It being a common practice isn't relevant to whether it is best for this industry and its workers. I'm not saying I disagree, but your reasoning just doesn't support your argument
Many of us make more money writing software today than we could working one of those unionized jobs while having less credentialing (or not being in the top 1% like the sports players). Nothing on that list looks enviable to me.
There's no question that limiting the supply of labor in a job market increases its price. I just don't think it's worth the price. For unions there's an extra layer of overhead and union dues. For professional societies (like the AMA) there's an extra layer of credentialing and suspiciously low innovation.
But that's my assessment and I'm probably abnormal in my situation. I'm happy to be wrong though. If more companies form unions and these companies pay better, reward good performance more fairly, have less intrinsic bias, etc, then I'll be the first to jump ship.
I think you didnt fully understand the parent poster. The point is that in this thread many people are questioning the case for unions in software engineering and the parent comment responds to that. He just gave examples that unions protect all kind of workers, software work included, to make a point in case.
This sounds comically obvious, but WOW that was fast. Really impressed that they are delivering on some of their promises, given Musk's history of over-optimism. Sincerely wishing them the best of luck, because if they can pull this off, there will be other cities making deals with them (please San Francisco I'm begging you)
> People can't even wrap their mind around real automation, they still assume it's going to be mechanization from the industrial revolution with computers. And there's so much else in this industry that people can't even understand that affects them in every day life situations.
If I want to person A as a close friend, and they're not active on the platform, that should be allowed. Maximizing interactions isn't the goal, or else we wouldn't limit the feed in the first place
Until every competitor leap frogs them. Everyone's running up a down escalator.
If uber just keeps the lights on, they will not maintain their stronghold on ridesharing, let alone be the last to market for the next generation of mobility that will replace their current product. Even Facebook goes out of fashion - that's why they bought Instagram and WhatsApp.
IMO, we’ve reached the diffusion limit of innovation in ridesharing. Autonomous is a pipe dream and in a recession, human drivers will be cheap.
Uber and Lyft lose money because they’re over-hiring talent and they’re consolidating their monopolies via marketing/market share wars. When the bubble pops, people are going to stick to MS and Apple - they’re not going to jump to Amiga or BeOS.
The hard part of engineering isn't the ability to glue packages and microservices together. Those tasks are literally done by entry level, bottom of the totem pole engineers. You're saying that all bankers do is run models and spit out valuations, and all a chef does is put stuff in a pan.
I'm not speaking toward your argument of a bubble bursting, but engineering isn't going anywhere. And where else would an entry level engineer start than at the bottom, npm installing the package that solves their problem? It's using these concepts every day that builds good engineers who think of tomorrow's solutions, and can architect it both technically and socially. That is the line between software development and computer science.
Engineers paid under 120k that whine aren't doing anything beyond their immediate usefulness, i.e. 'just doing their jobs.' The engineers that get paid 300k are usually the ones running the show, and writing significantly less / no code.
$300K to live on the west coast is really not that appealing to someone who is living in a major city, with the stereotypical house in the burbs in a good school system with 2.1 kids where on the higher end you can make $150K to $160K as an architect/team lead/principal. Especially if you are married with two incomes where you can easily put the lower income completely toward increasing net worth or cash flowing your kids college expenses.
Engineers getting paid $300K could easily be the stereotypical r/cscareerquestions “learn LeetCode and work for a FAANG” type graduating from college.
I think you are perhaps too focused on the immediate salary, and not thinking long-term.
Yeah, $300k in the Bay Area isn’t that much. But if you work for a Tier 1/2 company for a few years, it can have a drastic impact on your future employment prospects and salary levels. Furthermore, the street cred can open many doors that otherwise would remain closed to you.
I think my reply would have had more context in response to a sibling reply made by another poster:
Consider the scaling factor for salaries; My salary is on the high end in my area, but would be on the low end of a living wage in the Bay Area.
My salary is in the neighborhood of 120k; I'm a senior-level engineer with almost a decade of experience...
So think about the trade offs. If you’re young and single, the tradeoff between a one bedroom in a major city anywhere not on the west coast and the west coast and the difference in the salary you can make is well worth it.
In most major cities a junior developer will make $60K and can probably find an apartment for $900/month in a decent part of town. If they work on the west coast and get $250K and find an apartment for $2400K/month, that’s a tradeoff worth making.
