The other way to look at this is: companies pay programmers ridiculous salaries because the working conditions are so hated. Junior programmers (even those who have never been to college) are paid about as well as dentists, and they still often quit after a couple years. This is way above the $75K happiness threshold. We literally can't pay them enough to stay working for us!
Hypothesis: software development is one of the few industries that I've interacted with where the workers haven't organized yet. When there's no union for collective bargaining, what lever does an individual employee have, other than asking for yet more money, or quitting?
P.S., In what industries do you commonly see managers threatening or bullying workers? I haven't seen that at all.
I think any blue-collar worker would be laughing his ass off at this statement.
> paid about as well as dentists, and they still often quit after a couple years. This is way above the $75K happiness threshold.
Fuck-you-money actually enables this sort of freedom, since you're less scared of going jobless for a few months thanks to all the fat you've stored. So might as well quit and think about things for a while. Over certain levels, the meaning of one's job can take priority over immediate compensation.
> We literally can't pay them enough to stay working for us!
In the end, everyone deep down would rather not have to work for someone else, or to not work at all. Programmers in tech hotspots are lucky enough to actually be able to do it, and pretty often too, without any serious repercussion. For many, this is a golden age the likes of which we've never seen.
> In what industries do you commonly see managers threatening or bullying workers?
All of them - we wouldn't have unions otherwise. There is a reason the word "boss" has negative connotations.
I very much disagree. I like that my company cares about things like sales/marketing/HR/finance so I don't have to. And anyway, for most jobs, you need a supporting structure that has your back, like a company or a government agency or whatever. Sure, you could start your own company, but at that point you'll most likely spend more time doing management rather than actual work. I like that I can focus on my technical role since I'm very much not a manager type.
why do that when Civilization V exists?
I'm not sure how this is in different countries. I've not heard that many horror stories in Germany, but most work here is also not VC-backed startups, and the compensation is much lower in comparison. The non-vc-investing might of course also be a reason for lower compensation, when your valuation can't explode, attracting the top developers is less of a priority.
> P.S., In what industries do you commonly see managers threatening or bullying workers? I haven't seen that at all.
Sales (a lot!), restaurants (pretty much every line cook I've ever spoken to mentions it, and what I read in comments online sounds like it's the same in all countries), call centers, transportation off the top of my head. The main difference is that they're usually not paid well.
https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-on...
The minute her boss actually told her she was "on thin ice", she was out. Despite her being effectively outside the preferred "socioeconoethnic" groups that most companies self-restrict to, she was practically free at all times to walk out and get an equivalent (or likely better) job. That's a massive privilege.
In my experience, the attitudes of software developers, as seen all over the web, are basically the definition of “privileged” in a way that does not match almost anything else. “I didn’t like my manager, so I quit and spent a few months counting my $$$ until I found something I liked more” is something that very few other professions can flaunt. This is, incidentally, why old-school managers are basically incompatible with the sector: in any tech hotspot, you literally cannot threaten or bully a tech employee, unlike any other employee. I bet lots of people high-up hate this so much.