
Are coders worth it? - Libertatea
http://www.aeonmagazine.com/living-together/james-somers-web-developer-money/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AeonMagazineEssays+%28Aeon+Magazine+Essays%29
======
grey-area
Wonderful writing, I loved the way it circled several times around the central
issue - the value of work, and I particularly liked this conclusion - much
validation and reward in our society is driven by how much people are willing
to pay you for your chosen work, and it's very hard to separate your self-
worth and confidence from that. It's hard to reconcile when your values don't
meet those of the people around you, as expressed in the salaries for various
jobs, which vary wildly without much sign of reason or relation to what
society ostensibly values. I think what he's trying to get at is _why_ we
overvalue these jobs, which on the face of it are not particularly rewarding
either to society or the individuals doing them (apart from monetarily). If
you ask people in the street whether we need another Facebook, most would say
no, and yet we have hundreds of inchoate and uninspiring replacements being
worked on and funded right now, so it's hard to see where the demand is coming
from, or why this work is valued so highly, and whether it is in fact a bubble
which will burst.

Going back to 17C Holland there was probably a huge demand for market traders
able to distinguish fine differences in and trade tulip bulbs, until all of a
sudden there wasn't - this is the kind of illusory value the writer posits for
today's fêted startup web workers. I'm not sure I entirely agree, but it
shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, because he's not just saying it's unfair,
but that it may be unjustified.

 _The price of a word is being bid to zero._

This sentence near the end cuts to the heart of the matter for me - for
writers or other producers of original content like photographers there is a
cruel and dismal comparison to be drawn between the wages of those paid to
frame content and present it to the world, and the wages of those who produce
the content. The creative content (writing, photography, art, travel guides
etc) is all in demand, but no-one wants to pay for it, perhaps because it's so
easy to produce something yourself, and so hard to distinguish the fine
differences in quality which separate a remarkable piece of writing or
photography from the mediocre.

~~~
NickPollard
>> If you ask people in the street whether we need another Facebook, most
would say no

Don't take this as a disagreement with your whole comment (it isn't), but one
trap that people fall into is equating what people _say they want_ with what
they _actually want_ \- at least as expressed by _what they are willing to pay
for_ , which is what shareholders and VCs care about.

There was an article on HN a day or two ago about how asking people to bet on
political propositions affects their stated beliefs - when there's no cost,
people will happily spout whatever their favoured party's line is, but if you
ask them to put their money where their mouth is, they will often skew away.

VCs are investing based on where they think people will actually put their
money, not on where they say they will. If evidence is that people spend a lot
of time social networks, AND evidence is that advertisers will pay money for
web adverts to people, then it might follow that a new social network is a
good investment.

The main issue as I see it is that as we use money as a proxy for value, we
disproportionately weight the desires of the rich over those of the poor. A
service for rich people (e.g. an online photo sharing website) doesn't need to
produce much utility to be worth a lot of money, whereas a service for poor
people (e.g. clean water for poor villages) can produce a lot of utility and
still be worth little money.

~~~
DannoHung
People are willing to pay for Heroin because it scratches a chemical itch in
our brains. People don't _say they want_ heroin because they intellectually
know it ruins their lives and does nothing positive for them.

Such is the predatory nature of the capitalist.

~~~
pjscott
There's a disconnect between what people want, what they want to want, and
what they say they want. This seems to be universal to humans; the connection
with capitalism is tenuous, at best.

------
d4nt
The value of a lot of these apparently lightweight B2C apps is derived
primarily from the attention that they get from their users. If you can build
something that gets attention, then that's worth a lot of money.

In a world where people are spending less and less time watching TV there is
now a huge imbalance between corporations who have lots of money and want
attention, and huge numbers of people with smartphones and limited attention
spans. It's like a thunderstorm, all these electrons trying to get to Earth,
then suddenly, Bang! Instagram. These valuations, and the developer salaries
they fuel are just a by-product of all that money trying to get from point A
to point B.

Google got huge by inventing one new channel for that money to flow through.
And a pretty brute force one at that: You searched for "laptop" here are some
ads for laptops... It's still ahead of everything else though, which is
basically a re-implementation of the old TV campaigns but on the web. If
someone could only figure out how to show you laptops just before you thought
of searching for laptops, then they would be even bigger than Google.

~~~
waterlesscloud
"In a world where people are spending less and less time watching TV there is
now a huge imbalance between corporations who have lots of money and want
attention, and huge numbers of people with smartphones and limited attention
spans. It's like a thunderstorm, all these electrons trying to get to Earth,
then suddenly, Bang! Instagram."

Wow. That's the most vivid explanation for it all that I've ever seen. Thanks
for that.

------
willholloway
Am I the only one that wants coders to stop feeling guilty and devaluing
themselves?

The plumber analogy is off base. Web development is incredibly more complex
than plumbing in a home. Importantly, web development changes extremely fast
while plumbing is largely the same as it has been for decades.

The web and the developers that have created all of the sites and apps on top
of it has added tremendous value to our economy and world. Web developers have
streamlined almost the entirety of our lives and created enormous productivity
gains.

The things that we create may seem trivial to us, but are fantastically
valuable to society.

Jet packs and flying cars were always a terrible benchmark to measure human
technological progress against. Iterative improvement has created a world of
fantastic possibilities.

Good development is hard, and requires a lot of knowledge. Value yourself and
feel good about what you are doing.

~~~
bokglobule
As a developer who also knows plumbing (and other trades), I'd beg to differ.
When I talk to neighbors and friends, most of whom are highly "technical",
they look at me in disbelief when I suggest they resolve a plumbing (or
carpentry or mechanical) issue on their own. I get the "I have no idea where
to start", or "I don't have any tools", and so on. It's not a lack of
available information, it's the fear, in many cases extreme fear, of the
ramifications of not "doing it right": a flood in the house, a wall that
collapses because you hacked through a supporting structure, an electrical
short that burns the house down, and so on.

You build a website and maybe it doesn't work right (has bugs). In most cases,
no one dies or gets hurt. You mess up plumbing, electrical, etc and that's not
the case at all. It's easy to look down on the non-technical trades since we
live in a time that glorifies (like the OP says) the art of programming. But
next time you have a major plumbing issue, your heat pump goes on the fritz,
you car dies on the highway, consider how helpful it is to know RoR, Java, C#,
etc. Not too much...

~~~
thedufer
Is this really the case? Growing up, my family did pretty much all of their
own plumbing/carpentry/electrical work, so I'm kind of surprised that that's
not the norm. Its honestly not that hard to figure out, and its also pretty
easy to make sure that messing up doesn't do any long-term damage.

The extreme of this was when we spent a year or so finishing our basement;
everything from framing to wiring/plumbing to painting was done on weekends by
us. I wouldn't say that I "know" any of those trades, but I know how to look
up instructions on the internet or ask someone at Home Depot.

~~~
nekopa
I think that _you_ are not the norm. I feel that I am a pretty smart guy, and
I know how to do good, in depth research on the Internet. But I have to say, I
got a lot of cringing looks from my girlfriends family when they first saw me
using a chainsaw with an iPad propped up next to me with instructions on
proper chainsaw operation techniques display displayed next to me.

There is data, there is information, there is knowledge, there is experience.
And then there is wisdom.

------
jacques_chester
Virtue is not value.

Value is not virtue.

What you consider virtuous may produce no economic value. Or maybe it does.
There's no rigid formula that connects them and the Just World Hypothesis is
an illusion that traps fools and wisemen alike.

Attempts to browbeat the world out of "is" and into "ought" have been
universal failures and I retain every confidence that it will be ever thus.

James Somers might find Hayek's writing to be a bit repetitive and languid;
but he will find the ideas illuminating. It seems like his father tried, but
failed, to make the insight really stick.

There has never been a Just World where Virtue = Value. No matter how badly we
want it, there can't be. And trying to forcefully make one generally just
makes it much worse.

~~~
stdbrouw
I didn't feel like the author was trying to prove anything, or was trying to
get people to pursue more "virtuous" pursuits. It is simply a personal
reflection on the state of the startup ecosystem and what it means to be a
computer programmer.

~~~
jacques_chester
I'm trying to save him some angst.

Trying to reconcile the virtues of what he does with his economic value is
pointless. They're just not connected.

Demand for Ruby on Rails plumbing is ultimately connected with the current
wishes and desires of most of the planet's population and has nothing
whatsoever to do with how he, or anyone else, _feels_ about it.

In literary terms: he's tilting at windmills.

