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The most you can get paid is the amount your company thinks it would cost to replace you. The difficulty of your job has absolutely nothing to do with how much

The most you can get paid is the amount your company thinks it would cost to replace you. The difficulty of your job has absolutely nothing to do with how much you’re paid, other than maybe reducing labor supply a bit. But there are tons of smart people, if the opportunities exist people will come. Every business needs a bespoke website, so all the web developers have plenty of work. Their options mean that if a company doesn’t want to pay much they’ll work somewhere else. Expert machinists using fancy equipment in a factory don’t really have the same ability to just go to a competitor, so they can’t negotiate a raise.

t-3 4y ago
The machinist actually probably can move around relatively easily (and a good machinist isn't much cheaper than an engineer, if at all). The engineers are going to be both more specialized and less in-demand. They work at a higher level where less people are needed, and due to specialization, can often be contracted out.
yobbo 4y ago
> Every business needs a bespoke website, so all the web developers have plenty of work. Not sure this is reality; or that a meritocracy for webdevs exists. In recent years, it seems the quality of big "prestige brand" websites (not exactly big tech) is declining, to the point of being unusable on mobile browsers or throttled connections. Not because of technical trade-offs, but reliance on frameworks to achieve "demoable effects" instead of real world features or usability. We're more than fifteen years into "ajax" and today's kids simply can't do it without burning 10x the cpu cycles and bandwidth. To me it seems there is a decoupling between the utility of webdevs and their pay, and some sort of market failure is occurring.
- galdosdi 4y ago
  I think this is analogous to and is happening for similar reasons as the airline customer experience gradually went from being very "classy" to increasingly "cheap" all at the same time as the market for air travel expanded tremendously.
mikewarot 4y ago
>Expert machinists using fancy equipment in a factory don’t really have the same ability to just go to a competitor, so they can’t negotiate a raise. Machinists own their own tools, in general... and I knew a CNC machinist who quit, went somewhere else, and came back to the shop I was working in over the course of a few months... they aren't easy to replace, even in a job shop. The equipment is a sunk cost, and if you don't have someone who knows how to use it, you're wasting money while it's idle.

t-3 4y ago

The machinist actually probably can move around relatively easily (and a good machinist isn't much cheaper than an engineer, if at all). The engineers are going to be both more specialized and less in-demand. They work at a higher level where less people are needed, and due to specialization, can often be contracted out.

yobbo 4y ago

> Every business needs a bespoke website, so all the web developers have plenty of work. Not sure this is reality; or that a meritocracy for webdevs exists. In recent years, it seems the quality of big "prestige brand" websites (not exactly big tech) is declining, to the point of being unusable on mobile browsers or throttled connections. Not because of technical trade-offs, but reliance on frameworks to achieve "demoable effects" instead of real world features or usability. We're more than fifteen years into "ajax" and today's kids simply can't do it without burning 10x the cpu cycles and bandwidth. To me it seems there is a decoupling between the utility of webdevs and their pay, and some sort of market failure is occurring.

galdosdi 4y ago
I think this is analogous to and is happening for similar reasons as the airline customer experience gradually went from being very "classy" to increasingly "cheap" all at the same time as the market for air travel expanded tremendously.

mikewarot 4y ago

>Expert machinists using fancy equipment in a factory don’t really have the same ability to just go to a competitor, so they can’t negotiate a raise. Machinists own their own tools, in general... and I knew a CNC machinist who quit, went somewhere else, and came back to the shop I was working in over the course of a few months... they aren't easy to replace, even in a job shop. The equipment is a sunk cost, and if you don't have someone who knows how to use it, you're wasting money while it's idle.