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> In engineering, bimodal distributions are the sorting of people that naturally have the ability to easily reason about complex distributed systems with many c
by nvarsj 9y ago
> In engineering, bimodal distributions are the sorting of people that naturally have the ability to easily reason about complex distributed systems with many concurrent moving parts and people that cannot. Increasingly, the market is discriminating on this characteristic and it is reflected in wages.
What faith in the system :). The truth I think is "it's who you know" more than "what you know". The best paid engineers are ones who spend a lot of time positioning themselves to get well paid. Why that is bi-modal I can't be sure - but my guess is that once you hit a certain network effect you start to make a lot more.
- Clubber 9y agoIt's both. You have to know people of whom you impress with your ability.
- nvarsj 9y agoSure, but I don't think the differentiator in the bimodal distribution is technical ability.
- Clubber 9y agoI would guess being good hits the first mark, being good and knowing someone who can pay a lot that knows you're good hits the second mark. Perhaps the second mark not only includes being good and knowing someone, but being good and providing a larger value, like being able to analyze and communicate with a company and quantitatively save them money through business process automation.
- taurath 9y agoAnd yet the primary indicator of a programmer's ability through job interviews are tiny-scale optimizations and brain teasers.