> Despite tech workers’ financial power, management gets away with many widely unpopular working conditions. Think of the ubiquity of open offices, or of offices in general. Or sprints, or story points, or JIRA. Or the prioritization of new feature work over reliability and refactoring. Or the infamous crunch time near a deadline. Or the unfairness and perverse incentives in a promotion process. Coworkers making more than you because they joined at a lower stock price or had better counteroffers. Theoretically, workers could get more control over these conditions.

I don’t think any of these things are bad?

To the point of open offices: this is highly preferential. I personally prefer them over high-density cubicles for the peons and actual dedicated offices for management. (I’ve seen some places create offices for teams, but that’s not the norm.) I’d rather see further maturity of hybrid/WFH workflows.

About Jira: At the end of the day, most of us write software to accomplish a business need. That need is usually tied to a date and funded with money. As long as both of those things are true, estimation in any form will be necessary. While I’ve seen story points and scrum ceremonies get horribly mangled and abused, at their core, I think they are a significant improvement over man-hours, Gantt charts, and status meetings.

About new employees making more than old ones: That’s just market dynamics. Management will always try to pay as little as they can get away with. Unless you always overpay for general contracting, auto repair, or any other services, you probably do as well. Market rate will always increase with demand, so most companies will always pay more for new people and ensure that your compensation increases minimally. Good companies who care about not losing talent will ensure their people are getting paid market (because losing people over money is stupid if you can afford to keep them).

I’d rather have my value determined by the market than it be determined by union members “representing me.”