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No, we do not have luxurious jobs. Other people have really really shitty jobs. Software developers are just getting the kind of relative pay and conditions i

No, we do not have luxurious jobs. Other people have really really shitty jobs. Software developers are just getting the kind of relative pay and conditions improvements that a much larger number of people took for granted in the 60s and 70s. It's everyone else who is fucked.

Touche 13y ago
This. We enrich "business guys" with connections to billion dollar exits while we ourselves make middle-class or slightly upper-middle class wages. Meanwhile anyone willing to take out the loans to put themselves through Dental school will eventually make more than we do and if they have the motivation to open up their own practice, much more than we do.
- throwaway812 13y ago
  I agree with the sentiment, but I think your facts are a bit off and reflect HN insularity. The median 33% household income ("middle class") in the US is $30,000 to $62,500 (household). Even if you are the sole earner in your household, it is still unlikely that you make less than $62,500. If you do make less than that, ask for a raise. If you don't make less than that, or your combined household income is more than that, you are a member of the upper class, and you should try and remember your privilege. (Hey, life's not so bad.)
  - vonmoltke 13y ago
    That is not how "class" is defined. Social class is based on socioeconomic power, influence, and security. Generally, the upper class is the top 1% or 2% of incomes or net worths, and the lower/working class is far larger than the lower 33%. Additionally, tying class tightly to income is nonsense, because it ignores people with significant wealth but little income and ignores the different socioeconomic climates across the US.
  - allochthon 13y ago
    By any reasonable definition, being well-off means being able to take out a mortgage on a house, afford occasional vacations to other parts of the world, invest in the stock market, support a family, put your kids through college, give to different charities, save for retirement, all in addition to helping family members in need, which one would do under any circumstances. A software developer might be able to do these things in California, but only barely, unless they have a very cushy arrangement or they've ridden an exit for a startup. Those at the median household income in the US (or anywhere else) are being shafted. The economy is broken.
    - ForHackernews 13y ago
      Hint: Don't live in California. There are plenty of well-paid software jobs in places like Boston, Chicago, Northern Virginia, Atlanta, Florida, Austin, etc. They might not have the glut of "hot" startups that Silicon Valley does, but they have much more reasonable cost of living.
      - Touche 13y ago
        What I was alluding to with my comment was that software developers create a tremendous amount of wealth while seeing little of it. That is as true outside SV as it is inside.
        ForHackernews 13y ago
        True, and that's a fair point, but it's basically true of all employees anywhere in a capitalist economy. Even much-reviled Wall Street traders who receive million-dollar bonuses do so while bringing in many multiples of that in revenue for their firm.
        djb_hackernews 13y ago
        However you don't see the politicians or those traders employers banging the drum to dilute the trader pool with foreign workers on extremely employer friendly worker visas.
  - vehementi 13y ago
    > The median 33% household income ("middle class") in the US is $30,000 to $62,500 (household). What does this even mean? Median 33%? Median is 50% How can it have a range? Are you saying the 33th percentile household income in the US ranges from 30k to 62.5k depending on the state?
    - jaimebuelta 13y ago
      This means that the 33% of Americans that are "in the middle" (between the 33% with less income and the 33% with most) are in the range of 30K to 62K (Or so. I understand the data)
      - aidenn0 13y ago
        That is definitely what the GP thread meant, but the terminology was wrong. They wanted "percentile" median specifically refers to the 50th percentile. You could also use "tertile" (e.g. "The second tertile has income between 30k and 65k) which refers specifically to spliting into thirds.
      - logfromblammo 13y ago
        $30k is the 1st tercile. $62k is the 2nd tercile. They are also the 2nd and 4th sextiles, on either side of the median, which is the 3rd sextile, and approximately the same as the 33rd and 66th percentiles, or the 333rd and 666th permille. Income is not a normal distribution, so the two numbers don't tell much of a story by themselves. Usually, the statistics are shown as quintiles, plus median, 95th percentile, and maybe also 99th percentile and 999th permille, depending on whether the statistics presenter wants the audience to gasp or not.
  - afterburner 13y ago
    The median household income is $55,000, with a median of 1.5 earners at that level. So, it seems to me quite likely an earner makes less than $62,000. Also, the median personal income is about $30,000, although this includes everyone older than 15. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_S...
