
How Long Will Programmers Be So Well-Paid? - vignesh_vs_in
http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/27/write-code-get-paid/
======
kamaal
This really should be 'How long will 'some' Programmers Be So Well-Paid'?

C'mon lets be frank not all programmers are well paid, You really have to be
working at Google or other big place or make it big in the start up area.
None, of that is any different than any other profession I know of. In fact
even the author seems to be talking of 'Google and Facebook' employees, the
number of people working at Google and Facebook are small enough to consider
them a clear exception.

What you really must be talking about is of a time around a decade and a half
back when programmers seem to be paid well. And even they were paid well not
because they were programming, its just that the IT sector grew so rapidly
there was a immense demand in the middle level management areas that caused a
impression of rapid career progress in the software industry. That is what
made people to 'come in the game for the money'.

The only distinction that I see programming has compared to other professions
is programmers tend to think of themselves as people 'who solve problems' and
not just people who write code. No other profession, I know of carries that
tag line.

~~~
jiggy2011
Precisely.

The article quotes the average starting salary at google to be $125,000. After
converting that into GBP (for the UK where I live) you get to 77,613.

Whenever I look around at local programming jobs, a salary of 77K would be
attainable mainly only by people who were project leaders/architects for large
corporate systems.

Most entry level jobs are .Net, PHP or Java programming and will net you a
salary of 18-25K. A programmer with 4-10 years experience can maybe expect to
get paid 30-35K.

Basically a similar payscale to a plant fitter , electrician or teacher and
quite a way off what you would expect for a doctor or lawyer.

~~~
nodemaker
I dont think we can compare salaries in Silicon Valley and UK like that. In
the end its about how much you have after you pay all your basic expenses and
I think the person with GBP 77K has much more left than the person with $125K
in California.

Edit: Apparently living in the UK aint too cheap either. Did not know that!

~~~
coroxout
Not sure about this. In my experience accommodation in the UK is more than in
the US (possibly not in the big cities or SV, though it was true of SF last
time I visited), gas and electricity are a lot more expensive, and food is
about the same price.

    
    
      Average annual salary of software developer in US: $93,000
      Average annual salary of software developer in UK: £35,000 = $56,000 approx
    
      Average house price in the US: $181,500  
      Average house price in the UK: £234,000 = $376,014
    

Ever feel like you're in the wrong country?

(the 93k figure from this recently front-paged article:
<[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4696113>](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4696113>);
all other figures from a randomly-selected page from the first few Google
results, but the UK figures seem reasonable to me - I'm in the south of
England but outside London, and houses here are all above 250k but most
programming jobs I see offer 30-35k. Of course using nationwide averages isn't
necessarily an accurate picture as the places with most tech jobs available
are probably not the ones with most houses on the market)

~~~
rayiner
To be fair, "average" is a weird measurement for comparing the US to the UK.
The average density of development in the UK is far higher than in the US,a nd
housing prices are higher accordingly.

------
rayiner
I think the premise that professional salaries are determined entirely or even
primarily by supply and demand is weak. When you can't measure a workers
quality easily, all sorts of other issues influence salary.

I think the more interesting question is: how much higher can programmer
salaries go if they play their cards right? Programmers seem to have
positioned themselves as a step above IT. But there is money in perception and
the perception you want is to be just a notch below the "real men" (execs).
This is particularly true in places that aren't software houses, but have
programmers internally. What's important is not just supply and demand, but
the perception that quality matters, as well as having easily digestible
signals of quality.

Compare programming to accounting. I don't think the intellectual horsepower
necessary for the two jobs is that different. But accountants at big companies
make more money, and external accountants at accounting firms make even more.
Why? The demand is obviously there--everyone needs accountants. Supply is
limited--accounting takes some mental horsepower. The same things are true for
programming. Do what's different? The difference is that there is a perception
that quality matters, and there are proxies for quality (association with a
big firm, education, CPA) that are easily digestible by C-suite execs.
Companies don't cheap out on their accountants or their lawyers because there
is a perception that executives will be held accountable if the company
suffers problems related to that choice. But companies aren't afraid to cheap
out on programmers. If a project fails or is late, there is a perception that
that's just how software goes, no decision they could have made could have
changed the outcome.

