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OP, if you're reading: I understand that you want a humorous tone, but could you please fix this? You're in an industry reaping disproportionate benefit from l

OP, if you're reading: I understand that you want a humorous tone, but could you please fix this? You're in an industry reaping disproportionate benefit from loose money policies, leading to a trend-chasing culture of overpaid nerds making web apps. You feel guilty about this, but there is nothing you can do about it because you have no other talents that a rational person would pay you for. The misperception that we're "overpaid" is a dangerous one. It's one that we have to fight. We're not overpaid. If anything, most of us are underpaid, considering that nontechnical VPs working 11-to-3 make 3 times as much as we do, and that people who inherit the family connections to become founders often get 100 times as much equity. I don't think we're catastrophically underpaid. I think we're much less underpaid and abused than the rest of the Former Middle class. I'm sure that this was an attempt at humor, and it's easy to consider ourselves "overpaid" when we consider the frivolity that's common in our industry right now, but maybe underutilized is a better word. This idea that programmers are overpaid right now is one that we have to fight with everything that we've got, because that's what the Bad Guys want us (and everyone, but especially the government, so they can abuse the H1-B program) to think and it's not true.

oldmanjay 12y ago
Out of curiosity, do you feel like bringing in some class animosity (your strawman VP) makes your point more obviously correct or more obviously self-serving?
- michaelochurch 12y ago
  More correct. It really bugs me that software engineers claim that they're "overpaid" at $120k. Now, $120k isn't poor by any stretch of the imagination, not even in New York or San Francisco. For a talented entry-level programmer, it's about fair. We're not exactly Mr. Moneybags, though. We work a lot harder than most people in technology, and while some of us get a decent payout (those who are decent negotiators) there are many who are terrible at representing their interests, and they bring the whole market down. We have a tendency to negotiate against ourselves and it hurts us. Right now, we're still able to get fair-ish salaries in a booming market, but we (as a tribe) get so little in terms of equity, cultural control, autonomy, and general respect, compared to what we could. Many programmers still have to deal with "user stories" and "Scrum tickets" when they have 5+ years of experience! That's fucking nuts. This is supposed to be an R&D job in which we advance the state of human knowledge, technology, automation and processes. That doesn't just hurt us. It hurts society because a bunch of self-promoting charlatans come in, get those VC bucks, and make Snapchats and Clinkles when we could be doing so much more.
  - reitzensteinm 12y ago
    Sometimes when my current project isn't doing well I have dark days where I explore my backup plan. Thinking about which niche to master and what content marketing to do to pull in $200 an hour, kicking myself for missed opportunities, wishing I'd done things differently so I wouldn't be faced with such an unsavoury prospect as working for someone else... And then I pinch myself. Because you know what? We have it fucking easy. Other people do real work for a living and make a tenth as much as the potential of most here, and that's just in the same country. You can't have it both ways. We are overpaid by the same free market that you do hastily criticise, for exactly the same reason our managers and VCs are. You want to complain about them? Then complain about us. We aren't special snowflakes fighting for truth and honour, we are tradesmen settling our services for as much cash as we can get away with. And business is booming. I like your posts, mainly because nobody else here is really supplying the same viewport, but your tendency to rationalise away an us and them attitude is a bit disturbing to me, like you're arguing from self interest rather than consistent philosophy.
    - kyllo 12y ago
      "We aren't special snowflakes fighting for truth and honour, we are tradesmen settling our services for as much cash as we can get away with" That seems to align pretty closely with what michaelochurch is saying--except he's saying that we're settling for less than we could get away with. The thrust of his argument is that we shouldn't sell ourselves short. We should stand up for ourselves, recognize the value our work creates, and negotiate accordingly for a bigger share of the rewards. He's pointing out a cultural problem with software developers, who accept lower pay and poorer working conditions than we otherwise would because we are "passionate" about our work and lack the social skills and confidence to stick up for our own best interests. Calling ourselves "overpaid nerds" (even jokingly) doesn't align with that goal at all.
      - nostrademons 12y ago
        There are programmers that negotiate exactly for the value that their work creates. They own their own business, or they're contractors (which basically amounts to owning your own business). Pick the right industry, have decent communication skills and a track record of delivering projects on time, and you can easily make a half mil a year or so. When you take an employee position for a quarter of that, a large portion of what you're doing is reapportioning risk. Your employer gets to keep all the surplus value of the work you do - and in exchange, they bear all the risk if the product fails entirely, as many software projects do.
outworlder 12y ago
"overpaid nerds making web apps" Facebook reference?
- no_wave 12y ago
  Just more of the tired "low-level programming is REAL programming" shit.

