
Why do self-designated “smart” developers work for very little? - mbrodersen
If you are paid (say) $100k a year and work 80 hours a week, your hour rate is (roughly) $25&#x2F;hour. If you instead work normal hours (40) your hour rate is (obviously) $50&#x2F;hour. So why are some developers proud of working more hours than others? That doesn&#x27;t seem very smart to me.
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tabeth
Perhaps the premise, that smart people maximize income, is incorrect.

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mbrodersen
Fair enough. Let's imagine for a moment that some "smart" people don't
maximise income. My question then is: why don't they use those extra 40 hours
to optimise whatever makes them tick (solving global problems, building their
own biz, creating great open source software) instead of being paid truck
driver rates making somebody else rich? That still doesn't seem very smart.

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rrrjjjqqq
I just left a low paying 80 hour a week job for a high paying 40 hour a week
job with that exact logic - I can do what makes me tick in my spare time.

As it turns out, that's a lot harder than you're making it sound. I absolutely
loved my previous job, where I was building a quality product that I knew my
customers would enjoy. There were some leadership-related issues that came up
there, so I thought I could build a product on my own in my extra 40 hours a
week. Now I have no product (or product ideas) and no customers. Instead I
spend my time networking with people who might have those two things. I feel
like I lost out, even though I'm getting higher pay.

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akulbe
Maybe they're not as good as they think?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effec...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect)

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mbrodersen
That is probably true in some cases.

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erik998
You need to define work. Is the amount of time I spend learning a new
framework/language also work? By that definition none of us are very smart.

If you mean to say work as defined by the specified project you need to
determine if there is something else they are seeking that provides worth. Do
they want to be seen as necessary? Do they need to learn the whole
system/program to have a sense of job security. Some people love the whole
idea of saying they have spent more time than anyone else working on the
program/app at hand. It's BS I know but for the non technical manager those
are the sweetest words.

It's not easy to make utilitarian calculations based solely off monetary units
divided by time. Exchange value is never easy to determine. For you it may be
easy to find another job that pays same or more for same monetary value
divided by time. For others, it may not be so easy.

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solomatov
They don't minimize amount of work they do, because they greatly enjoy the
work, and get great pleasure from the process of programming.

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mbrodersen
So why not work a 40 hour job and then spend 40 hours working on your own
stuff instead? That not only doubles your hour rate but also makes it possible
for you to create whatever makes you excited (your own biz/open source
software/whatever). Or (alternatively) simply have a life beyond work.

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mod
Believe it or not, some people are excited by their work, and believe it's the
most important thing they're doing.

Not everyone is a slave to a job they hate, which seems to be your perspective
here.

