7 ms·

"Many people reach senior software engineer, and then they get stuck. They’ll still be a “senior” level developer 5 or 10 years later. For many, getting stuck i

by dudul 11y ago

"Many people reach senior software engineer, and then they get stuck. They’ll still be a “senior” level developer 5 or 10 years later. For many, getting stuck is just fine. They like coding, and they don’t want to manage people, and the money is pretty good." I have a problem with this part. Basically, being a developer and not making it to a managing position is "getting stuck". I strongly disagree with that. Developers and managers have very different roles, a great developer will not necessarily be a great manager. It's like expecting great athletes to become great coaches, and if they don't they're stuck? Is becoming a manager really a promotion? I would argue that in such a hot market great developers should be making more money than their own manager.

matt_s 11y ago
I think he means stuck financially, not career wise since they have chosen to stay as a developer. His answer to how to move ahead financially is to specialize. So maybe that is the general advice is to find something to specialize in or you are just seen as a commodity by management. If you are a commodity (e.g. general web developer with X years) then you may not get higher rates.
- philrapo 11y ago
  "specialize" is good advice to get paid more. Specialization is why wall street people get paid so much. There are typically only a handful of people with relevant expertise trading [XYZ esoteric product], and when a company wants to enter that new business line, they have no choice but to settle for someone inexperienced or pay up for specialization. Choosing the proper specialization is a different story...
- dudul 11y ago
  I agree with the general idea. You can remain a "simple" developer and still ask for more money if you specialize and bring significant value. I disagree with the idea that moving to a management position means that you get "unstuck", especially financially. To me, becoming a manager is pivoting or branching out, not specializing. And as I stated, a manager should not necessarily make more money than the people they manage. Do all NFL coaches make more money than their players? I guess this is what bothers me the most. This idea that a manager should make more money than the developers. Salaries are in function of demand/supply and the value that you bring to the table, if it's easier to find a manager than a developer then the developer should make more money.
  - ben336 11y ago
    > And as I stated, a manager should not necessarily make more money than the people they manage. "Should not" is very different than "does not". In reality, managers almost always make more
    - dudul 11y ago
      Agreed. Mostly because managers are in charge of hiring and they would not hire someone reporting to them and making more than them.
      - HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
        I doubt that has anything to do with it. I've known at least one manager in the position of hiring developers who made far more than she did. In the end, you have to do your job. If that job requires that you hire people making more than you, tough!
        rwallace 11y ago
        Then you've known a manager who was mature and professional enough to place the welfare of the company above her own ego. Such managers should be the norm; unfortunately the actual state of affairs is that they are rare and precious. I hope her employer realizes how lucky they were to find her, and does whatever it takes to make her happy enough to stay.
  - machinshin_ 11y ago
    > Do all NFL coaches make more money than their players? on median, yah they do. you're thinking of the BIG winners who get 10/15mil or more a year (+ endorsements), but most football (and baseball) players don't make nearly that much. most NFL coaches are in the 2-3 mil range, w/ some much higher (10-15mil)
  - matt_s 11y ago
    The management role is different and in most large companies is higher valued and more highly paid because they bear the brunt of whatever happens, good or bad, from their team. Depending on the level of management and the systems involved it could also become involved in audits, regulatory matters and potentially handling confidential information for the company. Think of it this way: a manager of a team of 10 developers probably has a budget of 1.5 - 2.0 million dollars in just headcount, maybe higher. If your average developer on that team makes $100k, isn't it worth it to have the manager make about 20% more because of the responsibilities?
logfromblammo 11y ago
Regardless of salary numbers, becoming a manager is not a promotion. It is changing career tracks. It just so happens that the lowest rung on that ladder is somewhat reachable from the highest rung of the software ladder. The problem in many companies is that the positions into which a senior developer may be promoted do not exist. Other positions with greater pay and prestige are on other career tracks. Positions like lead software developer, software architect, technical complexity organizer, software developer supreme (with tomato and sour cream), or historical catastrophe repetition avoider might not be available, or not available to internal hires. They could exist. Several people here could probably argue a very convincing case for them. But they don't. And the reason is because certain people still don't see business software resources as anything but costs to be managed down. Just yesterday, a member of my own household wanted to extract an image from a PDF, crop out the whitespace, and post it as a JPEG to a website. This non-technical person could have spent a whole day--or more--figuring this particular problem out. Having a technically knowledgeable person on hand shortened that time considerably. (I could have done it myself in seconds, but I didn't want to assume responsibility for doing that on demand for the rest of my life.) The sad thing is that I got no credit for the time saved. I instead got grief for not being instantly helpful. I wasted someone else's time, because I didn't anticipate the need, so that SumatraPDF and Paint.NET or GIMP would be installed on their computer already. I wasted someone else's time because I didn't drop what I was doing immediately, so that they wouldn't have to wait for me to finish eating, or, horror of horrors, actually spend a few minutes to try to figure it out on their own. That's the problem. The whole party complains, "Why didn't you just call on the Eagles again, Gandalf? We could have been done in three days!" And then when Radagast explains about the dearth of giant fish in the magical appropriations budget, no one listens to a word he says. The people with control of the money don't quite seem to grasp that software is yet another product, among many, where you get what you pay for. No matter how magical it may seem, you have to put more money into it to get more value out of it. People get "stuck" at senior because too many companies have determined that threshold is as much software talent as they need, and that paying for more would be wasteful.
- meatysnapper 11y ago
  I'm convinced that most management either 1) does not understand the time value of money 2) does not care about the time value of money There is no value placed on the reduction of future expenses- for example, not needing to train another new guy when a senior person leaves, or having a simpler, more reasonable codebase that is harder to introduce bugs into. I think this is because people (both minions and management) switch teams or jobs too quickly for these savings to become apparent, and therefore there is zero incentive to do things right. It's monkey-patch some crap together, keep it running at the absolute bare minimum, and get promoted and someone else has to deal with the problem.
mcv 11y ago
The article agrees with you that entering management is a cop out. If you want to keep growing as a developer, you need to specialize, is basically what the article says. It's certainly opened my eyes; I'm very much a generalist, but I can see how, to get beyond a certain point, you need to specialize in something where quality really matters over quantity; you want to be able to provide value that two lower-paid people with twice the amount of time can't. Security sounds like a great specialization, for example: a single great security expert can save a companies hide (which may be worth millions) in ways two average programmers won't. UI/visual design sounds like another case where that's true. Look at Jon Ive. Having the product look better can mean you reach more people, which amplifies revenue. I'm sure there are other valuable specialization areas where your expertise can multiply across a large organization.
- Eridrus 11y ago
  Security definitely pays more than web dev, but there is still a ceiling. In fact, one of the things about security is that the benefit is completely constrained by how much you could possibly lose. You can't really create unbounded through security the same way you can through development. And in most scenarios where you are tasked with doing preventative work, it is hard to prove that you're really delivering value when breaches don't happen, or even if they do. The recent industry shift towards detection & response resolves this a bit since you can show all the things you have found on your network. But it's hard to use these metrics correctly (is more malware found a good or a bad thing?). I've been trying to figure out how to make myself scale as a security expert, and the answer I came to was that I needed to work on software/platforms that could kill classes of bugs at a time, but it turns out it can be very hard to turn experience into software. You can certainly have a lot of impact on offense as an exceptional IC, as evidenced by the 6+ figure .gov market for exploits, but its less clear to me how to have a big impact on defence (I say this as someone who has never worked defence anywhere, so this might just be my inexperience)

