4 ms·

Many developers don't want to deliver a high-impact product. They want to enjoy the process of creation, earn some reasonable money and make lifes of some peopl

Many developers don't want to deliver a high-impact product. They want to enjoy the process of creation, earn some reasonable money and make lifes of some people better.

Invictus0 5y ago
> don't want to deliver a high-impact product > earn some reasonable money These two are in opposition
- hasmolo 5y ago
  not really, you can make good money not at a big corp, amd not work on high impact stuff. yelp, intuit, adobe all fit the bill
  - oblio 5y ago
    I like how the definition of Big Corp has changed. > Adobe 22 000 employees. Revenue of $12.86 billion. They're a literal Fortune 500 company (and not that far off from Fortune 200): https://fortune.com/company/adobe-systems/fortune500/ https://fortune.com/company/adobe-systems/fortune500/
    - yunohn 5y ago
      That’s because HN (and the general media) have come to brand just FAANG as evil megacorps. We’ve forgotten about general tech/companies, consulting, fossil/energy, etc etc that are also very very mega.
- derwiki 5y ago
  Not at Megacorp they aren’t
  - aniforprez 5y ago
    Megacorp usually at least starts with a good product that sells well
    - oblio 5y ago
      And once that takes off, think of Google, for example, they also build another 1000 external products and 10000 internal apps.
- dagw 5y ago
  I've worked on some seriously "low-impact" internal tools at large companies, and the pay was fine.
  - KronisLV 5y ago
    Aren't large and well paying companies a bit of an exception in many cases? For example, here in Latvia we don't quite have such a large tech scene, outside of WITCH companies. Thus, it feels like that argument isn't entirely valid in all that many circumstances.
- handrous 5y ago
  You've forgotten about the effect of investment. Work on a team doing contract early-stage development for funded (that's important) startups and greenfield "experimental" projects for larger corporations and you can work on four projects in one year, zero of which ever see enough ROI to pay back just your personal pay. And then do it again the next year. The end result is that you feel like a tiny part of some weird, random, extremely expensive process to (rarely) create successful new businesses. Like part of a living pachinko machine that burns cash. But you can get paid plenty for it!
ebiester 5y ago
However, may developers do want a high-impact product. That's orthogonal to making gazillions of dollars. "I want what I write to matter to someone" is the fundamental calling of many founders.
kstenerud 5y ago
A high impact product doesn't necessarily mean a money maker. I'll never make a cent off https://concise-encoding.org https://concise-encoding.org but I'd certainly like it to become high impact and make everyones lives better! And that requires some good marketing, which unfortunately I'm only mediocre at.
- monetus 5y ago
  Thanks for the self-promotion; this seems really neat and I might try my hand at a nim implementation.
  - kstenerud 5y ago
    Cool! A nim implementation would be awesome :) I've almost finished an ANTLR file for the text format to help people starting new codecs.
jimbokun 5y ago
> earn some reasonable money and make lifes of some people better. This requires delivering a high-impact product.
- oblio 5y ago
  So you'd think, but you'd be wrong, in many cases.

Many developers don't want to deliver a high-impact product. They want to enjoy the process of creation, earn some reasonable money and make lifes of some people better.

Invictus0 5y ago

> don't want to deliver a high-impact product > earn some reasonable money These two are in opposition

hasmolo 5y ago
not really, you can make good money not at a big corp, amd not work on high impact stuff. yelp, intuit, adobe all fit the bill
- oblio 5y ago
  I like how the definition of Big Corp has changed. > Adobe 22 000 employees. Revenue of $12.86 billion. They're a literal Fortune 500 company (and not that far off from Fortune 200): https://fortune.com/company/adobe-systems/fortune500/ https://fortune.com/company/adobe-systems/fortune500/
  - yunohn 5y ago
    That’s because HN (and the general media) have come to brand just FAANG as evil megacorps. We’ve forgotten about general tech/companies, consulting, fossil/energy, etc etc that are also very very mega.
derwiki 5y ago
Not at Megacorp they aren’t
- aniforprez 5y ago
  Megacorp usually at least starts with a good product that sells well
  - oblio 5y ago
    And once that takes off, think of Google, for example, they also build another 1000 external products and 10000 internal apps.
dagw 5y ago
I've worked on some seriously "low-impact" internal tools at large companies, and the pay was fine.
- KronisLV 5y ago
  Aren't large and well paying companies a bit of an exception in many cases? For example, here in Latvia we don't quite have such a large tech scene, outside of WITCH companies. Thus, it feels like that argument isn't entirely valid in all that many circumstances.
handrous 5y ago
You've forgotten about the effect of investment. Work on a team doing contract early-stage development for funded (that's important) startups and greenfield "experimental" projects for larger corporations and you can work on four projects in one year, zero of which ever see enough ROI to pay back just your personal pay. And then do it again the next year. The end result is that you feel like a tiny part of some weird, random, extremely expensive process to (rarely) create successful new businesses. Like part of a living pachinko machine that burns cash. But you can get paid plenty for it!

ebiester 5y ago

However, may developers do want a high-impact product. That's orthogonal to making gazillions of dollars. "I want what I write to matter to someone" is the fundamental calling of many founders.

kstenerud 5y ago

A high impact product doesn't necessarily mean a money maker. I'll never make a cent off https://concise-encoding.org https://concise-encoding.org but I'd certainly like it to become high impact and make everyones lives better! And that requires some good marketing, which unfortunately I'm only mediocre at.

monetus 5y ago
Thanks for the self-promotion; this seems really neat and I might try my hand at a nim implementation.
- kstenerud 5y ago
  Cool! A nim implementation would be awesome :) I've almost finished an ANTLR file for the text format to help people starting new codecs.

jimbokun 5y ago

> earn some reasonable money and make lifes of some people better. This requires delivering a high-impact product.

oblio 5y ago
So you'd think, but you'd be wrong, in many cases.