5 ms·

More and more senior engineers are non-coding or practically so. I see it everywhere. As industries have matured, people have matured into higher level manageme

More and more senior engineers are non-coding or practically so. I see it everywhere. As industries have matured, people have matured into higher level management roles and there hasn't been enough people to replace them. There's still plenty of fresh blood, software engineering actually looks a lot like the labor shortages do in the rest of the market—there's a lack of people who actually want to do the work. Everyone wants that $150k starting comp. Everyone wants a $500k director or VP role. But there is a shortage in that $200-300K range for people who are actually going to put in hours either writing code that makes it into production, or managing junior coders and their codebases. I'm talking SV salaries here. The scale is different elsewhere, but the problem is the same.

lumost 4y ago
Not for nothing, but that sounds a bit like a market peak if I've heard one. Why would the person actually doing the work settle for a mere 300k when the director/VP gets double without doing the hard work? there is a balance here - but it seems like a good time to lure engineers with real equity compensation to early stage startups.
- dilyevsky 4y ago
  Which industry has it different? I mean there are exceptions like sport teams but by and large this stuff happens everywhere else too.
  - lumost 4y ago
    Difference in tech has been that productivity has largely been divorced from capital, OpEx, and experience. This may be becoming less true today with large enterprises owning specific market segments through network effects... but I wouldn't bet on that quite yet in the long-term. A doctor can't help but work at the world's best hospital, because it probably will still be the world's best hospital next year. A jet engine designer can't help but work at Boeing. A fresh college grad can start a tech business tomorrow.
- themagician 4y ago
  Because managing people is the hard work, but it's not the grunt work. It can be emotionally exhausting. It is much easier to teach someone how to code than to teach them how to manage. Management is two parts: (1) making sure people produce a good product for a little expenditures as possible, and (2) manage liability from employees. Particularly now, the second part is very difficult to teach. Most people do not have great judgement when it comes to managing people and it's a really hard skill to teach. You can make someone watch training videos all day that tell them explicitly what NOT to do and they will still do exactly that. Everyone wants to believe they are good at management—very few people actually are. Most fail upwards into it.
mapme 4y ago
Interesting, anecdotally at a faang adjacent company, I do not know of any Seniors who do not have code as their primary output. Even a large majority of staff actively code IME.
triyambakam 4y ago
I'd be glad to know about these $200-300k positions. I must be applying to the wrong places - I keep hearing that my current base of 187k as a Senior SWE is out of their range.

lumost 4y ago

Not for nothing, but that sounds a bit like a market peak if I've heard one. Why would the person actually doing the work settle for a mere 300k when the director/VP gets double without doing the hard work? there is a balance here - but it seems like a good time to lure engineers with real equity compensation to early stage startups.

dilyevsky 4y ago
Which industry has it different? I mean there are exceptions like sport teams but by and large this stuff happens everywhere else too.
- lumost 4y ago
  Difference in tech has been that productivity has largely been divorced from capital, OpEx, and experience. This may be becoming less true today with large enterprises owning specific market segments through network effects... but I wouldn't bet on that quite yet in the long-term. A doctor can't help but work at the world's best hospital, because it probably will still be the world's best hospital next year. A jet engine designer can't help but work at Boeing. A fresh college grad can start a tech business tomorrow.
themagician 4y ago
Because managing people is the hard work, but it's not the grunt work. It can be emotionally exhausting. It is much easier to teach someone how to code than to teach them how to manage. Management is two parts: (1) making sure people produce a good product for a little expenditures as possible, and (2) manage liability from employees. Particularly now, the second part is very difficult to teach. Most people do not have great judgement when it comes to managing people and it's a really hard skill to teach. You can make someone watch training videos all day that tell them explicitly what NOT to do and they will still do exactly that. Everyone wants to believe they are good at management—very few people actually are. Most fail upwards into it.

mapme 4y ago

Interesting, anecdotally at a faang adjacent company, I do not know of any Seniors who do not have code as their primary output. Even a large majority of staff actively code IME.

triyambakam 4y ago

I'd be glad to know about these $200-300k positions. I must be applying to the wrong places - I keep hearing that my current base of 187k as a Senior SWE is out of their range.