~~~
jrochkind1
MOST of the planets population? Really?

I think the actions or desires of most of the planets population, who don't
have computers or internet-enabled phones, have virtually no impact on the
market for rails developers.

~~~
notahacker
That was my thought. Really it's the actions or desires of a small number of
VCs with copycat investment strategies hoping to outperform VC as an asset
class by backing a slightly different set of San Francisco startups working on
a slightly different spin on social sharing that drives demand for developers
in that particular corner of the world into the stratosphere. (The market for
Rails developers in many other parts of the world is not that different from
the market for other locally-based professionals with a skillset that can
solve defined business problems, which is probably what their code is actually
doing)

That said, the billion plus people that joined Facebook and click on Google
ads have had a bit of an influence on why LPs from all over continue to pump
money into Sand Hill Road VC funds...

------
jumblesale
Very well written article, I always enjoy reading stuff from the intersection
of writers and coders. What I found startling was how different my experience
has been to that of the author's at the start of the article.

I've put up with some horrific jobs paying miserable money in some of the most
uninspiring industrial parks you could imagine. I've taken work in dingy
Victorian offices so cold that I've had to program through thick gloves. I've
accepted commutes taking up to three hours and incorporating four different
kinds of transport. More than once I've spent 18 hours on Saturday and Sunday
circulating my CV to every job opening and recruiter even slightly relevant to
web development.

Reverse interviews? People clamouring to have coffee with me? Beer constantly
close to hand?? These are unheard of things. Conditions are definitely better
for me now but my skills certainly don't mark me out as a celebrity. Maybe the
financial bubble of the dot-com era has been replaced by a cultural bubble,
one that I'm definitely not part of.

~~~
rdouble
It's particular to the New York startup scene. There is a lot of money
sloshing around and startups have a different hiring strategy than in Silicon
Valley. It's quick to hire, quick to fire. I've had six figure offers without
even going through a real interview. This leads to a lot of churn. One place I
worked at ran through three almost entirely different engineering teams in 18
months. It will be interesting to read if the author of this article still has
the same job in the fall.

Silicon Valley is a bit different. There is usually a gauntlet of multi-day
interviews even for the lowliest position at a startup nobody has heard of.
It's even more of a gauntlet at the large, established companies. I've heard
of someone doing 10 days of interviews at amazon.com, and they are a company
most want to avoid. Companies are very afraid of hiring the wrong person.

As you have noted, most everywhere else the developer is made to feel lucky to
work at a folding table in an unheated area next to the men's room.

~~~
bennyg
Not necessarily true. I think if you aren't in those tech places (beyond SV
and NYC, there are other hotbeds too), you have to get known amongst a tech
community and this is where social shines. I've been open sourcing software
fairly frequently lately and was contacted by potential future bosses at three
very well-known companies for software engineer roles, two in California and
one smack-dab in Manhattan. I've also been leveraging things like Show HN and
putting stuff in appropriate subreddits to get an initial jump. Once you break
the trending barrier in your language of choice on Github, it's practically
smooth sailing. Getting on the most-starred today (just on Objective-C) has
resulted in two extra days of blog posts, tweets and mentions from all over
the internet that I didn't even solicit at all. Two of my open-sourced
repositories ended up trending number one overall on Github for a day each. I
think if you make stuff that helps coders, and position it correctly on sites
that care about that, then it's easier to get noticed and technical directors
are more willing to consider you for a job (why wouldn't they hire someone
that makes their team more productive).

I have a BA in Art with a minor in Advertising. If I can get noticed using
these tactics, then surely people with CS or EE degrees can too.

~~~
markkanof
Given your educational background, I think it could be argued that you are
better prepared to do this type of personal promotion than others who have a
purely technical background. In most cases, raw technical talent isn't as
important (thought technical folks usually think it's all that matters) as
being able to do the job at hand and being able to convince others that you
can do that job.

Good for you for realizing that "marketing" doesn't have to be a dirty word
and hopefully others can learn from your example.

~~~
bennyg
True. People shouldn't shy away from personal promotion, just do it at
appropriate times and in appropriate places. I hated advertising in school,
but thought it was the only way I could make money with a graphic design
degree. Turns out coding with a graphic design degree is a lot more rewarding
(for me at least, I'm a builder by nature).

------
leoedin
I think the real issue is that there's people with lots of money that are
willing to fund a lot of different companies in the hope of stumbling across
the next facebook. Result? A whole host of well funded but ultimately useless
apps and websites. Meanwhile, the people who can make these websites are
making lots of money.

It's probably a bubble to some extent. Eventually, if the return from all
these web apps is less than the money spent on them, the money will dry up.
(I'd imagine that this will be the case - most of the value of the most-recent
crop of high-value tech startups seems to be based on hype and even bigger
companies buying them, rather than profitability or revenues). In the mean
time, there's still people queuing up to fund things they don't understand.
The biggest thing to remember about bubbles is that they always seem to keep
growing far longer than any sensible person would expect. Will the money run
out eventually? Probably.

~~~
jacques_chester
People with lots of money have been disappointed by the performance of
traditional investment vehicles for the past 5 years; meanwhile a lot of extra
money has been put into the financial sector.

If you're a fund with $100 billion under management, dropping $2 billion into
various venture funds is a reasonable part of the mix. Multiply that by the
fact that several hundred funds, banks, trusts and companies collectively
control trillions of dollars and these little 1 or 2 percent investments pump
billions of dollars into tens of thousands of companies with collectively
perhaps a few hundred thousand employees.

When every buyer is cashed up, prices for sellers rise.

~~~
iaskwhy
(I don't know much about this but) I kind of believe it is a good thing that
the traditional investment vehicles are not that good anymore. That was like
betting on the outcome of the players of the roulette, right? Money against
money against something that may make money. This last bit, investing in
something that might make money, brings the world new ideas. It's probably a
completely incorrect picture I'm drawing here though.

------
jezclaremurugan
Not all web developers are "plumbers". If you are working on websites with
heavy traffic, then you need to use complex algorithms to scale. That needs
someone who is comfortable with algorithms, and that needs a quite lot of
thought.

The author describes simple CRUD websites and then equates all of web
development to trivial tasks like that. Even scaling simple CRUD needs a lot
skills, intelligence and ingenuity.

And talking of design, there is a reason some pieces of art are valued so
much. A designer who designs a great website is an artist too, and deserves as
much compensation.

~~~
dhimes
I agree. There are some that are worth a lot of money. But to be worth that
kind of money you need deep domain knowledge. I won't pay $120/hr for someone
to tinker with jQuery. I will pay that for a machine learning specialist.

The fact is that 'coders' are today's version of auto mechanics in the 70s.
The barrier to entry is low- an old box, a linux distro, google- and off you
go. So everybody who can't do something else can give it a try. Some will
fail; some will succeed at a low level, and a few may find their calling. And
a lot of people will pay for it because they don't know the difference.

But the one's who are truly good- who obtain that domain knowledge- are
valuable. In their domain.

~~~
drunkpotato
Perhaps you've been very lucky or found some especially naive people (right
out of grad school, perhaps). Your rates immediately struck me as the kind of
rate you would quote if you'd never, in fact, tried to hire somebody skilled.
I allow the possibility you have been lucky and successful.

In general you'll be paying upwards of $250/hr for a machine learning
specialist (sometimes upwards of $500/hr if they have a modicum of talent and
experience) and more than $120/hr for a front-end webdev who can claim
anything more than "I've heard of jQuery." Those are contracting rates of
course; hiring somebody at salary has its own costs.

~~~
dhimes
You caught me: I've not hired a domain expert coder. But I've also not paid
$120/hr for front-end coders. I over-paid for one guy who knew far less than I
did- horrible coding practice, always thought he was farther along on the
project than he really was (and wanted money), and, in fact, never got far
enough to even understand the problem before I terminated the agreement.

For $120/hr the person isn't fiddling- they've done it before, probably have a
personal library they can pull, and a basic shell of a website can be ready
pretty quickly. Their time is almost entirely spent on the custom part of the
site.

~~~
drunkpotato
Fair enough. I think my response was biased towards professionals who you can
be sure will do the job quickly, not learning on your dime.

~~~
gte910h
Still it doesn't necessarily pay. There is a very large productivity gap
between different people, for different tasks in software development (in the
1-50x range).

------
fieryeagle
I stopped reading about 1/2 way into the article. Brace yourself, the rant is
coming...

