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It’s very icky to me to think about median pay for the everyday American contrasted with what tech folks are pulling down. We’re not brain surgeons, people. M

It’s very icky to me to think about median pay for the everyday American contrasted with what tech folks are pulling down. We’re not brain surgeons, people. Most people do not have good access to paying work, and expecting them to “learn to code” is literally a sad joke. I’m not cool with this situation just because I’m a part of it. Not clear that there’s much we can do; people just aren’t offering any other meaningful alternatives outside of radically overturning our entire social model, which I suppose it might come to eventually, and probably for the worse for everyone involved.

lovecg 2y ago
This sort of pearl clutching among highly paid professionals seems to be unique to software engineers. Lawyers and finance types meanwhile are just laughing all the way to the bank.
- binary132 2y ago
  and we should be more like them, is the thinking?
  - lovecg 2y ago
    Instead of attempting to lower the compensation of the field as a whole (which, by the way, the actual capitalist employers will love), you’re welcome to donate half of your salary as you see fit.
    - binary132 2y ago
      Where did you get “we should make less” from what I said? I want more people to have opportunities that don’t suck.
- piuantiderp 2y ago
  They are the most inclined to think they can avoid politics. The other types just deal with it every day
qwerpy 2y ago
I’m thankful that I happened to end up in this field but I’m not going to feel guilty about it. It is hard work and stressful, and if someone’s going to be “lucky” that they chose the right field why can’t it be me?
- binary132 2y ago
  Guilty is not what I was looking for here although clearly that is what people picked up. I certainly don’t think I bear any responsibility for the present situation, even though I benefit from it. To notice that the situation is quite bad for most people and very good for us is not something that should induce guilt but rather, I think, shame and anger.
vunderba 2y ago
Couple notes: 1. There's a HUGE difference in skill sets between software engineers. Some of us have deep understandings of algorithms, linear algebra, and CS theory, and others know how to style a button with appropriate margins. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to decide which of these is more difficult. 2. Inequity exists everywhere, and neurotic self-guilt doesn't really accomplish anything. The bottom line is we're all brought into this world with differing advantages/disadvantages across both nature and nurture. Rather than bemoaning the inherent nature of a free market on a random news board, you'd be better off searching for methods of active altruism, donating to auditable charities (Charity Navigator and GiveWell come to mind), and actively helping those in need.
- binary132 2y ago
  The fact is that our pseudo-liberal market is extremely dysfunctional and doesn’t offer meaningful opportunity to most people who didn’t get technical degrees. A healthy society cannot run on pure software engineering, and cannot offer meaningful work only to its brightest nerds and most unscrupulous thieves. It’s good and right to notice this, and the solution is not that the nerds and thieves should consider dribbling a few extra scraps to the poors (at this point, everyone else). No, I don’t think knowing how to perform an affine transform justifies a 20x better salary than the common man has access to. The vast majority of folks in tech are not building rocket ships and flying cities.
  - SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
    Software engineers don't recieve a 20x better salary than the common man has access to. The heatmap indicates that the median software engineer tends to make 2-3x the local median income.
- kridsdale3 2y ago
  > Some of us have deep understandings of algorithms, linear algebra, and CS theory, and others know how to style a button with appropriate margins. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to decide which of these is more difficult. I have the former, but 95% of the value I bring to FAANG is the latter. My job lately is to double the revenue of various products that were built by a thousand deep algorithm workers but got no attention in the attention economy, by identifying and improving which button color (eg) would direct the traffic. My simple work gets all the money directed to the company, but was far easier than the hard work of making The Thing. Because algorithm nerds often have no idea what is appealing or valuable to human customers.
xenadu02 2y ago
We might as well be brain surgeons. Software is everywhere. It manages life and safety critical things for millions (billions?) of people every day. So much of everything that goes on at every level is affected by software. Software is also unique in that one engineer's work output can be sold, at near zero cost, to a billion people in theory. That isn't actually true but you get the idea. Software Engineer is just a new professional class. Its value proposition is high and it turns out a relatively small number of people have the mental model and aptitude to be really good at it.
- kridsdale3 2y ago
  We also benefit enormously from the marginal cost of delivering product to the next customer being zero. Our output scales to the whole global population (almost) for free. To a brain surgeon, addressing 2 patients instead of 1 costs 1 additional brain surgeon.

