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There's no such thing as being overpaid if you're not an executive (i.e., you have no real control over the business, you're just a paid employee). The busines
by magduf 8y ago
There's no such thing as being overpaid if you're not an executive (i.e., you have no real control over the business, you're just a paid employee). The business is paying you based on market conditions, and if they could get away with it, they'd pay you less. They're paying software engineers that much because that's what the market demands: there's not enough qualified talent to meet the employers' demand.
SW engineers are paid more than other engineers in the US because there just isn't that much work, or demand, for other engineering disciplines here. A lot of the work has gone offshore: as an engineer with a EE degree, I don't do EE work because there just isn't that much of it here. All the electronics work has gone to Asia, except in the defense sector. What the US is still really good at is software: look at all our highest-valued tech companies, and all the other companies in Silicon Valley: an overwhelming number of them are doing software work. Smartphones, all the apps running on them, etc., are all software, and are a huge part of the economy now. Not to mention all the other places software is now used, such as finance, where it's used by non-tech companies to enhance their business. If it weren't for software, the US economy probably would have collapsed some time ago.
Therefore, with software being a driving force in the US economy, and a shortage of qualified talent compared to demand (plus a lot of workers that are incompetent...), wages have been driven up compared to other engineers.
Finally, if you look at real engineering wages compared to the past, inflation-adjusted, engineers were paid more back in the 60s or 70s or so, and had more job security too. So it's become a less attractive career than it was in the past, so software engineering is really just a holdout.
As for Europe, AFAICT, engineers are just horribly underpaid there, and they try to make up for it some with extra perks like job security.
- toomanybeersies 8y agoI think there is such a thing as overpaid when you have the janitor working for $15 per hour and minimal benefits [1] and you have your engineers getting paid $200k with all sorts of benefits and perks. This kind of income disparity is completely unfair, and we haven't seen such high income and wealth disparity in the USA since the 1920s. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/26/facebook-workers-housing-janitors-unique-parsha https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/26/facebook-...
- magduf 8y agoSorry, no. Anyone with half a brain can be a janitor; it takes almost zero skills and little training. Engineers need many years of education, and get more valuable with experience, and that's in addition to needing the raw aptitude in the first place. There's no way to create new engineers from the general population in a short timescale, just like you can't create new proficient musicians in week from a group of random people. Anyone can be taught to clean toilets and empty trash bins in 10 minutes. The income disparity is just a product of that reality. Outside of Silicon Valley, engineers don't get paid that much; the really high-income people are various executives, managers, finance people, business owners, etc. Engineers do pretty well for paid grunts, but compared to the ownership and executive classes, it's not that great.
- toomanybeersies 8y agoIf both being a janitor and a software engineer paid the same amount of money, I'd still rather be a software engineer. Obviously in a capitalist society it makes perfect sense to pay your staff the minimum possible while still retaining them. But it doesn't make it a fair system. Just because I had the privilege of being born into a good family with a good head on my shoulders doesn't mean that I deserve to get paid between 5 and 8 times more than the janitor (the income disparity between a janitor on $15 and a software engineer making 6 figures). In Australia I make roughly double what the cleaners make. I think that's a much more equitable number.
- magduf 8y agoIf you want to set aside 7/8 of your income and run around handing it out to janitors, you're free to do so.