<rant> Too many red flags springing from a delusional, narrow-minded view
which looked no further than the bloated world of Valley startups. Hope mr.
Author could cast his eye to some other corners of the world (no, even other
parts of the States) and witness the bleak reality of a career called web
development. Startups are just a small part, albeit the highlighted part of
the system. What would you then call those developers who do back-breaking
work, with a fraction of your starting salary, in a dead-end career path
surrounded by an equally depressing environment? Low-class web developers?
They are just like any other programmers out side, people who chose coding as
a profession. Before all the perks, freedom and fun, this is a job. You work
for your pay, period. I am sick and tired off seeing another article with a
viewpoint through rose-tinted glass about values of coders. Enough is enough.
</rant>

<conclusion> There are overpaid programmers and there are underpaid
programmers, everywhere in the world. I probably fall into the underpaid camp,
that's why I feel annoyed seeing way too many articles with BS about the cool
$100k IT jobs for fresh graduates. Where I stay, it probably takes an above
average fresh grad 5-6 years of doing good jobs while hopping around
(startup/MNC/whatever) to come somewhere close to $100. The media just does
not ever cover the average Joe programmer's career path, but this is the
reality. </conclusion>

~~~
voodoomagicman
Do you realize there is actual back breaking work - and coding isn't it? And
that making $100k after 5 years is still about twice the median income for a
family, and goes a lot farther in places with a low cost of living than it
does in New York or the bay area. And that if you want a higher paying job, it
is on you to find it and get hired?

~~~
fieryeagle
Of course I meant in the industry itself. Project-based programmers working
until midnight for $40k annum with no extras, that's back-breaking alright.
Working 9-6pm, comparatively for $80k isn't.

------
BerislavLopac
"In today's world, web developers have it all: money, perks, freedom,
respect."

This might be true only by a VERY narrow definition of "world", specifically
Silicon Valley. Or maybe I live in a very peculiar place, but the developers
(Web or otherwise) here are in the low to mid income range, regardless of
their skills and experience. And don't even get me started on freedom and
respect...

~~~
guard-of-terra
You are. Why don't you move? Metaphorically speaking, don't be Steve Jobs in
Syria, be Steve Jobs in the USA.

~~~
vinceguidry
I got a call from a poor recruiter in Chattanooga, TN trying to fill a Rails
job. Seemed to be getting a little desperate. Being in Atlanta, I have no
trouble finding stuff right here. When he tried to punk me by saying, "Well,
if you have roots I can understand," with a tone like I'm hurting my career
prospects by not being willing to move, I asked, "Well, just for kicks, what
kind of compensation is being offered here?" When he said $60-70K I almost
laughed in his face. "Yeah that's not nearly enough to get me to move. Oh
well, good luck!"

You don't have to be in a startup hub to find work, just willing to move
_somewhere_. That makes you much more marketable.

~~~
gte910h
Yeah, I feel a bit bad for the recruiters trying to get senior/lead level guys
for "fresh from GT CS program" wages. Or trying to hire iOS devs for $50 an
hour.

~~~
BerislavLopac
I know a lot of (iOS and other) developers who would kill for a chance to work
for $50 an hour...

~~~
vinceguidry
I do believe the GP is talking about freelance work, not full time jobs. $50
an hour 40 hours a week is $100K/year, freelancing, that's a pittance.

~~~
BerislavLopac
I'm talking about freelance developers too. The usual rate here is extremely
rarely over $35 (for clients in the US).

------
dabent
As someone who's worked through the dot-com boom and crash of the 1990's, I
can offer some perspective.

\- Everything is relative: My salary is just now what it was at the top of the
dot-com bubble about 14 years ago, and I've been promoted twice. That $150,000
offer the author mentions would be $250,000 if we used the wages for 1999,
adjusted for inflation.

\- Like all things, this is cyclical. In 1999, my email was jammed with
messages from recruiters. In 2002, I could hardly get one to return my call.
The same will happen with this latest enthusiasm for coders. In a couple of
years, the startup scene may cool off considerably. You could end up grateful
for a job that pays 1/2 the salary at a bank. Enjoy the free Red Bull and
flexible hours while they last.

\- You will be replaced. By someone younger, someone offshore, someone with
newer skills. You can't change your age or nation of birth, so keep your
skills sharp. I've gone from Pascal to Python in my career and will keep
going. If you want money, look for the skills people will pay for. Lisp is a
great language, but Java has had this great feature of paying my bills and
then some.

\- Make something people want. If they want you to make a micro social network
for an apartment building, do it. Some of my best jobs (and money) have come
from the mundane, like software help track toilet paper production costs. One
of the wealthiest people I know started as an electrician. He now runs and a
company of electricians and has the kind of money us start up folks dream of
because he runs wires in houses in a city that went on a building boom.

\- Realize that how much money people make doesn't relate to the value their
job provides to society. Athletes can make incredible money, while people
disarming bombs, fighting fires and repairing power lines make little. It's
just a fact of life and it isn't fair. Left handed baseball pitchers have
inherent value simply due to the fact that they are left handed on top of
their ability to throw a ball. Coders make money right now because of the
internet and the information age. Make the most of it and make the impact you
want to make in the world.

------
mathattack
Holy moses that was a long article. I couldn't get to the end to see if the
punchline was different than, "Yes, we get paid for hard work, but we also get
paid for having rare skills. Some think it's fair, some don't. The folks doing
the paying seem to think it's reasonable, otherwise they wouldn't be doing
it."

~~~
Peroni
That's a reasonable summary however the comments that will fill this thread
will inevitably focus on the "developer == plumber" analogy.

------
fhd2
Is it just me, or is the photo a rather unlucky pick?

I'm seeing roughly 20 people, sitting in what is essentially a dark cellar. It
would be completely colourless, if it wasn't for a handful of bizarre,
childish gadgets here and there. I couldn't imagine working in such a crowded,
depressing environment, let alone feel relaxed.

And from what I've seen, that's one reality for many programmers: The offices
are often quite bad.

Open plan offices are popular (it's not like developers need to phone or
anything, right?), developers are put in basements, under the roof, or into an
unattractive second building. And home office is generally more difficult to
pull off for programmers than for other knowledge workers, which I think is
mostly caused by a general lack of trust.

Sure, the salaries are pretty good lately (although it's pretty much at the
level of other professions requiring degrees, isn't it?), but I don't see much
appreciation of programmers in most settings. The startup world is different
(from my experience), but it's a very small part of our industry.

~~~
rdouble
It's a valid observation, but does anyone have nice offices?

My parents are medical professionals, their offices were terrible. My sister
runs a government org in Australia, has horrible office. One of my old bosses
was the head of a department at Harvard, also had a disgusting office. I
personally am not a fan of the open space bullpen, but almost every other
professional I have met had an office that was worse. The only people I know
with legitimately cool offices are interior designers.

~~~
dspillett
_> but does anyone have nice offices?_

Ours certainly isn't a beautiful masterpeice of architecture and modern art,
but it definitely qualifies as nice.

A little bland and "airport-lounge-y" despite logos on the walls and brightly
coloured chairs/sofa in the casual meeting areas (imagine an off-white and
less saturated take on the pallet used for Mirror's Edge), but we have
perfectly reasonable desks and chairs, plenty of space (I've seen more than
twice as many people crammed into similar spaces), a good amount of natural
light (though in the middle of the office the artificial lights still need to
be on all day), and a useful kitchen area with plenty of space should lots of
use want lunch in at the same time.

------
mseebach
I think the point about code being cool is rather shortsighted: Code has only
been cool to anything like mainstream youth for maybe five or ten years. In US
high school as an exchange student in 1999, the computer science
class/team/whatever most certainly wasn't "cool" - and this was on the tail of
the .com boom. In high school in Denmark 99-02, I saw the first general
recognition that while "being able to make websites" was probably a _useful_
skill, it certainly wasn't cool. Of course, the view changed at university,
but then we're pretty far down the selection-bias rabbit-hole.

Given those 15 years of experience, I am not very surprised that I am in short
supply. But now that coding is beginning to be cool, I'd also not be surprised
if not too many years from now, basic computer literacy at the end of
secondary education (or even earlier) includes the ability to crank out basic
RoR-style apps.