lovecg 2y ago

This sort of pearl clutching among highly paid professionals seems to be unique to software engineers. Lawyers and finance types meanwhile are just laughing all the way to the bank.

binary132 2y ago
and we should be more like them, is the thinking?
- lovecg 2y ago
  Instead of attempting to lower the compensation of the field as a whole (which, by the way, the actual capitalist employers will love), you’re welcome to donate half of your salary as you see fit.
  - binary132 2y ago
    Where did you get “we should make less” from what I said? I want more people to have opportunities that don’t suck.
piuantiderp 2y ago
They are the most inclined to think they can avoid politics. The other types just deal with it every day

qwerpy 2y ago

I’m thankful that I happened to end up in this field but I’m not going to feel guilty about it. It is hard work and stressful, and if someone’s going to be “lucky” that they chose the right field why can’t it be me?

binary132 2y ago
Guilty is not what I was looking for here although clearly that is what people picked up. I certainly don’t think I bear any responsibility for the present situation, even though I benefit from it. To notice that the situation is quite bad for most people and very good for us is not something that should induce guilt but rather, I think, shame and anger.

vunderba 2y ago

Couple notes: 1. There's a HUGE difference in skill sets between software engineers. Some of us have deep understandings of algorithms, linear algebra, and CS theory, and others know how to style a button with appropriate margins. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to decide which of these is more difficult. 2. Inequity exists everywhere, and neurotic self-guilt doesn't really accomplish anything. The bottom line is we're all brought into this world with differing advantages/disadvantages across both nature and nurture. Rather than bemoaning the inherent nature of a free market on a random news board, you'd be better off searching for methods of active altruism, donating to auditable charities (Charity Navigator and GiveWell come to mind), and actively helping those in need.

binary132 2y ago
The fact is that our pseudo-liberal market is extremely dysfunctional and doesn’t offer meaningful opportunity to most people who didn’t get technical degrees. A healthy society cannot run on pure software engineering, and cannot offer meaningful work only to its brightest nerds and most unscrupulous thieves. It’s good and right to notice this, and the solution is not that the nerds and thieves should consider dribbling a few extra scraps to the poors (at this point, everyone else). No, I don’t think knowing how to perform an affine transform justifies a 20x better salary than the common man has access to. The vast majority of folks in tech are not building rocket ships and flying cities.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
  Software engineers don't recieve a 20x better salary than the common man has access to. The heatmap indicates that the median software engineer tends to make 2-3x the local median income.
kridsdale3 2y ago
> Some of us have deep understandings of algorithms, linear algebra, and CS theory, and others know how to style a button with appropriate margins. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to decide which of these is more difficult. I have the former, but 95% of the value I bring to FAANG is the latter. My job lately is to double the revenue of various products that were built by a thousand deep algorithm workers but got no attention in the attention economy, by identifying and improving which button color (eg) would direct the traffic. My simple work gets all the money directed to the company, but was far easier than the hard work of making The Thing. Because algorithm nerds often have no idea what is appealing or valuable to human customers.

xenadu02 2y ago

We might as well be brain surgeons. Software is everywhere. It manages life and safety critical things for millions (billions?) of people every day. So much of everything that goes on at every level is affected by software. Software is also unique in that one engineer's work output can be sold, at near zero cost, to a billion people in theory. That isn't actually true but you get the idea. Software Engineer is just a new professional class. Its value proposition is high and it turns out a relatively small number of people have the mental model and aptitude to be really good at it.

kridsdale3 2y ago
We also benefit enormously from the marginal cost of delivering product to the next customer being zero. Our output scales to the whole global population (almost) for free. To a brain surgeon, addressing 2 patients instead of 1 costs 1 additional brain surgeon.