  - khuey 13y ago
    Software engineers are concentrated in major metropolitan areas, often high cost ones (e.g. the SF bay area), so comparisons to the national median income are not necessarily accurate.
    - walshemj 13y ago
      You would need to compare it to other professions lawyers/medical doctors and other types of engineers - and I woudl bet that the median for those working in the tech industry's is lower than MD's and lawyers
      - eLobato 13y ago
        So is the average level of education of people working in the tech industry and the barriers of entry.
        walshemj 13y ago
        A Ceng/PE has the same requirements as a MD or lawyer arguably more so in the case of lawyers - but a Ceng or PE will earn less than a MD or lawyer for the same level of experience And dont you need a First from a good university to stand a good chance of high paying job in SV?
  - coolsunglasses 13y ago
    This is highly location dependent and programmers are often located in expensive cities. 100k in the bay area is just middle class, no upper qualification. Very unlikely to afford a home within 25 minutes of work unless they're in the south bay. You need 200k total household income before a mortgage on a $1.3mm house (starter home cost in most neighborhoods) is realistic. There is a 10x difference in the cost of a home in SF and Austin (where I just moved to from SF) and a 20x difference between SF and where my father lives in Ohio. There is not a 20x difference in income between developers and the 30-60k US median. The medianites live out in the sticks where their mortgage is $150-600 a month.
    - refurb 13y ago
      $1.3MM will get you a VERY nice home in some of the more exclusive neighborhoods in SF (Noe Valley). Only in SF do you have people complaining that they are "middle class" because they can't afford a single family home (already a luxury in major US cities) in a ritzy neighborhood and have to suffer through a >25 min commute. Houses in SF on the edge of the ritzy neighborhoods cost $700k. But that's not living the american dream right
      - coolsunglasses 13y ago
        $700k is still freakin' crazy.
  - crpatino 13y ago
    Sorry, but splitting "classes" in thirds is just ridiculous. The way the economy works is by concentrating wealth, so any class definition based on clustering according to income/net-worth cannot be linear. A logarithmic scale would make much more sense, by example: Poor:= 0-50%, Middle class:= 51%-75%, Upper class:=76-100%??? This model is extremely rough and inaccurate, but is a step in the right direction. The main problem it has is to assume that there has to be only 3 classes, which is arbitrary and does not describe the actual lives of real people. A second, related defect is that it does not recognize the existence of a small group of very vulnerable people below the "working poor". For these reasons, I think it is best to model this clustering classification using a log-normal distribution, with at least five classes (Underclass < Working poor < Middle class < Upper-middle class < Upper class). Still, the "upper class" category lumps together the merely wealthy (smallish business owners, the most successful professionals) with the extremely rich, and all possibilities in-between.
    - ahomescu1 13y ago
      > Still, the "upper class" category lumps together the merely wealthy (smallish business owners, the most successful professionals) with the extremely rich, and all possibilities in-between. It also lumps in the high-income earners with the high-net worth people (the ones everyone thinks of when they say "rich").
      - crpatino 13y ago
        agreed, you can only do so much when modeling a complex system with a single variable distribution.
  - aidenn0 13y ago
    You arbitrarily picked the midle tertile. There is a much bigger difference in lifestyle between the 33rd and 67th percentile or the 90th percentile and the 99th percentile than there is between the 67th percentile and the 90th percentile. I would argue that wealth is a better measure of class than income anyway. There is an inflection point on the wealth curve, which (when you cross it) all you need to is not screw up really badly, and you will be wealthy for the rest of your life.
    - arg01 13y ago
      Yep, at about 2 million dollars you could go to a small friendly town buy a house there and have an income close to the median (and have your assets track with inflation) assuming you can get a 5-6% return on investment, not at all unachievable on 'safe' long term investments. This is all without doing a single hour of work after hitting that point.
  - auctiontheory 13y ago
    Despite the name, "middle class" does not mean "around median income." This is more apparent in countries like India and Brazil, but it's increasingly true in the US. "Upper class" definitely does not mean "top third by income." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_class http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_class
- andykmaguire 13y ago
