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That chart shown in the article is very interesting. But I think more important things happened in 2023 than just GPT3.5. ZIRP ending, coding becoming a full b

by mlsu 9mo ago

That chart shown in the article is very interesting. But I think more important things happened in 2023 than just GPT3.5. ZIRP ending, coding becoming a full blown meme ("day in the life of a wfh swe" videos on tiktok), and work from home exploding. This combination of factors made it risky to make a mistake hiring an unqualified SWE. SWE salaries exploded AND money got more expensive. At the same time, the number of unqualified applicants exploded due to the EZ bootcamp wfh 6 fig meme, and on top of this, remote interviewing made it very easy to cheat your way into a job you were not qualified for. Since it's very difficult to gauge quality of SWE talent, this pushed companies very strongly in the direction of hiring senior talent. Of course, companies and managers do not want to announce that they do not know a good engineer from an awful one. So here comes a convenient excuse, the excuse that companies make for everything nowadays: "AI". The article is correct though. This explosion in interest in CS, along with very powerful AI tools, has produced a very strong batch of junior engineers that are very very underpriced relative to their senior colleagues. If I were running a company right now and needed cheap, strong talent, there is never a better time than now. Recruit and hire exclusively junior engineers -- and only interview in-person.

raw_anon_1111 9mo ago
Software development compensation in the US id very much bi modal. Most developers in the US work at banks, insurance companies, etc - “the enterprise” - in tier 2 cities. Those developers usually max out at around $160K-$175K or less and it hasn’t kept up with inflation. I did all of my “enterprise dev” up until 2020 in Atlanta. You can look at the compensation of well known Atlanta companies like Delta, Coke and Home Depot. You will see the same pattern in most other cities in the US outside of the west coast and NYC Enterprise devs if they remain so will probably never crack $200K inflation adjusted. I don’t know any of my friends/former coworkers who are still software developers in their 40s who still live and work in Atlanta who are making over $160K. They are doing well enough though being married with two incomes. The problem on that end is that it is easy enough to be a good enough generic CRUD LOB developer, it started being commoditized around 2015 and comp stagnated on the high end. FWIW, I pivoted to cloud consulting specializing in app dev when a (full time with the standard 4 year comp structure) when a remote position at AWS ProServe fell into my lap (still work in consulting - not at AWS). We moved to state tax free Florida in 2022 On another note, it still doesn’t make sense to hire juniors. The difference in comp for a junior dev and senior dev on the enterprise /small SaaS startup side is at most 60K if you stay out of SFBay or NYC and set up shop in a second tier city. You probably won’t need the route. Look at the laughable comp being offered by most early YC startups. No statistically worthless illiquid equity in a private company is not what I consider “compensation”

by mlsu 9mo ago

raw_anon_1111 9mo ago

Software development compensation in the US id very much bi modal. Most developers in the US work at banks, insurance companies, etc - “the enterprise” - in tier 2 cities. Those developers usually max out at around $160K-$175K or less and it hasn’t kept up with inflation. I did all of my “enterprise dev” up until 2020 in Atlanta. You can look at the compensation of well known Atlanta companies like Delta, Coke and Home Depot. You will see the same pattern in most other cities in the US outside of the west coast and NYC Enterprise devs if they remain so will probably never crack $200K inflation adjusted. I don’t know any of my friends/former coworkers who are still software developers in their 40s who still live and work in Atlanta who are making over $160K. They are doing well enough though being married with two incomes. The problem on that end is that it is easy enough to be a good enough generic CRUD LOB developer, it started being commoditized around 2015 and comp stagnated on the high end. FWIW, I pivoted to cloud consulting specializing in app dev when a (full time with the standard 4 year comp structure) when a remote position at AWS ProServe fell into my lap (still work in consulting - not at AWS). We moved to state tax free Florida in 2022 On another note, it still doesn’t make sense to hire juniors. The difference in comp for a junior dev and senior dev on the enterprise /small SaaS startup side is at most 60K if you stay out of SFBay or NYC and set up shop in a second tier city. You probably won’t need the route. Look at the laughable comp being offered by most early YC startups. No statistically worthless illiquid equity in a private company is not what I consider “compensation”