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>Given the pay that coders typically make I don't think it's unreasonable that we are exempt from overtime pay This is a very dangerous argument to make. It's

>Given the pay that coders typically make I don't think it's unreasonable that we are exempt from overtime pay This is a very dangerous argument to make. It's the same sort of argument that makes people turn a blind eye to the wage-collusion class action. Just because we're slightly better paid than average doesn't mean labor protections don't apply to us.

mauricemir 11y ago
It depends I know people would would be highly insulted if you called them hourly paid. Having "no fixed hours of work" is a social class signifier in many cultures. But you are right some one getting paid 250k is still a worker and does have "labor" issues just as some one on 25k does. Obviously issues may present in different ways for high and low paid workers
- greenyoda 11y ago
  "I know people would would be highly insulted if you called them hourly paid." On the other hand, there are also high-status professionals, like lawyers, who bill by the hour. I think one advantage of being paid for every hour of work you do is that whoever is paying you is going to be less likely to burn overtime hours on meaningless things. For example, that arbitrary end-of-month deadline you're working on doesn't look nearly as urgent to the business if they need to pay for the night and weekend hours required to meet it. If the company knows that each of your hours is valuable, they might even treat you with more respect.
  - mauricemir 11y ago
    Well not sure that self employed lawyers are germane to the discussion. There is also a LOT of sharp practice in legal billing
Fr0styMatt8 11y ago
It gets more complicated when you ask the question "How much money is the software engineer making for the company vs. what the company pays them?" For argument's sake, let's say you're paid $80K per year. On the one hand, you may think that is high (it always depends what your frame of reference is). If the code you produce directly makes the company millions of dollars though, does that change your assessment of the 'reasonableness' of that salary? This is the argument I've heard as to why sports stars get paid so much (because you have to look at what they get paid vs the amount of money they're making for the comapnies paying them). It's a real can of worms.
- mariojv 11y ago
  I see the value in your point, and I generally agree with it. However, in this hypothetical situation, I think you'd largely be ignoring the hypothetical product manager, any marketing involve, servers involved, code written before the software engineer that payed enough for the development (R&D?) time, etc. Also, the company probably wouldn't want to pay that person unless the value that person produces is higher than their wage. That being said, as a software developer I wouldn't argue with a more "reasonable" wage. :o)
  - Retric 11y ago
    Google has 1 million in revenue per employee. They could pay everyone 500,000$ / year and still be extremely profitable. Edit: 1,259,520$ (March 31, 2015) http://csimarket.com/stocks/singleEfficiencyet.php?code=GOOG http://csimarket.com/stocks/singleEfficiencyet.php?code=GOOG In 2014 Apple had a pretax income of 53.48B and 92,000 employees. It could give them all a 200,000$ / year pay bump and still make 35Billion in profits. PS: Not that any company thinks this way, but it's not hard to argue that top programmers are underpayed.
    - jonas21 11y ago
      But companies have expenses other than payroll. Google has to buy machines, run datacenters, pay partners, etc. If you look at income per employee, it takes all of this into account. For Google, this is $270K: http://csimarket.com/stocks/singleEfficiencyeit.php?code=GOOG http://csimarket.com/stocks/singleEfficiencyeit.php?code=GOO... So they could presumably pay everyone $250K more than they do now and still be marginally profitable.
    - MichaelCrawford 11y ago
      Contract programmers. I was one in 1989. So were many of my coworkers. Someone told me that Apple employed so many contractors so that it could inflate the ratio of revenue to employees. Hiring more contractors doesn't make a company any more money but it does help inflate the stock price in a purely artificial way.
  - 11y ago
longlivegnu 11y ago
Also not all coders are well paid :(

mauricemir 11y ago

It depends I know people would would be highly insulted if you called them hourly paid. Having "no fixed hours of work" is a social class signifier in many cultures. But you are right some one getting paid 250k is still a worker and does have "labor" issues just as some one on 25k does. Obviously issues may present in different ways for high and low paid workers

greenyoda 11y ago
"I know people would would be highly insulted if you called them hourly paid." On the other hand, there are also high-status professionals, like lawyers, who bill by the hour. I think one advantage of being paid for every hour of work you do is that whoever is paying you is going to be less likely to burn overtime hours on meaningless things. For example, that arbitrary end-of-month deadline you're working on doesn't look nearly as urgent to the business if they need to pay for the night and weekend hours required to meet it. If the company knows that each of your hours is valuable, they might even treat you with more respect.
- mauricemir 11y ago
  Well not sure that self employed lawyers are germane to the discussion. There is also a LOT of sharp practice in legal billing

Fr0styMatt8 11y ago

It gets more complicated when you ask the question "How much money is the software engineer making for the company vs. what the company pays them?" For argument's sake, let's say you're paid $80K per year. On the one hand, you may think that is high (it always depends what your frame of reference is). If the code you produce directly makes the company millions of dollars though, does that change your assessment of the 'reasonableness' of that salary? This is the argument I've heard as to why sports stars get paid so much (because you have to look at what they get paid vs the amount of money they're making for the comapnies paying them). It's a real can of worms.

mariojv 11y ago
I see the value in your point, and I generally agree with it. However, in this hypothetical situation, I think you'd largely be ignoring the hypothetical product manager, any marketing involve, servers involved, code written before the software engineer that payed enough for the development (R&D?) time, etc. Also, the company probably wouldn't want to pay that person unless the value that person produces is higher than their wage. That being said, as a software developer I wouldn't argue with a more "reasonable" wage. :o)
- Retric 11y ago
  Google has 1 million in revenue per employee. They could pay everyone 500,000$ / year and still be extremely profitable. Edit: 1,259,520$ (March 31, 2015) http://csimarket.com/stocks/singleEfficiencyet.php?code=GOOG http://csimarket.com/stocks/singleEfficiencyet.php?code=GOOG In 2014 Apple had a pretax income of 53.48B and 92,000 employees. It could give them all a 200,000$ / year pay bump and still make 35Billion in profits. PS: Not that any company thinks this way, but it's not hard to argue that top programmers are underpayed.
  - jonas21 11y ago
    But companies have expenses other than payroll. Google has to buy machines, run datacenters, pay partners, etc. If you look at income per employee, it takes all of this into account. For Google, this is $270K: http://csimarket.com/stocks/singleEfficiencyeit.php?code=GOOG http://csimarket.com/stocks/singleEfficiencyeit.php?code=GOO... So they could presumably pay everyone $250K more than they do now and still be marginally profitable.
  - MichaelCrawford 11y ago
    Contract programmers. I was one in 1989. So were many of my coworkers. Someone told me that Apple employed so many contractors so that it could inflate the ratio of revenue to employees. Hiring more contractors doesn't make a company any more money but it does help inflate the stock price in a purely artificial way.
- 11y ago

longlivegnu 11y ago

Also not all coders are well paid :(