  Many (or most) of the great technology companies have technical founders that benefit tremendously from a successful exist. Equating "business guys" with "the man" who get all the benefit and engineers as the poor labor is misguided and ignores basic facts. Every technology startup that blows up have people with engineering backgrounds in positions of senior management. Across levels of seniority, engineers often make as much or more money as their non-technical counterparts. If you want to stay at the individual contributor level as an engineer that is, of course, totally fine, but you should compare yourself to other IC's in the organization without technical skills. I think you will find yourself to be very well positioned financially.
  - Touche 13y ago
    Engineers who work for technology companies are in the extreme minority. The average engineer works for a non-technology company doing work that management views as an expense, not a revenue generator, coding up features that sales people who make twice as much as them promised to a client months ago.
- gohrt 13y ago
  You think dentistry is a luxury? Half the time is chasing down nonpying clients, the other half is doing disgusting physical labor.
  - Crito 13y ago
    I think that a dentist spending half of his time doing collections probably needs to learn how to contract things out.
  - rschmitty 13y ago
    You think _Dentists_ chase down non paying clients? Ha ha! Non-payers are part of their expected business, maybe someone fresh out of school who never talked to another practicing dentist might get surprised by this. They hire people to chase down non paying clients and they still turn a hefty profit. Yes, dentistry is a luxury
- cwaniak 13y ago
  97% of people want to work. Like to code. That's what they want to do. And they expect the other 3% to organize these jobs for them. Because they don't know/can't/aren't interested in organizing these jobs on their own. It really boils down to: do you want to be a craftsman or wealthy man. Because if you want to be in the 3% organizing jobs for others, you won't have any time to do coding. It's very easy to end up in the mental trap of: "I just want to code" expecting to see the prize for all the hard work. But the prize always goes to the job "organizer" or creator and not to the one doing it. Never forget that.
  - cmiles74 13y ago
    And without the 97% of people doing the actual work, the "organizer" wouldn't have a job either. Sure, presently management is making a grossly disproportionate amount of the profit but that doesn't make it right. This lack of balance is one of the looming economic crises facing the US. Your blithe comment implies that this is reasonable, I strongly disagree.
    - gaius 13y ago
      It's about making the trade with your eyes open. I am a "just wants to code" type, which is fine, because in the organization we have guys who just want to sell, and guys who just want to make presentations, and guys (presumably) who just want to do the squillion other tasks that make a large organization tick over. I don't feel exploited at all.
    - cwaniak 13y ago
      Please keep in mind that any of the 97% could be a job organizer too. It's a choice. I strongly disagree with children dying of cancer. But that's just the way this world works. People have this thing in their psyche were they want a "parent" to provide them money, shelter, security in exchange for their obedience (disguised as "work"). Getting rid of this childish mentality is good for you.
      - cmiles74 13y ago
        I believe that your cancer analogy is weak, in this instance. It may not have been your intent to be insulting, but I find it challenging to read your response without feeling insulted. Casting my response as "childish" strikes me as unreasonable, as well as linking me with the people "who have this thing in their psyche". These are not issues I have. In any case, we're not talking about something irrefutable, like a law of physics. Income inequality has been on the rise in the US since the 70's and is, possibly, one of the causes contributing to the shrinking of the middle class.[0] I am not advocating that anyone gets anything for free, rather that the majority of the employed receive equitable pay. The current distribution, were a nearly obscene amount is squeezed towards the top of the organization, is unsustainable and, I would argue, unhealthy for the economy. Again, to reiterate, I am not arguing that the managers should no longer be paid or that they should make less than those they manage. I'm simply pointing out that, at present, the top tiers of management are making far too much and this effects the income of everyone further down the ladder. [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United...
Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
An experienced software developer earns perhaps double the national average wage in the UK, depending on where they are in the country (it may be considerably more than double, it is never less than comfortably above the average). Real wages are below their early 70s peak by about 14% right now. By my calculation that puts an average programmer in a considerably better position than most people would have been seeing even in the early 70s. We have luxurious jobs. That's not to say we don't earn it, just that any suggestion that we're not well off both relative to the average and relative to any point in history doesn't stack up.