~~~
gambomb
I think you may be overestimating the capacity of the education system to
change. I'm now a year removed from High School, but in my class of 350 there
were maybe 10 who could program proficiently. Only two (myself and a friend)
knew what linux was. I would say it wasn't treated as "cool", but certainly
regarded with a wierd respect.

~~~
digitalsushi
I don't accept that anyone can know how familiar everyone else is of a thing.
It's possible that you're perfectly correct, but how you arrived at this was
assumption.

What if, out of the 348/350 other students you claim were unaware of linux,
there were more than 0 of them that were happy to play with linux on their own
without broadcasting it to you?

My point in this is that hobbies may seem unique, and it's great that we can
motivate the growth of our identity in this, but to take it to the extent that
you and your friend were the only kids that knew linux is blissful ignorance.
No offense to you, it's just your assumption that I feel compelled to respond
to.

~~~
gambomb
Yes there are some assumptions that play into my assertion. Were there others
who may have toyed with linux on their own time, quietly? Quite possibly.
However, I doubt it. When Lockheed Martin visited my school to mentor/start a
cyber security (hacking) competition team, we were only able to get ~18 people
(from multiple grades) to show up. I also know for a fact that there were only
ever about 60 kids (across multiple grades) enrolled in the school's CS
offerings during the year. I knew all of these kids.

I think you'll find that 300 is a much smaller number of people than it
sounds. While I respect your challenge of my assertion, I feel it's mostly
valid. The effect intended is that only a very small fraction of kids in my
class were technically inclined.

------
sologoub
This article seems to be missing a parallel that was drawn previously many
times. PG has written on the subject, and so have others.

The closest parallel we can draw between "coders" and the distant past, is
that with the artisans of the middle ages. Aside from the landowning nobles,
the artisan class was probably the closest thing to a true middle class. Many
advanced to upper-middle and later became the industrial nuevo rich.

The reason that this parallel works, is that the artisans were able to make
something coveted out of what looked like a pile of junk (or less usable) to
others. What a software developer creates with a few keystrokes looks to the
lay person now as "magical" as creating a sword out of a pile of rocks looked
to a lay person a thousand years ago. They get the general concept and see the
value, but they have no idea of how it actually happened and cannot repeat it
themselves.

By today's standards, most of what artisans of old made is not very desirable
if it is made today (antiques not withstanding), hence only very few "artists"
are actually paid well. Most people engaged in artisanal work are now in what
we call 3rd world countries and make zilch. The reason behind this, is that
technology has progressed and most of this stuff can be made faster, cheaper
and more consistent by a manufacturing process. Today, we can take the best
artisan of old, and copy him/her a million times over to produce the same
trinket, with little extra expense.

Software engineering has not yet gone through a true manufacturing disruption.
We cannot put software on the kind of assembly line/stamping process we can
with say door hinges or other metal works that used to require a skilled
blacksmith. That doesn't mean it won't happen some day.

We are constantly trying to go the direction of commoditizing complex
problems. Looking back 30-40 years, the efficiency of tools we use has gone
way up. Today, a developer doesn't have to write many components from scratch
(unless he or she wants to). Most of what makes an application can be taken of
the shelf, and modified to fit. For consumer apps, design is also where a lot
of work goes in to.

This modification or molding process is a major barrier to having a true
manufacturing process in place because the quality of the modifications
depends on the individual skill of the person making it. A mistake made early
on can bring a future company to it's knees and derail projects years after it
was made. For example, a faulty data model that is let to grow to terabytes of
information. Many companies choose to through money and computing resources,
rather than risk a costly migration.

When we have sufficiently advanced to the point where such mistakes do not
depend on an individual and the automation process can take care of it, the
value of the software engineer as we know the profession today will diminish
greatly. But then again, I'm sure the profession will evolve as well.

~~~
bennyg
Sure some parts of software will become manufactured and mass produced - I
mean that's the case today. How many libraries do you use?

However, software is still an intellectual, out of thin air, endeavor. It
requires thought to create new and make work with existing circumstances. You
aren't melting metal into a mold to make a tangible object. You are literally
fusing thoughts and intellectual processes together to do it with software.
Until thinking becomes mass-produced and optimized to the point of max
efficiency, I don't see this happening.

~~~
nekopa
But how long will this idea of 'fusing thoughts and intellectual processes'
remain the sole domain of humans? Besides from some creative leaps, a lot of
this has to do with logic: knowing what works where and when.

I'm working on an idea tied to literate programming where someone can tell a
story of what they want a program to do, put it in a wiki, and then
programmers can edit the wiki to add in the actual software to make the
program work. How hard would it be to use NLP parsing, feed it into something
using the priciples from BDD, take something that turns that into UML the run
it through a code generator and you have an MVP. Software engineers may then
end up like manufacturing engineers in that their job is to tweak and fine
tune the output. But even then that part of the job may fall to ML which
recognizes similar patterns between software implementation and optimum
utilization (there are only so many ways to write a user login page on a web
app for example)

I think _thinking_ will never become mass-produced, but Mass-producing turning
thoughts into software may happen within my lifetime.

Edit: missed out the main point from my last sentence.

~~~
bennyg
That sounds awesome. I've dreamed of a context-aware, natural language
programming language:

Change value of potatoes to 10. (potatoes = 10).

Make potatoes equal 10. (potatoes = 10).

Give every person at the dinner table a potato. (for x = 0; x <
dinnerTable.count; x++ {dinnerTable[x].potatoes += 1})

Etcetera.

~~~
nekopa
But think about it this way:

So, I want to check my diary and see what I need to do today. Anything really
important should flash, so I know I need to take care of that. But, I know
that my boss is waiting for me to finish that puff piece on our new
acquisition, so double flash that. Also let me know I need to buy cat food.
Stat.

Make a program that can parse that piece of text and you're onto a winner.
(I'm trying)

------
nilkn
Oh boy, I have a lot of comments here, most of them in agreement with the
article but not all.

According to all the anecdotal knowledge I have, my conclusion has been that
currently software engineering and chemical engineering are tied for the
locally optimal career choice for those with a four year degree or less. While
some college graduates (or dropouts) will go become billionaires, as a general
rule, it is quite hard to do better in a career without further education than
you can with these two types of engineering.

Software and chemical engineering also both have their own "meccas": SV for
software, Houston for chemical. Google/Facebook/etc. for software,
Exxon/Chevron/etc. for chemical.

That said, anyone who thinks software developers are on the verge of being
overpaid should consider how low developers (and most workers) are on the
overall wage ladder. Maybe $150k sounds high to the typical person born and
raised in the middle class, but that's pennies compared to the typical
salaries in the true upper class. Moreover, the majority of developers making
salaries around that number live in the most expensive cities in the country,
not the cheaper ones.

As a general rule, software developers are in the middle class or upper middle
class, but not the upper class. Of course, it depends on your definition of
the various social classes. If you define it as the one percent, you'd need to
make about $350k. If you define it as those whose primary income derives from
investments rather than salaries, then even that is not nearly enough.

What's an example of something close to an "upper class career"? Some but
certainly not all doctors would make it. Family physicians wouldn't be close
(they're about the same as engineers in the end), but specialized academic
surgeons will make $500k-$1M/year. At many universities with medical schools,
the top surgical faculty will make about double the president of the
university.

A successful trader of financial assets can make seven figures. This is almost
common on Wall Street, but it happens elsewhere. The youngest billionaire in
Houston right now made his fortune from Enron: he was a trader of energy
derivatives and after making the company some $75 million one year he was
awarded about an $8M bonus. He then started his own energy trading firm and
went on to make a few billion.

A partner at McKinsey, the management consulting firm, will make seven figures
in total compensation. A partner at any major law firm will make the same.

These aren't extraordinarily difficult careers to get into. Becoming a surgeon
is mostly about planning ahead and dedication. Becoming a partner at a firm is
just about putting in the hours for years. Literally anybody on Wall Street
will make $100k minimum unless they're like a receptionist, and from there you
can work your way onto the trading floor.

And let's not even talk about top business executives, who put all those
salaries to shame. And contrary to popular belief there is a reasonably
effective method towards becoming such an executive: Harvard/Wharton MBA,
consultant at McKinsey, eventually hired by a company you consulted for.
That's how Skilling got on as CEO of Enron. That's how my friend's dad, a CEO
making $4M/year, got his job. Etc. There are tons of examples of it.

It happens all the time. Most people just don't know about it. Many people
often think it's all luck getting into the upper ranks of the executives, but
that's because they think it's done by choosing a company at a young age and
working there for 20+ years. That's not how it's done in general. It happens
occasionally, but you have to network your ass off for decades to make that
work. But if you're a consultant, then you'll be hired by the top executives
to help them solve problems. You just skipped all the lower ranks thanks to
just a few years of business school. (This doesn't work with an MBA from
anywhere but the most prestigious schools.)

