this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2024
135 points (93.5% liked)
13658 readers
2 users here now
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Why do you think tech workers are overpaid? I think other workers are underpaid.
They think that cause they aren't a tech worker. Also, as a non American tech worker were also underpaid.
I'm a senior software developer. I know how the industry works. And I also know the incredible arrogance of IT people thinking they're only millimeters away from being literally gods.
Username checks out.
Sure but thats the same in every technical industry. Doesn't have anything to do with pay.
No, it's not. Other industries have standards. Nobody would try to re-invent bolts for no reason. Software engineers do. All the time.
And it is related to pay. Or better, willingness to pay. VC funded firms are willing to spend a lot of money on hiring "top talent", but they let them run relatively free. So instead of using a not 100% fitting solution off the shelf, they build a custom solution, that costs obscene work hours and fits a tiny bit better for 3 weeks. That means, a lot of the work of these very capable engineers gets wasted in the sense that it doesn't create business value. So the business value they do create gets more expensive to produce.
lol that bolt comment is factually wrong
You seem to have a hatred for the tech industry and a very warped view of it vs the work force.
Again, I'm part of it.
That does nothing to change what I've said
From a software engineering view: Lots of rebuilding the wheel, now with Internet Explorer dependencies. Large tech firms are more and more bureaucratic rather than innovative. Startups slurp up VC funding for the next 200 or so unicorn investments. NVIDIA is THE ENTIRE S&P 500 at this rate with SERIOUS "Peak of Inflated Expectations" valuation. Elon Musk.
All the while the majority of the job is fixing the mistakes of the past, of yourself and of some code monkey in 2003. There's this theory that code replicates the structure of the design team. When that team spans an entire corporate hierarchy with SCRUM standups every 2.5 milliseconds, you wonder if you could do the equivalent of the ending of Office Space to the codebase.
I'm sorry, I'm just... anyway, a sage piece of advice. For the love of all that is holy, write requirements BEFORE doing validation for Aerospace applications, and DO NOT OUTSOURCE THE REQUIREMENTS WRITING. That is all.
During the initial and development stages, the top tech workers were headhunted and paid a lot to set up good infrastructure. Now that the infrastructure is already there, when there's not much new development being done, they ended up being considered overpaid with respect to the works being done. These companies will end up getting rid of this 'overpaid' workers and replace them with migrant workers that they can get for a lot less.
Do you really think an engineer at Reddit or anywhere in the Valley generates as much value to society as a doctor?
I'm not even close to FAANG, and I earn twice as much as a nurse and slightly more than a doctor of my age. That's great for me, but I'm not worth that much. And tech workers in the USA earn even more relative to regular workers.
People aren't paid for contributing to society, they're paid to generate wealth for rich assholes. Doctors don't earn billionaires as many yachts.
And you just showed your incapability to distinguish between descriptive and normative.
The purpose of a system is what it does.
"Purpose" is the wrong category here.
I meant what I said.
Ah yes, a theorem that is so incredibly self-referential, that you could literally justify anything with it.
That's "it is what it is" for snobs.
Do you think I was justifying the way things are?
Interesting.
Programmers aren't overpaid. Doctors are underpaid.