- Nursie 13y ago
  Pay in the UK is awful for a lot of middle-earning jobs like ours. The US and Australia pay far more. I basically had to go contract when I got back here so that I could match the money.
  - Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
    Really? I live in Glasgow. Our sysadmin moved to Australia (Sydney) - close to tripled his salary but dropped his standard of living because of higher costs out there. I hear that a lot from people moving out there - great salaries, costs a fortune to live.
    - Nursie 13y ago
      That much is true - the cost of living is enormous. But the standard of living is pretty enormous too. Houses are pokey and weird over here after that...
yitchelle 13y ago
I am not sure if you are trolling or not. Maybe I have read your comment incorrectly. There are some people in this world that are working in their job because of circumstances beyond their control. Just look at the folks in North Korea or most parts of Africa. Those of us who have "luxurious" jobs did have a choice, those other folks don't.
- rjknight 13y ago
  I'm not trolling. I'm saying that software developer lifestyles only look good because of the terribly poor conditions many other people work in, both in developed economies and in more obviously poverty-stricken places. We're lucky not to be those people, but to me "luxury" implies either greed or wastefulness - that as software developers we're getting some kind of unreasonably good deal from the world. I don't think we are. I think more people should get the kind of deal that software developers do. Sure, in relative terms you can say that developers are lucky. But I'm not sure it makes much sense to say "you're lucky that you don't live in poverty", because we should consider modestly affluent lifestyles to be the norm and poverty to be the aberration that needs to be explained.
  - vonmoltke 13y ago
    > We're lucky not to be those people, but to me "luxury" implies either greed or wastefulness - that as software developers we're getting some kind of unreasonably good deal from the world. I don't agree with that definition of "luxury", and I think there are many others who also do not. Luxury is about comfort and choice, not greed and wastefulness.
    - rjknight 13y ago
      Google[1] reckons that "luxury" is: the state of great comfort and extravagant living. "he lived a life of luxury" synonyms: opulence, luxuriousness, sumptuousness, grandeur, magnificence, splendor, lavishness, the lap of luxury, a bed of roses, (the land of) milk and honey This says that luxury is about great comfort, something beyond the ordinary. The aristocrats of Downton Abbey live in luxury, the average software developer does not. [1]: https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=cr&ei=rmQPU_OnKaW_ygOph4GADQ#q=definition:+luxury https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=cr&ei=rmQPU_OnKaW_ygOph4GAD...
kohanz 13y ago
This is semantics. The point is, relatively speaking, our jobs offer good conditions to the average circumstances.
- badman_ting 13y ago
  True enough, but I don't think that should be the horizon. It's worth looking at the system in which we exist, and why the other jobs are so shitty. That goes way beyond semantics.
- rjknight 13y ago
  Yeah, you're right. But "luxurious" has connotations that go beyond "good conditions". It's not a luxury to be treated with dignity and respect, paid decently and allowed to make time for your family. That should be normal, and the real problem is that it isn't normal for enough people.
  - aidenn0 13y ago
    Splitting semantic hairs, but I would argue this is a luxury, and I'm not aware of any time in recorded history where it wasn't.
clusterfoo 13y ago
The fact that we have careers decent enough that we are not dehumanized on a daily basis or expected to work in depressing, unhealthy, sometimes dangerous conditions for just enough pay to scrape by should not be seen as luxury; it should be the norm. And considering the value developers bring to companies, and comparing our salaries to other positions, developers in general are underpaid. It's perfectly reasonable to demand more perks. But I guess this is why we have a lower class: to keep the worker bees on their toes. "See how good you have it? You could end up like one of them."
- FLUX-YOU 13y ago
  Everyone's underpaid because employers need to make a profit on you. If you bring a million in sales, and turn around and demand a million, then the company hasn't made anything. How much profit a company should be making on its developers is a different story. And really, not all developers are mentally taxed for 8 hours a day. Some might do routine tasks for 2 or hours and then browse HN for the remaining 6, or just go right home. The labor market for developers is no where near efficient in this regard. But really, if a high salary and benefits and perks aren't a luxury job, then what is a luxury job exactly?
ryanmarsh 13y ago
Maybe in the industrialized world. Your frame is too small. Zoom out a bit. Put the entire 7B of us in the picture. Now, do you have a luxurious job? The answer is yes.
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Touche 13y ago

