9 ms·

Won't it? There's a whole bunch of smart people right now who won't go into tech because they can make more elsewhere. Another example is senior engineers who

Won't it? There's a whole bunch of smart people right now who won't go into tech because they can make more elsewhere. Another example is senior engineers who retire because their investment portfolio is large enough, and they don't feel like working hard for another year just to make another $150k. If it was $400k, they might stay. These are the engineers who are the most scarce and at the greatest demand right now. Another example is turnover. Engineers currently have to job hop every couple of years to get a decent raise. That leads to more waste of engineer time and effort than any single management improvement that can possibly be implemented. These are just 3 examples off the top of my head. In every other field, it is obvious that more pay == more and better candidates. Yet somehow engineers are the single exception? Against any sensible market theory?

castlecrasher2 8y ago
>There's a whole bunch of smart people right now who won't go into tech because they can make more elsewhere. Is this true? I've only ever heard the opposite.
- captain_perl 8y ago
  According to Prof. Philip Greenspun, his smartest female CS graduates went into health sciences because it paid more and had other improved lifestyle benefits. So check out his blog if you want to read more.
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    Blog post in question https://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science https://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science It should be noted that the article doesn’t really talk about programming as a career. It’s mostly about how Science is a terrible career from the perspective of money or security and the professions are way better.
ianai 8y ago
You make a great point. It’s often difficult to parse out whether a demand spike is confined to one supplier or the overall market. Personally, I started programming in HS (class of ‘02). I could have gone the programmer route after HS, after college, and even after grad. I’ve had opportunities during my professional life as well. The one serious negative doesn’t seem to go away - programmers are treated by companies in ways my health can’t tolerate. I need every day to start and end roughly around the same time and with good healthcare.
- sixdimensional 8y ago
  I have 18 years of experience in software development and engineering. Due to my concern that I wouldn't make it doing anything else, I've stayed stuck in the technical path. Let me just say that after at least 10 years of routine 10-12 hour days and occasional weekend work, I think maybe you made a better decision than I did. I make less than industry rates working for a large corporation and you'd be shocked by how much pressure and technical responsibility I have as one person. And no matter what I do to try to get help, the burden stays on me because it's perceived that "I can handle it". So again, maybe you made a better decision. Out of curiosity, what do you do instead?
  - dunpeal 8y ago
    > I make less than industry rates working for a large corporation and you'd be shocked by how much pressure and technical responsibility I have as one person. And no matter what I do to try to get help, the burden stays on me because it's perceived that "I can handle it". Why don't you find another job then? If you're making below market wages, you should be able to find another employer to pay you about the same for a much more relaxed work environment.
    - sixdimensional 8y ago
      I suffer from imposter syndrome, for one. Even with the experience I have, I never feel good enough. Also, I frequently get stuck working hard to the point of burn out at a place and then don't have the energy to find the next thing. Also, come out exhausted from the current gig, not motivated for the next one. I think partially, the market where I am, employers are quite greedy and it can be difficult to find places that have good work/environments and the higher pay. It's a bit of a tradeoff, choose one or the other. It's been getting better as more cutting edge companies have moved to the area over the years, but still, the good stuff happens elsewhere. I tried to get career counseling before to get some help, however, they recommended I start my own business rather than continue to look for a traditional job. I know that would be a hard road (been through several startups already). I'm not afraid of the hard work, I just have some familial limitations that make it infeasible at the moment (trying to adopt). That said, your point is well taken, and my friends and colleagues often recommend the same. I'm not sure if I'm an optimist and keep hoping the place I'm at will recognize and reward my contribution (unlikely), or I'm some kind of work sado-masochist. Not sure!
edoceo 8y ago
""In every other field, it is obvious that more pay == more and better candidates"" I don't see evidence to bank this claim. I've spent 10yr+ doing hiring, for devs and other roles. Candidate quality and wage offered rarely coincide. Currently I've got four high quality employee who are all under market wage wise. But! My (small) company is fun! There is upward mobility (eg CSRs becoming SDET), new skills opportunity (eg: Senior devs doing customer interviews/site-visits). Folks can see their work being used and participate directly in the feedback loop. IMO a "rewarding opportunity" attracts better candidates, money offered just gets me more candidates.
- smrtinsert 8y ago
  Sorry but that's garbage. Only 20 year olds fall for that find your passion crap
  - NullPrefix 8y ago
    Maybe that's the target audience
  - edoceo 8y ago
