No, it really isn't. Read my article and the linked economic research.
> if there was 10 fold increase in programmers
There has been a 10 fold increase in programmers since 50 years ago, but more than a 10 fold increase in the amount of programming work, so salaries have done just fine. Also, those programmers are already there, in other countries, so artificial barriers can only create so much salary disparity before companies will pursue other options. At that point, why were you bothering trying to keep them out in the first place?
Read the linked article: it is not a zero-sum game.
> but do people really not believe that if starting salary for an A+ developer was $150k, or whatever, that we might get more high-achievers
First, US is already the third country in list for highest paid programmers, there is not much room to grow.
Second, Companies are in business, not for charity.
Companies are there for profit so if they could hire a beginner programmer for 50k, they should, otherwise they would be out of business and you would be buying everything made in China.
> Nope, in fact you are going to see salaries start to retreat as more people get into the industry.
That is what they said 15 years ago. Getting into the industry is not hard. It is staying that is hard. You need a respectable amount of talent and will power for that. There is an incredible amount of tourism going on in our industry. Put out an advert for a programmer and you will understand why recruiting programmers is so exceedingly costly:
Like me, the author is having trouble with the fact that 199 out of 200 applicants for every programming job can't write code at all. I repeat: they can't write any code whatsoever.
> So no, the data shows that these jobs are paid a normal amount, while programmers are vastly overpaid.
You are speaking a lot these days about the ills of socialism in contrast to capitalism. Programmers being paid well is a great example of capitalism at play. If you're a great programmer, you can make a lot of money. This is now common knowledge, and it should encourage more people to get in the field. It's an example of capitalism working well, why do you have a problem with this?
>What makes you feel that Software developer salary is linked to computing power? In fact, even if we were to consider it a fair comparison, computing power, if measured by Moore's law has doubled every 2 years. Software Engineer salaries have lagged far far behind.
Honestly, I don't think there is any relation between developer salary and computational power. I was just reaching for a possible explanation for this[1] that fits with the theory that people are paid based on their productivity. It is my belief that people are paid based off the supply and demand for their labor. Productivity only serves as a ceiling for compensation and even then, that is only in the long term. Plenty of people are paid more than their production either over the short term or when productivity is difficult to measure. An employer's natural inclination is to pay people as far below their level of production as possible while still filling the job.
It is my belief that the reason that low skill wages have stagnated is not because their efficiency has stagnated. It is because their supply is outpacing their demand. The supply of software developers is not keeping up with demand so their wages are increasing. Neither has anything to do with productivity in my opinion.
Is it really fair to say developer salaries around the $200k mark are being inflated?
Developers work can have an impact on millions of people, yet we keep expecting all of this work for a $60k salary.
I've found that only developers/programmers do this self flagellation, almost all other professions complain about $200k being too low, not too high, and expect more. (Lawyers, Doctors, and even some electrical/mechanical engineers)
It's just a shame, as I find it hard finding good work as a programmer as my peers fight for lower and lower salaries.
I had a naive hope that this industry would mature and fight for higher salaries, but whenever I see programmers getting paid half that of a Lawyer or Doctor, self flagellation start to come into play.
Such as shame for an industry with the most potential to change the world.
Seems unlikely. Companies don't typically pay someone at a loss -- they hire folks because they expect to make a profit. Wages, almost by definition, are less than the value of the worker.
Programmers are like any other wage laborer, and should be pushing to own more of the value they produce.
> What makes me nervous, though, is that we don't really understand why programmers are paid this well
I understand why developers are paid this well. The marginal cost of software is (close enough to) zero [0]. This means that once you make software once, you can sell it infinitely - minus some scaling costs, hence being close enough.
We don't pay people based on how hard they work. If we did, stay at home parents would be filthy rich.
Sure the very very top end pay will fluctuate depending on stock market conditions since those include a significant portion of equity, but the reality is programmers deliver expensive products that businesses can sell easily that pretty much everyone wants. Trends will come and go, but making high quality tech products will continue to be profitable in my lifetime (barring WW3) and thus programmer salaries will stay high.
> That's when you pay more. A highly skilled programmer can easily make a million dollars a year for a company, so if demand is really that high and supply that low, there would be far more companies willing to pay $500k salaries.
A programmer can easily make a million per year for a company and still find himself with almost no leverage within the firm, compared to someone on the business side of things doing the same. I'm in that situation myself, having made the company my salary for the next decade or so within my first year there, and yet you would not know that from looking at the work I'm doing here now or my career prospects here going forward.
The fact is it is difficult for non-programmers to properly assess the skill of other programmers, and at the same time existing programmers within just about any company you can name, are low-status enough that their recommendations for salary will go ignored. And so it is easy to see how most of the players on the supply side of the job market for software development, will behave very irrationally.