In short, there are a number of careers where at your peak you'll make not a
six figure salary but a _seven_ figure salary. If you think back to how long
the phrase "six figure salary" has been in use, you'll realize that, with
inflation, a seven figure salary is quite accurately the new six figure salary
in expensive cities like SF and NYC. People in these cities who aren't making
such a salary are often willfully ignorant of this fact. They want the
prestige of a "six figure salary," even though their buying power is an order
of magnitude less than what that phrase originally referred to.

~~~
shoyer
Just because there's a clearly defined path to making a lot of money in a high
prestige job doesn't mean it's easy or that everyone can pull it off.

The best way to start an "upper class career" is to be born into the upper
class. Good luck getting into finance or consulting if you didn't go to a top
tier university. And it's not small matter -- even if you have the right
background -- to get that job at McKinsey or into a Harvard MBA. You have to
be extremely smart and strategic in your career choices, and not slacking off
in college, either. Then, to advance and do well, you have to put in long
hours and do very good work.

In this day and age, I think it is hard to argue that there is an easier,
faster or more forgiving path to economic success than software engineering
and programming. The author of this article wouldn't even have a chance to get
started in any the of other lucrative professions you mention with his 2.9
GPA.

~~~
kaspm
| put in long hours and do very good work

And in addition, you have to have the mental fortitude for this kind of
career. Despite not being "well-known" there is an intense amount of
competition from a group of the most ambitious people in the world. Being able
to compete at that level is insanely hard, much harder than than being a
software engineer.

I have had the fortune in my life to attempt both careers. I went to a top-
tier undergrad, and got a job as an associate consultant at a strategy firm
directly out of college. And guess what? It was terrible. Working every day
from 9am-2am 6 days a week, no time for friends, family, hobbies, fun of any
kind. After a few years of that life, I went right back to doing software
engineering. Would I be richer now had I stayed in it? Probably. But happier?
no.

I think it's important to remember in the end that very very few people in the
world do work that matters, whether they make "something" or not. I think
about this a lot while listening to stories about 14 year old Bangladeshi
factory workers making $3 a month to support their families and being
padlocked inside factories that are on fire so our clothes are cheaper.

We are all very lucky to be born into a country that gives us the opportunity
to do comfortable jobs and complain about them freely. Use work to make enough
money do the things you care about outside of work, and for god sakes, travel.

~~~
Paul_D_Santana
I like the way you think, especially with regards to happiness, and I would
love to hear more about this part:

> _and for god sakes, travel_

I'm very fortunate to have a position where I work exactly 40 hours (some of
which is programming). This has allowed me the freedom to pursue other
activities, such as meeting and developing an extremely deep relationship with
my girlfriend, being an active participant in my church, completing Financial
Peace University, joining a local Toastmasters club, and joining CrossFit and
getting in the best shape of my life.*

However, I have not yet done any major traveling. Why do you put such high
importance on it?

I'm not asking why traveling is generally good, but why __you__ specifically
are recommending it so highly.

* [Edit: After reading this, it sounds like bragging but sincerely that was not my goal. I just wanted to say I totally understand and agree about what you said with regards to work and happiness.]

~~~
kaspm
In context it was meant as reference to the story of Bangladesh, meaning you
don't know how lucky you are until you travel a bit of the world.

My story however, is pretty typical, I worked through my 20s and didn't take
time to travel then even though I had disposable income and more importantly
was in charge of only myself. When I got married, got a dog and had kids,
traveling increases in complexity at O(an^k) where k is the number of people
traveling together and a is the number of people you have to arrange
babysitting (or dogsitting) for.

Now travel seems like a giant luxury an I doubt I will truly enjoy it again
until the kids are in college. By then we'll be so bogged down with college
costs, there will be no money.

I had the opportunity to go to China for work and it really opened my eyes
about how little of the world I have seen.

------
einhverfr
There is a lot to this piece. I do think good coders are worth it, but I also
think the current social/mobile bubble will burst (not that there aren't
important gains to be had in those spaces but that the gains do not live up to
investors' expectations). It seems to me so many businesses are chasing
playthings because solving the real problems of the day are hard. To be sure
not one of us can solve any of them, but if we build our businesses with the
problems in mind (rather than the hype), then we are all doing our part. That
isn't a lot to ask but it seems like too much.

For my money the businesses I am starting (including the new cloud ERP start-
up Efficito (<http://www.efficito.com>) are intended to continue to chip away
at real problems. They may not seem like much but they will hopefully
contribute in one way or another to helping support small businesses, the
self-employed, and such against the leviathan multinational companies. Some
problems (like too much corporate control) are bad matches for venture-capital
backing. Other problems though may not be.

~~~
nfoz
> It seems to me so many businesses are chasing playthings because solving the
> real problems of the day are hard

Not only are they hard, it's that they're not obviously monetizable.

~~~
einhverfr
Monetizable to whom?

Too much corporate control over our lives as individuals is a problem a small
family business can monetize a small piece of a solution for, but is not a
problem a VC can, because the problem goes contrary to any VC exit strategy.

Now the second point though is that corporations may end up doing some of that
anyway. The movement towards open source/free software and open data is
helping establish that in at least some cases this problem _is_ monetizable
even on a corporate level if one realizes that the corporation is subject to
the same restrictions as an individual. If we look at software or data as
potential means of production, then this is a welcome way in which the
industry is moving towards spreading around control over means of production.

But what I am advocating is not solving the important problems but building
business with the important problems in mind, seeing what one can do to help
with them in one way or another, either through operations or through product
development. They don't need to be the primary focus (and maybe _shouldn't_ be
the primary focus) but the idea that we are living in a new world where virtue
is not a prerequisite to value suggests two words to me "speculative bubble."

------
simonh
Are any of us worth it? In the developed world we all, from bus drivers and
waitresses to software developers, earn 10x what anyone in, say, China would
earn for the same work. First world problem.

As for writing as a career, most writers have earned very little for a very
long time. It's always been an incredibly tough profession to crack. Yes it's
being disrupted and is in a transitional phase, but life is change, it's not
the end of the world or a crisis in social values. Plenty of people are still
making a living out of it.

------
tcfunk
A bit off-topic here but I am not sure where folks find these mystical
$100,000+ web development positions. I am paid $40,000 a year with virtually
no benefits to be a web developer.

~~~
staticfish
Where do you live?

~~~
tcfunk
I live in Central Illinois.

------
moreoutput
Two things about this article (which are really more prominent in the comments
and on twitter) bother me.

First, and perhaps this is because I am of lower working-class roots, whats
actually wrong with being a plumber? I believe its fairly common to ask good
programmers how they view the task -- generally speaking framed as a
carpenter, a writer, or a mathematician.

Second is the ending: "Am I paid too much to code? Am I paid too little to
write? No: in each case, I’m paid exactly what I should be." which I find
important in tone but redundant. Generally speaking in America the idea is you
take the pay you agree to -- which to me inherently means "I’m paid exactly
what I should be".

~~~
rocky1138
"What's actually wrong with being a plumber?"

Nothing is "wrong" with it, but the skill required to be one is much lower
than it is for other vocations. This means that there are more of them and so
they are lower paid. The perception in society is one that because of this
they have a lower value.

From my perspective, people who choose low-skill, low-pay work aren't pushing
themselves hard enough. It's great if you're good at it and you are low on
money, but if it's your life goal to be a plumber you may be setting the bar
too low.

~~~
malyk
But what if being a plumber gets you all of the things you want in life? What
is this bar you are talking about? Not everyone wants to be or has to be at
the absolute top of their potential.

There's a huge disconnect between economic value and, well, humanity, frankly.
Somehow we've come to worship the economic return of everything over the
actual experience of living.

~~~
hackula1
ok... he op said there was nothing wrong with it, just that it usually
required less skill.

------
chrisbennet
What wonderful writing.

This is a great reminder that the "just world" fallacy [successful people
deserve their success because they worked hard and that the less
fortunate/unemployed somehow deserve their failure] is just that, a fallacy.

~~~
mseebach
> This is a great reminder that the "just world" fallacy is just that, a
> fallacy.

