9 ms·

Engineers should make more money than what they are making now. The largest number I heard lately is $240k for a data scientist from Apple. That's too low! That

• crazy1van 13y ago
  > Why aren't we getting paid like lawyers? If they win $20M they will get paid at least $2M. But if we make a product that generates $20M profit, at best we get $20K bonus. This has to change! Is that really true? Their firm might get 2M. But in a big case, I imagine there are many lawyers and assistants involved. Sure the partners are going to do quite well. But, the founders of a tech firm also do quite well when their company receives a windfall of cash.
• GBond 13y ago
  This is because a programmer's contribution to the "20M profit" is not easily quantifiable and measurable being that he is mostly likely part of a team working on a feature that is a part of a whole. However a lawyer who wins a case or a sale person who sells a big deal can easily point to the quantifiable win to a specific dollar amount.
• sjg007 13y ago
  They way you change it is by starting your own company.
  • hkmurakami 13y ago
    Except for the fact that startup founders by in large perpetuate the owner-employee inequity that they themselves were a victim of. Really, it reminds me of fraternities/athletics and hazing.
    • sjg007 13y ago
      So choose to work for a startup that doesn't do that. There are plenty of profit sharing companies out there. Or become a quant where you can eat what you kill. Inequity, really has nothing to do with fairness. If the startup can't hire, they will offer more until they do hire (or go out of business or worse never achieve). What you can negotiate is based on your position. If you are ex-Google or Facebook you can make bank at a more established tech company looking to turnaround (cough.. cough.. Yahoo) or at a startup looking for "top talent" or get access to VC funding. It is the same dynamics you see in professional sports.
  • pyrrhotech 13y ago
    Unfortunately, starting your own company is a high-risk path to change it & no guarantee that you will make more money. A lawyer, doctor, trader, or investment banker does not have to take the risk of starting his own firm in order to make significantly more than the highest level engineers.
    • nerfhammer 13y ago
      and yet the practice of acqui-hiring can actually get you a 7 figure return on failing. Instead of unions, we have that, strange as it is. though mostly disproportionately good for the acqui-hired managers and not so much normal employees.
• a8da6b0c91d 13y ago
  The lawyers and doctors who get paid a whole lot are partners in a firm. It's not much different than founding a tech company.
  • ryandrake 13y ago
    The difference being that you don't necessarily have to take the enormous risk of founding a company in order to become a partner in a law firm. Is there a similar career path for engineers in any tech company that is the equivalent of "making partner" in a law firm? Genuinely curious.
    • dvanduzer 13y ago
      That all depends on whether you think a tech company that has the business model of a law firm is still a tech company. Silicon Valley does like hits. On the other hand, have you asked any newly minted lawyers about their "career path" recently?
    • sjg007 13y ago
      Sure, make partner in a boutique software consulting firm.
      • aswanson 13y ago
        Problem is, boutique implies specialty. In tech, specialties involve short term expertise. Experience works against specialists in our field, whereas in fields like law and medicine, specialization is likely to increase value over a career lifetime. We are up against a far more sinister s-curve in the experience/perceived utility equation.
        • sjg007 13y ago
          I would argue that specialization in software is more about delivering solutions and value. I agree that in general technology evolves, but there is clearly a 20+ year lifespan for some technologies. Cobol is still in demand. As a botique software shop you offer a company critical business infrastructure that gives them an edge. 90% of the software in business is developed or customized for the client. As developers we don't necessarily like it because it is not always elegant or optimal but it exists.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• chaz 13y ago
  You can raise the highest amount you've heard to $3mm: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-programmer-blew-off-500-155342560.html http://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-programmer-blew-off-500...
• josho 13y ago
  There are several reasons why software engineers are underpaid compared to their performance. Keep in mind these are generalizations and therefore you will find exceptions to what I outline below. -Software developers typically aren't comfortable negotiating, nor are we well versed at it. Therefore, we accept job offers for less than we know we are worth and accept raises offered rather than negotiate raises based on our actual performance. -We have no collective bargaining capability, and anyone can enter the field. In Canada engineers have a professional designation, the software industry is typically not a part of that collective. Lawyers have the bar exam to pass before they can practice. These restrictions restrict the labor supply in those industries to ensure higher wages. In our industry anyone can join, even foreigners, or employers can even outsource the labor to another cheaper country. This has the combined effective of raising the labor supply, and reducing our ability to negotiate as a group. -It is difficult to measure the performance from one developer to another. Look at sales as an industry, it is very easy to measure a top performer. If we were better able to demonstrate performance it would be easier for a developer to earn 50% more than his/her peers. Where I live some shops that hire refuse to pay even 10% more for a developer because they are filling head count and treat developers somewhat like a commodity. The above realization has left me a little jaded. I love this field, but realize that I can earn more selling software than building software.
  • 31reasons 13y ago
    If you are really good with programming, I guess the only reasonable thing to do is start a Software firm as a solo practitioner or as a partner with other Software developers.
