Financial companies, pharmaceutical companies, automotive companies, aircraft (component or manufacturing) companies. They all fail to understand the criticality of software and IT to their long term objectives, and greatly undervalue people in those fields.

A recurring issue I've found is, "Jack the EE picked up programming in a week, why are you worth as much or more than him when you aren't even a 'real' engineer?" Substitute another field for EE based on industry. Software is simultaneously too easy for them to take seriously, and too hard for them to fathom its depths.

I disagree - non-software companies feel entitled to price employees based in relation to their peers rather than in relation to the value they add to the business (and possibly misuse their tech labour because they never hired an architect that could actually steer it to be as valuable as it could be) but Jack the EE might be a perfectly servicable developer. There's a lot of theory we learn in school that Jack would need to pick up himself but don't assume you're imbued with a special skill that sets you apart from the rest of the employees.

The company should definitely be paying more out of their pocket to employ good tech talent, but I'm not so certain whether it's good for society for all that created value to be given to the developer who happened to create it. I think there is a big value gap in how much developers can produce with relatively little labour compared to, say, a car mechanic - but I think that it might be best for everyone if a really big proportion of that value gap was sliced up and distributed more evenly across society in the form of social programs to benefit us all.

I don't see how you're disagreeing with me. I didn't say that Jack the EE couldn't be a perfectly serviceable developer. I've worked with a number who are (and a few who excelled). My point is that the management teams (with no one with software experience) perceive one specific person's relative ease at picking up programming as the general case for programming. This causes them to underestimate what it takes to actually build up the software portion of their business. This happens especially for non-software companies in the same way that software companies might underestimate the difficulty of other fields (how many startups have we seen posted here on HN that are composed of primarily programmers and think they'll revolutionize the fashion industry, the car audio industry, or the banking industry?).

And since management teams in large companies tend to grow out of whichever departments are the primary domains, if software is always seen as tertiary then managers with software background are consistently absent or too few to clear up this confusion.

If Jack can teach himself how to program competently, you’ve just made a great argument for him to stop fucking around being an EE and switch to a software job where he can make a ton more money.

Just because an arbitrary person can learn how to do X, it doesn’t change the fact that there is a huge shortage of people who can competently X. The price paid for software development is a product of supply and demand, not how “special” software developers are.

They value people based on 'visibility' at my place. Unfortunately, some people who get that visibility are just putting out their own fires. I had a tech lead that was not very good in my opinion, but the business and management loved him.

Sometimes I think about becoming a mechanic. They make good money.

Having worked at a car dealership- don't work at one of those, at the very least. Like many established industries, being a car mechanic doesn't have too many ways up from there- you can get all the certs you want, but you'll never be management- and compensation increases are based more on tenure than anything else. If you can teach yourself and then get into a performance garage or something like that, go for it! You'll likely wind up better off buying a project car to learn on or going to a technical school in off time than going full-tilt into mechanicary- and you'll have a chance to see if it's right for you before you switch. Also, if you like that stuff, and want to create things, consider mechanical engineering of some flavor.

I had a 25-30 year old Caprice and then tracked a new Camaro. I have a bit of mechanical experience with all the work that comes with those. Of course electric vehicles will be the next big thing.

I definitely would not work at a dealer or chain. Being part of a small company or your own would be great. Not moving up wouldn't be a big deal in that kind of role.

On a side note, I'm confused why everyone is obsessed with moving up. Can't people just be happy where they are? I really don't see much difference in my company between the various levels, nor is it a very big promotion at 7%.

Electrical engineering is a nightmare compared to software engineering. It also involves a lot of programming. It's just that hardware businesses don't give a damn about the software.

I'm in the same boat. The way some people here talk about making $200/hour makes me think how out of touch some HN'ers are with the average worker.

$200/hour rate is median for developers with in demand skills. Many companies will gladly pay this and higher rates to fill positions with qualified candidates.

Software engineering and development field is extremely difficult. There are many opportunities in this field, because there are so few candidates that can do the work. HN is self selected group of people with experience in the field. But they are actually very few in number.

The average worker does not have in demand skills in tech sector.

I think this is still an oversimplification of what's actually going on.

Its not so much that the skills themselves are in demand, its the enormous experience that someone who can command that kind of fee has. The skill set you're talking about can be learned probably in a year or two of 8-5, M-F self-guided learning from Udemy / Coursera / YouTube, but its the experience of using those skills to build something of value that is driving that hourly rate, not so much the skills themselves.

If you feel I'm missing something here, please go into more depth, because I find this all quite fascinating. :)

I think the part that you’re missing is that understanding programming language syntax and some algos/datastructures is just a tiny piece of what makes software engineering. Having those skills + the ability to convert them into useful software is what is rare/difficult.

Yeah, that's part of it that I was having trouble putting into words.

US salaries/rates are nuts.

$200/hr in the UK would put you in the top 1% of earners.

A 200USD/hr person would make before lunch, what I get paid in a month. This thread makes me want to kill myself.

People love bragging. Don't take it too seriously. Yes there are a bunch of these in certain places but certainly not everywhere.

The remote option has always been available for in demand tech people. Now it's available for most people in the tech field. So it's available "everywhere" people can do the work.

You're out of touch because this doesn't apply to the entirety of the US.

It's interesting that people think $200/hour rate, for in demand software engineer/developer, is out of touch.

That roughly equates to $400,000 a year. Which may seem like a lot, until people actually see what the market rates are in west coast tech hubs.

https://www.levels.fyi/

Also, Mark Zuckerberg is worth $100 Billion, for creating basically a CRUD app in php.

You can't really fairly compare 1099 to W2 hours without subtracting for holidays, vacation, self-employment taxes, benefits, capacity/downtime, etc. The math might easily work out to a 30%-40% difference.

That may be median for your area and you may be happy with it.

In west coast tech hubs, that's about half of median salary alone. If you factor in bonus, stock options, etc. That's about 1/3 or 1/4 of total comp.

https://www.levels.fyi/

I hate my job for reasons other than the pay. I just have to except that I'm worthless.

Noooooooo! You may be undervalued, or in the wrong field. Einstein was not an accomplished baker- you might just not have found something you feel you fit into. It might also be impostor syndrome- please don't devalue yourself because you don't like your job or what you do there. Your job doesn't define you.

It might not define me, but it greatly defines the options of my life (time, money, etc).

It means your job is worthless and by extent your company as well. People aren't jobs. Get a different one.

If that's as a developer in a US city that's pretty underpaid

Note he's salaried, that's not contract rates. Salaried employees also get health, 401k, ESPP, and other benefits that contract workers have to cover themselves - not to mention self employment taxes etc.

He may still be underpaid, but it's not apples/apples.

It's in the suburbs of an east coast city. I don't really see higher paying intermediate jobs (switched stacks a few times).