This. We enrich "business guys" with connections to billion dollar exits while we ourselves make middle-class or slightly upper-middle class wages. Meanwhile anyone willing to take out the loans to put themselves through Dental school will eventually make more than we do and if they have the motivation to open up their own practice, much more than we do.

throwaway812 13y ago
I agree with the sentiment, but I think your facts are a bit off and reflect HN insularity. The median 33% household income ("middle class") in the US is $30,000 to $62,500 (household). Even if you are the sole earner in your household, it is still unlikely that you make less than $62,500. If you do make less than that, ask for a raise. If you don't make less than that, or your combined household income is more than that, you are a member of the upper class, and you should try and remember your privilege. (Hey, life's not so bad.)
- vonmoltke 13y ago
  That is not how "class" is defined. Social class is based on socioeconomic power, influence, and security. Generally, the upper class is the top 1% or 2% of incomes or net worths, and the lower/working class is far larger than the lower 33%. Additionally, tying class tightly to income is nonsense, because it ignores people with significant wealth but little income and ignores the different socioeconomic climates across the US.
- allochthon 13y ago
  By any reasonable definition, being well-off means being able to take out a mortgage on a house, afford occasional vacations to other parts of the world, invest in the stock market, support a family, put your kids through college, give to different charities, save for retirement, all in addition to helping family members in need, which one would do under any circumstances. A software developer might be able to do these things in California, but only barely, unless they have a very cushy arrangement or they've ridden an exit for a startup. Those at the median household income in the US (or anywhere else) are being shafted. The economy is broken.
  - ForHackernews 13y ago
    Hint: Don't live in California. There are plenty of well-paid software jobs in places like Boston, Chicago, Northern Virginia, Atlanta, Florida, Austin, etc. They might not have the glut of "hot" startups that Silicon Valley does, but they have much more reasonable cost of living.
    - Touche 13y ago
      What I was alluding to with my comment was that software developers create a tremendous amount of wealth while seeing little of it. That is as true outside SV as it is inside.
      - ForHackernews 13y ago
        True, and that's a fair point, but it's basically true of all employees anywhere in a capitalist economy. Even much-reviled Wall Street traders who receive million-dollar bonuses do so while bringing in many multiples of that in revenue for their firm.
        djb_hackernews 13y ago
        However you don't see the politicians or those traders employers banging the drum to dilute the trader pool with foreign workers on extremely employer friendly worker visas.
- vehementi 13y ago
  > The median 33% household income ("middle class") in the US is $30,000 to $62,500 (household). What does this even mean? Median 33%? Median is 50% How can it have a range? Are you saying the 33th percentile household income in the US ranges from 30k to 62.5k depending on the state?
  - jaimebuelta 13y ago
    This means that the 33% of Americans that are "in the middle" (between the 33% with less income and the 33% with most) are in the range of 30K to 62K (Or so. I understand the data)
    - aidenn0 13y ago
      That is definitely what the GP thread meant, but the terminology was wrong. They wanted "percentile" median specifically refers to the 50th percentile. You could also use "tertile" (e.g. "The second tertile has income between 30k and 65k) which refers specifically to spliting into thirds.
    - logfromblammo 13y ago
      $30k is the 1st tercile. $62k is the 2nd tercile. They are also the 2nd and 4th sextiles, on either side of the median, which is the 3rd sextile, and approximately the same as the 33rd and 66th percentiles, or the 333rd and 666th permille. Income is not a normal distribution, so the two numbers don't tell much of a story by themselves. Usually, the statistics are shown as quintiles, plus median, 95th percentile, and maybe also 99th percentile and 999th permille, depending on whether the statistics presenter wants the audience to gasp or not.
- afterburner 13y ago
  The median household income is $55,000, with a median of 1.5 earners at that level. So, it seems to me quite likely an earner makes less than $62,000. Also, the median personal income is about $30,000, although this includes everyone older than 15. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_S...
- khuey 13y ago
