How Long Will Programmers Be So Well-Paid?
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http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/27/write-code-get-paid/[^] Interesting read! Specially the point about how it's so damn hard to hire a good developer.
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
Programming is like nursing; great pay right out of school. But 20 years later, salary compression and technical obsolescence means you're making less than 1.6x the current years' starting wage. Think about it. If starting wages are $125k, where are the $250k jobs for experienced talent. Have you ever seen one? Programming is a great gig, but not such a great career, and getting less and less good by the measure of top salary / starting salary. Programming is a big field. There are lots of jobs in "programming", but not so many in "PHP Programming", "C# Programming", etc. It's like being a doctor; you can't just switch from opthalmology to thoracic surgery to take a new job. The more disciplines you keep up on, the harder it is to achieve mastery of any. The red-hot skill in programming changes frequently and (imho) unpredictably. Hard to know what skill will sell well 10 years in the future. The reason not everybody can get into Google is that Google has a very specific idea of what an A-list programmer looks like. The guys making that top wage are Google (or Facebook or whatever) A-listers. Everybody else makes considerably less. Just like in professional sports, not everyone is a superstar, and just like in Hollywood, not every talent gets discovered. Google has a voracious appetite for the particular kind of programmers they think of as A-listers. The entire worldwide output of programmers, big as it is, doesn't actually generate that many Googly programmers. So Google has to bid up the price of this specific skill set. So, hot pay today, dustbin in 5 years. Well paid? Or maybe just pay-for-risk. You make the call.
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Basically yes! No law, but it seems it's become a cultural thing. It might stem from back before the eighties IT was a "woman's"-field. The hardware side of IT was delegated to a sub-field of electrician, and then when software development was introduced in our universities and collages it was an engineering field. So all who now are the managers of IT-departments in big companies are engineers from this period, and so it's become a "club". Let's not disregard a strong union, which lobbies hard to prevent engineering-subjects to become available to "mundanes". And so big companies like National Oilwell Varco, (the Norwegian branch of the US company), only hire engineers for programming work. So you have a big need, and a minuscule supply of engineers so an average software engineer can expect about 120-150 thousand dollars straight out of school, with a guaranteed job. I am a believer in introducing programming at elementary school, making it a universal skill, as the future is in the hands of programmers. As I see it, in 50 years, not knowing how to code, will be like not knowing English in today's world. I think the need for programmers won't drop. Unless we manage to make self-improving code, as new technologies lead to new types of software needed. We haven't cracked the key to "thinking machines". So when we do it will be trillions of lines of code will it take? A flying robot like the JSF has only 5.6 million lines of code. So unless we go in to saturate the job-market with programmers, it will remain a popular field. tried to have some brevity, but I failed :~ -frank
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Code Monkey vs Software Engineers talk sounds like speech given by academic who never manages to catch up. Don't get me wrong, I work in field where it requires a lot of math and very strict standards and I graduate with master degree from top Canadian university - but for most part of the day what they teaches you in school is irrelevant.
dev
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I suppose so. But IMO that doesn't really explain why I can only get jobs that offer minimum-"unfortunately we're not allowed to employ you with ball and chain"-wage. Someone who does assembly optimizations for VLC in their free time should rate above that, even if just a little.
What you say you're doing is not a skill in high demand. If you go to an interview bragging about this, but not knowing much about the internals of Java's garbage collector, or the security mechanisms in the .Net platform, or what specific optimizations Oracle provides for specific operations in their database, or what types of threats you must prevent in web apps, or what mechanisms app servers employ to be able to scale on clusters of hundreds or thousands of machines, don't expect too much, unless it's a job very close to the hardware. If it _is_ close to the hardware, chances are it isn't very well paid, unfortunately. Advertising the type of hobby programming you do instantly stamps you as an extreme geek, and for some reason companies are not willling to pay such guys - you're trouble even before being hired, they only hire you because they can't get away with not hiring you (or somebody similarly geeky).
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Actually, real "programming in html" would be a real challenge, if at all possible, IMO.
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Espen Harlinn wrote:
I'll freely admit that on a number of occasions I've gone ahead and actually trusted a few people in the workplace - and looking back, I can't remember that anything good ever came out of it.
It seems that the problem is that you not trusted the right people. :)
CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...
RafagaX wrote:
It seems that the problem is that you not trusted the right people
True enough ;)
Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS Projects promoting programming in "natural language" are intrinsically doomed to fail. Edsger W.Dijkstra
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Actually, real "programming in html" would be a real challenge, if at all possible, IMO.
It's an example of how being right is unhelpful. The recruiter wants to know whether you have the skill to "program" in HTML. Being a markup-language, one cannot program in it - that's a technical limitation, and the answer "F*ck no" is technically correct, albeit the recruiter will hear a very different answer. That his skills are not developed to judge that answer, is not my problem. On the contrary; it tells the applicant something about the vacancy being advertised. It screams "we do not know what HTML is", and depending on what your company does, that might not be a very wise ad.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: if you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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What you say you're doing is not a skill in high demand. If you go to an interview bragging about this, but not knowing much about the internals of Java's garbage collector, or the security mechanisms in the .Net platform, or what specific optimizations Oracle provides for specific operations in their database, or what types of threats you must prevent in web apps, or what mechanisms app servers employ to be able to scale on clusters of hundreds or thousands of machines, don't expect too much, unless it's a job very close to the hardware. If it _is_ close to the hardware, chances are it isn't very well paid, unfortunately. Advertising the type of hobby programming you do instantly stamps you as an extreme geek, and for some reason companies are not willling to pay such guys - you're trouble even before being hired, they only hire you because they can't get away with not hiring you (or somebody similarly geeky).
