11 ms·

I find it very disappointing that the most reliably lucrative career arc for a programmer nowadays is to get hired by a tech giant and stay there as long as pos

I find it very disappointing that the most reliably lucrative career arc for a programmer nowadays is to get hired by a tech giant and stay there as long as possible. And the second most is probably to go to work for a company that could get gobbled up by a tech giant. I've made a career out of small startups, and I wouldn't trade it for a thing. On the other hand, if I'd gone to work for Amazon straight out of college, I'd probably have a boat by now.

zeroonetwothree 6y ago
Well yeah usually the more fun job pays less. That’s just basic economics. Life is all about trade offs.
- cvlasdkv 6y ago
  There is nothing inherent in "basic economics" that postulates that fulfilling or fun jobs pay less. I also find the idea of "basic economics" laughable given how impossible economics is in the first place. I mean, yes, if you assume spherical cows...
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > There is nothing inherent in "basic economics" that postulates that fulfilling or fun jobs pay less. It kinda is, isn't it? The fun, fulfilling job is one that everybody is happy to do. The boring, soul-devouring job is where you need to encourage people to do it by offering more money.
  - gnicholas 6y ago
    > There is nothing inherent in "basic economics" that postulates that fulfilling or fun jobs pay less It's called 'psychic income', and it is something that people will accept, to some extent, as a substitute for cash comp. This is widely cited as the reason that teachers earn less than other professions, and why garbage collectors earn more. There are a lot of people who enjoy teaching, and not a lot who enjoy garbage collecting. https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_econstat_wp_50.pdf https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_econstat_wp_5...
    - willcipriano 6y ago
      >This is widely cited as the reason that teachers earn less than other professions, and why garbage collectors earn more. Looks like the median pay for garbage collectors is $37,840[0] and for teachers it is $59,420[1] [0]https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes537081.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes537081.htm [1]https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/mobile/kindergarten-and-elementary-school-teachers.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/mobil...
      - gnicholas 6y ago
        Is there any required credentialing for for garbage collectors? Teachers need to have a bachelors degree and a teaching credential, in most cases.
        learc83 6y ago
        That's true but the OP just destroyed the only supporting evidence you provided for your point. It might be that teacher's salaries would be below $37k if it didn't require credentialing, but that's not the case, so it's not evidence.
        OrangeKnucles 6y ago
        The OP did not destroy the supporting evidence.
        learc83 6y ago
        How so? The only supporting evidence provided was garbage collectors make more than teachers. The OP posted a link showing that's not true.
        gnicholas 6y ago
        I never said that teachers should make less than garbage collectors because they enjoy psychic income. These two jobs are not generally substitutable in the eyes of potential employees, since they are so different. Sorry if I gave the impression that any job that enjoys psychic income would pay less than any other job — certainly this is not true. For example, college professors receive psychic income, but they make much more than garbage collectors. They make less than stock brokers, which is another career option available to people who can get PhDs, in general.
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    this seems like basic common sense. if you have two job offers for the same salary, but one sounds really fun and the other sounds really boring, wouldn't you pick the fun one? but at the same time unless you're already pretty wealthy, there's probably a dollar amount that would make you pick the boring one instead. iterate this choice over enough people, and the "fun factor" depresses wages.
    - thanatropism 6y ago
      Good economics is basically common sense on manifolds.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    >There is nothing inherent in "basic economics" that postulates that fulfilling or fun jobs pay less. Basic supply and demand. Fun jobs mean more people apply to the job. The employer can pick the cheapest employees. Employees can get an edge over their peers by lowering their salary expectations because they value the job more than the money. I honestly don't even think that this is a bad trade off. There are lots of jobs where you get access to equipment that you could never afford even if you had a higher salary. Think of working at a company like SpaceX or doing research at a university.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    Cet. par., if doing a job involves less disutility for the worker, people will demand less pay to compensate, since pay demands will be at the breakeven net utility point. Basic economics.
    - cool_dude85 6y ago
      Boss, I counted up my utils for the month, and it looks like I'm enjoying this new project. I have handily computed for you an appropriate rate at which to cut my pay. Basic economics demands it be so.
- the_cat_kittles 6y ago