oldmanjay 12y ago

Out of curiosity, do you feel like bringing in some class animosity (your strawman VP) makes your point more obviously correct or more obviously self-serving?

michaelochurch 12y ago
More correct. It really bugs me that software engineers claim that they're "overpaid" at $120k. Now, $120k isn't poor by any stretch of the imagination, not even in New York or San Francisco. For a talented entry-level programmer, it's about fair. We're not exactly Mr. Moneybags, though. We work a lot harder than most people in technology, and while some of us get a decent payout (those who are decent negotiators) there are many who are terrible at representing their interests, and they bring the whole market down. We have a tendency to negotiate against ourselves and it hurts us. Right now, we're still able to get fair-ish salaries in a booming market, but we (as a tribe) get so little in terms of equity, cultural control, autonomy, and general respect, compared to what we could. Many programmers still have to deal with "user stories" and "Scrum tickets" when they have 5+ years of experience! That's fucking nuts. This is supposed to be an R&D job in which we advance the state of human knowledge, technology, automation and processes. That doesn't just hurt us. It hurts society because a bunch of self-promoting charlatans come in, get those VC bucks, and make Snapchats and Clinkles when we could be doing so much more.
- reitzensteinm 12y ago
  Sometimes when my current project isn't doing well I have dark days where I explore my backup plan. Thinking about which niche to master and what content marketing to do to pull in $200 an hour, kicking myself for missed opportunities, wishing I'd done things differently so I wouldn't be faced with such an unsavoury prospect as working for someone else... And then I pinch myself. Because you know what? We have it fucking easy. Other people do real work for a living and make a tenth as much as the potential of most here, and that's just in the same country. You can't have it both ways. We are overpaid by the same free market that you do hastily criticise, for exactly the same reason our managers and VCs are. You want to complain about them? Then complain about us. We aren't special snowflakes fighting for truth and honour, we are tradesmen settling our services for as much cash as we can get away with. And business is booming. I like your posts, mainly because nobody else here is really supplying the same viewport, but your tendency to rationalise away an us and them attitude is a bit disturbing to me, like you're arguing from self interest rather than consistent philosophy.
  - kyllo 12y ago
    "We aren't special snowflakes fighting for truth and honour, we are tradesmen settling our services for as much cash as we can get away with" That seems to align pretty closely with what michaelochurch is saying--except he's saying that we're settling for less than we could get away with. The thrust of his argument is that we shouldn't sell ourselves short. We should stand up for ourselves, recognize the value our work creates, and negotiate accordingly for a bigger share of the rewards. He's pointing out a cultural problem with software developers, who accept lower pay and poorer working conditions than we otherwise would because we are "passionate" about our work and lack the social skills and confidence to stick up for our own best interests. Calling ourselves "overpaid nerds" (even jokingly) doesn't align with that goal at all.
    - nostrademons 12y ago
      There are programmers that negotiate exactly for the value that their work creates. They own their own business, or they're contractors (which basically amounts to owning your own business). Pick the right industry, have decent communication skills and a track record of delivering projects on time, and you can easily make a half mil a year or so. When you take an employee position for a quarter of that, a large portion of what you're doing is reapportioning risk. Your employer gets to keep all the surplus value of the work you do - and in exchange, they bear all the risk if the product fails entirely, as many software projects do.

outworlder 12y ago

"overpaid nerds making web apps" Facebook reference?

no_wave 12y ago
Just more of the tired "low-level programming is REAL programming" shit.