  Software engineers are concentrated in major metropolitan areas, often high cost ones (e.g. the SF bay area), so comparisons to the national median income are not necessarily accurate.
  - walshemj 13y ago
    You would need to compare it to other professions lawyers/medical doctors and other types of engineers - and I woudl bet that the median for those working in the tech industry's is lower than MD's and lawyers
    - eLobato 13y ago
      So is the average level of education of people working in the tech industry and the barriers of entry.
      - walshemj 13y ago
        A Ceng/PE has the same requirements as a MD or lawyer arguably more so in the case of lawyers - but a Ceng or PE will earn less than a MD or lawyer for the same level of experience And dont you need a First from a good university to stand a good chance of high paying job in SV?
- coolsunglasses 13y ago
  This is highly location dependent and programmers are often located in expensive cities. 100k in the bay area is just middle class, no upper qualification. Very unlikely to afford a home within 25 minutes of work unless they're in the south bay. You need 200k total household income before a mortgage on a $1.3mm house (starter home cost in most neighborhoods) is realistic. There is a 10x difference in the cost of a home in SF and Austin (where I just moved to from SF) and a 20x difference between SF and where my father lives in Ohio. There is not a 20x difference in income between developers and the 30-60k US median. The medianites live out in the sticks where their mortgage is $150-600 a month.
  - refurb 13y ago
    $1.3MM will get you a VERY nice home in some of the more exclusive neighborhoods in SF (Noe Valley). Only in SF do you have people complaining that they are "middle class" because they can't afford a single family home (already a luxury in major US cities) in a ritzy neighborhood and have to suffer through a >25 min commute. Houses in SF on the edge of the ritzy neighborhoods cost $700k. But that's not living the american dream right
    - coolsunglasses 13y ago
      $700k is still freakin' crazy.
- crpatino 13y ago
  Sorry, but splitting "classes" in thirds is just ridiculous. The way the economy works is by concentrating wealth, so any class definition based on clustering according to income/net-worth cannot be linear. A logarithmic scale would make much more sense, by example: Poor:= 0-50%, Middle class:= 51%-75%, Upper class:=76-100%??? This model is extremely rough and inaccurate, but is a step in the right direction. The main problem it has is to assume that there has to be only 3 classes, which is arbitrary and does not describe the actual lives of real people. A second, related defect is that it does not recognize the existence of a small group of very vulnerable people below the "working poor". For these reasons, I think it is best to model this clustering classification using a log-normal distribution, with at least five classes (Underclass < Working poor < Middle class < Upper-middle class < Upper class). Still, the "upper class" category lumps together the merely wealthy (smallish business owners, the most successful professionals) with the extremely rich, and all possibilities in-between.
  - ahomescu1 13y ago
    > Still, the "upper class" category lumps together the merely wealthy (smallish business owners, the most successful professionals) with the extremely rich, and all possibilities in-between. It also lumps in the high-income earners with the high-net worth people (the ones everyone thinks of when they say "rich").
    - crpatino 13y ago
      agreed, you can only do so much when modeling a complex system with a single variable distribution.
- aidenn0 13y ago
  You arbitrarily picked the midle tertile. There is a much bigger difference in lifestyle between the 33rd and 67th percentile or the 90th percentile and the 99th percentile than there is between the 67th percentile and the 90th percentile. I would argue that wealth is a better measure of class than income anyway. There is an inflection point on the wealth curve, which (when you cross it) all you need to is not screw up really badly, and you will be wealthy for the rest of your life.
  - arg01 13y ago
    Yep, at about 2 million dollars you could go to a small friendly town buy a house there and have an income close to the median (and have your assets track with inflation) assuming you can get a 5-6% return on investment, not at all unachievable on 'safe' long term investments. This is all without doing a single hour of work after hitting that point.
- auctiontheory 13y ago
  Despite the name, "middle class" does not mean "around median income." This is more apparent in countries like India and Brazil, but it's increasingly true in the US. "Upper class" definitely does not mean "top third by income." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_class http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_class