  wow, check out this guy who figured it out. damn, never thought about that. i guess all the people who get paid alot to do fun things, and all the people who get paid shit to do horrible stuff were in my imaginiation.
htormey 6y ago
Was this ever not the case for the majority of software engineers?
- alexose 6y ago
  I'm not a historian or anything, but I've seen it ebb and flow over the years. There have definitely been periods where the best opportunities were at small, innovative businesses. I think we've reached a point in the industry where innovation has slowed enough to allow the biggest companies to catch up. Combined with the natural advantages that big companies have (monopoly, regulatory capture, etc.), it's just really hard to go toe-to-toe with them these days.
foobiekr 6y ago
Depending on when you graduated from college, that may or may not have fallen into the big company or startup bucket. The delayed liquidity of the extremely long startup adolescence in recent years ("startups" that are 10+ years old and where almost all of the big value growth is in the rear-view mirror) is, IMHO, a big part of this.
markus_zhang 6y ago
Was not the case for most careers out there? If you want a comfortable 9-5 job you generally join a giant and stay as long as possible.
- fsckboy 6y ago
  that's not what he's saying. He's saying higher overall income, and it comes with lower risk than startups.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    But that's also expected, isn't it? Startups are like playing the lottery, those that win will suddenly have much, much, much more than your average person that puts their money into savings instead. But a big part of those playing the lottery will never win, and on average those who just invest their money will be better off than those who play the lottery.
    - fsckboy 6y ago
      he's saying that the monopoly aspect earns more much's of money for more much's of people, and therefore it's much much more than the startup aspect is much more. i.e. you can join a startup that is already successful (the winner has been picked, Amazon, Google, Uber, ...) and safely with less variance expect to gain more expected value than you'll on average get from trying to pick the next winner. If you say "but startups are win win" then I'll say "but he's saying monopolists are win win win" Microsoft was already an OS monopoly by 1990, but after that is when it really started to make real money, and for a lot more people than had worked there in the 80's. Because monopolizing a niche industry is nothing compared to growing the monopoly to mainstream acceptance. you don't have to agree with his assessment; I'm just trying to clarify that he is saying something, not just selecting a point on a gaussian.
    - alexose 6y ago
      I think you're 100% right, but it feels to me like the odds have just shifted over time. Early on it was more like the stock market, then it was like a roulette table, and now it's like gas station scratch tickets. I'm not saying you can't get rich off of gas station scratch tickets, but it's not the best option.
wpietri 6y ago
And what kills me about this is it almost seems like the big tech companies are just grabbing up engineers to no purpose. When I hear stories about what people are actually doing at larger companies, it often seems somewhere between miniscule and just plain empty. And it's not like a lot of the people telling these stories don't understand that. But they're happy enough wasting a third of their day at that salary.
- tekdude 6y ago
  I'll just share an anecdotal experience: Earlier this year (before COVID), I interviewed with Microsoft, as they were looking for people with security clearances to work on Azure services. I apparently passed at least one of the four interviews, as they made me an offer. However... the offer contained minimal details on what I would be working on or doing, just a vague description that it was an Azure infrastructure service team. The recruiter himself didn't have any information to answer my questions. If I were just coming out of college, I'd be fine with that level of unknown, but as someone with about ten years of experience and who knows what he likes to work on, I wasn't going to take the risk of ending up on a miserably boring project (again).
- danjac 6y ago
  Thankfully we have modern Agile/Scrum with all its process and meetings to soak up that time and give us the feeling of business.
  - wpietri 6y ago
    I appreciate you putting "modern" in there. We tried so hard to make it people over process. Getting things done over internal BS. Alas, that's not how it ended up for most people.
- mtberatwork 6y ago
  > But they're happy enough wasting a third of their day at that salary. Who wouldn't be with those salary levels? You basically have the golden ticket in your hand.
WalterBright 6y ago
> On the other hand, if I'd gone to work for Amazon straight out of college, I'd probably have a boat by now. Anyone who'd bought AMZN probably has a boat by now.
gamechangr 6y ago
Why is that disappointing? That's the "pro" of going with an established company - having reliably high compensation. The "pro" of going with a startup is the low chance of exceptional pay and the fulfilling work.
bagacrap 6y ago
Emphasis on "reliably". I have two classmates who went the startup route and retired around 30 (and not on a beach in Thailand). Why would anyone ever work for the big company if startups were both more potentially lucrative and more reliable?