Where do you see that? He specifically concludes that he's making the right
(ie "just") amount of money for writing and coding, and that it's "just" that
the CFO makes more money than the coal-miner because his skills are more
specialised and in higher demand.

~~~
chrisbennet
He points out that he got lucky in his choice of professions (or one of his
professions) and that it's easy for people to conflate that sort of luck
(being in the right profession at the right time) with somehow being
_deserving_ of all the rewards associated with it. I know I don't work any
harder than say a mechanical or chemical engineer, I'm just better paid.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis>

------
darrellsilver
The irony of James' point – that engineers are in such high demand because of
how cheap it is to start a startup – is that engineering salaries are actually
being prevented from going up as a result.

There's too little supply of qualified engineers, but startups can't afford to
compete in salary with the big guys (basically Facebook, Google, Amazon and
the financial sector). So we compete on cheaper things like nice offices, gym
memberships, etc. Basically, feel good stuff that doesn't cost much.

Facebook's budget for engineers is a good 20-50% higher than the salary a
startup can pay.

Thus, it's not actually crazy that a law school student can become an engineer
worth $80,000/year in only eight months. It's the startup's only option.

And that's a good thing: Companies like ours (<http://www.thinkful.com/>) are
finding a way to build products in a way that doesn't break our budget. We're
also providing great opportunities to people who want to become engineers. The
only caveat is for companies greater than 50 or so people – they're struggling
most of all: Too small to attract great talent that wants stability, too large
to attract hungry new talent or accept junior talent that needs to learn on
the job.

There's an upper limit, but our research indicates that there's a durable
demand for engineering. This demand will look decidedly less sexy once
startups become less cool, but software engineering will be an in-demand skill
well beyond the current hype cycle.

~~~
itsybitsycoder
_too large to... accept junior talent that needs to learn on the job._

Huh? Being larger should make it easier to do this, not harder. The company I
currently work for has done this for its last 3 developer hires, and it's
about the same size as yours.

~~~
darrellsilver
Yeah – This was too quickly worded. What I'm saying is that these middle-size
companies are too large to be seen as sexy startups that can make you
millions, yet still too small to provide the mentorship needed for jr talent.
One or two jr hires can be mentored, but that won't meet the demand, and is
super expensive.

------
rdouble
TL;DR

Rap Genius pays $150,000 + $10K signing bonus, dude feels kinda weird about
it.

~~~
jacques_chester
One more reason why moving to NYC or SV is in my future. I wouldn't feel weird
at all.

~~~
nissimk
Taxes and cost of living are very high. It doesn't go as far as you think. But
there are a lot of beautiful people and culture.

~~~
rdouble
Personally, I found it did go as far as I thought it would, in NYC. It might
even seem like a bargain if you're coming from Australia. You finally get to
live large, banking the same sums as an apprentice electrician from Perth.

~~~
jacques_chester
As a Perthan and ex-Darwinite, I don't find the reported cost of living in the
Bay Area or NYC to be quite _that_ bad.

------
mvikramaditya
TL;DR version (Taken from the article):

A CFO is paid more than the coal miner because the skills required to be CFO
of a Fortune 500 company are scarcer, and more wanted, than the skills
required to be a coal miner. It’s the combination of scarcity and wantedness
that drives up a salary. Coders (Read web-developers in the authors case) are
paid more because of a demand for them which the author tries to understand.

------
bergie
One reason for how much software developers are valued is how big part of
modern business it is. From the Steve Jobs Lost Tapes in mid 90s:

 _So software is infiltrating everything we do these days. In businesses,
software is one of the most potent competitive weapons. One of the biggest
business wars was "Friends and Family" in the last ten years. And what was
that? It was a brilliant idea and a custom billing software. At &T didn't
respond in 18 months, yielding billions of dollars of market share to MCI --
not because they were stupid but because they couldn't get the billing
software done._

At the moment there are about three times as many programming job openings in
the US as there are programmers graduating from universities. No wonder
developers get paid well.

------
lmm
I often worry that my job is, well, not that hard. The thing is, if it were as
easy as it seems, more people would be doing it - or it would be automated -
and either way the price will drop pretty soon.

So either what we do really is that hard, and worth that much, or there's a
crash coming.

------
calinet6
I think this is a good observation, that the interest in this market as a
whole creates a dearth of really poor business ideas.

I think this is natural. But if you're in a startup incubator especially, you
have to remember that those aren't the cream of the crop. They're people who
will most likely fail, and the world will be better if they do (if the world
wanted their product, and they're the right ones to build it, they would
surely succeed).

I've sat in tech incubators and overheard direction discussions and software
discussions, and just laughed. My overwhelming thought was simply "That is the
worst idea I have ever heard in my life."

There were one or two companies that had good ideas, good people, and did
well. They quickly moved out of startup kindergarten.

~~~
mercutio2
"Dearth" means scarcity. I had to read your post over a few times to
understand that you (probably) meant an abundance of poor business ideas. An
enjoyable word to use, though!

~~~
calinet6
Oops! You're absolutely right. Just had a word meaning dyslexia moment.

------
dschiptsov
Bad programming (coding) is easy. _Idiots_ can learn it in _21 days_ , even if
they are _Dummies_.

\-- HtDP2

btw, 5 opening paragraphs with so many Is and numbers hardly could be
considered a good writing. I guess that the word for this (writing style and
the content) is hipsterism.)

~~~
rtperson
I'm not sure if English is your first language, but the writing in this
article is actually very good. I don't have any problem believing that people
are willing to pay Somers for his writing. (And $10K is, by magazine
standards, a princely sum.)

------
SethMurphy
We are not the shovel, we are the ditch diggers, just slightly better paid.
Either way, who wants to be a commodity. Your analogy doesn't make me feel
lucky, but like I need to get out of the ditch.

~~~
skaevola
Nothing wrong with labor. Dirty hands make clean money.

------
beat
Once you've learned a complex skill, it can seem very easy to you - and you no
longer see that it's not-easy to the point of impossible for many others. Most
people don't have the talent or patience to learn it at all.

Besides software, I play guitar. I've played guitar for over 30 years now. I
long ago passed a level of mastery on the instrument, and my attention is
focused on expression rather than technique. When working with other
guitarists, it can be difficult to even comprehend that they haven't mastered
their instruments technically, that things I do without thinking are hard for
them to even understand, much less do. And frankly, most of them will never,
ever master their instruments.

Software's the same way. It takes, at least, several years to really master it
to the point where the act of coding itself no longer gets in your way and
dominates your thinking, and you can focus on problems of expression rather
than technique. The value of tools like Rails is that they further reduce the
technical friction, getting you closer to expressiveness.

And THIS is why coders are worth it. There's work that needs to be done, work
that has real market value, and a very limited number of people with the
mastery needed to perform the work. And yeah, most startups are crap, but the
big wins are big enough to justify risk on a bunch of small losers, so the
market is there.

I just wish I could make a living as a guitarist. It's more interesting and
challenging.

~~~
super-serial
I always use the chess analogy.

Some people can play chess every day for years and never get past being an
advanced beginner. That's over 90% of the population whether it's Chess or
programming. It's a very intense mental exercise... even if the author of the
article thinks it's just "playing."

To get a job programming you have to be better than a mid-level chess player
and demonstrate it by 'winning' projects that are relatively difficult. Even
by doing that you still have to jump through tons of hoops to get a decent
job. The types of perks and jobs the author is talking about sounds like a
fantasy to me when I've worked nothing but soul-sucking .NET corporate jobs,
and web contract work where I'm always worried about getting paid on time.

For me it's come to the point where I'd rather work a part-time job (I'm
basically a Janitor) and do programming/startups on the side... than have more
soul-sucking code-slave work. So it's almost like this guy lives in an
alternate universe to me.

I'm trying to make it easier for me though... lately I'm taking a bunch of
Nootropics (racetams, fish oil, various amino acids) and I'm getting back on
track. I have a friend who takes Adderall every day to keep up with his job.
It's great that the author does not have to do these things and everything
just falls into place for him... but at least have some perspective that for
many people this shit is not easy.

------
jokoon
Web developers are not worth very much I'd say.

The web is a clusterfuck of pages users can only read and leave comments on.
You won't really do anything relevant with the web. It's useless compared to
the speed of current internet accesses. The only thing people use are internet
browsers, which use HTTP as a basis, which is telnet. The web is still using
old techs and no engineers is really trying to make new things, besides to-
the-metal tech like bittorrent.

The internet is not just a web of websites, the internet is also connections
between pairs, which is soooo much flexible.