andykmaguire 13y ago
Many (or most) of the great technology companies have technical founders that benefit tremendously from a successful exist. Equating "business guys" with "the man" who get all the benefit and engineers as the poor labor is misguided and ignores basic facts. Every technology startup that blows up have people with engineering backgrounds in positions of senior management. Across levels of seniority, engineers often make as much or more money as their non-technical counterparts. If you want to stay at the individual contributor level as an engineer that is, of course, totally fine, but you should compare yourself to other IC's in the organization without technical skills. I think you will find yourself to be very well positioned financially.
- Touche 13y ago
  Engineers who work for technology companies are in the extreme minority. The average engineer works for a non-technology company doing work that management views as an expense, not a revenue generator, coding up features that sales people who make twice as much as them promised to a client months ago.
gohrt 13y ago
You think dentistry is a luxury? Half the time is chasing down nonpying clients, the other half is doing disgusting physical labor.
- Crito 13y ago
  I think that a dentist spending half of his time doing collections probably needs to learn how to contract things out.
- rschmitty 13y ago
  You think _Dentists_ chase down non paying clients? Ha ha! Non-payers are part of their expected business, maybe someone fresh out of school who never talked to another practicing dentist might get surprised by this. They hire people to chase down non paying clients and they still turn a hefty profit. Yes, dentistry is a luxury
cwaniak 13y ago
97% of people want to work. Like to code. That's what they want to do. And they expect the other 3% to organize these jobs for them. Because they don't know/can't/aren't interested in organizing these jobs on their own. It really boils down to: do you want to be a craftsman or wealthy man. Because if you want to be in the 3% organizing jobs for others, you won't have any time to do coding. It's very easy to end up in the mental trap of: "I just want to code" expecting to see the prize for all the hard work. But the prize always goes to the job "organizer" or creator and not to the one doing it. Never forget that.
- cmiles74 13y ago
  And without the 97% of people doing the actual work, the "organizer" wouldn't have a job either. Sure, presently management is making a grossly disproportionate amount of the profit but that doesn't make it right. This lack of balance is one of the looming economic crises facing the US. Your blithe comment implies that this is reasonable, I strongly disagree.
  - gaius 13y ago
    It's about making the trade with your eyes open. I am a "just wants to code" type, which is fine, because in the organization we have guys who just want to sell, and guys who just want to make presentations, and guys (presumably) who just want to do the squillion other tasks that make a large organization tick over. I don't feel exploited at all.
  - cwaniak 13y ago
    Please keep in mind that any of the 97% could be a job organizer too. It's a choice. I strongly disagree with children dying of cancer. But that's just the way this world works. People have this thing in their psyche were they want a "parent" to provide them money, shelter, security in exchange for their obedience (disguised as "work"). Getting rid of this childish mentality is good for you.
    - cmiles74 13y ago
      I believe that your cancer analogy is weak, in this instance. It may not have been your intent to be insulting, but I find it challenging to read your response without feeling insulted. Casting my response as "childish" strikes me as unreasonable, as well as linking me with the people "who have this thing in their psyche". These are not issues I have. In any case, we're not talking about something irrefutable, like a law of physics. Income inequality has been on the rise in the US since the 70's and is, possibly, one of the causes contributing to the shrinking of the middle class.[0] I am not advocating that anyone gets anything for free, rather that the majority of the employed receive equitable pay. The current distribution, were a nearly obscene amount is squeezed towards the top of the organization, is unsustainable and, I would argue, unhealthy for the economy. Again, to reiterate, I am not arguing that the managers should no longer be paid or that they should make less than those they manage. I'm simply pointing out that, at present, the top tiers of management are making far too much and this effects the income of everyone further down the ladder. [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United...