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Then it would seem Norway is killing that market segment because many other places do not do that so they will be able to do it cheaper and with more human resource to capitalize on.
yupp!! I TOTALLY agree! Which is why you don't have a Norwegian software company of note! -frank
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devvvy wrote:
Code Monkey vs Software Engineers talk...
That doesn't seem to have anything to do with what I said, so presumably mis-posted.
>> Roger Wright wrote: [Code monkeys] will continue to get cheaper, as languages and libraries improve and even grade school kids are learning to make a computer jump through hoops. People who can take a problem, analyze it and develop a solution, then create a set of instructions (requirements) clear enough for code monkeys to program against will only become more rare and valuable.
dev
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Programming is like nursing; great pay right out of school. But 20 years later, salary compression and technical obsolescence means you're making less than 1.6x the current years' starting wage. Think about it. If starting wages are $125k, where are the $250k jobs for experienced talent. Have you ever seen one? Programming is a great gig, but not such a great career, and getting less and less good by the measure of top salary / starting salary. Programming is a big field. There are lots of jobs in "programming", but not so many in "PHP Programming", "C# Programming", etc. It's like being a doctor; you can't just switch from opthalmology to thoracic surgery to take a new job. The more disciplines you keep up on, the harder it is to achieve mastery of any. The red-hot skill in programming changes frequently and (imho) unpredictably. Hard to know what skill will sell well 10 years in the future. The reason not everybody can get into Google is that Google has a very specific idea of what an A-list programmer looks like. The guys making that top wage are Google (or Facebook or whatever) A-listers. Everybody else makes considerably less. Just like in professional sports, not everyone is a superstar, and just like in Hollywood, not every talent gets discovered. Google has a voracious appetite for the particular kind of programmers they think of as A-listers. The entire worldwide output of programmers, big as it is, doesn't actually generate that many Googly programmers. So Google has to bid up the price of this specific skill set. So, hot pay today, dustbin in 5 years. Well paid? Or maybe just pay-for-risk. You make the call.
agree, i never thought programmers are "Well Paid" for the amount of shit they have to go thru - should have a look at what doctors/lawyers/fund managers are making accountant for example, there's no need to upgrade their knowledge at a pace close to what we do and they are not making any less
dev
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Hi Harold, It seems to me that the question that needs to be asked is: "how do those that do get an interview for one of the better jobs" at specific companies achieve that ? I'd try to learn everything I could about each specific company I was planning to apply to: about who they hire; what the steps in the hiring process are (or, if they out-source pre-hire screening: who does that); what is the form of initial contact from a job applicant they expect: cover letter including a link to resume; resume + cv ... etc. In most cases I would write a very brief, specific, cover letter based on everything I had learned about the company, and "tailored to" the position I was applying for. Unless, of course, I knew that "cover letters" were not wanted by the specific company. Such a cover letter would express, in two, or, three, short paragraphs: 1. Why my experience qualifies me to be a good potential employee, for this particular project or task. 2. Why I wanted to work for this company, on this particular project or task. 3. That I am available, and ready/eager, to go to work for this company, on this particular project or task. If you have doubts about the style, and/or relevance, of your CV, or Resume, have you considered getting professional editorial assistance ? best, Bill
~ Confused by Windows 8 ? This may help: [^] !
Personally, I don't like to include Cover Letters with my Resume. Does organizations really give importance to it? I mean mostly it's all about bragging about yourself and I guess the guy sitting on the other side of the table knows it as well that most of the things (if not all :) ) written on the Letter are little over the top!! :suss:
Piyush K Singh
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>> Roger Wright wrote: [Code monkeys] will continue to get cheaper, as languages and libraries improve and even grade school kids are learning to make a computer jump through hoops. People who can take a problem, analyze it and develop a solution, then create a set of instructions (requirements) clear enough for code monkeys to program against will only become more rare and valuable.
dev
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Florin Jurcovici wrote:
What you say you're doing is not a skill in high demand.
It is also in low supply, whereas everyone and their dog knows C# and Java.
On the other hand, it is difficult to find Java people who do embedded or command line stuff. Most of them only know about GUIs. Similarly, finding a C# person who is willing to go backwards to .net fw 1.1 because the equipment being used cannot be upgraded to the latest version of .net fw is not possible. Finding people who are willing to work on legacy code, GUI systems that are no longer in use and with very little or no documentation is quite difficult too. What you're asking is for someone to go backwards in time. So what happens when they try going for the next job? They have skills that nobody wants so by taking your job, they're putting themselves into retirement. That's why they need to be well paid - it affects the pension.