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> Given how poorly we understand this > Summary: we don't understand why programmers are paid so well Who's "we"? > Programmers are paid surprisingly well gi

> Given how poorly we understand this > Summary: we don't understand why programmers are paid so well Who's "we"? > Programmers are paid surprisingly well given how much work it is to become one It's a lot of work to become a good software engineer, and also requires certain talents and traits that not everyone has (just like doctors and lawyers). > When I compare it to how I started programming right out of college, making more money for 40hr weeks and no on-call, I feel embarrassed. I think this type of sentiment is toxic among engineers. You shouldn't feel embarrassed for charging market rates for the work you do, in fact you should be proud of yourself for making a good living with honest intellectual labor. > I think we should treat collapse as a real possibility I see exactly zero reasons in this text justifying this conclusion. > Compensation appears to be proportional to the level of sacrifice This is a simplistic and profoundly incorrect view of economics and world in general, this is not how the world works.

mnowicki 7y ago
>> Compensation appears to be proportional to the level of sacrifice > This is a simplistic and profoundly incorrect view of economics and world in general, this is not how the world works. How else could you explain the extreme wealth of people like Donald Trump though?
ThrowawayR2 7y ago
> "It's a lot of work to become a good software engineer, and also requires certain talents and traits that not everyone has (just like doctors and lawyers)." Is it? The chorus of HNers who say they didn't need to go to college to get software development jobs and telling others to skip college says otherwise. The significant quantity of bootcamp graduates also landing jobs does too. While both of those categories worked hard too, it's still an order of magnitude less than "doctors and lawyers".
- 0xBABAD00C 7y ago
  > less than "doctors and lawyers" I didn't say it's the same quantity of work, if you read my comment carefully. Nor is that the main argument at all. I said it requires special traits, which it does. People who skip any formal education and are still great developers are very rare, and those people definitely have special skills and talents (e.g. you can't point out >99th percentile gifted kids in music or math and claim that it's "easy").
  - ThrowawayR2 7y ago
    > "Nor is that the main argument at all. I said it requires special traits, which it does." Okay but I'd dispute even that. Students are going to CS programs these days for the money, not out of any particular talent or passion and a number of HNers echo that anytime the topic comes up. Beyond that, many of the boot camp grads come from other non-technical professions; I just saw an HN article about an airline attendant who became a developer (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21902079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21902079), for pity's sake. To be honest, I'm not sure the special traits needed is any greater for a significant number of development jobs than say, for example, an auto mechanic.
    - NeverFade 7y ago
      Did you read the blog you linked? Her job title is "R&D Content Engineer". Her job description as detailed in the post: > I get to learn things and then write it up in a technical blog in order to teach others about code In other words, she's a technical writer. Much respect to her and her big job transition, and we need more people like her. However, she is not the best example to support your argument that "SWE is so easy, anyone can do it, even non-technicals like flight attendants!". BTW I have no doubt there are examples of non-technicals who became actual SWEs working on non-trivial projects, but they aren't that many. Even folks like her, who switched to a technical role (even if not SWE), are pretty few and far between.
      - ThrowawayR2 7y ago
        > "Did you read the blog you linked?" Did you? Try reading the "My First Dev Job" and "Life as a Junior Software Developer" sections. She didn't become a writer until later.
        NeverFade 7y ago
        Nice try, but her "first job" as a "junior engineer" lasted for only a few months, and then she became a technical writer and stayed in that role since. Check out the dates in the blog. She just started her bootcamp in fall 2017. By spring 2018, she was already a technical writer.
- nmfisher 7y ago
  > While both of those categories worked hard too, it's still an order of magnitude less than "doctors and lawyers". Having been to law school, I'd argue that's more about regulatory barriers than inherent complexity. Coming from a family of doctors, I also suspect that medicine is the same, though I couldn't say so first-hand. That's not to say that regulation is unnecessary. If a bootcamp grad makes a snafu, a widget might not render correctly on a website. If it's a lawyer or a doctor, someone could die or get screwed out of their life-savings. Regulation is there to verify that they've all met the threshold. I don't really have a problem with that. But I recognize that it doesn't make one "harder" than the other.
- NeverFade 7y ago
  > The significant quantity of bootcamp graduates also landing jobs does too. Bootcamp graduates aren't really "software engineers" yet, let alone good ones. They require close mentorship by a software engineer to get to a point they can do useful work unsupervised. That guy who mentors them did take several years to learn his craft. These bootcamp graduates may eventually become good engineers, but it will take a few years. So either way, it takes several years to become a good software engineer, just like GP claims. Also, I'm not even sure how many "bootcamp graduates" are landing good industry jobs. I mean no disrespect, but generally most jobs that can afford to be selective prefer experienced engineers or graduates of 4 year programs. Finally, I'd love to see some numbers, but I don't see a massive flood of bootcamp graduates landing jobs in the industry. They are relatively rare in all places I've worked at.