    It's not passion crap, these are older players (mid-30s+) who know better. At some point folks can make the choice to not only chase money. Here we work 40h, some employees are 90%+ remote, come to the office if you want, actually USE the vacation they earn, 100% health, equity Balance is the real offering. You think I'm selling passion-bullshit, I'm not. I'm selling: ill pay you less but treat you better. Many folks are happy to just not be a cog in a huge machine.
ummonk 8y ago
I was doing rocket science but switched to software engineering because I want to someday afford a decent house in the Bay Area. So yes, higher compensation definitely increases the supply of software engineers. Different people have different price points at which they would switch, but the potential supply is definitely there. Companies need to do a much better job of not screening out applicants with non traditional resumes though - I had to go through triplebyte to get my foot in the door.
- dunpeal 8y ago
  > Companies need to do a much better job of not screening out applicants with non traditional resumes though - I had to go through triplebyte to get my foot in the door. Right. Imagine any other field where employers regularly complain about "severe talent shortage", yet a qualified candidate has to go through a highly specialized 3rd-party recruiter just to get their resume considered rather than tossed out reflexively. Puts the whole "tech talent shortage" myth in perspective. There is no "tech talent shortage". There are a bunch of spoiled employers who are short on "22-26 year old programmers who got the exact education and skillset we are looking for and are willing to work for the wages we offer, which incidentally will never afford them a house anywhere within 50 miles of our offices (but they won't care, because by then they'll be back in their home country)".
sidlls 8y ago
This describes me. I've essentially maxed out my compensation on the tech ladder unless I go to work at FAANG, in which case I might see a one-time bump of between 10% and 33%, at which point I'll essentially plateau again. I chose management last year instead. I got an immediate 10% boost in pay from the same-level position on the tech ladder, bumped into the highest bonus pool available for people not in senior leadership, and significantly more influence in the work my team takes up and with senior leadership. And although it's a bit harder to move up from here, there is at least a path up in terms of both challenge and compensation.
- sanderjd 8y ago
  > go to work at FAANG ... at which point I'll essentially plateau again Out of curiosity, is this based on first- or second-hand experience with the compensation structures at those companies, or is it an assumption based on how other companies work?
  - sidlls 8y ago
    Mostly the last, as my second hand knowledge is dated or casual (e.g. from acquaintances at the local library, parents clubs and that kind of thing). I could be completely wrong!
    - mercutio2 8y ago
      Circumstances differ, but high performing senior developers at FAANG get vastly more than a 30% bump in total compensation over similar roles at most non-public companies and over public companies whose main area of expertise isn’t software. It’s hard to say with any precision, but easily $300k total annual compensation for a high performer.
bsder 8y ago
> In every other field, it is obvious that more pay == more and better candidates. I saw this idiocy in the injection molding industry, as well. Companies were bitching about their better line workers getting poached. Okay, fair enough. Which companies in your field are poaching them? Foxconn and Amazon. Okay, when you are losing your line workers to possibly two of the WORST EMPLOYERS IN THE WORLD, you might want to think about the fact that you are doing something wrong.
sanxiyn 8y ago
After more than 10 years in software, I recently moved to finance because I basically maxed out local market software developer compensation.
- sizzle 8y ago
  What do you do in finance now?
toomanybeersies 8y ago
> There's a whole bunch of smart people right now who won't go into tech because they can make more elsewhere. Is that really the case? Software developers are one of the most highly paid professions.
- torgian 8y ago
  Not necessarily. Look at them outside of the United States. Software engineers typically make anywhere between 20-60k a year depending on location (east Asia being the worst).
  - NTDF9 8y ago
    > Not necessarily. Look at them outside of the United States. Software engineers typically make anywhere between 20-60k a year depending on location (east Asia being the worst). But almost everything is highly paid in the US as compared to east Asia. Even minimum wage is higher in the US as compared to east Asia. To me, it looks like the median is higher in the US and so is the cost of living.
    - dunpeal 8y ago
      > Even minimum wage is higher in the US as compared to east Asia. Cost of living is also way lower in most of East Asia.
- dunpeal 8y ago