by dudul 11y ago

matt_s 11y ago

I think he means stuck financially, not career wise since they have chosen to stay as a developer. His answer to how to move ahead financially is to specialize. So maybe that is the general advice is to find something to specialize in or you are just seen as a commodity by management. If you are a commodity (e.g. general web developer with X years) then you may not get higher rates.

philrapo 11y ago
"specialize" is good advice to get paid more. Specialization is why wall street people get paid so much. There are typically only a handful of people with relevant expertise trading [XYZ esoteric product], and when a company wants to enter that new business line, they have no choice but to settle for someone inexperienced or pay up for specialization. Choosing the proper specialization is a different story...
dudul 11y ago
I agree with the general idea. You can remain a "simple" developer and still ask for more money if you specialize and bring significant value. I disagree with the idea that moving to a management position means that you get "unstuck", especially financially. To me, becoming a manager is pivoting or branching out, not specializing. And as I stated, a manager should not necessarily make more money than the people they manage. Do all NFL coaches make more money than their players? I guess this is what bothers me the most. This idea that a manager should make more money than the developers. Salaries are in function of demand/supply and the value that you bring to the table, if it's easier to find a manager than a developer then the developer should make more money.
- ben336 11y ago
  > And as I stated, a manager should not necessarily make more money than the people they manage. "Should not" is very different than "does not". In reality, managers almost always make more
  - dudul 11y ago
    Agreed. Mostly because managers are in charge of hiring and they would not hire someone reporting to them and making more than them.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
      I doubt that has anything to do with it. I've known at least one manager in the position of hiring developers who made far more than she did. In the end, you have to do your job. If that job requires that you hire people making more than you, tough!
      - rwallace 11y ago
        Then you've known a manager who was mature and professional enough to place the welfare of the company above her own ego. Such managers should be the norm; unfortunately the actual state of affairs is that they are rare and precious. I hope her employer realizes how lucky they were to find her, and does whatever it takes to make her happy enough to stay.
- machinshin_ 11y ago
  > Do all NFL coaches make more money than their players? on median, yah they do. you're thinking of the BIG winners who get 10/15mil or more a year (+ endorsements), but most football (and baseball) players don't make nearly that much. most NFL coaches are in the 2-3 mil range, w/ some much higher (10-15mil)
- matt_s 11y ago
  The management role is different and in most large companies is higher valued and more highly paid because they bear the brunt of whatever happens, good or bad, from their team. Depending on the level of management and the systems involved it could also become involved in audits, regulatory matters and potentially handling confidential information for the company. Think of it this way: a manager of a team of 10 developers probably has a budget of 1.5 - 2.0 million dollars in just headcount, maybe higher. If your average developer on that team makes $100k, isn't it worth it to have the manager make about 20% more because of the responsibilities?