Right now, what does applications do ? They select data from a database, with
nice data structures, then they write this huge text file and send it. Your
browser then parse this stuff to make some sense of it, you put data in it,
and it's sent back. Google then parse aaaaall this, and tries to make some
sense out of it. And somehow they manage. The web is like people communicating
with mail instead of using real time telephone conversations. It's very
inefficient. People try to make real time stuff with it, like facebook and
their huge cluster, but it's really a sad show. JS has now almost replaced the
role of C and C++ in execution speed. But it's still sent by mail.

I thought webrtc sockets would fix that, but in the end it's a huge fail, you
can't connect to an IP address directly, it's still that centralized
clusterfuck.

------
dsego
I was thinking for some time about this text and there is one thing that's
been bugging me. This is one sentiment that could be applied to most jobs out
there:

> We call ourselves web developers, software engineers, builders,
> entrepreneurs, innovators. We’re celebrated, we capture a lot of wealth and
> attention and talent. We’ve become a vortex on a par with Wall Street for
> precocious college grads. But we’re not making the self-driving car. We’re
> not making a smarter pill bottle. Most of what we’re doing, in fact, is
> putting boxes on a page. Users put words and pictures into one box; we store
> that stuff in a database; and then out it comes into another box.

You can compare this to dentistry. It's a highly regarded profession and the
wages are really good. But most dentists just pull a tooth out or drill it and
put a filling. It's not rocket science, and when was that last time a dentist
made a recipe for a new type of filling? And the profession itself didn't make
really huge leaps in the last hundred years. My hour as a programmer in
croatia is worth around 10 USD. A dentist gets 20 USD just to look at your
teeth and charges 50 USD for a white filling which they can do in under an
hour.

One more thing. Lawyers, dentists and some other professions have associations
that determine minimum prices "to assure high quality of work". Something to
think about.

------
uokyas
The question is not if its worth, i'm a programmer, and i do believe that
construction workers and lady cleaners should earn more then me, since they
are forced to do their job, and generally don't like it. I in the other hand,
i like my job. yet i earn more for doing more easy stuff (for me ), seams
unfair, this has struck me some time ago. But what we have to accept is that,
our income, or the income of a general profession, is based purely on supply
and demand, and little more.

------
abhiv
Companies in Silicon Valley seem to approach interviews with the idea that the
candidate is a blank slate. There isn't a lot of discussion about things
you've done in the past; the general approach is to ask you to design for
hypothetical scenarios, or to write code on the whiteboard for algorithmic
problems.

The Silicon Valley approach seems to throw out a lot of good information that
could indicate a candidate's quality by focusing only on the now, rather than
any historical data. One of the reasons given for this is that a lot of people
are good at talking about stuff when they haven't actually implemented
anything, but it seems to me that an in-depth conversation about someone's
background _followed by_ coding exercises would provide a better indication of
their quality than abstract questions in a vacuum.

I think another reason why interviewers don't ask a lot of questions about
candidates' backgrounds is to avoid potentially hearing something that the
candidate's previous employer might consider confidential information. This is
a fair concern, but it does lead to what seems to me to be a sub-optimal
evaluation process.

There also doesn't seem to be as much urgency to hire someone _now_ as the
author indicates -- companies can and do take time to schedule interviews and
make up their mind. Perhaps it's different in NY.

------
hackula1
While it is important to keep our egos in check, I think this article leans a
bit on the side of discounting modern web computing. Not all of us twiddle
around with CRUD apps all day. Running a site with millions of concurrent
users is challenging, and useful. Sites like twitter or reddit enable social
change and transparency. Running a site with one hundred users doing real work
is challenging too. Allowing one or two people to do a job that would have
taken 10 people just a few years ago (ie: sales force, accounting systems, gis
systems, big data analytics, etc.).

Also, he talks about how web devs are like plumbers with toilet fixing robots.
This would be true if the plumbers happened to build the robots themselves.
Who does he think built Rails, Http, Express, Sinatra, Cake, Mongo, MySQL, and
every other open source web technology out there? People like you and me. The
web is an amazing thing, quite possibly humanity's greatest achievement so
far, and we are still working on making it better.

One last thing. The author seems to think web devs just think about colors all
day. Is he not hacking, exploring, and building things? Someone who talks
about colors all day is a web designer imo. Nothing wrong with that, but
entirely different focus.

------
delinka
‘What about somebody in a coal mine — wouldn’t you say he works as hard as
you? Why should you get paid so much more than that guy?’

If this is a question to yourself, then my response is: start sending part of
your paycheck to the guy in the coal mine. Don't blame someone else for
society's ills and not be willing to fix such problems yourself. Find a miner,
adopt him, send him half your paycheck, keep tabs on him: how the job's going,
how the family's doing, etc.

If this is a question for me, a creator of software, then my response is: I
build things that enable new activities, I don't perform a task that maintains
someone else's status quo. I (as a freelancer) or my employer (when I'm an
employee) have found someone willing to pay what we charge. Period. How am I
able to do that? By learning. Continuously. By adapting to changes in
technology and the market. Why do I get paid more than the coal miner? Because
he has settled for that life. If he needs something more, he needs to learn
how to attain it.

But maybe, just maybe, our coal mining friend is doing what he loves. If he's
happy ... leave him alone.

~~~
erikj54
>I build things that enable new activities

I would be cautious with this callous mentality towards the miner. I wouldn't
jump so quickly to the conclusion that he/she is not "learning. Continuously"
as you say you are. The miner may very well be. The issue the article raises
is a good one, what validity is there that someone can put the value they
create so much higher then another.

What happens one day when your profession is no longer well paid? Think for a
minute that you did not have the mental capacity to compete in the new 'tech
world' in 20 years. Would you expect that you are paid in accordance with your
lack of ability, or would you hope you are still given an equal shot.

Personally this article hits at the heart of the somewhat libertarian style
commentary on Hacker New. One that I myself am all too engulfed in as well.
Perhaps we aren't as valuable as we may think?

------
TWAndrews
I actually think that the current trend of "chasing eyeballs" is really
valuable on its own terms.

Anyone who wants to start a business to support themselves, or their family
will ultimately need customers, and as we continue to move away from the post-
war era of people working principally for large companies which make things
towards a services economy, a lot of people will need to find ways to
communicate with their potential customers.

Lowering the cost of acquiring customers makes it much, much easier to start a
new business, and to make it successful. Products and platforms that do so are
generating real value on human terms.

My wife, for instance, is a photographer whose business is driven almost
entirely by word of mouth, and twitter and facebook are both important
components of enabling her network to share her work with potential clients.
It would be enormously more expensive and difficult for her to run her
business via traditional advertising, and would probably preclude her from
running her own photography business.

tl;dr Chasing eyeballs makes small businesses easier to start and that's a
real, human good.

------
gersonaya
First of all, the plumbing analogy can be made to many professions. From a
certain point of view, engineers, doctors and lawyers are all plumbers too -
it's just silly. Said that, I think the author bought the propaganda that want
to make us (web dev) feel special and valuable. But hey: that in no way means
that the whole world - or even our bosses - think that we are very special and
intelligent people. That means they know we produce more and get more creative
when in certain environments and being well treated: so they provide. It
seemed to me that the author climbed out of the propaganda and now thinks that
the whole industry is pointless. He is on the other extreme of the very
motivated hipster developer. Don't buy it too: we are needed (now) and our
jobs are valuable. So are teachers, cops and many other jobs.

------
nighthawk24
You are wrong in generalizing all coders. You may be a "coder" designing web
sites, doing repetitive work. But there are many out there working towards
improvising the workflow in Healthcare, Manufacturing, Entertainment/Gaming,
etc.

And as for comparing a coal miner to a coder (personally find that as the best
comparison to make when mocking someone who undervalues coders); there is no
special added value the miner brings to his workplace compared to a "coder"
aka software engineer, whose 1hr's work can make processes efficient and
increase productivity for 1000 more people.

Overall, I like your style of writing from your perspective. There is the
reality part you have added. But as for generalizing coders. Don't. Specially
here on HN.

------
blunte
You lost me at "In today's world, web developers have it all: money, perks,
freedom, respect."

~~~
dsego
Yeah, but even in poorer countries there's always a demand for programmers,
because there's a global market for software. A lot of my friends in other
professions have been jobless or taking shitty part-time jobs. Even the ones
that have a job are scared of losing it. Me? I had the audacity to quit my job
just because I didn't like it enough. Other people in my country can only
dream about it. And every month now I get one or two job offers, usually when
a friend or former colleague recommends me.