  We are talking about the lack of senior engineers right now. That means we need to look at the market 10 years ago to see why there aren't enough senior engineers right now. While the entry-level wages for engineers straight out of college were already high 10 years ago, wages after that tended to stagnate. Typical course for a talented engineer was to start somewhere near $100k, which is great comp for a fresh graduate. However, after 6-7 years that talented engineer would be somewhere around $150k or so, while typically having a lot more responsibility, stress and workload (compared to a fresh graduate, who earns $50k less to basically learn the ropes). After that, you completely stagnate. Very few engineers were making much above $150k, and practically nobody was making over $200k. Meanwhile, your peers who went to medicine, finance, or business would be seeing a steady rise that routinely soared far above $200k, especially if they were successful. Meanwhile, an engineer could launch multiple successful products and not make much more than $150-200k. The situation is changing a bit nowadays, but the shortage of senior engineers in particular dates back to these times. There's no guarantee that the current positive trend will continue. The entire industry seems obsessed with the question of how to pay engineers less. Even this specific article about engineer shortage focuses on whipping them to be "more productive" and getting rid of engineering positions through "outsourcing", that old reliable threat that's been used to keep engineer wages down for almost two decades now. If we go back even further than 10 years, engineering was that low, dirty profession reserved for unwashed foreigners with thick accents and other smelly nerds. Companies were grabbing a fresh batch of them every year for $70-80k and they were expected to be thankful for getting that much, and were lucky if their pay peaked at $150k, while mid-level managers who couldn't write a line of code got much more than that. If you were among the lucky ones to earn $150k you were definitely some sort of semi-manager yourself, "team lead" / "technical lead" etc who was expected to work 16 hour days when it was necessary (often) and take on a ton of stress and responsibility.
NTDF9 8y ago
> There's a whole bunch of smart people right now who won't go into tech because they can make more elsewhere. Actually no! Software engineering is hard and takes years to build the skills of a senior engineer. For the vast majority, this is incredibly frustrating and thus they seek other professions despite having the aptitude for software
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
geebee 8y ago
Other fields also pay well and can draw top talent away from software engineering. Take a look at "US News Best Jobs" and drill down by salary in top paying regions for each job. The information is a roundup of BLS data. https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/rankings/the-100-best-jobs https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/rankings/the-100-... Some examples: The top paying market for software developers (the #1 job, apparently) is San Jose, at $133k a year median pay. Here's the top pay/region for the next few jobs: #2 Dentist, Peabody MA, $285k/year #3 Physician Asst, Yuba City, $149k/yr (and $138k a year in Santa Rosa CA) #4 Nurse Practitioner, $180k/Yr in Altoona PA ($158k/yr in San Francisco, CA). A bit further down the list, a registered nurse (#18) earns a median of $138k/yr in San Francisco, CA. Lawyers (#33) make a median of $193k/yr in San Jose (top market) I think national pay for software developers may be skewed by how many of them work in the valley. When you compare them to what other well educated and skilled professionals earn in those markets, you'll see that their compensation is ok, but nothing notable. There are lots and lots and lots of jobs that pay better, and may offer more fulfilling work. My point isn't that software developers deserve to make more money. Maybe the deserve to be paid less because their work matters less, but that's hardly a selling point. It's never an apples-to-apples comparison. But overall, I'd say the market is working just fine. There's no "shortage" of software developers, any more than there's a shortage of any other skilled professional in a high cost area. IN fact, there are probably considerably more software developers at the current price point, because of 1) government and industry PR programs designed to convince young people that they are desperately needed in software, and 2) work visa programs that put Silicon Valley companies in control of who is allowed to work in the US and the conditions under which they are allowed to remain. In fact, I'd say as long as non-market mechanisms (such as visa programs that allow Facebook to decide that immigrants should be engineers but not florists) are used to suppress wages, we should expect an almost permanent "shortage", as people who have the freedom to be florists (or anything else they might wish to pursue as free people) go into fields where wages and working conditions don't reflect the negotiation power of people who can be deported if they lose their jobs.
- dunpeal 8y ago
  > When you compare them to what other well educated and skilled professionals earn in those markets, you'll see that their compensation is ok, but nothing notable. There are lots and lots and lots of jobs that pay better, and may offer more fulfilling work. Really important comment. People tend to overlook how engineers aren't actually paid that well compared to many other professions. Especially considering the amount of learning and training and skill-building it takes to earn anywhere near what that Nurse Practitioner in Altoona PA makes. Also note that there are plenty of engineers who make low wages in SFBay. Sure, they make 6 figures, which sounds high to a lot of people working low-paying jobs outside the valley. These people aren't aware that $100k in SF means you probably have roommates.
ryandrake 8y ago
I guess I might be a good example. I wrote software for over a decade and after that time, my salary basically plateaued. Raises stopped. Changing jobs didn’t help anymore. Used to be able to get a 20-40% bump just taking another job—that ends at around the 10 year mark. So I did an MBA and left software development :( If there was an upward career trajectory for individual contributor developers, I’d go back in a heartbeat, but apart from a very few selective companies there is not. Change this, and we senior folks will return to the industry in droves.