> The fact that I could walk out of college with zero experience and only a degree, and earn $20K more than that working only 9-5 in the same city seems unfair (as a programmer). But I have no idea how society decides salaries. It seems pretty arbitrary from my perspective.
Salaries are set by supply and demand. Being a programmer is in greater demand relative to its supply.
> The fact that I could walk out of college with zero experience and only a degree, and earn $20K more than that working only 9-5 in the same city seems unfair (as a programmer).
So what? With many other degrees, you can walk out six figures in debt and land a job at McDonalds. Is that fair?
> But I have no idea how society decides salaries.
In the open market, it's (supposed to be) supply and demand. If salaries are high, that's a signal that there's too few people in the profession. Programmers are privileged for now, but lots of people are joining in.
Once supply outweighs demand, salaries will fall. Just wait for the next recession when the bullshit startup train will go off the rails.
> Summary: we don't understand why programmers are paid so well
Who's "we"?
> Programmers are paid surprisingly well given how much work it is to become one
It's a lot of work to become a good software engineer, and also requires certain talents and traits that not everyone has (just like doctors and lawyers).
> When I compare it to how I started programming right out of college, making more money for 40hr weeks and no on-call, I feel embarrassed.
I think this type of sentiment is toxic among engineers. You shouldn't feel embarrassed for charging market rates for the work you do, in fact you should be proud of yourself for making a good living with honest intellectual labor.
> I think we should treat collapse as a real possibility
I see exactly zero reasons in this text justifying this conclusion.
> Compensation appears to be proportional to the level of sacrifice
This is a simplistic and profoundly incorrect view of economics and world in general, this is not how the world works.
> why take a job that pays substantially less than what you get in industry?
This is really only the case in the last 15 years or so. The vast majority of programmers weren't making into the 6 figures. The pay might have been marginally worse at a univ, but the benefits, QOL were probably better.
> The average Developer/Engineer/etc works about 60 hours a week, they work on things that generate millions of dollars.
Hardly anyone I know regularly works 60 hours a week..
Even if I generated a company millions of dollars, that doesn't give any indication of how much they should pay me because it doesn't count for much if a million other people can also generate them the same amount or more.
If you feel like you should get paid more then perhaps you should consider switching to a job where you would get paid more? If there are no takers then presumably you don't offer something which is valuable enough that companies are willing to pay the amount you think they should.
Of course, I suppose one of the big problems with programmers is that it's very difficult to measure job performance but either way, I have a very hard time complaining about my compensation.
> I believe that every programmer is overpaid relative to the difficulty of the work they do -- or, more accurately, that The Market doesn't pay based on difficulty of work. Software pays so well because the product scales so well.
If that is the case then why not hire cheaper individuals to do the same job?
> Willing to work at the salary that employers want to ideally pay? No.
I am not quite so sure my immigrant coworkers make noticeably less than I do, although I cannot really validate this claim either as I don't ask people who much they are paid.
> Employers see engineering as a cost sink and want to do everything possible to reduce budgetary pressures.
Yes and no. Employers see developers as a debt pool, because they are a cost factor unlike people in sales who actually generate revenue, but typically they see hiring, recruiting, and retention as even more expensive and riskier endeavors.
That drives all kinds of counter-intuitive behaviors regarding expenses and developers. Companies are typically willing to hire more developers than they need, because hiring is expensive and isn't always quick. Companies are also willing to prioritize slower more expensive technologies that require more developers so long as it means a reduction in recruitment and hiring risks.
I find that process horribly broken. Why is it so hard and deceptively untrustworthy to hire people generally in software? I don't believe it is the hiring process that is to blame, but rather the candidate pool in consideration for the required skills or experience.
> Programmers make a lot more money now than they did 20 years ago. Not because of unions (which are extremely rare for programmers), but because of productivity improvements. A single programmer can accomplish vastly more now than was possible in the past.
That is complete nonsense. If your hypothesized productivity increase were true, it would be reflected in a decreased demand for programming labor (just like the advent of combines and tractors made farm workers more productive and decreased the demand for farm labor). The only reason programmers are paid more now than 20 years ago is because of an increase in demand for their labor.
The productivity improvements come from the product of this labor: software. This explains the growth in demand for programmers - telecommunications infrastructure improvements and ubiquitous computers mean that companies now have many more opportunities for automating processes with software than they did 20 years ago, and are trying to take advantage of these opportunities to increase profits.
No, it really isn't. Read my article and the linked economic research.
> if there was 10 fold increase in programmers
There has been a 10 fold increase in programmers since 50 years ago, but more than a 10 fold increase in the amount of programming work, so salaries have done just fine. Also, those programmers are already there, in other countries, so artificial barriers can only create so much salary disparity before companies will pursue other options. At that point, why were you bothering trying to keep them out in the first place?
Read the linked article: it is not a zero-sum game.
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