I think programmer salaries are going to continue to go up. First, Google and
Amazon, etc, are creating a perception that quality matters. They aren't
hiring the cheapest people they can get. Second, the next generation of F500
execs will have grown up with their friends taking a gig at Facebook instead
of going to Barclays or McKinsey. That's extremely important for the
profession. Programmers want the industry to be seen as being in competition
with banks, consultancies, etc, for "talent." Third, I don't think supply is
going to expand, and I feel like industry groups may move to create
certifications (rigorous ones like CPA or Series 7) to create indicia of
quality.

~~~
eldude
Accountants are highly paid b/c they save companies money. If I charge
$300/hr, but I save you ~$100k in taxes, it's a no brainer that actually
_makes you money_. The same direct profitability cannot be said about
programmers. At best it is indirect. That's what's called a better business
model. You don't have to be an expert to understand you're getting a better
product.

Additionally, programmers would do well for to adopt an accountants mindset
toward explaining and justifying the reasoning for everything. My father's a
tax acct/atty Who worked for the IRS for ~10y and now runs his own practice.
I'm a "highly paid" programmer in Mountain View. I see a lot of parallels, but
the difference in the business model is most glaring.

EDIT:

Perhaps a better word would have been "potential," as in potential revenue.
The conclusion that spending $Xk on engineering will generate $Yk revenue is
never guaranteed. This is what a typically tax accounting conversation sounds
like: "I will save you $Xk in taxes for $Y." Conversely, engineers at best can
predict that they will generate $Xk revenue while necessarily costing $Y. This
is the distinction I was making.

~~~
mgkimsal
Well... no, it doesn't _make you money_. It means you pay out less in taxes.
There's no more income, just less outgo.

I've boiled down my programming-skills to people sometimes by saying "I can
use computers/web/IT to do one of two things: bring in more revenue, or reduce
your operating expenses". That's pretty much what everything boils down to.

Accountants, almost by their definition, aren't going to be able to increase
revenues. They might increase profit by reducing outlays, or shifting money
around to different tax years and such, but fundamentally accountancy
activities aren't going to increase revenue.

Most IT projects don't increase revenues on their own either - it's generally
in conjunction with initiatives from some other department. But sometimes the
increase in revenues that can be generated with strong IT/web initiatives is
enormous.

However... most of us are focused on the 'saving money' aspect, similar to
accountants. We can optimize processes in an organization, increase
auditability, generate more reports faster, etc.

EDIT: "The same direct profitability cannot be said about programmers. At best
it is indirect" Ummm... just to be clear, yes it can. If I do a project for
someone that costs, say, $100k, but allows them to bring in, say, $3 million
in extra revenue, it's a no-brainer. The project increased revenue (and, well,
it's a no-brainer to do if it increases profits). But I may do the same
project for $100k which allows a company to reduce its internal helpdesk needs
from, say, 25 people down to 5 people, saving $400k per year. That should
generally be a no-brainer too.

It's pretty easy - I'd say often easier, to justify developer or software
project cost/benefits/ROI vs an accountant's abilities, simply because the
laws surrounding taxes are impossible for anyone to fully understand. That
huge tax deduction you got might come at the expense of an audit 3 years from
now. Even if you 'win', the cost of the audit needs to be factored in later.

~~~
edanm
"But I may do the same project for $100k which allows a company to reduce its
internal helpdesk needs from, say, 25 people down to 5 people, saving $400k
per year. That should generally be a no-brainer too."

Here's the problem I have as a manger. Answer me these questions:

1\. How do I know your software will actually allow me to replace 20 people?

2\. How do I know the project will succeed, i.e. actually finish in a usable
state?

3\. How do I know the project will be on-time or on-budget?

Historically, software projects fail all three of these questions rather
regularly. And most people who have any kind of dealing with software _know_
this, so they _know_ that it may end up costing them $200,000 to replace old
software with buggy new software which doesn't do everything the old software
did, requires training new people, and maybe doesn't even reduce costs.

That's what the parent meant - software projects are _not_ as predictable as
accounting. They also tend to take _much, much_ longer and cost much more
before you see whether they worked or not.