castlecrasher2 8y ago

>There's a whole bunch of smart people right now who won't go into tech because they can make more elsewhere. Is this true? I've only ever heard the opposite.

captain_perl 8y ago
According to Prof. Philip Greenspun, his smartest female CS graduates went into health sciences because it paid more and had other improved lifestyle benefits. So check out his blog if you want to read more.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  Blog post in question https://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science https://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science It should be noted that the article doesn’t really talk about programming as a career. It’s mostly about how Science is a terrible career from the perspective of money or security and the professions are way better.

ianai 8y ago

You make a great point. It’s often difficult to parse out whether a demand spike is confined to one supplier or the overall market. Personally, I started programming in HS (class of ‘02). I could have gone the programmer route after HS, after college, and even after grad. I’ve had opportunities during my professional life as well. The one serious negative doesn’t seem to go away - programmers are treated by companies in ways my health can’t tolerate. I need every day to start and end roughly around the same time and with good healthcare.

sixdimensional 8y ago
I have 18 years of experience in software development and engineering. Due to my concern that I wouldn't make it doing anything else, I've stayed stuck in the technical path. Let me just say that after at least 10 years of routine 10-12 hour days and occasional weekend work, I think maybe you made a better decision than I did. I make less than industry rates working for a large corporation and you'd be shocked by how much pressure and technical responsibility I have as one person. And no matter what I do to try to get help, the burden stays on me because it's perceived that "I can handle it". So again, maybe you made a better decision. Out of curiosity, what do you do instead?
- dunpeal 8y ago
  > I make less than industry rates working for a large corporation and you'd be shocked by how much pressure and technical responsibility I have as one person. And no matter what I do to try to get help, the burden stays on me because it's perceived that "I can handle it". Why don't you find another job then? If you're making below market wages, you should be able to find another employer to pay you about the same for a much more relaxed work environment.
  - sixdimensional 8y ago
    I suffer from imposter syndrome, for one. Even with the experience I have, I never feel good enough. Also, I frequently get stuck working hard to the point of burn out at a place and then don't have the energy to find the next thing. Also, come out exhausted from the current gig, not motivated for the next one. I think partially, the market where I am, employers are quite greedy and it can be difficult to find places that have good work/environments and the higher pay. It's a bit of a tradeoff, choose one or the other. It's been getting better as more cutting edge companies have moved to the area over the years, but still, the good stuff happens elsewhere. I tried to get career counseling before to get some help, however, they recommended I start my own business rather than continue to look for a traditional job. I know that would be a hard road (been through several startups already). I'm not afraid of the hard work, I just have some familial limitations that make it infeasible at the moment (trying to adopt). That said, your point is well taken, and my friends and colleagues often recommend the same. I'm not sure if I'm an optimist and keep hoping the place I'm at will recognize and reward my contribution (unlikely), or I'm some kind of work sado-masochist. Not sure!

edoceo 8y ago

""In every other field, it is obvious that more pay == more and better candidates"" I don't see evidence to bank this claim. I've spent 10yr+ doing hiring, for devs and other roles. Candidate quality and wage offered rarely coincide. Currently I've got four high quality employee who are all under market wage wise. But! My (small) company is fun! There is upward mobility (eg CSRs becoming SDET), new skills opportunity (eg: Senior devs doing customer interviews/site-visits). Folks can see their work being used and participate directly in the feedback loop. IMO a "rewarding opportunity" attracts better candidates, money offered just gets me more candidates.

smrtinsert 8y ago
Sorry but that's garbage. Only 20 year olds fall for that find your passion crap
- NullPrefix 8y ago
  Maybe that's the target audience
- edoceo 8y ago
  It's not passion crap, these are older players (mid-30s+) who know better. At some point folks can make the choice to not only chase money. Here we work 40h, some employees are 90%+ remote, come to the office if you want, actually USE the vacation they earn, 100% health, equity Balance is the real offering. You think I'm selling passion-bullshit, I'm not. I'm selling: ill pay you less but treat you better. Many folks are happy to just not be a cog in a huge machine.

