of money I'm also assuming you make) is greater than the hours to be skilled enough to produce decent copy (for the average person). So it's more difficult for the # of programmers to catch up to the # of programming jobs. Thus, the demand for programmers drives salary. This is all without talking about the subjective amount of value to society a programmer can bring compared to a copy editor. To fix this (I hesitate to call it injustice) we could raise taxes+implement UBI or increase funding to some other social welfare programs and raise the maximum income required to take advantage of them. But I think essentially, what careers people choose should be somewhat influenced by what society needs, and salaries can reflect that. Not saying that the demand for programmers isn't all fucked up because of startup speculation and other factors, but I think in general the tech industry provides a lot of value for the world.

open_bear 9y ago

> I wish there was a way that we could apply our skills toward fixing this injustice. Educate yourself on why does that happen. Main purpose of every company is to make money. As long as IT is making a lot of money programmers will be paid a lot. As soon as industry starts to cool down - our salaries will drop as well.