Tyrannosaurs 13y ago

An experienced software developer earns perhaps double the national average wage in the UK, depending on where they are in the country (it may be considerably more than double, it is never less than comfortably above the average). Real wages are below their early 70s peak by about 14% right now. By my calculation that puts an average programmer in a considerably better position than most people would have been seeing even in the early 70s. We have luxurious jobs. That's not to say we don't earn it, just that any suggestion that we're not well off both relative to the average and relative to any point in history doesn't stack up.

Nursie 13y ago
Pay in the UK is awful for a lot of middle-earning jobs like ours. The US and Australia pay far more. I basically had to go contract when I got back here so that I could match the money.
- Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
  Really? I live in Glasgow. Our sysadmin moved to Australia (Sydney) - close to tripled his salary but dropped his standard of living because of higher costs out there. I hear that a lot from people moving out there - great salaries, costs a fortune to live.
  - Nursie 13y ago
    That much is true - the cost of living is enormous. But the standard of living is pretty enormous too. Houses are pokey and weird over here after that...

yitchelle 13y ago

I am not sure if you are trolling or not. Maybe I have read your comment incorrectly. There are some people in this world that are working in their job because of circumstances beyond their control. Just look at the folks in North Korea or most parts of Africa. Those of us who have "luxurious" jobs did have a choice, those other folks don't.

rjknight 13y ago
I'm not trolling. I'm saying that software developer lifestyles only look good because of the terribly poor conditions many other people work in, both in developed economies and in more obviously poverty-stricken places. We're lucky not to be those people, but to me "luxury" implies either greed or wastefulness - that as software developers we're getting some kind of unreasonably good deal from the world. I don't think we are. I think more people should get the kind of deal that software developers do. Sure, in relative terms you can say that developers are lucky. But I'm not sure it makes much sense to say "you're lucky that you don't live in poverty", because we should consider modestly affluent lifestyles to be the norm and poverty to be the aberration that needs to be explained.
- vonmoltke 13y ago
  > We're lucky not to be those people, but to me "luxury" implies either greed or wastefulness - that as software developers we're getting some kind of unreasonably good deal from the world. I don't agree with that definition of "luxury", and I think there are many others who also do not. Luxury is about comfort and choice, not greed and wastefulness.
  - rjknight 13y ago
    Google[1] reckons that "luxury" is: the state of great comfort and extravagant living. "he lived a life of luxury" synonyms: opulence, luxuriousness, sumptuousness, grandeur, magnificence, splendor, lavishness, the lap of luxury, a bed of roses, (the land of) milk and honey This says that luxury is about great comfort, something beyond the ordinary. The aristocrats of Downton Abbey live in luxury, the average software developer does not. [1]: https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=cr&ei=rmQPU_OnKaW_ygOph4GADQ#q=definition:+luxury https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=cr&ei=rmQPU_OnKaW_ygOph4GAD...

kohanz 13y ago

This is semantics. The point is, relatively speaking, our jobs offer good conditions to the average circumstances.

badman_ting 13y ago
True enough, but I don't think that should be the horizon. It's worth looking at the system in which we exist, and why the other jobs are so shitty. That goes way beyond semantics.
rjknight 13y ago
Yeah, you're right. But "luxurious" has connotations that go beyond "good conditions". It's not a luxury to be treated with dignity and respect, paid decently and allowed to make time for your family. That should be normal, and the real problem is that it isn't normal for enough people.
- aidenn0 13y ago
  Splitting semantic hairs, but I would argue this is a luxury, and I'm not aware of any time in recorded history where it wasn't.

clusterfoo 13y ago

The fact that we have careers decent enough that we are not dehumanized on a daily basis or expected to work in depressing, unhealthy, sometimes dangerous conditions for just enough pay to scrape by should not be seen as luxury; it should be the norm. And considering the value developers bring to companies, and comparing our salaries to other positions, developers in general are underpaid. It's perfectly reasonable to demand more perks. But I guess this is why we have a lower class: to keep the worker bees on their toes. "See how good you have it? You could end up like one of them."

FLUX-YOU 13y ago
Everyone's underpaid because employers need to make a profit on you. If you bring a million in sales, and turn around and demand a million, then the company hasn't made anything. How much profit a company should be making on its developers is a different story. And really, not all developers are mentally taxed for 8 hours a day. Some might do routine tasks for 2 or hours and then browse HN for the remaining 6, or just go right home. The labor market for developers is no where near efficient in this regard. But really, if a high salary and benefits and perks aren't a luxury job, then what is a luxury job exactly?

ryanmarsh 13y ago

Maybe in the industrialized world. Your frame is too small. Zoom out a bit. Put the entire 7B of us in the picture. Now, do you have a luxurious job? The answer is yes.

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