10-15 years into your career, you may already be married with kids. That $120K he’s making can easily buy a 3000 square foot house in the burbs, brand new build, great school system and close to work for $350K. This is from personal experience (not the salary, the price of the house). Now that tradeoff between $150K and $300K-$400K doesn’t look so appealing when you can’t live nearly the same lifestyle on the West Coast that you could live on much less money
If he’s like me, he’s probably built a local network where any door he wants to open locally is probably already open to him.
In my case, I’m 45, but because of $bad_life_decisions, I only started taking my software development career seriously a decade ago. But I do have a great local network, skills that match what the market demands and the house in the burbs with the wife, the white picket fence and 2.1 kids.
I don’t really need new doors opened to me. As soon as the youngest graduates and I’m willing to travel, I am already in the position of being a high earning “consultant”. Not bragging, I have been working over 20 years, I should be able to consult somebody
> Furthermore, the street cred can open many doors that otherwise would remain closed to you.
The assumption here is that technical screenings actually work. As many here have pointed out, technical interviews today are highly capricious and pretty have no correlation with actual technical qualifications. "Street cred" and even superb interview performance don't seem to matter anymore.
I’ve found that people who work for large companies are often not a fit for smaller companies. They may be good developers, but most of the time they come in with prebuilt infrastructure, processes, separate departments to handle the infrastructure parts etc.
Most small companies I’ve worked for, I’ve had to go back and forth between every layer of the stack - currently including the infrastructure set up. You just don’t get your hands dirty with multiple parts of the stack at a large company.
Anyone who is making $135K+ in any city that is not on the west coast or NYC, is probably 10 years into their career and may already have a family. In that case, they probably don’t want to make the sacrifices needed to go from making enough to live an upper middle class lifestyle - ie the nice house in the burbs to downgrading to a small apartment.
In my case, I’m 45, why would I move to the west coast for $300K when I can just stay in $major_city and work for a consulting when my younger son graduates and can make $180K-200K+ and still have the same lifestyle?
And then go back to being just a developer anytime I wanted to and still live comfortably?
But you're assuming with 10-15 years of experience you're stuck at 250-300k.
People who advanced in their career at Bay Area can make 500k or more (IC, not management), solving challenges that did not exist in the first place too (that alone might potentially put you in top 1-5%?). There are more startup opportunities (whether IPO or just the technical challenges, that's up to you) with higher chances of success.
I’m not denying that different people have different goals. But if you already are living a life free from worry, can work part of the year, doing what you enjoy, paid off house, what’s really the difference between 2 million and 15 million? (not saying I am there yet).
It’s not like I go to work everyday hating software development and hating what I have been doing since I was 12 years old. My wife works for the government and we have guaranteed access to health care whether she works or quits tomorrow.
I can have technical challenges and jump from opportunity to opportunity in two years once my youngest graduates.
Outside of the west coast/HN bubble, people retire comfortably all the time with a million in the bank, I paid off house, and social security.
Married couple wanting more children? yes, it matters.
Parents who want their kids to enjoy life? yes, it matters.
Parents who need to take care both in-laws and kids? absolutely, it matters a lot.
2 mills can get you a Duplex (closer to center) /House (further away) in the suburb of Vancouver/Toronto (Canada) with probably 100-200k left. Certainly not enough for retirement. In Seattle (USA), I suppose it depends on the area of your chosen.
How long do you have to work to reach the point of no-mortgage (nice house), kids done college paid by parents, and $2 mills for retirement?
But this is just what might be one dimension of the discussion: financial => lifestyle.
> I can have technical challenges and jump from opportunity to opportunity in two years once my youngest graduates.
We both live in different cities. I don't know your city as well as you do but where I live, there's definitely a ceiling to that technical challenges. Now before we go further with examples... I live in a city that certainly have huge hi-tech ecosystems and quite well known internationally.
I don't see Facebook/Google/Uber/Netflix/AirBnB anywhere nearby. My coworker would love to do impactful ML work. There's zero companies in my city that does ML meaningfully (more than just gluing OSS solutions or calling 3rd-party APIs). I personally would love to work on tackling scaling challenges. These opportunities just don't exist here.
The companies here are quite good compare to major cities out there, but certainly there's a virtual ceiling/limit due to a mix of VC, culture, talent, etc.
Just to wrap things up and to put things into perspective, I'm not a workaholic or ambitious person. I see those challenges as opportunity to invest my skill to stay relevant for years to come so I can take my foot off the pedal a bit. Otherwise, I'd be just an Engineer like everybody else in this city...