ng12 7y ago
I often think the only type of collapse we can expect is if we can develop a generalized AI capable of writing code. If we do that, no profession is safe -- what need is there for doctors if we have AI that can identify disease and treat symptoms with better accuracy. The point at which software developers get automated away is the point at which all white collar careers disappear.
- Gatsky 7y ago
  Not sure about your analogy. Doctors do many things apart from ‘identify disease and treat symptoms’. More importantly, doctors like to do the other things they do eg counselling patients, bedside manner, shared decision making, working in a multidisciplinary team, patient advocacy, policy developmemt. Many coders love to just write code, they wish they could just write code in fact, without the other stuff a job inevitably entails. That’s why AI replacement is a risk - the job will change into something different (probably with the word ‘evangelist’ in the title) which is probably not as appealing to many.
  - NeverFade 7y ago
    Software engineer do a lot more than just "write code". They communicate with stakeholders, help design and spec out the product, participate in team sessions, etc, etc.
    - Gatsky 7y ago
      Yeah, my point is that software engineering may end up becoming just exactly the things you have listed without the writing code parts... and that is probably going to annoy a lot of software engineers, not to mention the fact that other types of people who would never write code could be better at communication, design etc
      - NeverFade 7y ago
        > Yeah, my point is that software engineering may end up becoming just exactly the things you have listed without the writing code parts I really doubt that. Who'd do all the code writing? AI?
ekianjo 7y ago
> It's a lot of work to become a good software engineer, and also requires certain talents and traits that not everyone has (just like doctors and lawyers). That has virtually no relationship to economic value. Economic value is mostly supply and demand driven.
- 0xBABAD00C 7y ago
  It's a response to his statement that it's not too much work, if you read right above the line you quoted.
saagarjha 7y ago
> It's a lot of work to become a good software engineer, and also requires certain talents and traits that not everyone has (just like doctors and lawyers). Sure, it takes work to be a software engineer, but I don’t think it takes all that much. You can be a pretty decent one with a few years of work.
- 0xBABAD00C 7y ago
  I don't know, if we're talking comparable salaries to top lawyers (his analogy, the ones that get to top firms and become partners), then we're talking at least Staff+ levels at top tech firms for comparison. That's definitely more than a few years of work, and definitely requires talents and skills that not everyone has. If you get there in a few years of work without much effort, then you're naturally highly gifted.
- NeverFade 7y ago
  > Sure, it takes work to be a software engineer, but I don’t think it takes all that much. You can be a pretty decent one with a few years of work. So we agree that: 1. Not everyone has the ability and motivation to start training as a SWE. 2. For the minority of individuals who do, it will take several years of effortful training and work to become just "pretty decent". Couple that with: 1. Huge, rising demand. 2. SWEs being at the core of the profit centers of many (most?) current businesses. And that alone is more than enough to explain high pay. If every new business needed 10-30% of its workforce to be, say, lawyers, their salaries would skyrocket as well. Except I don't think they'd feel so guilty and unworthy about it.
- josephg 7y ago
  As far as I can tell the current job market disagrees with you. It seems like there's two markets for software engineers at the moment: The market for fresh bootcamp & collage grads, which is swamped with job seekers. And the market for mid/senior engineers, which is desperate for talent. If you're a senior engineer its very easy to find well paid work at the moment. But thats really not the experience of most fresh grads. I've spoken to plenty of junior software engineers who send out dozens of resumes for each call back for an interview.[1] If you could be a decent software engineer with a few years of work, companies would happily hire collage grads. But despite being desperate for talent, most companies don't want to hire average junior developers for any price. The top 15% or so of each graduating class finds work easily enough, but most software companies consistently say no to anyone in the bottom 85% or so of each class. And thats pretty good evidence that most people can't become decent at programming with only 3-4 years of study. Even amongst the top 15% or so of each graduating class I bet most people started programming long before their freshman year. I know I did. (And to be clear, I'm not saying that companies filter based on marks in collage classes. As an industry we interview people and assess them as fairly as we can. I'm saying most people are demonstrably not very good at programming after "only" spending 3-4 years studying CS in collage.) [1] Source: As part of my current role I've chatted with, and technically assessed around 100-200 fresh grads in the last year. Our hiring bar is calibrated off the companies we work with, and we say no to the vast majority of fresh grads from bootcamps and universities.
xmprt 7y ago
I agree with this in general but I feel like it's getting increasingly difficult to change jobs especially as you get older which has the effect of lower pay overall.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

