And what kills me about this is it almost seems like the big tech companies are just grabbing up engineers to no purpose. When I hear stories about what people are actually doing at larger companies, it often seems somewhere between miniscule and just plain empty. And it's not like a lot of the people telling these stories don't understand that. But they're happy enough wasting a third of their day at that salary.

I'll just share an anecdotal experience:

Earlier this year (before COVID), I interviewed with Microsoft, as they were looking for people with security clearances to work on Azure services. I apparently passed at least one of the four interviews, as they made me an offer. However... the offer contained minimal details on what I would be working on or doing, just a vague description that it was an Azure infrastructure service team. The recruiter himself didn't have any information to answer my questions. If I were just coming out of college, I'd be fine with that level of unknown, but as someone with about ten years of experience and who knows what he likes to work on, I wasn't going to take the risk of ending up on a miserably boring project (again).

Thankfully we have modern Agile/Scrum with all its process and meetings to soak up that time and give us the feeling of business.

I appreciate you putting "modern" in there. We tried so hard to make it people over process. Getting things done over internal BS. Alas, that's not how it ended up for most people.

There was this cartoon about a guy graduating top of his class in a CS program and the hoopla of him being hired at a "Big Tech" firm. Then he discover that his role was basically to keep someone on a web page for a half second longer...

> But they're happy enough wasting a third of their day at that salary.

Who wouldn't be with those salary levels? You basically have the golden ticket in your hand.

I wouldn't be. I like getting things done.

I worked for a brilliant but ruthless businessman at one point in my career who very openly "stabled PhDs" (his words) in the field (RF engineering / DSP). He'd give them some research projects to play with for years on end just to keep them away from the competition.

I'd guess no one's really happy being bored all day. People get into a position where they feel like their life is settled, and unless they do something really horrible 'the good life' is all but guaranteed. Leaving something like that for uncertainty will calculate out to insanity for most people, because the value of 'the good life' is either very high or people under value their chances of success.

A big problem with filthy rich outfits is that they can simply afford to do this. My two highest-paying jobs were almost sinecures. The teams were massively overstaffed, and it could be quite difficult to find productive things to work on. I spent a lot of time simply waiting, which is to say killing time.

If your goal in life is to be rich, it's not bad, I guess. If you really love doing good tech, it's stultifying.

Are you a bot? Where do you find those stupid words? No wonder you're attracted to useless positions for status.

We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Wow, this place has completely transformed then? More like pleb news nowadays I guess rather than hacker news. Shame.

You'd always have been banned for posting like that (edit: I mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23423311).

Well yeah usually the more fun job pays less. That’s just basic economics. Life is all about trade offs.

There is nothing inherent in "basic economics" that postulates that fulfilling or fun jobs pay less.

I also find the idea of "basic economics" laughable given how impossible economics is in the first place. I mean, yes, if you assume spherical cows...

>There is nothing inherent in "basic economics" that postulates that fulfilling or fun jobs pay less.

Basic supply and demand. Fun jobs mean more people apply to the job. The employer can pick the cheapest employees. Employees can get an edge over their peers by lowering their salary expectations because they value the job more than the money.

I honestly don't even think that this is a bad trade off. There are lots of jobs where you get access to equipment that you could never afford even if you had a higher salary. Think of working at a company like SpaceX or doing research at a university.

> There is nothing inherent in "basic economics" that postulates that fulfilling or fun jobs pay less

It's called 'psychic income', and it is something that people will accept, to some extent, as a substitute for cash comp.

This is widely cited as the reason that teachers earn less than other professions, and why garbage collectors earn more. There are a lot of people who enjoy teaching, and not a lot who enjoy garbage collecting.

https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_econstat_wp_5...

>This is widely cited as the reason that teachers earn less than other professions, and why garbage collectors earn more.

Looks like the median pay for garbage collectors is $37,840[0] and for teachers it is $59,420[1]

[0]https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes537081.htm

[1]https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/mobil...

Is there any required credentialing for for garbage collectors? Teachers need to have a bachelors degree and a teaching credential, in most cases.

That's true but the OP just destroyed the only supporting evidence you provided for your point. It might be that teacher's salaries would be below $37k if it didn't require credentialing, but that's not the case, so it's not evidence.

The OP did not destroy the supporting evidence.

How so? The only supporting evidence provided was garbage collectors make more than teachers. The OP posted a link showing that's not true.

I never said that teachers should make less than garbage collectors because they enjoy psychic income. These two jobs are not generally substitutable in the eyes of potential employees, since they are so different. Sorry if I gave the impression that any job that enjoys psychic income would pay less than any other job — certainly this is not true.

For example, college professors receive psychic income, but they make much more than garbage collectors. They make less than stock brokers, which is another career option available to people who can get PhDs, in general.

>Sorry if I gave the impression that any job that enjoys psychic income would pay less than any other job — certainly this is not true.

That's not the impression you gave. You gave the impression that garbage collectors make more than teachers.

