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A lot of very mediocre people were getting pretty astounding money. Happens every cycle.
by CraigRo 3y ago
A lot of very mediocre people were getting pretty astounding money. Happens every cycle.
- nonethewiser 3y ago> A lot of very mediocre people were getting pretty astounding money. Good
- itsoktocry 3y ago>Good Sure, but there should be no surprise (or complaining) when the cycle reverses. Remember the posts a year or so ago of people working multiple remote jobs?
- Doofus20230425 3y agoWait, are we talking about shareholders or employees?
- 4gotunameagain 3y agoIf everyone makes astounding money, noone makes astounding money. And meritocracy dies.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y agoIs this one of those sentiments people like to say until the monkey's paw curls and they too find out they are mediocre?
- hef19898 3y agoBy definition, half of us are under the median.
- drewcoo 3y ago> By definition, half of us are under the median. Given that no one can agree how to measure, I'd bet that most of us are.
- moate 3y agoNo, don’t do that, now you’ve upset math. Or rather: I’ll mortgage my house and put my life savings on the line against that bet.
- falcolas 3y agoNobody specified what measure the median was made against - or that skill is involved in any way - so it’s still possible. Brought to you by another chapter in the book Recreational Arguments.
- randomdata 3y agoShame about your house and life savings. One man's brilliance is another man's "who wrote this crap?" It is indeed quite likely that most of us, possibly even all of us, will fall below the median of someone's measure.
- everforward 3y agoThey're making a math joke. It's impossible for more than half of the sample to be below the median since the median is constructed so that half fall on each side. Having 60% of a sample below the median means someone calculated the median wrong.
- randomdata 3y ago> It's impossible for more than half of the sample to be below the median No. It is very much possible when the measure is undefined, as was the condition setup before the bet was made. If we take it to the logical end where your chosen measure is simply the inverse of my chosen measure, then those above the median by my measure fall below the median by your measure and vice versa, leaving the entire set of those outside of the median to be seen below the median (and also above the median). As it pertains to the larger discussion, how the quality of a developer is measured has not been established, which means everyone is likely to measure differently and often in conflicting ways, and so most of us are bound to be below the median according to someone. So, yes, this was originally pointed out in a humorous manner. The bet made on the basis of that joke was, indeed, unfortunate.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y agoBut is that a useful measure? By definition half of the astronauts who went to the moon are under the "astronauts who went to the moon" skill median.
- sumedh 3y agoAll those astronauts had to pass some kind uniform skill test by NASA. There is no uniform skill tests for all the Devs.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y agoWell, I was just trying to point out that median is a silly measure, but now we're really comparing apples to oranges. Every astronaut is not a NASA astronaut and so they haven't had to undergo a uniform skill test but there are still excellent odds that every astronaut is qualified for their role even if they are below the median "astronaut". Yes, it could be argued that every space agency has some sort of test, but the same could be argued of every employed dev as they'll have had to pass an interview. Again, not saying that every dev is a good dev, but that median is a silly measure.
- hef19898 3y agoThe median does apply to NASA astronauts as well, it is just measuring a different population.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y agoYeah, the median can be measured, I never said it couldn't, it's just not a useful measure.
- randomdata 3y agoIf we are all equal, none of us would be "under the median".
- nibbleshifter 3y agoShort answer: yes. Longer answer: also yes.
- gorbachev 3y agoI remember what hiring was before the dot.com bust. People straight out of school with no professional experience, or even any open source or personal project work, were hired as senior engineers.
- jzb 3y agoYes, but this article is about developers getting laid off - not c-suite and VPs.
- soVeryTired 3y agoOver the past decade more and more devs have been out-earning surgeons and white-shoe lawyers. The tech salaries of today feel like the i-banking salaries of the early 2000s. It’s not just the c-suite that’s been earning crazy money.
- 908B64B197 3y ago> more and more devs have been out-earning surgeons and white-shoe lawyers That's not abnormal. There's only so many surgeries a man can perform, and so many cases a lawyer can argue. But software scales differently. Good luck performing surgery on three different continents at the same time.
- jzb 3y agoYeah, but I have little interest in pointing a finger at developers for inflated salaries while there's the Sundar Pichai crowd being paid north of $200 million a year. A mediocre developer can be a drag on a company or just keep the lights on. A mediocre CEO gets paid enough to fund an overpaid developer at $400K a year for... oh, about 560 years. The damage that a mediocre (or worse) C-suiter or VP does to a company is a lot worse than the mediocre developer (and, in fact, there's a straight line to overstaffing/overpaying and the "leadership") will ever do. As long as folks are calling out other workers as overpaid and neglecting the execs, the industry is going to continue to get worse.
- rednerrus 3y agoNo offense, but what we so is more complicated that lawyers and also more impactful on society.
- 29083011397778 3y agoA kid was stabbed to death on a bus last week. A lawyer will play a major role in whether his killer goes to jail. People are evicted, set free, imprisoned, and suffer serious economic setbacks (or not) based on lawyers. This completely ignores any knock-on effect of jail time in a persons life. What on Earth could you possibly do that would be more impactful to society?
- whoomp12342 3y agowhats the next phase in the cycle?
- theGnuMe 3y agoAfter exiting the expansion phase, we are in a consolidation and cut expenses cycle. If you can increase productivity then you will find value. If you take a tech specific viewpoint this is the hope for AI. At the same time AI will create new market opportunities overall. In addition the digital transition and the digital to cloud transition will continue.