5 ms·

What kind of jobs do the software engineers who earn $500K a year do?

43 points by nreece 11y ago

dsmithatx 11y ago
Application Error An error occurred in the application and your page could not be served. Please try again in a few moments. If you are the application owner, check your logs for details. I hope they aren't earning 500k to host this website.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
ghshephard 11y ago
And, given that the median software engineering in Silicon Valley seems to be around $140K (+/- $10K) - are the high performance 10x engineers compensated accordingly? (I think the answer is to the second question is "Yes", but you need to go work for a startup and use those 10x skills to make it successful, so that you can get your 10x compensation in the form of equity)
- joe_the_user 11y ago
  Well, The argument of the article, as far as I can follow it, seems to be people making 500k/year are essentially entrepreneurs/inventors - they are paid for the possibility/probability that they will invent something for the company rather than for a steady stream of assigned tasks. That seems different than the legendary "x10" programmer who theoretically just does the same task ten times as fast as the "ordinary programmer".
  - collyw 11y ago
    As someone who considers himself "a few times better" programmer than I was a few years ago, I wouldn't say that the 10x thing is down to raw programming speed. More that I think through the problem better, and come up with a more elegant solution that will require less debugging and maintenance.
- frostmatthew 11y ago
  > so that you can get your 10x compensation in the form of equity You're saying the average salary is $140K and "10x engineers" are compensated accordingly via equity - that would be $1.4M! Many startups fail, and even if they're successful that doesn't automatically mean the equity is ever worth anything - and when it is worth something it's usually been greatly diluted by the time an exit rolls around. If you're lucky enough to be an early employee at the next Google or Facebook sure you can hit a seven figure payout - but for the vast majority they'll never seen 10x (or even 2x) compensation. And value of equity tends to have a lot more to do with getting in early rather than skill. The equity of a very early hire is almost always going to be substantially more than much later hires.
djtriptych 11y ago
Text-only Google cache is readable despite a few missing images. only thing I could get to load. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:N3H4fWzF6yMJ:www.aminariana.com/essays/million-dollar-handcuffs&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:N3H4fWz...
mml 11y ago
My father once told me to do what no one else wants to. Good advice.
- dasil003 11y ago
  Intersect that with what desperately needs doing and I think you're onto something.
- hindsightbias 11y ago
  And surprisingly, it isn't hard to find things people don't want to do or are too intimidated to do. That doesn't mean managers will realize that value. They will, when you're gone.
- phamilton 11y ago
  Often once you do what nobody wants to do, those who declined the opportunity themselves have incentives to downplay the work you did and/or discredit you. Quite frustrating.
  - meric 11y ago
    When the incentives change, do something else.
- digitalzombie 11y ago
  Cobol?
- gaius 11y ago
  In the 80s and most of the 90s, that was computing, everyone who did it was scorned as a nerd. But when it became a success - when we made it a success - now everyone wants a slice of the pie.
  - collyw 11y ago
    It was Steve Jobs who made it a success. No one is writing a book or film about you.
jonathanwallace 11y ago
Or go read the quora answer that instigated the article as it contains the images: http://www.quora.com/What-kind-of-jobs-do-software-engineers-who-earn-500k-per-year-do http://www.quora.com/What-kind-of-jobs-do-software-engineers....
- falcolas 11y ago
  Thanks for the link. This article annoys me... for every "Type 2" engineer who completes the stream to the village and gets rewarded handsomely, there are dozens or hundreds of other "Type 2" engineers who found that they needed to eat, and went back to carrying buckets. Becoming a successful "Type 2" as outlined by this article requires having the resources beforehand to complete such a stream. Enough money to buy food when there is no income for their work, enough support from peers to encourage their vision, and the ability (which again usually comes back to money) to convince the farmers whose fields he is digging through that this will be to their advantage. The fact is that not everyone can be a "Type 2" - and typically not because of some lack in mental facilities or effort. Those who make it as "Type 2" are usually lucky: having been born into a situation where they don't have to make a regular income just to survive. What's unfortunate is so many "Type 2" folks don't understand that, so they inherently believe that "Type 1" folks are just too lazy (or dumb) to take the chances which could obviously land them in the "Type 2" category. /rant
dang 11y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9523128 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9523128
onion2k 11y ago
If that's earned as a salary then the answer is usually going to be managing a team of developers. Very few high earning developers get that much for actually writing code.