>This is widely cited as the reason that teachers earn less than other professions, and why garbage collectors earn more

Teachers < other professions < garbage collectors

I get now that you meant to say was

Teachers < similar professions to teachers

Garbage collectors > similar professions to garbage collectors

I've heard many arguments that teacher make less than X profession, so the former wasn't an unreasonable interpretation given the phrasing.

Knowing what you meant to say. I don't think garbage collector pay is good supporting evidence for psychic income. Garbage collector pays well because it is a physically unpleasant job. What's an example of a substitute job that is similarly physically unpleasant that pays less because people find it fulfilling?

> There is nothing inherent in "basic economics" that postulates that fulfilling or fun jobs pay less.

It kinda is, isn't it? The fun, fulfilling job is one that everybody is happy to do. The boring, soul-devouring job is where you need to encourage people to do it by offering more money.

this seems like basic common sense. if you have two job offers for the same salary, but one sounds really fun and the other sounds really boring, wouldn't you pick the fun one? but at the same time unless you're already pretty wealthy, there's probably a dollar amount that would make you pick the boring one instead. iterate this choice over enough people, and the "fun factor" depresses wages.

Good economics is basically common sense on manifolds.

Cet. par., if doing a job involves less disutility for the worker, people will demand less pay to compensate, since pay demands will be at the breakeven net utility point. Basic economics.

Boss, I counted up my utils for the month, and it looks like I'm enjoying this new project. I have handily computed for you an appropriate rate at which to cut my pay. Basic economics demands it be so.

wow, check out this guy who figured it out. damn, never thought about that. i guess all the people who get paid alot to do fun things, and all the people who get paid shit to do horrible stuff were in my imaginiation.

> On the other hand, if I'd gone to work for Amazon straight out of college, I'd probably have a boat by now.

Anyone who'd bought AMZN probably has a boat by now.

Depending on when you graduated from college, that may or may not have fallen into the big company or startup bucket.

The delayed liquidity of the extremely long startup adolescence in recent years ("startups" that are 10+ years old and where almost all of the big value growth is in the rear-view mirror) is, IMHO, a big part of this.

Was not the case for most careers out there? If you want a comfortable 9-5 job you generally join a giant and stay as long as possible.

that's not what he's saying. He's saying higher overall income, and it comes with lower risk than startups.

But that's also expected, isn't it? Startups are like playing the lottery, those that win will suddenly have much, much, much more than your average person that puts their money into savings instead. But a big part of those playing the lottery will never win, and on average those who just invest their money will be better off than those who play the lottery.

> Startups are like playing the lottery

Sure, what has changed over the last 10 or so years is that winning the startup lottery pays close to nothing incremental over working at a large company since most of the equity is now held by founders and late stage investors and most of the stock growth happens before a company goes public.

I think you're 100% right, but it feels to me like the odds have just shifted over time. Early on it was more like the stock market, then it was like a roulette table, and now it's like gas station scratch tickets.

I'm not saying you can't get rich off of gas station scratch tickets, but it's not the best option.

he's saying that the monopoly aspect earns more much's of money for more much's of people, and therefore it's much much more than the startup aspect is much more.

i.e. you can join a startup that is already successful (the winner has been picked, Amazon, Google, Uber, ...) and safely with less variance expect to gain more expected value than you'll on average get from trying to pick the next winner. If you say "but startups are win win" then I'll say "but he's saying monopolists are win win win"

Microsoft was already an OS monopoly by 1990, but after that is when it really started to make real money, and for a lot more people than had worked there in the 80's. Because monopolizing a niche industry is nothing compared to growing the monopoly to mainstream acceptance.

you don't have to agree with his assessment; I'm just trying to clarify that he is saying something, not just selecting a point on a gaussian.

When I hear tech giant, I think FAANG, but I'm not sure this is representative of the options most programmers have. It certainly isnt representative of the compensation at most large companies.

In addition, I think rank-and-file FAANG salaries, when discussed here, tend to get grossly exaggerated. I know lots of people working at these companies and none of them have a boat. Lots of them have roommates in cramped apartments in SF like other tech company employees. Are there some highly paid employees at top tech companies? Sure. Do most employees at these companies have vacation homes and private jets? Nope.

Emphasis on "reliably". I have two classmates who went the startup route and retired around 30 (and not on a beach in Thailand).

Why would anyone ever work for the big company if startups were both more potentially lucrative and more reliable?

Why is that disappointing?

That's the "pro" of going with an established company - having reliably high compensation.

The "pro" of going with a startup is the low chance of exceptional pay and the fulfilling work.

Was this ever not the case for the majority of software engineers?

I'm not a historian or anything, but I've seen it ebb and flow over the years. There have definitely been periods where the best opportunities were at small, innovative businesses.

I think we've reached a point in the industry where innovation has slowed enough to allow the biggest companies to catch up. Combined with the natural advantages that big companies have (monopoly, regulatory capture, etc.), it's just really hard to go toe-to-toe with them these days.