logfromblammo 11y ago

Regardless of salary numbers, becoming a manager is not a promotion. It is changing career tracks. It just so happens that the lowest rung on that ladder is somewhat reachable from the highest rung of the software ladder. The problem in many companies is that the positions into which a senior developer may be promoted do not exist. Other positions with greater pay and prestige are on other career tracks. Positions like lead software developer, software architect, technical complexity organizer, software developer supreme (with tomato and sour cream), or historical catastrophe repetition avoider might not be available, or not available to internal hires. They could exist. Several people here could probably argue a very convincing case for them. But they don't. And the reason is because certain people still don't see business software resources as anything but costs to be managed down. Just yesterday, a member of my own household wanted to extract an image from a PDF, crop out the whitespace, and post it as a JPEG to a website. This non-technical person could have spent a whole day--or more--figuring this particular problem out. Having a technically knowledgeable person on hand shortened that time considerably. (I could have done it myself in seconds, but I didn't want to assume responsibility for doing that on demand for the rest of my life.) The sad thing is that I got no credit for the time saved. I instead got grief for not being instantly helpful. I wasted someone else's time, because I didn't anticipate the need, so that SumatraPDF and Paint.NET or GIMP would be installed on their computer already. I wasted someone else's time because I didn't drop what I was doing immediately, so that they wouldn't have to wait for me to finish eating, or, horror of horrors, actually spend a few minutes to try to figure it out on their own. That's the problem. The whole party complains, "Why didn't you just call on the Eagles again, Gandalf? We could have been done in three days!" And then when Radagast explains about the dearth of giant fish in the magical appropriations budget, no one listens to a word he says. The people with control of the money don't quite seem to grasp that software is yet another product, among many, where you get what you pay for. No matter how magical it may seem, you have to put more money into it to get more value out of it. People get "stuck" at senior because too many companies have determined that threshold is as much software talent as they need, and that paying for more would be wasteful.

meatysnapper 11y ago
I'm convinced that most management either 1) does not understand the time value of money 2) does not care about the time value of money There is no value placed on the reduction of future expenses- for example, not needing to train another new guy when a senior person leaves, or having a simpler, more reasonable codebase that is harder to introduce bugs into. I think this is because people (both minions and management) switch teams or jobs too quickly for these savings to become apparent, and therefore there is zero incentive to do things right. It's monkey-patch some crap together, keep it running at the absolute bare minimum, and get promoted and someone else has to deal with the problem.

mcv 11y ago

The article agrees with you that entering management is a cop out. If you want to keep growing as a developer, you need to specialize, is basically what the article says. It's certainly opened my eyes; I'm very much a generalist, but I can see how, to get beyond a certain point, you need to specialize in something where quality really matters over quantity; you want to be able to provide value that two lower-paid people with twice the amount of time can't. Security sounds like a great specialization, for example: a single great security expert can save a companies hide (which may be worth millions) in ways two average programmers won't. UI/visual design sounds like another case where that's true. Look at Jon Ive. Having the product look better can mean you reach more people, which amplifies revenue. I'm sure there are other valuable specialization areas where your expertise can multiply across a large organization.

Eridrus 11y ago
Security definitely pays more than web dev, but there is still a ceiling. In fact, one of the things about security is that the benefit is completely constrained by how much you could possibly lose. You can't really create unbounded through security the same way you can through development. And in most scenarios where you are tasked with doing preventative work, it is hard to prove that you're really delivering value when breaches don't happen, or even if they do. The recent industry shift towards detection & response resolves this a bit since you can show all the things you have found on your network. But it's hard to use these metrics correctly (is more malware found a good or a bad thing?). I've been trying to figure out how to make myself scale as a security expert, and the answer I came to was that I needed to work on software/platforms that could kill classes of bugs at a time, but it turns out it can be very hard to turn experience into software. You can certainly have a lot of impact on offense as an exceptional IC, as evidenced by the 6+ figure .gov market for exploits, but its less clear to me how to have a big impact on defence (I say this as someone who has never worked defence anywhere, so this might just be my inexperience)