~~~
mgkimsal
How do you know accountant X won't fiddle the books and land you in hot water?
How do you know all the deductions are kosher. Even well-meaning financial
people have conflicting views on what's allowed and not allowed.

When talking about hiring an accountant or firm, it's still a crap shoot until
you have a relationship and track record with them.

~~~
edanm
Less so. With accountants/lawyers, you can usually tell someone is at least
decent by school/company they work for/companies they worked for.

There's also a lot of government intervention to make sure they act legally -
I'm pretty sure that most countries force CPAs and lawyers to have a minimum
level of credibility (studying, passing tests, etc.) This makes it easier to
make sure the majority of the population makes at least decent decisions.

------
rrouse
I would say likely forever. Programming is a commitment. Many people will just
not be able to sacrifice other things in life to keep up.

Programming isn't a "learn it once and you're good for life" sort of career.
Programmers have to keep learning every day to stay relevant.

~~~
byoung2
That is a good point, and most other professions that require continuing
education are similarly well-paid (healthcare, law, accounting, engineering).
What sets programming apart is that in these other fields, continuing
education is compulsory in many cases, so everyone has to do it (license
renewals may depend on it). In programming, if I don't keep learning, I won't
get better jobs or salary increases.

~~~
tayl0r
Plus, the amount of things in our world that will be controlled and performed
by software is only going to grow.

While more exposure to technology and better education will create more
programmers, I think the demand for programmers will always outstrip the
supply.

------
markoa
The author glanced over the fact that "software is eating the world", and I
think that therein lies another factor - the constant demand for more
software.

As software becomes more complex and critical, more companies need not just
people who can code, but mature engineers
([http://www.kitchensoap.com/2012/10/25/on-being-a-senior-
engi...](http://www.kitchensoap.com/2012/10/25/on-being-a-senior-engineer/)).
Meanwhile the path for more of those to appear in the global economy involves
waiting for the standard of living to rise across the world, more people to
grow up in such an environment, get their education and at least 10,000 hours
of experience.

------
jere
Regarding the author's company, HappyFunCorp, perhaps they should do a little
bit more moderation on their site if they're really trying to hire. They have
a section of their site called "happy thoughts" where anyone can submit text.
Here are a few gems:

>when one black guy does something and then other black guys go "OH
DAMMMMNNNNN"

>blowing my load in someone's mouth

>jiggly breasts

~~~
zem
i would hope that a tech-savvy person in 2012 wouldn't lend any weight to
stuff random strangers left on a graffiti board when deciding whether a
company is a good place to work at.

~~~
eropple
I wouldn't work at a company that thought a "graffiti board" was a good thing
to have on their corporate website.

------
skennedy
A succinct quote and something I had never really put thought into. Nicely
said.

 _It’s not until you reach a near First-World level of development that
pursuing your passions rather than escaping poverty seems like a reasonable
and/or admirable thing to do._

~~~
rezendi
Thanks.

------
andrewcooke
as a "senior" se in latam, what i see as the biggest problem is the separation
in location. i tele-commute, but it takes luck, experience and a _shared
culture_ to make it work. thankfully, i am english so share a little more,
culturally, than most chileans when it comes to dealing with gringos. even so,
most job offers i receive drop as soon as i mention telecommuting.

and i don't think the problems of telecommuting are going to change for a
while - reproducing physical presence is hard.

what _will_ change sooner is the rise of _internal_ markets (and development)
in these countries. the people there want software too, and local companies
_may_ be able to win out in some way (eg more sensitive to market
requirements, lower prices). once that happens, then the same software may
start to be sold in the usa.

so demand will be lowered, eventually, but the process is indirect. cheaper
programmers will write code for _local_ companies; competition from the code
they write will drive down the demand for code produced in the usa, and so
lower programmer demand and salaries there.

the "passion argument" is bullshit. i know plenty of passionate chilean
programmers. they're not just in it for the money.

