7 ms·

I've been thinking along the same line, albeit on a more personal take as a software engineer. Basically, starting around 15 years ago, there's the proliferati

I've been thinking along the same line, albeit on a more personal take as a software engineer. Basically, starting around 15 years ago, there's the proliferation of bootcamps teaching fullstack development, because software startups were the new hot thing, and they desperately need generalist engineers that were capable of spinning up web app quickly. Rails was the hot thing those days because of this as well. Hence we saw many new grads or even people who change careers to fullstack development and bootcamps churning out these workers at an incredible pace (regardless of quality) but the job market took it because the job market was desperate for fullstack engineers. During that time, the best career move you can do was to join the startups movement as fullstack engineers and get some equity as compensation. These equities, if you are lucky, can really be life changing. Fast forward now, the low hanging CRUD apps (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc) search space has been exhausted, and even new unicorns (i.e., Uber) don't make that much money, if they do for that matter. Now those companies have become big, they are the winners in this winner take all filed that is the cloud tech software. Now these companies these days have no use for fullstack engineers anymore, but more specialists that do few things albeit on a deeper level. Today, even the startup equity math has changed a lot. Even with a good equity package, a lot of the search space has been exhausted. So being fullstack engineers these days that join startups don't pay as much anymore. Instead, a better move would be to try to get into one of these companies because their pay just dwarfed any startups or even medium / big size companies. Just my 2c as someone who is very green (5 yrs) doing software engineering. Happy to hear criticism.

onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
My understanding is that startups never paid well. Sure, if you got lucky and were employee #7 at Facebook, it paid off great! But even during that time frame, working at startups instead of MS or Google was not a good proposition. And even during DotCom and the rise of Microsoft, it paid a lot better to work at IBM than these classes of startups.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  True. I prefer working for startups and tiny companies -- not because of the income potential (as you point out, there are better ways of chasing that), but because the really interesting stuff is almost always done by startups and tiny companies. Small companies make it possible, large companies make it economical.
  - andreilys 7y ago
    Not always true. There are some very interesting projects at Google, Apple, etc. that can only be done by companies capable of throwing hundreds of Millions/billions of dollars at problems with uncertain payoffs
    - makapuf 7y ago
      Sure but is the probability to work on them with an I teresting impactful role greater than a financially successful startup?
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - JohnFen 7y ago
      That is why I said "almost always done" and not "always done". Of course, a lot of that is subjective, as it depends on what you find interesting. I don't personally tend to find large-scale projects very interesting because they tend to be worked on by large teams, rendering most individual roles to something much more narrow. But I do know plenty of devs who get very excited about large-scale projects. Vive la différence!
timClicks 7y ago
Isn't the perception of a saturated market persistent though? I mean, there were many social media apps when Facebook started. Twitter was created when microblogging had already become a trend.
- jonny_eh 7y ago
  Anecdotally, it seems like the rate of disruption in this space has been steadily slowing down.
  - dickjocke 7y ago
    Even the most pointed to example and seemingly saturated space, social media, had three major players emerge last decade: Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok.
    - jodrellblank 7y ago
      Viber 2010, Pinterest 2010, Ask.fm 2010, Twitch 2011, WeChat 2011, Medium.com 2012, Slack 2013, Telegram 2013, Musical.ly 2014, Discord 2015, are all in related/overlapping space and have tens of millions of users.
      - makapuf 7y ago
        If you count wechat and WhatsApp more like billions.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
zozbot234 7y ago
Software is still eating the world, and there will be plenty to eat for a long time. Cars (the foremost example in the OP) had basically eaten the world by the 1950s (sometimes even in a fairly literal sense).
- chrisco255 7y ago
  Interesting to note, that software is in the process of eating the automobile industry.
paulsutter 7y ago
"Fullstack" development is just a tiny slice of software. There's an entire economy to be automated, there are endless inefficient processes and massive opportunities there.
- pixelbash 7y ago
  And many of those processes are spreadsheet based, ie CRUD!
codingslave 7y ago
Right but this is because startups are largely a financial vehicle to transfer value created by employees to investors and founders. If startups actually gave employees a real stake in their business, the equity math would make much more sense. Its a cultural issue, but also, the set of people working at startups for worthless equity is mostly disjoint with the set that can get hired at Google/FB. Its almost a different career. The value of full stack engineering is also plummeting because the tooling i.e. React has gotten so good that the barrier to entry is very low.
- travisjungroth 7y ago
  I’d like to see some analysis on how disjoint startups are from the highest paying companies. I think it’s true.
- lumost 7y ago
  historically engineers who could be hired at G/FB worked for startups on better terms than the big tech firms of their day (IBM/Cisco/HP/Oracle etc) The market changed during the last recession to not allow employee's to receive "real" equity compensation which flipped the math from stable pay vs. risky equity to better pay vs. risky lower pay.
alexashka 7y ago
The tragedy of people who want to make money and believe it will be 'life changing', is that no matter how many times they are told it won't be, they think 'ha, you only say that because you got yours'. What useless shit are you going to buy with 'life changing' money exactly that a software developer's salary won't allow?
- achillesheels 7y ago
  Peace of mind.
- christiansakai 7y ago
  I live moderately. I don't wear jewelries, watches. All my clothes are from Uniqlo. I don't have expensive toys. I have mediocre gaming PC, my old Macbook pro laptop, an iPhone X, and a small set of electric guitar + few pedals + small amp. I have a small 29 gal aquarium. I live in a cheap area in NYC (Queens, nearby Flushing). I have monthly karate membership, and give regularly to my local church. But I started my career late. I had three different unrelated degrees (no student debt thankfully, I attended public schools), jumping to different fields in my career. I also need to be ready to support my all-single/divorced-female old family members (aunt, mom, grandma). I also will probably have kids in two years. So a FAANG salary would be nice.
- andreilys 7y ago
  The inverse of that is being poor, where one unlucky break can lead you to living on the streets. As with most things in life, the best path is the middle path.
- alasdair_ 7y ago
  > What useless shit are you going to buy with 'life changing' money exactly that a software developer's salary won't allow? I still have the childish dream of wanting to change the world. Specifically, I want to be involved in certain kinds of political activism that will likely piss off a number of people, and I want to have enough money that I can support my family without needing to back off if my income source is threatened. I’m lucky enough to be almost at that point due to startup equity.
tim333 7y ago
The low hanging CRUD apps may have been done but there are still less low hanging CRUD apps like Flexport (rails) and the advance of AI is opening up loads of new opportunities.
- hinkley 7y ago
  If tools keep getting better, the barrier to entry for simple CRUD apps goes down, and you have a new class of journeymen programmers who do simple work not unlike construction. The specialty jobs still exist. Planning is still another pay grade. But the average labor cost goes down and the volume goes up. There are so many apps that could be written but the profit potential is too low to be worth it.

onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago

My understanding is that startups never paid well. Sure, if you got lucky and were employee #7 at Facebook, it paid off great! But even during that time frame, working at startups instead of MS or Google was not a good proposition. And even during DotCom and the rise of Microsoft, it paid a lot better to work at IBM than these classes of startups.

JohnFen 7y ago
True. I prefer working for startups and tiny companies -- not because of the income potential (as you point out, there are better ways of chasing that), but because the really interesting stuff is almost always done by startups and tiny companies. Small companies make it possible, large companies make it economical.
- andreilys 7y ago
  Not always true. There are some very interesting projects at Google, Apple, etc. that can only be done by companies capable of throwing hundreds of Millions/billions of dollars at problems with uncertain payoffs
  - makapuf 7y ago
    Sure but is the probability to work on them with an I teresting impactful role greater than a financially successful startup?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    That is why I said "almost always done" and not "always done". Of course, a lot of that is subjective, as it depends on what you find interesting. I don't personally tend to find large-scale projects very interesting because they tend to be worked on by large teams, rendering most individual roles to something much more narrow. But I do know plenty of devs who get very excited about large-scale projects. Vive la différence!

timClicks 7y ago

Isn't the perception of a saturated market persistent though? I mean, there were many social media apps when Facebook started. Twitter was created when microblogging had already become a trend.

