Hi, redstripe! Is there someplace you can find lots of talented programmers with your mindset, who mainly look at "how the rest of the country/world lives" and think any salary "far above the country average" makes "complaining ridiculous"? Because any such source of programmers would be a gold mine!
In fact, you might even want to start a placement agency! On one side, you recruit young starry-eyed talent, and feed them a constant stream of images/rhetoric about how tough everyone but them has it, so their salary expectations stay low. On the other side, you hook them up with "Google, Apple, and others" who "generate enough revenue to pay people more" but are looking for bargains.
I'm having a hard time trying to interpret your sarcasm. Are you saying 100k is a paltry salary and I would have a hard time finding programmers to work for that wage?
BTW, I am an employee and not a employer. I would certainly like to make more. But at some point (certainly at 150k) you just become an out of touch complainer if you're still unhappy with your wage.
So if a person, single handedly, year after year makes a company millions, you're a whiner if you want 150-250k?
Depending on where you are, 100k barely supports paying for a house to raise a family without a 60 minute each way commute. Many of the places that have very high paying programming jobs just so happen to also have astronomical costs of living. SF? Check. NYC? Check. If you know C++ stupidly well, I know a very high paying job in a relatively low cost of living city (Atlanta) working for a bank. Can they find enough people at those astronomical payouts? Nope. They're constantly looking, less than 1/100th of the applicants can even get through the programming test.
People are simply paid what they can get demand given their skills, inclination to negotiate, and a motivated company to hire.
Additionally speaking, many of the people who demand the 150-450k salaries have run their own businesses, have skills other than programming that are very valuable to the employer (I know my fees are justified due to lots more than my not inconsiderable programming ability), and could do considerably better than 100k out running a business.
If a corporation wants to keep them, they should pay them what it takes.
Or are you saying no one should ever make more than 100k, including brain surgeons and law partners? Cause they're whiners?
I don't agree with the conclusion because I don't agree with the premise: that most programmers are irreplaceable ninja rockstars that single handedly make their employers millions a year. We're talking about average salaries not outliers that have no bearing on what most of us should consider fair pay.
I'm saying if you make 100-150k a year, sitting on your ass, doing something you enjoy then perhaps you should feel pretty fortunate. Stop thinking about the few % above you and consider the vast population below you.
I don't think you understand silicon valley: You basically are retarded to run a business there if you don't need that type of programmer which you're lampooning. Costs are stupidly high.
This isn't about average programmers. This is about this tiny pocket filled with overachievers who work stupidly long days for a jackpot and have a very high exposure to running their own businesses.
100k in silicon valley puts you in the top 47% of the people who live there, which means you're in the commute forever or live in a dinky house dialemma. (The average salary there is $96,299). It's one of the few cities in the world worse than where you live for housing, and housing there costs 2x as much for little places (rentals) and 1.4x for buying as Vancouver. How do you enjoy your 4 bedroom home? Oh wait, you can't even afford that where you live (most likely). Now imagine being able to afford 1/2 of what you DO have in housing.
So you live in vancouver, should we tell you to stop bitching at $54k?
Relative salary is important for purchasing some goods, namely housing. As a person who lives in a city almost as bad in that respect, I'm surprised you don't have a better feel for that.
That's pretty idealistic, borderline naive. There's a huge percentage of working programmers in Silicon Valley who are dead wood. Beyond that, there's loads of good ones who are working on doomed projects.
Sure there is! Didn't say everyone was making bank deservedly. I said you're stupid to run your business there if you don't need some of the very good ones who flock there, as costs are absurdly high. One great guy can pull a company along if its small enough and the deadwood does little enough harm.
(Note I keep saying "there" etc. I live in Atlanta, a much more reasonable cost city for businesses that don't need stupidly good people to really work).
I'm making the same points as others have, in a different way. The relative-wealth considerations you mention may be relevant for achieving a sense of gratitude about one's blessings... but are completely irrelevant in determining what salary someone "should" be paid, or when they should complain-to-employer/demand-more. If developers integrate your thoughts into their salary negotiations, others are enriched – not the developers, not the people scraping by on less, but others arbitraging their low demands and higher productivity.
Raising your threshold a little – to 150K! – doesn't fix the problem. If your work is worth 500K – generating more than that for someone else – and you're paid 150K, you're being cheated. You have the right to be angry, complain, point out the discrepancy to others, and vigorously pursue competitive alternatives.
Yes, this may appear ungrateful to those making do with far less. But their remote estimations aren't relevant to the intimate dyadic relationship between an employer and employed, where both fairness and efficiency require salaries to be set by negotiation over value delivered each direction. Let third-parties express their displeasure through progressive taxation schemes or the construction of alternative economic systems... not by telling developers to be happy with a lower share of their own output.
> If your work is worth 500K – generating more than that for someone else – and you're paid 150K, you're being cheated. You have the right to be angry, complain, point out the discrepancy to others, and vigorously pursue competitive alternatives.
I was with you up until this point. You and the person paying you both agreed to the compensation you get. If you don't like it then you have no right to "be angry".
You can however try to renegotiate your compensation.
I agree with your point. I'm a student and can't dream of making that much money right now. However, the "point at which you become an out of touch complainer" is different for everyone. To use a cliche example, starving African children would look at you crazy if you complained about your $7/hr burger flipping job.
No really. They told us during salary reviews that "Financial Forecasts aren't looking good!" and "There's going to be another GFC and that's why you're only getting a $1K raise". That's when I decided to quit.
Then they made a big song and dance at a company event about how we'd made 13M in profit. Yeah, VERY convincing guys.
In fact, you might even want to start a placement agency! On one side, you recruit young starry-eyed talent, and feed them a constant stream of images/rhetoric about how tough everyone but them has it, so their salary expectations stay low. On the other side, you hook them up with "Google, Apple, and others" who "generate enough revenue to pay people more" but are looking for bargains.
Everybody wins! (Except the developers.)