  • morgante 13y ago
    That's also the beauty of software development—I don't need to have a fancy degree or work ridiculous hours as an associate/intern to get a job in it.
    • josho 13y ago
      Or given the startup context of this site, I'd phrase it as software development has no Barriers to Entry, which as startups (and yourself) have learned is great for getting into the market, but can be really bad once you establish a foothold and gain experience and realize that competition from new entries into the market severely undercut you on price. So, for those in the industry we need to find ways to add barriers to entry so that our salaries are protected.
• rohunati 13y ago
  Are you actually complaining about 240k? If that isn't myopia, idk what is. Most people would kill for that salary.
  • GVIrish 13y ago
    That's the rub though, 240k may be a lot to you, but what if that data scientist is delivering 100 times that value to the company? Who's to say that person shouldn't be paid $500k or $1 million a year. The Yahoo COO who just got let go was paid $109 million in two years. He got a $29 million severance package. Would it be too crazy to suggest that maybe a brilliant engineer who was a major contributor to the success of a problem is worth more than $100-250k a year?
    • mnglkhn2 13y ago
      It can be tricky and getting murkier quick: what if Google comes back with an argument that that data scientist would not have been able to produce those $2-3 mil without the resources and the infrastructure made available by Google? Would that employee be as productive anywhere else? If the answer is yes, then that employee deserves a larger share of the pie. If the answer is unclear or no, then the employee will receive whatever the market will bear. This is why traders and IT devs on Wall Street get better compensated: it is way easier to see the exact impact and it is very likely that those guys would be able to easily replicate it in any other firm.
      • frandroid 13y ago
        You compare Apple to Orange. First you ask if the employee could generate this revenue on her own, and then you compare that to a trader that could generate the same revenue at another firm. Are you comparing employee productivity with and without company resources, or employee productivity between companies A and B?
  • ForHackernews 13y ago
    A lot of these people seem to think they should be paid like Wall Street traders. To which I say, "Fine, go be a trader."
• lettergram 13y ago
  Interestingly enough if you work for a financial firm (doing their software) you'll likely get paid significantly better than many tech jobs. Largely due to bonuses based off how much money you bring to the company. Further, 240k for a data scientist isn't necessarily low, they are one of a team and the person who "made" Siri likely is paid much better (I could be wrong, as I do not know for certain).
  • georgemcbay 13y ago
    Siri was an acquisition of a spin-off from SRI International. It is unreported how much Apple paid for it though it is suspected to be in the $200 million range.
• vacri 13y ago
  Why aren't you getting paid like lawyers? Because tech companies don't operate like legal partnerships. As a techie, you are an employee, not a partner. Don't forget either that lawyers don't just 'make money', they 'prevent loss'. That $20M suit that ends in your favour also comes with a nice injunction preventing your opponent from doing -foo- again. Techies can't do that.
  • walshemj 13y ago
    Even non partner lawyers get paid much more than software engineers - the number of lawyers that make partner is tiny.
• pyrrhotech 13y ago
  agreed, I'm trying to get out of engineering for this reason. I can make 3.6 million bonus on wallstreet, why waste my time here.
  • aswanson 13y ago
    Amen.
  • ericd 13y ago
    Because working in tech, you can add value to society rather than leeching off of it in spectacular fashion?
    • hayksaakian 13y ago
      Arguably, he could use his wall street money to pay a more altruistic developer to add value to society, while he enjoys his money.
      • pyrrhotech 13y ago
        or 10
      • ericd 13y ago
        Expected value of additional devs in the world if he goes to Wall St. is far below 1. There's a shortage of devs, and it's not really due to a lack of compensation.
• PythonicAlpha 13y ago
  The reason is "free market" is only for the big people -- not for the "human capital". Free market is just an illusion that is fixed that people believe in. It was never meant to be free and much more it was never be meant to be just. Remember the case, an engineer got lower wages just because he was from India? Also his boss was not allowed to offer him higher wages from the upper management. The existing free market system is only free, if you understand it as "law of the jungle".
• jasonkester 13y ago
  $240k is not the upper bound though. Granted, it's a good salary for an employee, but that's really just an indicator that maybe you don't want to be an employee. In reality, your salary as a developer is unbounded. There are plenty of examples here of engineers who have built their own software product businesses that bring in orders of magnitude more than the number you quote. If you're good at what you do, there's really nothing stopping you from going out and getting that lawyer money. You just have to step outside the conventional path a little bit.
  • josho 13y ago
    Salaries are very much bounded. Income is not. Employer's have salary ranges they will pay. If you want above that range you need to be incredibly special for an employer to consider, ie. a public figure in the industry. If you are willing to take considerably more risk than an employee and are the 20% or so of entrepreneur's that succeed then your income can be unbounded as you say. But, that's substantially different than salary, and not what the article and this thread is about.
• danabramov 13y ago
  I first read your comment as being sarcastic, but then realized you're being serious. It's ridiculous how vastly different software engineer salary expectations are in Valey vs countries like Russia.
• rmc 13y ago
  It can take a while for the market in employee skill to change.