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Comment by michaelochurch | Hacker News Reader

Until engineering decides to do something about it, engineering will always be subordinate to management.

There are no true parallel career paths.

You nailed it. That is all. If we want respect, we have to fucking earn it by forcing businessmen to see us as equals, whatever the effort and cost.

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What would "forcing" look like? Typically forcing someone to do something requires power - political, financial, or other.

When engineers have something that managers or investors desperately want (e.g. Zuckerberg et al), then engineers have power. When engineers are interchangeable code-monkeys, then managers and investors have power. Of course, engineers could band together in a labor union to increase their power, but managers and investors don't like that very much, and that generates a cat-herding problem.

I'm curious what exactly you have in mind.

Well, if nothing else works, a programmer's union.

I'd prefer something more like the Screen Actor's Guild, which provides support (legal assistance if you need it, access to talent agents) but doesn't regulate compensation. That said, I don't think things necessarily need to go that way, and I don't want to see the negatives of traditional labor unions. But that shouldn't be off the table. The other side isn't going to play nice, so neither should we.

FYI, SAG does set minimum compensation, working conditions, meal requirements, etc. It doesn't set upper bounds or demand that more senior people get the better jobs.

It's also somewhat difficult to get into. Any aspiring actor can't just go and join.

FYI, SAG does set minimum compensation, working conditions, meal requirements, etc. It doesn't set upper bounds or demand that more senior people get the better jobs.

Sounds like what we need in software: downside protection (especially against managerial misbehavior) but no limit on the upside, and no stupid seniority system.

It's also somewhat difficult to get into. Any aspiring actor can't just go and join.

How does it work?

I'm sure I'll get this wrong, but the way it was explained to me is that you need to appear in 3 SAG productions in order to apply for membership. Since it's a big hassle for the movie production to get an exemption to hire non-union, you need to be special in some way (the director really wants you in particular, you have some special skill like dance, etc.). It helps to know other actors who will call you and say "hey, they need a ballerina to be in the background tomorrow" or whatever.

I'm also not sure how you'd bootstrap something like this for programmers. The reason it works for actors is that every actor who is even slightly famous is a member, so every production has to work with the union or only get completely random people (you're still allowed to make an indie film with your friends if none of them are members).

I think the selectivity problem is less of one for programmers than screen actors. We can use code tests or Github for membership screening. Thus, we don't create the chicken-egg problem where (a) it's almost impossible to prove yourself if you're not part of the union while (b) you have to prove yourself before you can join.

Getting broad-based membership is much harder. This is an industry full of (a) young people who think they'll have investor contact in 6 months and be founders in two years and retired in six, and (b) indentured servants on H1-Bs. Even if we get 95% of the top 50% of programmers (and that's wildly optimistic) as members, most managers will just ignore their need for talent, in that case, and hire bottom-rung engineers, preferring that over being responsible for bringing in a union. It (that is, hiring bad engineers to avoid bringing in represented ones) won't work, but it won't hurt those managers' careers personally, so nothing will be done about it.

* Who writes the checks?

* Who writes their own check?

Those people hold the power.

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