mnowicki 7y ago

>> Compensation appears to be proportional to the level of sacrifice > This is a simplistic and profoundly incorrect view of economics and world in general, this is not how the world works. How else could you explain the extreme wealth of people like Donald Trump though?

ThrowawayR2 7y ago

> "It's a lot of work to become a good software engineer, and also requires certain talents and traits that not everyone has (just like doctors and lawyers)." Is it? The chorus of HNers who say they didn't need to go to college to get software development jobs and telling others to skip college says otherwise. The significant quantity of bootcamp graduates also landing jobs does too. While both of those categories worked hard too, it's still an order of magnitude less than "doctors and lawyers".

0xBABAD00C 7y ago
> less than "doctors and lawyers" I didn't say it's the same quantity of work, if you read my comment carefully. Nor is that the main argument at all. I said it requires special traits, which it does. People who skip any formal education and are still great developers are very rare, and those people definitely have special skills and talents (e.g. you can't point out >99th percentile gifted kids in music or math and claim that it's "easy").
- ThrowawayR2 7y ago
  > "Nor is that the main argument at all. I said it requires special traits, which it does." Okay but I'd dispute even that. Students are going to CS programs these days for the money, not out of any particular talent or passion and a number of HNers echo that anytime the topic comes up. Beyond that, many of the boot camp grads come from other non-technical professions; I just saw an HN article about an airline attendant who became a developer (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21902079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21902079), for pity's sake. To be honest, I'm not sure the special traits needed is any greater for a significant number of development jobs than say, for example, an auto mechanic.
  - NeverFade 7y ago
    Did you read the blog you linked? Her job title is "R&D Content Engineer". Her job description as detailed in the post: > I get to learn things and then write it up in a technical blog in order to teach others about code In other words, she's a technical writer. Much respect to her and her big job transition, and we need more people like her. However, she is not the best example to support your argument that "SWE is so easy, anyone can do it, even non-technicals like flight attendants!". BTW I have no doubt there are examples of non-technicals who became actual SWEs working on non-trivial projects, but they aren't that many. Even folks like her, who switched to a technical role (even if not SWE), are pretty few and far between.
    - ThrowawayR2 7y ago
      > "Did you read the blog you linked?" Did you? Try reading the "My First Dev Job" and "Life as a Junior Software Developer" sections. She didn't become a writer until later.
      - NeverFade 7y ago
        Nice try, but her "first job" as a "junior engineer" lasted for only a few months, and then she became a technical writer and stayed in that role since. Check out the dates in the blog. She just started her bootcamp in fall 2017. By spring 2018, she was already a technical writer.
nmfisher 7y ago
> While both of those categories worked hard too, it's still an order of magnitude less than "doctors and lawyers". Having been to law school, I'd argue that's more about regulatory barriers than inherent complexity. Coming from a family of doctors, I also suspect that medicine is the same, though I couldn't say so first-hand. That's not to say that regulation is unnecessary. If a bootcamp grad makes a snafu, a widget might not render correctly on a website. If it's a lawyer or a doctor, someone could die or get screwed out of their life-savings. Regulation is there to verify that they've all met the threshold. I don't really have a problem with that. But I recognize that it doesn't make one "harder" than the other.
NeverFade 7y ago
> The significant quantity of bootcamp graduates also landing jobs does too. Bootcamp graduates aren't really "software engineers" yet, let alone good ones. They require close mentorship by a software engineer to get to a point they can do useful work unsupervised. That guy who mentors them did take several years to learn his craft. These bootcamp graduates may eventually become good engineers, but it will take a few years. So either way, it takes several years to become a good software engineer, just like GP claims. Also, I'm not even sure how many "bootcamp graduates" are landing good industry jobs. I mean no disrespect, but generally most jobs that can afford to be selective prefer experienced engineers or graduates of 4 year programs. Finally, I'd love to see some numbers, but I don't see a massive flood of bootcamp graduates landing jobs in the industry. They are relatively rare in all places I've worked at.

ng12 7y ago

I often think the only type of collapse we can expect is if we can develop a generalized AI capable of writing code. If we do that, no profession is safe -- what need is there for doctors if we have AI that can identify disease and treat symptoms with better accuracy. The point at which software developers get automated away is the point at which all white collar careers disappear.