43 points by nreece 11y ago

Application Error An error occurred in the application and your page could not be served. Please try again in a few moments. If you are the application owner, check your logs for details. I hope they aren't earning 500k to host this website.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

ghshephard 11y ago

And, given that the median software engineering in Silicon Valley seems to be around $140K (+/- $10K) - are the high performance 10x engineers compensated accordingly? (I think the answer is to the second question is "Yes", but you need to go work for a startup and use those 10x skills to make it successful, so that you can get your 10x compensation in the form of equity)

joe_the_user 11y ago
Well, The argument of the article, as far as I can follow it, seems to be people making 500k/year are essentially entrepreneurs/inventors - they are paid for the possibility/probability that they will invent something for the company rather than for a steady stream of assigned tasks. That seems different than the legendary "x10" programmer who theoretically just does the same task ten times as fast as the "ordinary programmer".
- collyw 11y ago
  As someone who considers himself "a few times better" programmer than I was a few years ago, I wouldn't say that the 10x thing is down to raw programming speed. More that I think through the problem better, and come up with a more elegant solution that will require less debugging and maintenance.
frostmatthew 11y ago
> so that you can get your 10x compensation in the form of equity You're saying the average salary is $140K and "10x engineers" are compensated accordingly via equity - that would be $1.4M! Many startups fail, and even if they're successful that doesn't automatically mean the equity is ever worth anything - and when it is worth something it's usually been greatly diluted by the time an exit rolls around. If you're lucky enough to be an early employee at the next Google or Facebook sure you can hit a seven figure payout - but for the vast majority they'll never seen 10x (or even 2x) compensation. And value of equity tends to have a lot more to do with getting in early rather than skill. The equity of a very early hire is almost always going to be substantially more than much later hires.

djtriptych 11y ago

Text-only Google cache is readable despite a few missing images. only thing I could get to load. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:N3H4fWzF6yMJ:www.aminariana.com/essays/million-dollar-handcuffs&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:N3H4fWz...

mml 11y ago

My father once told me to do what no one else wants to. Good advice.

dasil003 11y ago
Intersect that with what desperately needs doing and I think you're onto something.
hindsightbias 11y ago
And surprisingly, it isn't hard to find things people don't want to do or are too intimidated to do. That doesn't mean managers will realize that value. They will, when you're gone.
phamilton 11y ago
Often once you do what nobody wants to do, those who declined the opportunity themselves have incentives to downplay the work you did and/or discredit you. Quite frustrating.
- meric 11y ago
  When the incentives change, do something else.
digitalzombie 11y ago
Cobol?
gaius 11y ago
In the 80s and most of the 90s, that was computing, everyone who did it was scorned as a nerd. But when it became a success - when we made it a success - now everyone wants a slice of the pie.
- collyw 11y ago
  It was Steve Jobs who made it a success. No one is writing a book or film about you.

jonathanwallace 11y ago

Or go read the quora answer that instigated the article as it contains the images: http://www.quora.com/What-kind-of-jobs-do-software-engineers-who-earn-500k-per-year-do http://www.quora.com/What-kind-of-jobs-do-software-engineers....

falcolas 11y ago
Thanks for the link. This article annoys me... for every "Type 2" engineer who completes the stream to the village and gets rewarded handsomely, there are dozens or hundreds of other "Type 2" engineers who found that they needed to eat, and went back to carrying buckets. Becoming a successful "Type 2" as outlined by this article requires having the resources beforehand to complete such a stream. Enough money to buy food when there is no income for their work, enough support from peers to encourage their vision, and the ability (which again usually comes back to money) to convince the farmers whose fields he is digging through that this will be to their advantage. The fact is that not everyone can be a "Type 2" - and typically not because of some lack in mental facilities or effort. Those who make it as "Type 2" are usually lucky: having been born into a situation where they don't have to make a regular income just to survive. What's unfortunate is so many "Type 2" folks don't understand that, so they inherently believe that "Type 1" folks are just too lazy (or dumb) to take the chances which could obviously land them in the "Type 2" category. /rant

dang 11y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9523128 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9523128

onion2k 11y ago

If that's earned as a salary then the answer is usually going to be managing a team of developers. Very few high earning developers get that much for actually writing code.