------
johnnyjustice
I didn't find much of this article very stimulating but the last comment made
a very good point about fields in general:

"So why aren’t there more people drawn into the[any] field out of sheer
interest? Because when you’re poor, which most of the world is, money is more
important than passion. It’s not until you reach a near First-World level of
development that pursuing your passions rather than escaping poverty seems
like a reasonable and/or admirable thing to do."

~~~
nodemaker
Maslow's hierarchy of needs!

------
elrodeo
Apparently, the author doesn't really has an overview, how the programmers are
paid outside of Google and Facebook. Lets take a look on Germany. Lots of lots
of IT companies here. I was looking for a development position one year ago
and got about 7 offers. Basically, I wasn't rejected even once. But the
problem was, that the offered salaries were not even close to those in Silicon
Valley. The salaries are not significantly different from other (non-IT)
engineering positions here. And it's not a matter of being A or B player. All
interviews were so ridiculously easy and non technical, that the companies
aren't even able to distinct between bad and good programmers. There is no
notion of A or B players here. A software developer here is basically the
lowest level of the hierarchy of the R&D department and are merely considered
as code generators.

A new tendency here -- to hire remote "code generators" in India or East
Europe and to manage them having only managers or architects on site. So, this
transition of development jobs to East the author doesn't see, has already
started here in Germany. And as a programmer you never get rich in Germany,
you have to move to management.

~~~
Inufu
this is why I'm going to the US, in a nutshell. Sadly, there are not a lot of
options at that level here.. (aside from working in a local Google office)

------
gidan
That's a bit frustrating to read a post like this one. There's lot of good
developers and very few good coding jobs. Why does everybody still claim it's
hard to find good developers?, we're everywhere.. Maybe i'm missing the point
or i don't know how to find a coding job..

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Are you in the Minneapolis, MN area? Do you have a technical degree (CS, CE,
or other science or engineering degree?) Are you a skilled developer? Not just
a coder who can patch together bits of code and read an API, but someone who
can take a requirement and talk to the users and understand what it is they
really want, then architect, design, code and test a subsystem that is not
allowed to fail in its operating environment. I don't much care what languages
you know, although knowledge of C++ would be nice. Can you demonstrate to me
in a 1 hour interview that you are _good_ at what you do? I'm not going to
read your github code, but if you can demo a working application you wrote on
your own I will look at it and ask design & implementation questions.

That's basically what we look for, and trust me, it's very difficult to find
someone who comes close. Code monkeys, OTOH, are easy to find.

~~~
TheEzEzz
> someone who can take a requirement and talk to the users and understand what
> it is they really want, then architect, design, code and test a subsystem
> that is not allowed to fail in its operating environment

You are asking for someone that can complete an entire product cycle by
themselves. The power of a company is in bringing together complementary
people that complete a whole, not in finding a single person that does
everything you need. Why would a person with the skill set of an entire team
want to work for a company, rather than starting their own?

~~~
jtheory
I suspect you're thinking of a product that would support a business -- the
post you're responding to mentions a "subsystem".

This is only a few steps beyond what _anyone_ who completes a CS degree does
at least two or three times during their coursework. If you take one of your
end-of-year projects, do the work to make it actually robust enough for other
people to use, and share it with the world (then do a few iterations of "wow,
people aren't using this how I thought" and "wow, apparently that wasn't
robust at all" and "damn I need real revision control", or even "huh; no one
seems to want this at all") -- and fix the things that were wrong with your
first attempts -- you're now far more valuable working _any_ part of the
process in large project dev than any of your classmates.

Your project doesn't need to be big -- it probably shouldn't be, or you'll
never get it out the door -- but scoping it is a lesson in itself that's
really valuable to future employers.

This is how I got my first software engineer job, fresh out of undergrad with
a major in music; I had developed a set of music theory training drills, put
them online (for free) and had already fought my way through a lot of lessons
about browser incompatibilities, usability for non-technical users, how to
support non-technical users effectively, etc. etc..