jonny_eh 7y ago
Anecdotally, it seems like the rate of disruption in this space has been steadily slowing down.
- dickjocke 7y ago
  Even the most pointed to example and seemingly saturated space, social media, had three major players emerge last decade: Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok.
  - jodrellblank 7y ago
    Viber 2010, Pinterest 2010, Ask.fm 2010, Twitch 2011, WeChat 2011, Medium.com 2012, Slack 2013, Telegram 2013, Musical.ly 2014, Discord 2015, are all in related/overlapping space and have tens of millions of users.
    - makapuf 7y ago
      If you count wechat and WhatsApp more like billions.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]

zozbot234 7y ago

Software is still eating the world, and there will be plenty to eat for a long time. Cars (the foremost example in the OP) had basically eaten the world by the 1950s (sometimes even in a fairly literal sense).

chrisco255 7y ago
Interesting to note, that software is in the process of eating the automobile industry.

paulsutter 7y ago

"Fullstack" development is just a tiny slice of software. There's an entire economy to be automated, there are endless inefficient processes and massive opportunities there.

pixelbash 7y ago
And many of those processes are spreadsheet based, ie CRUD!

codingslave 7y ago

Right but this is because startups are largely a financial vehicle to transfer value created by employees to investors and founders. If startups actually gave employees a real stake in their business, the equity math would make much more sense. Its a cultural issue, but also, the set of people working at startups for worthless equity is mostly disjoint with the set that can get hired at Google/FB. Its almost a different career. The value of full stack engineering is also plummeting because the tooling i.e. React has gotten so good that the barrier to entry is very low.

travisjungroth 7y ago
I’d like to see some analysis on how disjoint startups are from the highest paying companies. I think it’s true.
lumost 7y ago
historically engineers who could be hired at G/FB worked for startups on better terms than the big tech firms of their day (IBM/Cisco/HP/Oracle etc) The market changed during the last recession to not allow employee's to receive "real" equity compensation which flipped the math from stable pay vs. risky equity to better pay vs. risky lower pay.

alexashka 7y ago

The tragedy of people who want to make money and believe it will be 'life changing', is that no matter how many times they are told it won't be, they think 'ha, you only say that because you got yours'. What useless shit are you going to buy with 'life changing' money exactly that a software developer's salary won't allow?

achillesheels 7y ago
Peace of mind.
christiansakai 7y ago
I live moderately. I don't wear jewelries, watches. All my clothes are from Uniqlo. I don't have expensive toys. I have mediocre gaming PC, my old Macbook pro laptop, an iPhone X, and a small set of electric guitar + few pedals + small amp. I have a small 29 gal aquarium. I live in a cheap area in NYC (Queens, nearby Flushing). I have monthly karate membership, and give regularly to my local church. But I started my career late. I had three different unrelated degrees (no student debt thankfully, I attended public schools), jumping to different fields in my career. I also need to be ready to support my all-single/divorced-female old family members (aunt, mom, grandma). I also will probably have kids in two years. So a FAANG salary would be nice.
andreilys 7y ago
The inverse of that is being poor, where one unlucky break can lead you to living on the streets. As with most things in life, the best path is the middle path.
alasdair_ 7y ago
> What useless shit are you going to buy with 'life changing' money exactly that a software developer's salary won't allow? I still have the childish dream of wanting to change the world. Specifically, I want to be involved in certain kinds of political activism that will likely piss off a number of people, and I want to have enough money that I can support my family without needing to back off if my income source is threatened. I’m lucky enough to be almost at that point due to startup equity.

tim333 7y ago

The low hanging CRUD apps may have been done but there are still less low hanging CRUD apps like Flexport (rails) and the advance of AI is opening up loads of new opportunities.

hinkley 7y ago
If tools keep getting better, the barrier to entry for simple CRUD apps goes down, and you have a new class of journeymen programmers who do simple work not unlike construction. The specialty jobs still exist. Planning is still another pay grade. But the average labor cost goes down and the volume goes up. There are so many apps that could be written but the profit potential is too low to be worth it.