zeroonetwothree 6y ago

Well yeah usually the more fun job pays less. That’s just basic economics. Life is all about trade offs.

cvlasdkv 6y ago
There is nothing inherent in "basic economics" that postulates that fulfilling or fun jobs pay less. I also find the idea of "basic economics" laughable given how impossible economics is in the first place. I mean, yes, if you assume spherical cows...
- luckylion 6y ago
  > There is nothing inherent in "basic economics" that postulates that fulfilling or fun jobs pay less. It kinda is, isn't it? The fun, fulfilling job is one that everybody is happy to do. The boring, soul-devouring job is where you need to encourage people to do it by offering more money.
- gnicholas 6y ago
  > There is nothing inherent in "basic economics" that postulates that fulfilling or fun jobs pay less It's called 'psychic income', and it is something that people will accept, to some extent, as a substitute for cash comp. This is widely cited as the reason that teachers earn less than other professions, and why garbage collectors earn more. There are a lot of people who enjoy teaching, and not a lot who enjoy garbage collecting. https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_econstat_wp_50.pdf https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_econstat_wp_5...
  - willcipriano 6y ago
    >This is widely cited as the reason that teachers earn less than other professions, and why garbage collectors earn more. Looks like the median pay for garbage collectors is $37,840[0] and for teachers it is $59,420[1] [0]https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes537081.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes537081.htm [1]https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/mobile/kindergarten-and-elementary-school-teachers.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/mobil...
    - gnicholas 6y ago
      Is there any required credentialing for for garbage collectors? Teachers need to have a bachelors degree and a teaching credential, in most cases.
      - learc83 6y ago
        That's true but the OP just destroyed the only supporting evidence you provided for your point. It might be that teacher's salaries would be below $37k if it didn't require credentialing, but that's not the case, so it's not evidence.
        OrangeKnucles 6y ago
        The OP did not destroy the supporting evidence.
        learc83 6y ago
        How so? The only supporting evidence provided was garbage collectors make more than teachers. The OP posted a link showing that's not true.
        gnicholas 6y ago
        I never said that teachers should make less than garbage collectors because they enjoy psychic income. These two jobs are not generally substitutable in the eyes of potential employees, since they are so different. Sorry if I gave the impression that any job that enjoys psychic income would pay less than any other job — certainly this is not true. For example, college professors receive psychic income, but they make much more than garbage collectors. They make less than stock brokers, which is another career option available to people who can get PhDs, in general.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  this seems like basic common sense. if you have two job offers for the same salary, but one sounds really fun and the other sounds really boring, wouldn't you pick the fun one? but at the same time unless you're already pretty wealthy, there's probably a dollar amount that would make you pick the boring one instead. iterate this choice over enough people, and the "fun factor" depresses wages.
  - thanatropism 6y ago
    Good economics is basically common sense on manifolds.
- imtringued 6y ago
  >There is nothing inherent in "basic economics" that postulates that fulfilling or fun jobs pay less. Basic supply and demand. Fun jobs mean more people apply to the job. The employer can pick the cheapest employees. Employees can get an edge over their peers by lowering their salary expectations because they value the job more than the money. I honestly don't even think that this is a bad trade off. There are lots of jobs where you get access to equipment that you could never afford even if you had a higher salary. Think of working at a company like SpaceX or doing research at a university.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  Cet. par., if doing a job involves less disutility for the worker, people will demand less pay to compensate, since pay demands will be at the breakeven net utility point. Basic economics.
  - cool_dude85 6y ago
    Boss, I counted up my utils for the month, and it looks like I'm enjoying this new project. I have handily computed for you an appropriate rate at which to cut my pay. Basic economics demands it be so.
the_cat_kittles 6y ago
wow, check out this guy who figured it out. damn, never thought about that. i guess all the people who get paid alot to do fun things, and all the people who get paid shit to do horrible stuff were in my imaginiation.

htormey 6y ago

Was this ever not the case for the majority of software engineers?