ummonk 8y ago

I was doing rocket science but switched to software engineering because I want to someday afford a decent house in the Bay Area. So yes, higher compensation definitely increases the supply of software engineers. Different people have different price points at which they would switch, but the potential supply is definitely there. Companies need to do a much better job of not screening out applicants with non traditional resumes though - I had to go through triplebyte to get my foot in the door.

dunpeal 8y ago
> Companies need to do a much better job of not screening out applicants with non traditional resumes though - I had to go through triplebyte to get my foot in the door. Right. Imagine any other field where employers regularly complain about "severe talent shortage", yet a qualified candidate has to go through a highly specialized 3rd-party recruiter just to get their resume considered rather than tossed out reflexively. Puts the whole "tech talent shortage" myth in perspective. There is no "tech talent shortage". There are a bunch of spoiled employers who are short on "22-26 year old programmers who got the exact education and skillset we are looking for and are willing to work for the wages we offer, which incidentally will never afford them a house anywhere within 50 miles of our offices (but they won't care, because by then they'll be back in their home country)".

sidlls 8y ago

This describes me. I've essentially maxed out my compensation on the tech ladder unless I go to work at FAANG, in which case I might see a one-time bump of between 10% and 33%, at which point I'll essentially plateau again. I chose management last year instead. I got an immediate 10% boost in pay from the same-level position on the tech ladder, bumped into the highest bonus pool available for people not in senior leadership, and significantly more influence in the work my team takes up and with senior leadership. And although it's a bit harder to move up from here, there is at least a path up in terms of both challenge and compensation.

sanderjd 8y ago
> go to work at FAANG ... at which point I'll essentially plateau again Out of curiosity, is this based on first- or second-hand experience with the compensation structures at those companies, or is it an assumption based on how other companies work?
- sidlls 8y ago
  Mostly the last, as my second hand knowledge is dated or casual (e.g. from acquaintances at the local library, parents clubs and that kind of thing). I could be completely wrong!
  - mercutio2 8y ago
    Circumstances differ, but high performing senior developers at FAANG get vastly more than a 30% bump in total compensation over similar roles at most non-public companies and over public companies whose main area of expertise isn’t software. It’s hard to say with any precision, but easily $300k total annual compensation for a high performer.

bsder 8y ago

> In every other field, it is obvious that more pay == more and better candidates. I saw this idiocy in the injection molding industry, as well. Companies were bitching about their better line workers getting poached. Okay, fair enough. Which companies in your field are poaching them? Foxconn and Amazon. Okay, when you are losing your line workers to possibly two of the WORST EMPLOYERS IN THE WORLD, you might want to think about the fact that you are doing something wrong.

sanxiyn 8y ago

After more than 10 years in software, I recently moved to finance because I basically maxed out local market software developer compensation.

sizzle 8y ago
What do you do in finance now?

toomanybeersies 8y ago

> There's a whole bunch of smart people right now who won't go into tech because they can make more elsewhere. Is that really the case? Software developers are one of the most highly paid professions.

torgian 8y ago
Not necessarily. Look at them outside of the United States. Software engineers typically make anywhere between 20-60k a year depending on location (east Asia being the worst).
- NTDF9 8y ago
  > Not necessarily. Look at them outside of the United States. Software engineers typically make anywhere between 20-60k a year depending on location (east Asia being the worst). But almost everything is highly paid in the US as compared to east Asia. Even minimum wage is higher in the US as compared to east Asia. To me, it looks like the median is higher in the US and so is the cost of living.
  - dunpeal 8y ago
    > Even minimum wage is higher in the US as compared to east Asia. Cost of living is also way lower in most of East Asia.
dunpeal 8y ago
We are talking about the lack of senior engineers right now. That means we need to look at the market 10 years ago to see why there aren't enough senior engineers right now. While the entry-level wages for engineers straight out of college were already high 10 years ago, wages after that tended to stagnate. Typical course for a talented engineer was to start somewhere near $100k, which is great comp for a fresh graduate. However, after 6-7 years that talented engineer would be somewhere around $150k or so, while typically having a lot more responsibility, stress and workload (compared to a fresh graduate, who earns $50k less to basically learn the ropes). After that, you completely stagnate. Very few engineers were making much above $150k, and practically nobody was making over $200k. Meanwhile, your peers who went to medicine, finance, or business would be seeing a steady rise that routinely soared far above $200k, especially if they were successful. Meanwhile, an engineer could launch multiple successful products and not make much more than $150-200k. The situation is changing a bit nowadays, but the shortage of senior engineers in particular dates back to these times. There's no guarantee that the current positive trend will continue. The entire industry seems obsessed with the question of how to pay engineers less. Even this specific article about engineer shortage focuses on whipping them to be "more productive" and getting rid of engineering positions through "outsourcing", that old reliable threat that's been used to keep engineer wages down for almost two decades now. If we go back even further than 10 years, engineering was that low, dirty profession reserved for unwashed foreigners with thick accents and other smelly nerds. Companies were grabbing a fresh batch of them every year for $70-80k and they were expected to be thankful for getting that much, and were lucky if their pay peaked at $150k, while mid-level managers who couldn't write a line of code got much more than that. If you were among the lucky ones to earn $150k you were definitely some sort of semi-manager yourself, "team lead" / "technical lead" etc who was expected to work 16 hour days when it was necessary (often) and take on a ton of stress and responsibility.

