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I don't understand why anyone would settle for a job where they're considered "low status". Especially in an industry like ours where even fair to decent coders

I don't understand why anyone would settle for a job where they're considered "low status". Especially in an industry like ours where even fair to decent coders can essentially write their own ticket.

barce 15y ago
The "write their own ticket" idea is both a myth and a misunderstanding. Even if you're say a coder in NYC making 200k at an ad agency, your status isn't as high as the coder at FourSquare making half as much. By status, the zero sum part of social capital ways in more. For the amount of capital generated in Silicon Valley, coders at 6 figures are underpaid. 7 figures is the ticket they should be writing.
- mahyarm 15y ago
  A startup with 42 million (which is a lot for most 1-3 year startups) in capital and 40 programmers would eat up their run way in less than a year, not that practical.
mtogo 15y ago
> coders can essentially write their own ticket. I'm glad that you think that's true for you, but it's not for 99% of coders. You are probably 20-25 with a degree and live in silicon valley or a big city.
floppydisk 15y ago
Because there are only so many jobs that let the techies call the shots. A good portion of the coding gigs are in support of new or existing business. This means you do the grunt work to build a product dreamed up by the business people that integrates with "legacy" system. In turn, this locks you into specific platforms and tools with little to no leeway to "call the shots" outside of naming your variables foo instead of bar. Also, consider the fact that some people want jobs like that. They can walk in the door at 8/9am and be out by 4/5pm with no worries and few long hours. Not all techies have the drive and desire to "call the shots", shoot up the social ladder, and achieve some level of public recognition for their work. For a coder who wants to work and do hard things, getting stuck at a non-technologist company could be akin to being in coder's hell. For a coder who want's a stable 9-5 and lots of free time to do other things--like hang out with friends/family--the "low status" work doesn't really look that low status anymore. It's all about cost/benefit analysis for each individual than extrapolation to a group of people.
strlen 15y ago
> Especially in an industry like ours where even fair to decent coders can essentially write their own ticket. That's just not true. There are plenty of places that do pay fairly (and a few that do interesting work), but the places that are truly "engineering-driven" (as opposed to driven by product management or marketing) are a few in between. These kinds of places (select few groups at Google, Palantir, places like Jane Street capital) are also enormously picky about who they hire (since engineers are responsible for a lot more than implementing a PRD with commercial/open-source components).

barce 15y ago

The "write their own ticket" idea is both a myth and a misunderstanding. Even if you're say a coder in NYC making 200k at an ad agency, your status isn't as high as the coder at FourSquare making half as much. By status, the zero sum part of social capital ways in more. For the amount of capital generated in Silicon Valley, coders at 6 figures are underpaid. 7 figures is the ticket they should be writing.

mahyarm 15y ago
A startup with 42 million (which is a lot for most 1-3 year startups) in capital and 40 programmers would eat up their run way in less than a year, not that practical.

mtogo 15y ago

> coders can essentially write their own ticket. I'm glad that you think that's true for you, but it's not for 99% of coders. You are probably 20-25 with a degree and live in silicon valley or a big city.

floppydisk 15y ago

Because there are only so many jobs that let the techies call the shots. A good portion of the coding gigs are in support of new or existing business. This means you do the grunt work to build a product dreamed up by the business people that integrates with "legacy" system. In turn, this locks you into specific platforms and tools with little to no leeway to "call the shots" outside of naming your variables foo instead of bar. Also, consider the fact that some people want jobs like that. They can walk in the door at 8/9am and be out by 4/5pm with no worries and few long hours. Not all techies have the drive and desire to "call the shots", shoot up the social ladder, and achieve some level of public recognition for their work. For a coder who wants to work and do hard things, getting stuck at a non-technologist company could be akin to being in coder's hell. For a coder who want's a stable 9-5 and lots of free time to do other things--like hang out with friends/family--the "low status" work doesn't really look that low status anymore. It's all about cost/benefit analysis for each individual than extrapolation to a group of people.

strlen 15y ago

> Especially in an industry like ours where even fair to decent coders can essentially write their own ticket. That's just not true. There are plenty of places that do pay fairly (and a few that do interesting work), but the places that are truly "engineering-driven" (as opposed to driven by product management or marketing) are a few in between. These kinds of places (select few groups at Google, Palantir, places like Jane Street capital) are also enormously picky about who they hire (since engineers are responsible for a lot more than implementing a PRD with commercial/open-source components).