3 ms·

Why does money motivation reduce your chances? I don't think being exceptional is enough, there are several open source projects created and maintained by excep

by sosuke 11y ago

Why does money motivation reduce your chances? I don't think being exceptional is enough, there are several open source projects created and maintained by exceptional devs, but they don't make >600k/year. Being exceptional working at anything but the right company won't make you money. Why do you thing "dev big corps" are better? What does that mean to you? I think of Microsoft, Google, IBM, Apple, but even after you get in there moving up to exceptional in a room of exceptional people is even a more meteoric task.

caminante 11y ago
Maybe it's late, but I thought he answered your Q1 and Q2.
- sosuke 11y ago
  It is late, I can't think super clear either, but I just read that he says money should not be the focus, but doesn't address why that is an issue. As to why big dev corps are better he didn't give any reasons for his belief, no examples. Person y makes $1 million a year at company x, but they aquihired their startup to get there. If I started at big dev corp as a senior developer and made $100k, what path does it take to get $600k, which company offers those incentives? I really just want some more detail.
  - caminante 11y ago
    For Q1, he said that money shouldn't be the ONLY focus. For Q2, I "think" he's saying that CorpDev > StartupDev in terms of expected wealth creation. In your example, you don't appear to be accounting for the volatility of your future CF's of $1M (StartupDev) and $100K (CorpDev) figures. Startups are risky bets compared to stable increases with CorpDev.
sparaker 11y ago
100% agreed.
nudpiedo 11y ago
I agree with you. I work in one of those which you mentioned in Germany, and I've less than 3 years experience. By accident I saw the payroll of a top-dev (top engineer actually), and it is "just the double" of mine. That makes makes for a good living with many luxuries Germany standard's but those guys are the ones who have to dance in front of the local CEO every week and can't enjoy weekends and work in the afternoon. They can afford sometimes low level luxury cars but for sure they can't stop working and just retire. For them work developing or implement something is a hobby they can do after a whole day full of meetings. Not a dream dev life, not a way to become actually rich. And I'd add: not a way to enjoy life (if you hate meetings and empty technical discussions which are not about the technical topic but about a political reason which usually sucks).
- levosmetalo 11y ago
  Was in the same place as your top-dev. Was exhausted after a day of coding, without getting real appreciation, neither monetary, nor in terms on mindshare. I was always looked upon as an "IT guy" or "technical staff" that gets in the way of implementing great business and marketing ideas created in the heads of great minds, that were so great that it wasn't even possible to write them down accurately. Then I switched to management path, I found out that although I do only a very limited amount of coding at work right now, I'm enjoying it much more. As an added benefit, I am not mentally tired anymore when I come back home, since at work I only do blah-blah social, blah-blah report, blah-blah management. This leaves me with enough time and energy in the evening to work on really interesting projects for an excellent hourly rate, or on my own hobby stuff. The drawback? I don't watch TV anymore.
  - mistermann 11y ago
    > I was always looked upon as an "IT guy" or "technical staff" that gets in the way of implementing great business and marketing ideas created in the heads of great minds, that were so great that it wasn't even possible to write them down accurately. As someone else who works with people with self-proclaimed great ideas but are strangely reluctant to put any of these ideas on paper, it's comforting to know there are others out there who have to work amongst such nonsense. Edit: I'm curious....do you find now that you've made the move to management, have you had to adopt this same "less than honest" culture in order to be accepted within the middle management ranks?

by sosuke 11y ago

caminante 11y ago

Maybe it's late, but I thought he answered your Q1 and Q2.

sosuke 11y ago
It is late, I can't think super clear either, but I just read that he says money should not be the focus, but doesn't address why that is an issue. As to why big dev corps are better he didn't give any reasons for his belief, no examples. Person y makes $1 million a year at company x, but they aquihired their startup to get there. If I started at big dev corp as a senior developer and made $100k, what path does it take to get $600k, which company offers those incentives? I really just want some more detail.
- caminante 11y ago
  For Q1, he said that money shouldn't be the ONLY focus. For Q2, I "think" he's saying that CorpDev > StartupDev in terms of expected wealth creation. In your example, you don't appear to be accounting for the volatility of your future CF's of $1M (StartupDev) and $100K (CorpDev) figures. Startups are risky bets compared to stable increases with CorpDev.

sparaker 11y ago

100% agreed.

nudpiedo 11y ago

I agree with you. I work in one of those which you mentioned in Germany, and I've less than 3 years experience. By accident I saw the payroll of a top-dev (top engineer actually), and it is "just the double" of mine. That makes makes for a good living with many luxuries Germany standard's but those guys are the ones who have to dance in front of the local CEO every week and can't enjoy weekends and work in the afternoon. They can afford sometimes low level luxury cars but for sure they can't stop working and just retire. For them work developing or implement something is a hobby they can do after a whole day full of meetings. Not a dream dev life, not a way to become actually rich. And I'd add: not a way to enjoy life (if you hate meetings and empty technical discussions which are not about the technical topic but about a political reason which usually sucks).

levosmetalo 11y ago
Was in the same place as your top-dev. Was exhausted after a day of coding, without getting real appreciation, neither monetary, nor in terms on mindshare. I was always looked upon as an "IT guy" or "technical staff" that gets in the way of implementing great business and marketing ideas created in the heads of great minds, that were so great that it wasn't even possible to write them down accurately. Then I switched to management path, I found out that although I do only a very limited amount of coding at work right now, I'm enjoying it much more. As an added benefit, I am not mentally tired anymore when I come back home, since at work I only do blah-blah social, blah-blah report, blah-blah management. This leaves me with enough time and energy in the evening to work on really interesting projects for an excellent hourly rate, or on my own hobby stuff. The drawback? I don't watch TV anymore.
- mistermann 11y ago
  > I was always looked upon as an "IT guy" or "technical staff" that gets in the way of implementing great business and marketing ideas created in the heads of great minds, that were so great that it wasn't even possible to write them down accurately. As someone else who works with people with self-proclaimed great ideas but are strangely reluctant to put any of these ideas on paper, it's comforting to know there are others out there who have to work amongst such nonsense. Edit: I'm curious....do you find now that you've made the move to management, have you had to adopt this same "less than honest" culture in order to be accepted within the middle management ranks?