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What the blog post is saying is essentially saying is that pg is crying about a broken market, when in fact the market is working perfectly, ie. people who coul
by steven2012 12y ago
What the blog post is saying is essentially saying is that pg is crying about a broken market, when in fact the market is working perfectly, ie. people who could be great programmers would rather go to other higher paying professions because programmers' salaries don't pay as well. The OP basically says the CEO of the startup could get 30 great programmers if he just raised his salaries and benefits higher, which is what the market is telling him. For example, if that CEO paid his programmers $1M/yr, you don't think he would get 100 of the best programmers in the entire world? What he really is saying is that he wants great programmers at a lower cost, and that's basically what increasing immigration would do by increasing the supply.
I personally have no problems with increasing immigration via H1B, but the OP makes an interesting point about economic incentives that push people to occupations. There are a lot of very smart people who would make great programmers that are going into finance, medicine, law, etc, because of higher prestige and better pay. Increasing immigration will increase the number of programmers, but if it is increased to the point where it affects wages, then people who would be great programmers would likely go to other professions rather than having to compete against immigrants for a comparatively lower wage, so it might be self-defeating in the long run.
- humanrebar 12y agoAgreed. What's more is that deflating the cost of programmers makes it less sensible to make programming teams more efficient. If programmers were paid like doctors, you would start to see the tech equivalent of nurses, lab technicians, orderlies, and physicians' assistants. In other words, if you were paying your best programmers $1M/yr, you would hire more personal assistants. And maybe there would be more demand for people who are (or can become) fluent in technology lingo, even if they can't write code themselves.
- dragonwriter 12y ago> If programmers were paid like doctors, you would start to see the tech equivalent of nurses, lab technicians, orderlies, and physicians' assistants. What do you think business analysts, testers, non-developer IT specialists, etc., are?
- humanrebar 12y agoRight, but programmers aren't organized like hospital staff, which is my point. And, probably related, test engineer doesn't have the same cachet (or prominent degree programs) that x-ray technician or nurse practitioner has. Maybe some of this is because they don't make TV shows about programming. But it could also be at least partially about seeing programmers as commodities and cost centers (I need 3 senior Java engineers!) instead of seeing them as effectively the core of your business. So, I guess I have two suspicions about increasing programmer wages, at least for certain categories of problems: 1. It will incentivize laypeople to learn about how software development works, making technology business analyst seem less like mumbo jumbo and more like a good way to earn a living. 2. It will incentivize organizations to restructure their processes to maximize the productivity of their highest paid employees. This will create more opportunities for the peole described in point 1.
- UK-AL 12y agoThis is me. I am considering switching from programming to other professions because I could reach higher pay a lot faster. The plus side is that I get to do programming projects I find interesting(machine learning for me) in my spare time. While avoiding the tedious programming. Best of both worlds.