There was no way in hell I was ready to start a business of my own, at that
point, and I was eager to work with more experienced developers -- I wanted to
learn better ways to solve the problems I was struggling with -- so in seeking
a job I wasn't just someone saying "I learned some stuff in school; can you
pay me money for it?". I was saying "I already know somewhat what you do here;
I want to learn how to do it really well, with you -- will you pay me to do
that?"

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Exactly. I really don't think that what we ask for should be hard to find, but
experience proves otherwise.

------
xyproto
As long as only about 20% of the population has the ability to learn to
program, programmers won't have to worry.

------
wccrawford
>First, you have to grow up wealthy enough to have a decent education, some
exposure to technology, and the ability to choose between options in your
life, which immediately rules out most of the planet.

No, all you need is access to a computer and someone to start you going in the
right direction. And the latter is really just a nicety. You can get there
without it.

I'm largely self-taught, with a little push back in Elementary School. They
introduced the ideas and taught us to write Apple II BASIC programs. I took it
from there.

I eventually got a 2-year degree, but I practically slept through the classes.
I learned a bit about database normalization, and nothing else. 4.0 GPA.

My first job didn't care about the degree at all. They only cared about my
actual skill. I stayed there long enough that any other job would know I had
skills. And my career was on its way.

There's no need for an expensive education.

However, you _do_ need to have a head for logic. Passion for logic helps
tremendously. And a computer.

But who doesn't have a computer these days? I don't know anyone who doesn't
have one. And there are charities that help people get computers if they can't
afford them.

So no, I don't think rich-poor artificial scarcity is what drives the price at
all.

------
lmirosevic
The $500 or so you need to buy your first computer is too much of an upfront
investment for a lot of people in the world. And the time required to learn
how to program, time you could be spending making money at a local job putting
food on the table, is an insurmountable investment.

Part of my family is from a small fishing town in Croatia, I go the their
every year on holiday. And every year I see so many intelligent and hard
working people there who walk around with that lost expression on their face,
longing for a way to make a good living. But there's no role models, no people
to set an example. The wealthiest guy in town owns a cafe. To them, what is
programming? How do you convince someone like that to spend a month's salary
and many more months of hard work learning something when they have no sense
of the implications or the benefits of it. A lot of this world doesn't even
know what programming is or why we need it, no wonder programmers are in short
supply.

~~~
lrobb
Reminds me of the fishermans parable:

An American businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village
when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were
several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the
quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican
replied only a little while. The American then asked why didn't he stay out
longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his
family's immediate needs.

The American then asked, but what do you do with the rest of your time?

The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my
children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each
evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and
busy life, senor."

The American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend
more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat, with the proceeds
from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a
fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would
sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would
control the product, processing and distribution.

You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico
City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding
enterprise."

The Mexican fisherman asked, "But senor, how long will this all take?"

To which the American replied, "15-20 years."

"But what then, senor?"

The American laughed and said "That's the best part. When the time is right
you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become
very rich, you would make millions."

"Millions, senor? Then what?"

The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing
village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take
siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could
sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

------
ExpiredLink
I make less than in 2007. I must be doing something wrong.

~~~
seiji
If you aren't 25 and living in San Francisco making over $125,000 per year,
then yes, you are doing something wrong.

Get younger, move, and/or compromise your beliefs to work on moronic projects
throwing money to the wind.

------
scotty79
My bet is: till strong AI is developed.

~~~
Cacti
There is no such thing as "strong" AI.

------
tzm
Find a position that supports value-based pricing.

------
drivebyacct2
If only there were a guiding economic principle that could be applied that
would relate the _supply_ of skilled workers with the need or _demand_ for
them.

God with such a framework, we might even accidentally elevate the discourse
beyond that of a comic-laden TC "article".

~~~
seiji
We need multidimensional labor pool analysis though. There isn't "programmer"
vs. "non-programmer." There's a stair step pool from "programmer who is among
the best in the world in multiple areas" to "programmer who posts every minor
problem on stackoverflow for free answers because they can't think."

The problem isn't the supply of people who believe they are programmers. The
problem is the supply of amazing people who do things we don't even have words
for, but we end up calling "programming" anyway.