2 mills can get you a Duplex (closer to center) /House (further away) in the suburb of Vancouver/Toronto (Canada) with probably 100-200k left. Certainly not enough for retirement. In Seattle (USA), I suppose it depends on the area of your chosen.
That was kind of the point of my replies. I live in metro Atlanta. Not exactly small town America. We just bought a house in the burbs two years ago - 5 bedrooms, 3-1/2 bath almost 3000 square feet, brand new build for less than $350K.
Parents who want their kids to enjoy life? yes, it matters.
And somehow kids manage to “enjoy life” where the average household income in the US is $60K a year.
How long do you have to work to reach the point of no-mortgage (nice house), kids done college paid by parents, and $2 mills for retirement?
Let’s talk about a stereotypical couple. Someone brought up that they were making $120K in a low cost city and they were in their early 30s. Let’s also say the spouse was grossing $50K (about average for a college educated person in the US).
According to paycheckcity.com. The lower earning spouse would bring home $3400 a month. The higher earning spouse would bring home a little over $6000 after maxing our his 401K (pretax) at $19K a year for retirement. Many couples I know in that situation live completely off the higher earners income. That’s what I would have done if I got married at the average age of around 30.
If they were just hitting their stride at 30 with no kids. That $350K-$400K 5 bedroom house could be paid off in around 10-12 years.
If the developer just put $2083 a month (that includes the $1583/month in his 401K) in an S&P Index fund that historically earned 11% a year, they would have 2.1 million in today’s dollars adjusted for inflation (2.9%) by the time he was 52.
Getting the kids through college? Let’s add some variables. The wife could take a year or two off when they had kids and the house would still be paid off by the time they graduated from college and they could put her income toward cash flowing the kids through college. I also didn’t take into account that hopefully they will get more than inflation adjusted wages.
We both live in different cities. I don't know your city as well as you do but where I live, there's definitely a ceiling to that technical challenges. Now before we go further with examples... I live in a city that certainly have huge hi-tech ecosystems and quite well known internationally.
While the numbers for income I quoted above were theoretical, the fact that I have plenty of opportunities to work for a consulting company after my youngest graduates in two years and I’m willing to travel isn’t. I live in the same city as the world’s busiest airport. Getting a direct flight to almost anywhere isn’t a problem. Even Amazon is hiring AWS consultants who live in most major cities.
I personally would love to work on tackling scaling challenges. These opportunities just don't exist here
Even if the challenges don’t exist where I live, one or two of my friends/former coworkers work remotely. As I said above, I’m willing to travel.
But I know people, like my former manager who is in his late 50s, that wanted and did just the opposite, he changed jobs, self demoted to a developer and is doing your basic Microsoft/Azure full stack development. Once you have “enough”, you can get off the hedonic treadmill and make different life choices, you can take a pay cut to have a less stressful life, a better work life balance, etc.
I didn’t make nearly the same “good life choices” as the idealized couple I wrote about above but even I can say no to consulting companies that would pay me more than I am making now because I just really don’t want the headache at this point in life.
One final point. My parents are in their 70s, they retired in their mid 50s in the small town south with less than a million in the bank. My mom was a teacher (with a pension) and my dad was a factory worker (no pension). They aren’t struggling. They had 5 years left on their 30 year mortgage when they retired - they were paying $600/month for their mortgage.
Why is that the only definition of complex? Most complexities in business comes from process complexities or even business complexities. I once worked with a software as a service company that provided software for the car repair industry. We had to translate these rules for both the repair shop and the car owner.
Did we have millions of users? No. The rules were complicated, and most processing happened once a month. There is a central exchange that both sides go through.
I’ve had three jobs in healthcare. While the scale of users weren’t anything crazy. The business requirements were complex.
Because that definition of complex opens tons of doors to companies that are leading tech industry?
My background has always been in Enterprise software (healthcare, insurance, BI, etc, almost a decade). At some point I felt that translating complex biz reqs are no longer interesting.
I find dealing with scalability (and hopefully build my own system library) is more interesting and challenging that the Enterprise market.
Consistent Hashing algorithms, Distributed Systems, System programming, build your own programming languages, maybe build my own messaging/background processing?
Consider the scaling factor for salaries; My salary is on the high end in my area, but would be on the low end of a living wage in the Bay Area.
My salary is in the neighborhood of 120k; I'm a senior-level engineer with almost a decade of experience, involved in some of the high-level planning tasks you describe.