alexose 6y ago
I'm not a historian or anything, but I've seen it ebb and flow over the years. There have definitely been periods where the best opportunities were at small, innovative businesses. I think we've reached a point in the industry where innovation has slowed enough to allow the biggest companies to catch up. Combined with the natural advantages that big companies have (monopoly, regulatory capture, etc.), it's just really hard to go toe-to-toe with them these days.

foobiekr 6y ago

Depending on when you graduated from college, that may or may not have fallen into the big company or startup bucket. The delayed liquidity of the extremely long startup adolescence in recent years ("startups" that are 10+ years old and where almost all of the big value growth is in the rear-view mirror) is, IMHO, a big part of this.

markus_zhang 6y ago

Was not the case for most careers out there? If you want a comfortable 9-5 job you generally join a giant and stay as long as possible.

fsckboy 6y ago
that's not what he's saying. He's saying higher overall income, and it comes with lower risk than startups.
- luckylion 6y ago
  But that's also expected, isn't it? Startups are like playing the lottery, those that win will suddenly have much, much, much more than your average person that puts their money into savings instead. But a big part of those playing the lottery will never win, and on average those who just invest their money will be better off than those who play the lottery.
  - fsckboy 6y ago
    he's saying that the monopoly aspect earns more much's of money for more much's of people, and therefore it's much much more than the startup aspect is much more. i.e. you can join a startup that is already successful (the winner has been picked, Amazon, Google, Uber, ...) and safely with less variance expect to gain more expected value than you'll on average get from trying to pick the next winner. If you say "but startups are win win" then I'll say "but he's saying monopolists are win win win" Microsoft was already an OS monopoly by 1990, but after that is when it really started to make real money, and for a lot more people than had worked there in the 80's. Because monopolizing a niche industry is nothing compared to growing the monopoly to mainstream acceptance. you don't have to agree with his assessment; I'm just trying to clarify that he is saying something, not just selecting a point on a gaussian.
  - alexose 6y ago
    I think you're 100% right, but it feels to me like the odds have just shifted over time. Early on it was more like the stock market, then it was like a roulette table, and now it's like gas station scratch tickets. I'm not saying you can't get rich off of gas station scratch tickets, but it's not the best option.

wpietri 6y ago

And what kills me about this is it almost seems like the big tech companies are just grabbing up engineers to no purpose. When I hear stories about what people are actually doing at larger companies, it often seems somewhere between miniscule and just plain empty. And it's not like a lot of the people telling these stories don't understand that. But they're happy enough wasting a third of their day at that salary.

tekdude 6y ago
I'll just share an anecdotal experience: Earlier this year (before COVID), I interviewed with Microsoft, as they were looking for people with security clearances to work on Azure services. I apparently passed at least one of the four interviews, as they made me an offer. However... the offer contained minimal details on what I would be working on or doing, just a vague description that it was an Azure infrastructure service team. The recruiter himself didn't have any information to answer my questions. If I were just coming out of college, I'd be fine with that level of unknown, but as someone with about ten years of experience and who knows what he likes to work on, I wasn't going to take the risk of ending up on a miserably boring project (again).
danjac 6y ago
Thankfully we have modern Agile/Scrum with all its process and meetings to soak up that time and give us the feeling of business.
- wpietri 6y ago
  I appreciate you putting "modern" in there. We tried so hard to make it people over process. Getting things done over internal BS. Alas, that's not how it ended up for most people.
mtberatwork 6y ago
> But they're happy enough wasting a third of their day at that salary. Who wouldn't be with those salary levels? You basically have the golden ticket in your hand.

WalterBright 6y ago

> On the other hand, if I'd gone to work for Amazon straight out of college, I'd probably have a boat by now. Anyone who'd bought AMZN probably has a boat by now.

gamechangr 6y ago

Why is that disappointing? That's the "pro" of going with an established company - having reliably high compensation. The "pro" of going with a startup is the low chance of exceptional pay and the fulfilling work.

bagacrap 6y ago

Emphasis on "reliably". I have two classmates who went the startup route and retired around 30 (and not on a beach in Thailand). Why would anyone ever work for the big company if startups were both more potentially lucrative and more reliable?