------
michaelochurch
Programmers aren't "so well-paid". In fact, I think we're underpaid, when you
consider that the top technology companies earn several hundred thousand
dollars (and sometimes, low millions) per employee, averaged across _all_
employees.

I actually think we're underpaid, and that's a problem, because if an engineer
only costs $100-200k, then executives can cost-justify using programmer time
on a lot of stupid shit that doesn't add any value (the hits, the projects
that deliver $1 million per person per year in value, make up for it). The
fact that software adds so much value (on average) should give us a huge risk
allowance (that startups have visibly capitalized on) but it's only people
with VC connections and executive douches, for the most part, who can actually
take that risk.

It's not even about money, from my perspective. Engineer salaries are low
compared to the value we add, but reasonable for the most part (we don't
starve). What bothers me is that 90% of software engineers have to do stupid
stuff with minimal autonomy or career growth, and I think that engineers (as a
class) would be better treated if they were more expensive. Of course, the
AbstractVisitorSingletonFactory crowd (who bring down the reputation of the
field) would all be fired, but that's a good thing, too.

------
berntb
Just a note: In 1999, before the jobs disappeared, it was the same articles...

~~~
randomdata
Does that suggest indefinitely? "Bubble 2.0" was already being talked about by
2004. Which puts only a 2-4 year lull in incomes out of a 15-20 year span.

~~~
berntb
I do think there are parallels between when mainstream magazines write about X
as a good profession and when mainstream magazines write about investment and
shares. (The latter case is infamous for predicting bubbles.)

But sure, the work market did come back. Just pity the people coming out of
university at the wrong time.

~~~
randomdata
Was it really that bad? I did not have the opportunity to go to university,
but I did come out of high school right after the burst and while I wasn't
making $100K for just knowing HTML, I was able to do alright. And by the time
the market started to recover, I had some amazing experience under my belt
allowing me to leverage the upswing in ways someone just graduating wouldn't
be able to do.

~~~
georgemcbay
Depends where you live, like anything else, but in California there was a
really bad stretch around late 2000 to early 2002 where it was pretty damn
difficult to find new work as a developer.

Even companies doing relatively well were so worried about the future that
hiring freezes were the norm across the board.

If you were really exceptional _and_ really well connected or had very
attractive experience, you could still find something, but it was certainly a
very difficult time for a lot of people I know working in the industry in CA
around that time.

------
paulhauggis
Open source will eventually kill wages. Why?

Why would I pay a software engineer lots of money to write an entire system
when I can get the engineered parts for free and hire a software mechanic (IE:
less skill and less pay) to make the changes?

I've already worked at a few companies where we should have had 3 or 4
developers and only had me because of open source software.

This is why I plan on running a business that utilizes it rather than a career
that depends on it.

~~~
YokoZar
Open Source Software may be drastically cheaper compared with hiring
programmers to reinvent the wheel, but that very fact also enables a lot of
projects that otherwise wouldn't have happened.

For every company that's not hiring 3-4 engineers in favor of just one guy,
there may be another 3-4 companies hiring one person instead of not doing a
project entirely. This is similar to what happened to the demand for computer
skills when computing itself got drastically cheaper: the increase in usage
more than made up for the fact that an individual task was cheaper.

Now maybe the act of tying disparate open source products together isn't the
same sort of programming we did in the past (though it is software
engineering). And maybe some day we'll actually finish writing all this
software we're working on and it'll be good enough.

~~~
tommorris
Nonsense! Sheer nonsense! If Postgres didn't exist, I'm sure the <20 person
company I work for would be happy to pay me to spend the next decade
recreating it rather than building their application.

Not to mention Linux, Apache, Ruby on Rails, Java, Git, Vim etc. ;-)

------
marshallp
Programming bubble will pop. Automated Machine learning is taking over. Even
at google, Jeff Dean has recently stated that his Perceptual AI project is
aimed at reducing feature engineering in their machine learning projects. In
plain terms this means eliminating the need for programming in their search
engines and other machine learning focused projects like google now and google
goggles (the mobile app, not google glass). The only programmers left will be
to manage cloud computing infrastructure and front end programmers. As things
like siri and google now take off, front end programmers will also be in less
demand. Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon are also increasingly focusing on machine
learning. Automated analysis of text will take over the role of sql databases
as demonstrated in IBM watson. In manufacturing, the role of programming also
diminishing as vision guided robots like Baxter by Rodney Brooks's team take
off.

