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It always amuses me seeing programmers chasing as much money as possible when they make a fraction of executives or many other professions. Even if they're at

It always amuses me seeing programmers chasing as much money as possible when they make a fraction of executives or many other professions. Even if they're at the "elite grand master SRE" level. Still a fraction of some MBA.

yrgulation 4y ago
thats why i keep telling people that software “engineering” or computer “science” are not worth pursuing. unless you use either as a launchpad. these types of jobs are just fancy bricklaying. however there is nuance to everything. some people find 200k a year and living with flatmates in an expensive city rewarding. to each their own. i know i did. until it hit me.
- kortilla 4y ago
  Bricklaying? Google had a great WLB and l5s were clearing 500-700k TC and l6 was bumping up against a mil a year when I left more than 5 years ago. That’s early retirement and you don’t have to make a single sales call or ever manage people.
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    How many positions like that are available at google? Under a 1,000 and the industry employs millions. Not sure this is a strategy for everyone.
- peteradio 4y ago
  Then what is worth pursuing? Entrepreneurship? I can't even spell the word correctly without a spellchecker.
- anchochilis 4y ago
  All work is fancy bricklaying if you're jaded enough. Surgeon? Just spackling the same old organs day in day out, with the additional downside of potentially killing someone if you have an off day and place a brick upside down. Professional football player? It's repetitive manual labor! Often performed outdoors in inclement weather. High likelihood of involuntary retirement due to workplace injury. Executive? Staring at endless spreadsheets all day... With rows and rows of those brick-like rectangular cells... All fun aside, I don't think many bricklayers could find it within themselves to complain about making 200k a year to work in jeans and a hoodie in an air-conditioned building with foosball tables and free snacks.
anchochilis 4y ago
Salaries for MBAs likely follow a similar distribution as for programmers. A small fraction of elite workers enjoy outstanding compensation, while the vast majority sit somewhere on a long flat tail of mediocre incomes.
5d8767c68926 4y ago
Quite a few more programmer jobs than elite executive MBA opportunities.
yieldcrv 4y ago
we're still talking about 400k-600k/yr total compensation right? every MBA factory bases its metrics on the average compensation of alumni, and they're pretty pathetic in comparison anyway, to the person above you, Google isn't top of the pack in initial comp package or upside, within tech
barry-cotter 4y ago
> Even if they're at the "elite grand master SRE" level. Still a fraction of some MBA. Most MBAs didn’t graduate from Harvard or Wharton or equivalent schools. They’re people who believed that there were high returns to the valuable skills they were going to learn instead of realising it’s a finishing school where you network. Graduates of the University of Northeastern Illinois’s business school are not going to do much better than FAANG software engineers. This holds more, not less for the members of the professions. The super rich people with JDs aren’t practicing lawyers.

yrgulation 4y ago

thats why i keep telling people that software “engineering” or computer “science” are not worth pursuing. unless you use either as a launchpad. these types of jobs are just fancy bricklaying. however there is nuance to everything. some people find 200k a year and living with flatmates in an expensive city rewarding. to each their own. i know i did. until it hit me.

kortilla 4y ago
Bricklaying? Google had a great WLB and l5s were clearing 500-700k TC and l6 was bumping up against a mil a year when I left more than 5 years ago. That’s early retirement and you don’t have to make a single sales call or ever manage people.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  How many positions like that are available at google? Under a 1,000 and the industry employs millions. Not sure this is a strategy for everyone.
peteradio 4y ago
Then what is worth pursuing? Entrepreneurship? I can't even spell the word correctly without a spellchecker.
anchochilis 4y ago
All work is fancy bricklaying if you're jaded enough. Surgeon? Just spackling the same old organs day in day out, with the additional downside of potentially killing someone if you have an off day and place a brick upside down. Professional football player? It's repetitive manual labor! Often performed outdoors in inclement weather. High likelihood of involuntary retirement due to workplace injury. Executive? Staring at endless spreadsheets all day... With rows and rows of those brick-like rectangular cells... All fun aside, I don't think many bricklayers could find it within themselves to complain about making 200k a year to work in jeans and a hoodie in an air-conditioned building with foosball tables and free snacks.

anchochilis 4y ago

Salaries for MBAs likely follow a similar distribution as for programmers. A small fraction of elite workers enjoy outstanding compensation, while the vast majority sit somewhere on a long flat tail of mediocre incomes.

5d8767c68926 4y ago

Quite a few more programmer jobs than elite executive MBA opportunities.

yieldcrv 4y ago

we're still talking about 400k-600k/yr total compensation right? every MBA factory bases its metrics on the average compensation of alumni, and they're pretty pathetic in comparison anyway, to the person above you, Google isn't top of the pack in initial comp package or upside, within tech

barry-cotter 4y ago

> Even if they're at the "elite grand master SRE" level. Still a fraction of some MBA. Most MBAs didn’t graduate from Harvard or Wharton or equivalent schools. They’re people who believed that there were high returns to the valuable skills they were going to learn instead of realising it’s a finishing school where you network. Graduates of the University of Northeastern Illinois’s business school are not going to do much better than FAANG software engineers. This holds more, not less for the members of the professions. The super rich people with JDs aren’t practicing lawyers.