------
flyinRyan
Oh how I despise the sentiment that if some group with an important function
gets low pay that this could only mean other groups with a "less important"
function are overpaid. The only people that are overpaid are executives. The
rest of us are _under-paid_ (with some exceptions). Yes, even developers. Look
how much money a trader makes if they do well. Now compare that with a Quant
who will do consistently better and make the company much more money.

If you feel like pulling others down into your pit, reach out for executives,
not other working class people. FFS.

------
mk3
This article made me laugh. As with .COM bubble many people jumped compsci
ship and when it sunk left that ship. People who really admired it stayed, now
the same story repeats itself. The same with this articles' author who's
reaping benefits by learning ROR, and being patient enough to read Manuals and
Stack Overflow.

P.S. Also I'm quite sick of people building things which are targeted against
huge sale later. Build software/website/app which solves some kind of problem
you are passionate about. Also people who are into programming just because it
pays well.

------
theZaporozhian
This article is horrible. 3,500 words of overwrought circuitous handwringing
about the frontend dev job market.

I wonder if his code is as self indulgently bloated as his prose.

------
nish1500
This was a depressing article. Sometimes, I often think of this myself. And
then I think about investment bankers and what they do. That makes me feel
better.

------
lettergram
And all lawyers do is translate legal language into common tongue (speaking
from experience) I looked up the law regarding my lawsuit and pointed out to
my lawyer what he should say and he did so. The judge took it and I won my
case. However, the judge would not have done so without my lawyer making a
lengthy speech. The point being. We are the only one's who know how to put
boxes on a page, so we get paid for it.

------
lucidrains
Yes, coders are worth it. I've personally seen medicine up close, and have
friends in various industries ranging from law to business. Everything is shit
compared to the value software engineers create. Anyways, I don't think people
should get their egos wrapped up into their careers, life is more than that.
But I wouldn't undervalue what you are doing.

------
sjs1234
I'd love to read the piece on Douglas Hofstadter.

------
Tomis02
> Web development is more like plumbing than any of us, perched in front of
> two slick monitors, would care to admit.

Not only web development, but programming jobs in general. To be honest, after
going through a couple of 'real' jobs, I am at the point where I'd rather do
some plumbing rather than write another rpm spec or see why a bash script is
misbehaving.

------
dsrguru
I took away four things from this enjoyable, well-written, but overly long
article:

1\. The author's sister might not have been crazy to question the fairness of
capitalism.

2\. The average software engineer in the Bay Area innovates a lot less than
the average "real" engineer.

3\. Being a web developer in the startup world rocks.

4\. Coffee Meets Bagels sounds like a great dating app.

------
graycat
One reaction: Routine Web site "plumbing" is not nearly all there is to the
Web now or its potential in the future. If the OP wants work more advanced,
significant, powerful, valuable, meaningful, etc., then he should try to think
of a Web site that needs more than just routine plumbing.

------
coderguy123
IT/developer scene in big NYC banks is even worse. People with no experience
faking up resume get business analyst/QA position cramming some basic skills
in few weeks and they are paid $55/hr for doing nothing. This cannot last, can
it?

------
anuraj
People with general skills like web development may not be worth much - You
need to have advanced knowledge and ability to do large scale systems to be
worth something as a technologist. Or you need to have business acumen to make
it big.

------
tlrobinson
Man I hate the word "coder". It sounds so mechanical. I'm a programmer,
hacker, developer, software engineer, but not a "coder".

Maybe the people who are handed down requirements and designs to implement
with no room for creativity can be called "coders".

------
axus
Prices are set by supply and demand. Right now, coders are worth it, if they
aren't the price will go down. If you want to take a longer term view and
question the impact on the world, well, the galaxy will be gone in a trillion
years.

------
lqdc13
I'm not sure if my case is very strange, but it took me a good 5 months to
find a job after having designed a website and having a masters in math with
many comp sci classes. I think it's not that easy for everyone to find a job.

------
EternalFury
When one becomes obsessed with the tool of the trade, one loses sight of the
greater end. If the ultimate goal is not worthwhile, it does not matter
whether you code it Ruby or Scala. It's busy work and a waste of human energy.

------
_progger_
"money, perks, freedom, respect"

Err... CEOs/CTOs/CFOs have that. You should add "reasonably minimal
competitive" in front of each word when talking about web devs at an average
company.

------
joshdance
Kind of a link bait title. The real question the author is digging at is value
of work, what others are willing to pay, and how it affects your self esteem.
But it worked because I read it.

------
mahyarm
Are executives worth it? "In today's world, executives & managers have it all:
money, perks, freedom, authority & respect. But is there value in what we do?"

------
neopba
As for me, making smarter pill boxes is not much better then designing new
deo-spray box or make a new web page or app for a company. Not a big
difference.

------
proksoup
It's a trend, fun to argue about if it's going up or down, or when it might go
down, but does anyone honestly think it won't?

------
alexjeffrey
interestingly in my experience in the north of England this culture is much
more applicable to designers - web development doesn't pay very many standard
deviations above the average wage, where designers can command high
freelancing rates and comfortable working conditions.

------
djangodev17
So is it worth learning RoR to get a salary jump? Django developer in DC area
here.

------
coldcode
He either lives in NY or Silicon Valley. In middle America there is no such
frenzy.

~~~
erikj54
There does seem to be the same sort of frenzy in Canada. You can hear it in
normal conversations all the time: 'Wow I can't believe you do that, it's so
confusing to me. I could never write code.' It seems this mystique is what is
paying us so well.

~~~
canadiancreed
Depends on where you are. Toronto? Definitely. I get recruiters every day
asking if I want a job (always onsite though, never contracts). Anywhere else
I've found salary and perks drop quickly. Case in point, my last location
(PEI) the salary was barely above minimum wage (35-50k/year), even though they
keep complaining about shortages in skilled IT folks

~~~
resu
Out of curiosity, how do the numbers in Toronto compare to PEI? Do the jobs
you've seen offer some mix of in-office/remote schedule?

-Canadian working overseas

~~~
canadiancreed
Well I put it this way to friends of mine out in the Maritimes. Back in 2012 I
was laid off due to government cutbacks (the company I worked for did the
Tourism site), and in the three months afterwards I had three interviews
across the maritimes. In a week visit to Toronto, I had twenty five
interviews.

And salary is like night and day. The highest PHP salary I heard of out there
in my interviews and travels was 55k. Toronto PHP jobs start at 60k and many
are in the 70's and 80's. I've heard an even larger gulf for Java devs,
especialy as you get up to the senior ranks. I don't know about salarys for
other languages, but if you don't know Java, .Net, or PHP in the maritimes,
you'll be waiting a long time to be employed. There's the occasional C++ or
Python gig, but youd' make twice as much in Toronto.

And remote jobs, in Canada, in my experience, do not exist. I've seen maybe
five in the last five years. Meanwhile I see remote gigs in the States daily.
Basically if your'e looking for remote work, you're looking in the US.
Canadian employers I've found are leery to openly hostile about folks working
remotely.

Now things could have changed in the last year, and that's just my own
experience, but if your'e looking for solid work, and good pay, and in Canada,
it's effectively Toronto or bust.

~~~
resu
Yeah, it is really too bad that there are such few jobs in the GTA that allow
for more flexible working conditions. Guess things haven`t changed much since
I left. I hope employers` attitudes will change once more and more startups
mature, or do they not even allow a flexible schedule?

Thanks for the info, appreciate it!

------
jorgeseagull
this guy's a moron. the price of content hasn't gone to zero -- the price of
quality content has gone to the moon, and the price of the bs he writes is
going to zero as it should.

------
abraininavat
_the world’s most celebrated sushi chef turns to his son, who is leaving to
start his own restaurant, and says: ‘You have no home to come back to.’ Which,
when you think about it, isn’t harsh or discouraging but is in fact the very
best thing you could say to someone setting out on an adventure._

Only if the only type of adventure you consider is one which aims toward
financial success. There are other types of adventures in this world, and
other types of goals. There's a place in this world for experimentation,
playfulness, and boldness of the type that only is possible when you have a
home to come back to.

I know that may not ring true in this forum, where the entrepreneurial spirit
reigns, or in Japan, where (for many) _katagaki_ (social rank through
achievement) brings honor to your whole family, but from my point of view Jiro
was sort of a jerk.

------
wittysense
"All you can do in life is a lot of work" -- Ira Glass

Most people simply fear us because of the way media portrays us as Zuckerberg,
and our most persistent topic of discussion outside the GitHub world is
Zuckerberg or surveillance, which is just another route to Zuckerberg.