All this is a good thing though, programming is slow and data is agile, as
talked about by Peter Norvig in his startup school 2008 speech
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNjJTgXujno>

Startups should aim at doing as little programming as possible and leaving it
to data crunching.

~~~
seiji
The current incarnation of machine learning is nothing more than an ultra high
dimensional two year old. "Here's a new item. Which pool of millions of items
is this new thing like?" "Is the red square more like these other red squares
or the green triangles?"

You can get pretty far extracting the math behind the meaning, but lack of
meaning is still deathly apparent.

We should fix that sometime.

~~~
marshallp
I think most people are interested in practically solving problems. If the
black box can solve it, there's no reason to care about "meaning". Once the
machines have taken over all jobs, you can sit around and understand the
meaning of things to your satisfaction at your own leisure surrounded by the
luxury the machines have created for you.

~~~
seiji
Imagine how many more problems we could solve with meaning. Every secretary in
the world could be fired. Software could actually _know_ you. It would be a
huge psychological problem for people.

You think MMOs kill brains in south east asia _now_? Wait until software acts
like a boyfriend. Every site (read: website/app/software) could be unique,
well designed, and work cross platform by telling the system what you want
(remember: in this delusional scenario the system understands meaning to avoid
the unintentional vengeful djinn problem).

You think multivariate testing is omgballz amazing? Imagine if ad networks
share a sophisticated personality model (instead of: likes cats, doesn't like
monster trucks) of you. Every site you visit could be rearranged to appeal to
your individual design sense, buying patterns, and social expectations. A/B
testing basically tries to suss out your average user so you can appeal to
them. You leave your non-average users in the dirt by optimizing for the
common moron.

It's possible and I think the incumbent giants will miss it whenever it
happens (5-10-50 years out).

------
witoldc
Programming jobs are not much to brag about. Many IT people don't just check
out after 5pm. They are on-call after work, stay up late at night trying to
finish X or fix Y. They are expected to show up to the office on the weekends
to do Z. In the meantime, the HR people are relaxing at home with their
families.

As long as programming jobs are worse than regular jobs, people will require
higher compensation to take those jobs. More stress, more requirements =
higher compensation.

~~~
Cacti
Um. Then you need to hire people for that. Sorry, but, "i'm not paid to be on
call 24/7 but I am anyway" is not a reasonable argument. Fix it or deal with
it and move on.

And what do you mean, "worse than regular jobs?" Have you looked around much
lately? Sitting in front of a computer all day doing what you love pales in
comparison to about 95% of all jobs on the earth. And do you really think "HR"
people just go home and chill? Everyone has responsibilities that exceed their
billed hours. That is part of life.

------
camus
As long as Tech Company are not willing to out-source them (which is already
happening, everything can be outsourced). there is not one profession that
cannot be out-sourced. Is it good on the long run? well global business are
not tied to a local consumer base anymore , so i guess it is for them , and
consumers do not care.

~~~
seiji
Good morning. You've triggered my "I have a political stake in my comment
stance" detector. Are you perchance someone residing in not-U.S. who wants
these magic outsourced jobs?

~~~
camus
no ,off course , not , but these are just facts. In my company , Accountency
has been out-sourced to eastern europe, and my job may be next , no matter how
good i am at my task. It is not something i want of course , but it is
something that might happen in the future.

~~~
seiji
If your company treats you as a cost and wants to unload you, then you are
probably in trouble. Maybe try to find a place that sees you as an asset? In
SF, the fancy programmers are entire products and personality cults by
themselves.

Saying everything can be outsourced would lead to all American actors being
replaced by Bollywood or Korean or Chinese actors. There are forces other than
price of labor acting in the market.

