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In a software engineer. My cousin is an electrical engineer working at a large power distribution firm. For all intents and purposes his job is absolutely crit

In a software engineer. My cousin is an electrical engineer working at a large power distribution firm. For all intents and purposes his job is absolutely critical to society. I basically fumble around and do a few projects for my clients. I get paid several times more than him. I am happy for myself but it makes no sense to me how society is mispricing our work.

aerostable_slug 4y ago
Mechanical engineers are similarly low-paid. Some time back I hired a few MechE's (with advanced degrees) to write simulation code for a startup. I paid them what I thought was fair for a Bay Area coding role, which turned out to be a significant amount more than the same job would have paid if they had a different title (they would have been doing substantially the same work at Honda/John Deere/Ford/Boeing/Lockheed/etc.). Strange.
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  > I paid them what I thought was fair for a Bay Area coding role The 'fair' pay in the Bay area is sustained/inflated by the vast amounts of VC money with a _huge_ appetite for risk. I am not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but it is absolutely unique, you just don't have those finance conditions anywhere else in the world, bar maybe New York. Also all the quoted companies in your comment will have physical goods with way way smaller profit margins compared to most Bay area products. My point is that it is not strange at all if you follow the money.
  - aerostable_slug 4y ago
    Those same companies pay much more in the same metro areas for different titles, working on those small profit margin items you speak of, like electric vehicles and satellites. Journeyman software developer plunking along in a middling role gets A; while a mechanical engineer, with graduate degrees and who actually grasps the material, writing well-formed Modelica code, gets B. That made me go "hmm."
supertrope 4y ago
Supply and demand is a cruel mistress. If power electronics could scale up to hundreds of millions of customers with relatively flat headcount and capital intensity you might see unicorns too.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Or they don't extract enough from the market. Maybe they should be getting 50% of electricity price.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
midoridensha 4y ago
>In a software engineer. My cousin is an electrical engineer working at a large power distribution firm. >For all intents and purposes his job is absolutely critical to society. I basically fumble around and do a few projects for my clients. >I get paid several times more than him. If your cousin and all his fellow power EEs quit for software jobs, how would this affect the pay for these EE positions?

aerostable_slug 4y ago

Mechanical engineers are similarly low-paid. Some time back I hired a few MechE's (with advanced degrees) to write simulation code for a startup. I paid them what I thought was fair for a Bay Area coding role, which turned out to be a significant amount more than the same job would have paid if they had a different title (they would have been doing substantially the same work at Honda/John Deere/Ford/Boeing/Lockheed/etc.). Strange.

DoingIsLearning 4y ago
> I paid them what I thought was fair for a Bay Area coding role The 'fair' pay in the Bay area is sustained/inflated by the vast amounts of VC money with a _huge_ appetite for risk. I am not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but it is absolutely unique, you just don't have those finance conditions anywhere else in the world, bar maybe New York. Also all the quoted companies in your comment will have physical goods with way way smaller profit margins compared to most Bay area products. My point is that it is not strange at all if you follow the money.
- aerostable_slug 4y ago
  Those same companies pay much more in the same metro areas for different titles, working on those small profit margin items you speak of, like electric vehicles and satellites. Journeyman software developer plunking along in a middling role gets A; while a mechanical engineer, with graduate degrees and who actually grasps the material, writing well-formed Modelica code, gets B. That made me go "hmm."

supertrope 4y ago

Supply and demand is a cruel mistress. If power electronics could scale up to hundreds of millions of customers with relatively flat headcount and capital intensity you might see unicorns too.

Ekaros 4y ago
Or they don't extract enough from the market. Maybe they should be getting 50% of electricity price.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

midoridensha 4y ago

>In a software engineer. My cousin is an electrical engineer working at a large power distribution firm. >For all intents and purposes his job is absolutely critical to society. I basically fumble around and do a few projects for my clients. >I get paid several times more than him. If your cousin and all his fellow power EEs quit for software jobs, how would this affect the pay for these EE positions?