Frequently Forgotten Fundamental Facts about Software Engineering

Re:Frequently Forgotten Fundamental Facts about Software Eng... by mavelikara on Friday December 04, 2009 @03:48AM (#976028)

"Good programmers are up to 30 times better than mediocre programmers, according to "individual differences" research. Given that their pay is never commensurate ..."

Why is this a given? What are the forces which prevent the pay getting commensurate with ability? Is this unique to programming profession, or is this widely observed in other fields too?

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Re:Frequently Forgotten Fundamental Facts about Software Eng... by andrewbadera on Friday December 04, 2009 @04:49AM (#976080)

How many run of the mill $50k average-or-less developers or programmers do you know?

Now, how many $500,000 programmers do you know? Outside finserv quants & algos, not many. But THEY can make millions and tens of millions.

Unfortunately our industry tends to grant incremental compensation increases against geometric performance & value increases. Which is true in a lot of engineering fields. And the same can probably be said in design fields as well.

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