NTDF9 8y ago

> There's a whole bunch of smart people right now who won't go into tech because they can make more elsewhere. Actually no! Software engineering is hard and takes years to build the skills of a senior engineer. For the vast majority, this is incredibly frustrating and thus they seek other professions despite having the aptitude for software

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

geebee 8y ago

Other fields also pay well and can draw top talent away from software engineering. Take a look at "US News Best Jobs" and drill down by salary in top paying regions for each job. The information is a roundup of BLS data. https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/rankings/the-100-best-jobs https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/rankings/the-100-... Some examples: The top paying market for software developers (the #1 job, apparently) is San Jose, at $133k a year median pay. Here's the top pay/region for the next few jobs: #2 Dentist, Peabody MA, $285k/year #3 Physician Asst, Yuba City, $149k/yr (and $138k a year in Santa Rosa CA) #4 Nurse Practitioner, $180k/Yr in Altoona PA ($158k/yr in San Francisco, CA). A bit further down the list, a registered nurse (#18) earns a median of $138k/yr in San Francisco, CA. Lawyers (#33) make a median of $193k/yr in San Jose (top market) I think national pay for software developers may be skewed by how many of them work in the valley. When you compare them to what other well educated and skilled professionals earn in those markets, you'll see that their compensation is ok, but nothing notable. There are lots and lots and lots of jobs that pay better, and may offer more fulfilling work. My point isn't that software developers deserve to make more money. Maybe the deserve to be paid less because their work matters less, but that's hardly a selling point. It's never an apples-to-apples comparison. But overall, I'd say the market is working just fine. There's no "shortage" of software developers, any more than there's a shortage of any other skilled professional in a high cost area. IN fact, there are probably considerably more software developers at the current price point, because of 1) government and industry PR programs designed to convince young people that they are desperately needed in software, and 2) work visa programs that put Silicon Valley companies in control of who is allowed to work in the US and the conditions under which they are allowed to remain. In fact, I'd say as long as non-market mechanisms (such as visa programs that allow Facebook to decide that immigrants should be engineers but not florists) are used to suppress wages, we should expect an almost permanent "shortage", as people who have the freedom to be florists (or anything else they might wish to pursue as free people) go into fields where wages and working conditions don't reflect the negotiation power of people who can be deported if they lose their jobs.

dunpeal 8y ago
> When you compare them to what other well educated and skilled professionals earn in those markets, you'll see that their compensation is ok, but nothing notable. There are lots and lots and lots of jobs that pay better, and may offer more fulfilling work. Really important comment. People tend to overlook how engineers aren't actually paid that well compared to many other professions. Especially considering the amount of learning and training and skill-building it takes to earn anywhere near what that Nurse Practitioner in Altoona PA makes. Also note that there are plenty of engineers who make low wages in SFBay. Sure, they make 6 figures, which sounds high to a lot of people working low-paying jobs outside the valley. These people aren't aware that $100k in SF means you probably have roommates.

ryandrake 8y ago

I guess I might be a good example. I wrote software for over a decade and after that time, my salary basically plateaued. Raises stopped. Changing jobs didn’t help anymore. Used to be able to get a 20-40% bump just taking another job—that ends at around the 10 year mark. So I did an MBA and left software development :( If there was an upward career trajectory for individual contributor developers, I’d go back in a heartbeat, but apart from a very few selective companies there is not. Change this, and we senior folks will return to the industry in droves.