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What a dismal picture the author paints of our world: "most software engineers are low-status workers whose jobs their bosses would gladly ship overseas, and w

by krupan 8y ago

What a dismal picture the author paints of our world: "most software engineers are low-status workers whose jobs their bosses would gladly ship overseas, and who live under the surveillance described above. They’ll be fired as soon as their performance dips, or a cheaper worker comes on the market, or they piss the wrong person off. The adversarial climate exists. Again, nothing to lose." What world is this author living in? Maybe 10 years ago, maybe, a lot of software jobs were like this. Everything I've experienced lately is that companies can't hire enough software engineers. You are not going to be fired if your performance dips a little. You are too hard to replace. Interestingly, this is very similar to the situation that Paul Graham described here: http://www.paulgraham.com/unions.html http://www.paulgraham.com/unions.html I mean really this whole post basically says, "unions kinda suck, but your job already kinda sucks, so why not try a union?" How...inspiring? Honestly, if you really feel that down about your career a union isn't going to fix it. It's probably time to try a different field.

StephenAmar 8y ago
Classic mchurch. He's had bad experiences with some companies in the bay area. You can read his (many) rants about Google for instance.
- murderfs 8y ago
  It turns out that if you spend all of your time at work posting on mailing lists about your T7-9 vision instead of actually doing your work, your performance reviews suffer. Who would have thought?
  - meowface 8y ago
    Creating at least 45 Wikipedia sockpuppet accounts [1] probably doesn't correlate with optimal performance, either. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Suspected_Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_Mike_Church https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Suspected_Wikipedia_s...
manigandham 8y ago
You're overestimating the quality of software developers (which are not really engineers) or only seeing this through a limited perspective. Many devs are low-end technical talent that can probably pound out some application under strict requirements but aren't building anything significant and definitely aren't creating new innovative products. The lack of professional degree or schooling requirements has only further decreased the overall quality in the field. The reason for the high demand is because of the high-turnover and lack of productivity of this average talent which just creates more work from bad architecture, poor planning and all kinds of technical debt. There's also a race to find really good devs before they realize they're good and get a better job on their own terms. The high-end environments at Google or SV startups only reflects a tiny isolated portion of the vast software industry. Even a cursory look at the IT/developer departments at Fortune 1000 companies paints a very different picture.
elihu 8y ago
There's a tremendous amount of software that doesn't require the best talent to write. Maybe it's a website, or a device driver, or whatever. Similar software artifacts have been created hundreds or thousands of times, but someone still has to write it in order to have a product to sell. The programmers don't need to be the best out there, or even particularly creative. They do need to be competent and sufficiently knowledgeable in their area, but that's it. Those developers are easily replaced. They have to be, since so many of the better ones tend to leave. Those jobs will tend not to be very much fun or very well compensated, as long as there's a ready supply of programmers willing to do the work, and the corporations doing the hiring regard software development as an expense that cuts into the budget for more important things, like dividends and stock buybacks.
yellowapple 8y ago
In my experience/observation, companies are in at least some cases pushing the "we can't find enough programmers" narrative so they can justify outsourcing and H1Bs.
bassman9000 8y ago
What world is this author living in? The majority of markets, except very few select places like SV.

by krupan 8y ago

StephenAmar 8y ago

Classic mchurch. He's had bad experiences with some companies in the bay area. You can read his (many) rants about Google for instance.

murderfs 8y ago
It turns out that if you spend all of your time at work posting on mailing lists about your T7-9 vision instead of actually doing your work, your performance reviews suffer. Who would have thought?
- meowface 8y ago
  Creating at least 45 Wikipedia sockpuppet accounts [1] probably doesn't correlate with optimal performance, either. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Suspected_Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_Mike_Church https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Suspected_Wikipedia_s...

manigandham 8y ago

You're overestimating the quality of software developers (which are not really engineers) or only seeing this through a limited perspective. Many devs are low-end technical talent that can probably pound out some application under strict requirements but aren't building anything significant and definitely aren't creating new innovative products. The lack of professional degree or schooling requirements has only further decreased the overall quality in the field. The reason for the high demand is because of the high-turnover and lack of productivity of this average talent which just creates more work from bad architecture, poor planning and all kinds of technical debt. There's also a race to find really good devs before they realize they're good and get a better job on their own terms. The high-end environments at Google or SV startups only reflects a tiny isolated portion of the vast software industry. Even a cursory look at the IT/developer departments at Fortune 1000 companies paints a very different picture.

elihu 8y ago

There's a tremendous amount of software that doesn't require the best talent to write. Maybe it's a website, or a device driver, or whatever. Similar software artifacts have been created hundreds or thousands of times, but someone still has to write it in order to have a product to sell. The programmers don't need to be the best out there, or even particularly creative. They do need to be competent and sufficiently knowledgeable in their area, but that's it. Those developers are easily replaced. They have to be, since so many of the better ones tend to leave. Those jobs will tend not to be very much fun or very well compensated, as long as there's a ready supply of programmers willing to do the work, and the corporations doing the hiring regard software development as an expense that cuts into the budget for more important things, like dividends and stock buybacks.

yellowapple 8y ago

In my experience/observation, companies are in at least some cases pushing the "we can't find enough programmers" narrative so they can justify outsourcing and H1Bs.

bassman9000 8y ago

What world is this author living in? The majority of markets, except very few select places like SV.