4 ms·

Sadly it's not just academia either. I've seen brilliant innovative engineers get buried because they don't spend the requisite 75% of their time managing the b

Sadly it's not just academia either. I've seen brilliant innovative engineers get buried because they don't spend the requisite 75% of their time managing the bureaucracy of large orgs.

Const-me 3y ago
I’m not familiar with science, but I don’t believe things are terribly bad for engineers. Brilliant innovative engineers have a degree of control over their lives. If a person is unhappy about the bureaucracy of the large org they can find another job in a startup. Or they can find a better job in a smaller, better managed organization. Or if they’re feeling lucky, they can even start their own business. If they currently hold a senior position in FAANG working on innovative ways to sell more ads, that step will likely involve a substantial pay cut. Still, IMO brilliant engineers are relatively well-compensated across the whole industry. The work they do normally generates a lot of value for the employer. They should be generally fine financially even without these millions of stock options. And they will be probably happier working on the innovations which do something good, as opposed to inventing models, methods, and apparatuses to advance the ongoing enshittification of the internet.
- rewmie 3y ago
  > I’m not familiar with science, but I don’t believe things are terribly bad for engineers. Brilliant innovative engineers have a degree of control over their lives. The only fundamental difference is not between science and engineering, but between research&academia and industry, specifically in the number of positions available and the competition there is to fill them. You mentioned startups. Basically that means create your own position. That's way out of reach to any academic position because no one can simply go out and create their own research institutions. Therefore, if you want to make a living or have a career in academia, you have to subject yourself to their rules and processes.
  - finnh 3y ago
    That was GP's point - that things are much better for engineers than people in academia (and perhaps science).
    - rewmie 3y ago
      I guess my point is that engineering and academia are not independent and mutually exclusive sets.
- robocat 3y ago
  > brilliant engineers are relatively well-compensated across the whole industry. Perhaps only software in the US. I'm not sure your brilliant mechanical or civil or electronics engineer gets fairly compensated for their value, and even great software engineers can get poorly paid in many countries. That should create an arbitrage opportunity.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
  > Brilliant innovative engineers have a degree of control over their lives. Not really. Outside of programming in major hub cities, everyone else is faced with limited opportunities and a lack of a competitive job market. I started in 2000 at an internationally known company with a fixed scale for junior engineers of $50K for a BS and $55K for a MS. That was by no means extravagant for the time, when SV was throwing $100K offers at CS majors to do web dev. Roll $55K forward to today and that's $98K. I look at the job listings for juniors in my field and nobody is offering that. I see listings for experienced senior positions below that level. Programming computers is unusual in that it has extremely low operational overhead. Every other engineering discipline has to expend capital and extra resources to generate the final work product and that puts a limit on how much of the pie the engineers can take. With that said, there is a definite long term salary deflation that has been impacting everyone outside of software development.

Sadly it's not just academia either. I've seen brilliant innovative engineers get buried because they don't spend the requisite 75% of their time managing the bureaucracy of large orgs.

Const-me 3y ago

I’m not familiar with science, but I don’t believe things are terribly bad for engineers. Brilliant innovative engineers have a degree of control over their lives. If a person is unhappy about the bureaucracy of the large org they can find another job in a startup. Or they can find a better job in a smaller, better managed organization. Or if they’re feeling lucky, they can even start their own business. If they currently hold a senior position in FAANG working on innovative ways to sell more ads, that step will likely involve a substantial pay cut. Still, IMO brilliant engineers are relatively well-compensated across the whole industry. The work they do normally generates a lot of value for the employer. They should be generally fine financially even without these millions of stock options. And they will be probably happier working on the innovations which do something good, as opposed to inventing models, methods, and apparatuses to advance the ongoing enshittification of the internet.

rewmie 3y ago
> I’m not familiar with science, but I don’t believe things are terribly bad for engineers. Brilliant innovative engineers have a degree of control over their lives. The only fundamental difference is not between science and engineering, but between research&academia and industry, specifically in the number of positions available and the competition there is to fill them. You mentioned startups. Basically that means create your own position. That's way out of reach to any academic position because no one can simply go out and create their own research institutions. Therefore, if you want to make a living or have a career in academia, you have to subject yourself to their rules and processes.
- finnh 3y ago
  That was GP's point - that things are much better for engineers than people in academia (and perhaps science).
  - rewmie 3y ago
    I guess my point is that engineering and academia are not independent and mutually exclusive sets.
robocat 3y ago
> brilliant engineers are relatively well-compensated across the whole industry. Perhaps only software in the US. I'm not sure your brilliant mechanical or civil or electronics engineer gets fairly compensated for their value, and even great software engineers can get poorly paid in many countries. That should create an arbitrage opportunity.
kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
> Brilliant innovative engineers have a degree of control over their lives. Not really. Outside of programming in major hub cities, everyone else is faced with limited opportunities and a lack of a competitive job market. I started in 2000 at an internationally known company with a fixed scale for junior engineers of $50K for a BS and $55K for a MS. That was by no means extravagant for the time, when SV was throwing $100K offers at CS majors to do web dev. Roll $55K forward to today and that's $98K. I look at the job listings for juniors in my field and nobody is offering that. I see listings for experienced senior positions below that level. Programming computers is unusual in that it has extremely low operational overhead. Every other engineering discipline has to expend capital and extra resources to generate the final work product and that puts a limit on how much of the pie the engineers can take. With that said, there is a definite long term salary deflation that has been impacting everyone outside of software development.