Gatsky 7y ago
Not sure about your analogy. Doctors do many things apart from ‘identify disease and treat symptoms’. More importantly, doctors like to do the other things they do eg counselling patients, bedside manner, shared decision making, working in a multidisciplinary team, patient advocacy, policy developmemt. Many coders love to just write code, they wish they could just write code in fact, without the other stuff a job inevitably entails. That’s why AI replacement is a risk - the job will change into something different (probably with the word ‘evangelist’ in the title) which is probably not as appealing to many.
- NeverFade 7y ago
  Software engineer do a lot more than just "write code". They communicate with stakeholders, help design and spec out the product, participate in team sessions, etc, etc.
  - Gatsky 7y ago
    Yeah, my point is that software engineering may end up becoming just exactly the things you have listed without the writing code parts... and that is probably going to annoy a lot of software engineers, not to mention the fact that other types of people who would never write code could be better at communication, design etc
    - NeverFade 7y ago
      > Yeah, my point is that software engineering may end up becoming just exactly the things you have listed without the writing code parts I really doubt that. Who'd do all the code writing? AI?

ekianjo 7y ago

> It's a lot of work to become a good software engineer, and also requires certain talents and traits that not everyone has (just like doctors and lawyers). That has virtually no relationship to economic value. Economic value is mostly supply and demand driven.

0xBABAD00C 7y ago
It's a response to his statement that it's not too much work, if you read right above the line you quoted.

saagarjha 7y ago

> It's a lot of work to become a good software engineer, and also requires certain talents and traits that not everyone has (just like doctors and lawyers). Sure, it takes work to be a software engineer, but I don’t think it takes all that much. You can be a pretty decent one with a few years of work.

0xBABAD00C 7y ago
I don't know, if we're talking comparable salaries to top lawyers (his analogy, the ones that get to top firms and become partners), then we're talking at least Staff+ levels at top tech firms for comparison. That's definitely more than a few years of work, and definitely requires talents and skills that not everyone has. If you get there in a few years of work without much effort, then you're naturally highly gifted.
NeverFade 7y ago
> Sure, it takes work to be a software engineer, but I don’t think it takes all that much. You can be a pretty decent one with a few years of work. So we agree that: 1. Not everyone has the ability and motivation to start training as a SWE. 2. For the minority of individuals who do, it will take several years of effortful training and work to become just "pretty decent". Couple that with: 1. Huge, rising demand. 2. SWEs being at the core of the profit centers of many (most?) current businesses. And that alone is more than enough to explain high pay. If every new business needed 10-30% of its workforce to be, say, lawyers, their salaries would skyrocket as well. Except I don't think they'd feel so guilty and unworthy about it.
josephg 7y ago
As far as I can tell the current job market disagrees with you. It seems like there's two markets for software engineers at the moment: The market for fresh bootcamp & collage grads, which is swamped with job seekers. And the market for mid/senior engineers, which is desperate for talent. If you're a senior engineer its very easy to find well paid work at the moment. But thats really not the experience of most fresh grads. I've spoken to plenty of junior software engineers who send out dozens of resumes for each call back for an interview.[1] If you could be a decent software engineer with a few years of work, companies would happily hire collage grads. But despite being desperate for talent, most companies don't want to hire average junior developers for any price. The top 15% or so of each graduating class finds work easily enough, but most software companies consistently say no to anyone in the bottom 85% or so of each class. And thats pretty good evidence that most people can't become decent at programming with only 3-4 years of study. Even amongst the top 15% or so of each graduating class I bet most people started programming long before their freshman year. I know I did. (And to be clear, I'm not saying that companies filter based on marks in collage classes. As an industry we interview people and assess them as fairly as we can. I'm saying most people are demonstrably not very good at programming after "only" spending 3-4 years studying CS in collage.) [1] Source: As part of my current role I've chatted with, and technically assessed around 100-200 fresh grads in the last year. Our hiring bar is calibrated off the companies we work with, and we say no to the vast majority of fresh grads from bootcamps and universities.

xmprt 7y ago

I agree with this in general but I feel like it's getting increasingly difficult to change jobs especially as you get older which has the effect of lower pay overall.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]