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Industry standard has been over a million dollars revenue per year per employee. That includes non-developer roles, which all exist either to support or sell wh

Industry standard has been over a million dollars revenue per year per employee. That includes non-developer roles, which all exist either to support or sell what developers make, or to enable you to hire more developers (management). So these companies have had high margins on hiring developers. I think this also makes sense of "why does company X need so many developers to make product Y?" The answer is they don't need that many developers to make product Y. But companies have largely seen that the more developers they hire the more money they make. Or course that's a statistical phenomenon, it doesn't happen right when you hire a developer, it isn't guaranteed to happen at all. You're hiring as many developers as you can because it increases the chances that some of them will make money printing machines for you or improve your existing money printing capabilities. I can see salaries going down if revenue is dropping across the board and companies switch to focusing more on making money right now and less on maximizing these chances. I don't think it is likely to drop like a rock, though. Between being roughly zero margin once produced and being general purpose, software does promise to eat everything. But not everyone can afford to pay developers. Prices going down means more people looking to hire.

skippyboxedhero 4y ago
Very few companies make more than a million per employee. And that is inherently deceptive because you have products (FB and Google Search) that could actually make a lot more but don't. And you need to consider the return, NFLX has the highest revenue per employee and likely isn't profitable once you actually look at capitalized costs. Their spending on tech is certainly very profitable, but that is because they are a media company...not because they are a tech one (the same is true at Disney, at Warner Discovery, etc. This kind of measure overstates the economics because they have huge non-employee costs)...so that leaves AAPL (profitable, but also substantial non-employee costs), GOOGL and FB...both protected by corporate governance abnormalities that allow insiders to skim off huge amounts from monopoly products. Ultimately, your salary is limited by what you are able to charge. Most devs do not have real agency with the product, that is why salespeople make more. It isn't like finance where you can get paid based on revenue. > But companies have largely seen that the more developers they hire the more money they make. I haven't seen this. Almost every tech company I have researched (I worked as an equity analyst for a decade) is massively overstaffed. Sales spending is far more accretive. Devs and cloud are a black hole caused by the lack of business knowledge amongst senior managers (even in the C-suite, tech companies have unusually bad managers). The industry is nowhere remotely close to where it needs to be, and won't be for a long time because most people don't have skills that will generate profit. Prices going down won't mean more looking to hire because the market is going to shrink overall. I think one area that is severely under-penetrated is tech spending by legacy companies, but that won't make up the gap. At large individual companies, the numbers are insane...some companies will cut thousands, and still need to do more (it isn't just devs either, it is data, managerial, support, project management, marketing...there is just bloat everywhere).
- furyofantares 4y ago
  > Very few companies make more than a million per employee. Yeah, and they hire a whole lot of programmers, which is where the top prices come from. > Almost every tech company I have researched (I worked as an equity analyst for a decade) is massively overstaffed. Well it is very directly the reason I have heard given for the process of always hiring everyone that passes the filter without regard to old fashioned concepts as "job openings".

skippyboxedhero 4y ago

Very few companies make more than a million per employee. And that is inherently deceptive because you have products (FB and Google Search) that could actually make a lot more but don't. And you need to consider the return, NFLX has the highest revenue per employee and likely isn't profitable once you actually look at capitalized costs. Their spending on tech is certainly very profitable, but that is because they are a media company...not because they are a tech one (the same is true at Disney, at Warner Discovery, etc. This kind of measure overstates the economics because they have huge non-employee costs)...so that leaves AAPL (profitable, but also substantial non-employee costs), GOOGL and FB...both protected by corporate governance abnormalities that allow insiders to skim off huge amounts from monopoly products. Ultimately, your salary is limited by what you are able to charge. Most devs do not have real agency with the product, that is why salespeople make more. It isn't like finance where you can get paid based on revenue. > But companies have largely seen that the more developers they hire the more money they make. I haven't seen this. Almost every tech company I have researched (I worked as an equity analyst for a decade) is massively overstaffed. Sales spending is far more accretive. Devs and cloud are a black hole caused by the lack of business knowledge amongst senior managers (even in the C-suite, tech companies have unusually bad managers). The industry is nowhere remotely close to where it needs to be, and won't be for a long time because most people don't have skills that will generate profit. Prices going down won't mean more looking to hire because the market is going to shrink overall. I think one area that is severely under-penetrated is tech spending by legacy companies, but that won't make up the gap. At large individual companies, the numbers are insane...some companies will cut thousands, and still need to do more (it isn't just devs either, it is data, managerial, support, project management, marketing...there is just bloat everywhere).

furyofantares 4y ago
> Very few companies make more than a million per employee. Yeah, and they hire a whole lot of programmers, which is where the top prices come from. > Almost every tech company I have researched (I worked as an equity analyst for a decade) is massively overstaffed. Well it is very directly the reason I have heard given for the process of always hiring everyone that passes the filter without regard to old fashioned concepts as "job openings".