Comment by mattlondon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mattlondon | Hacker News Reader

> Good programmers just don’t work for money

I disagree with this view.

I'd probably reword it as "Programmers as a group are generally not as motivated by money as other employees may be".

Saying they dont work for the money is misleading I think, and runs the risk of bosses thinking they can cut programmers' salaray because, hey, programmers dont work for money and don't care about paying bills or feeding & clothing their family or anything.

I think the underlying truth here might be that programmers who are enjoying their work are probably also good at their work and are well paid for it. In which case, it may be that many are not motivated by more money because they have enough already that it stops becoming a priority or an every-day thought/concern. This thought is echoed by the StackOverflow survey linked in the article - there is a strong correlation between high salary and high job satisfaction: http://stackoverflow.com/research/developer-survey-2016#mone...

I don't need money to motivate me to write code, I need money to motivate me to write code for you.

I didn't see your message until after I finished posting mine but I was trying to get at the same point. Money may not motivate me to code but that doesn't mean it's not a motivation to get me to code what the company wants me to. I can choose what projects I want to work on. There are no shortages of team that will take good software engineers.

That's exactly it. If my own projects were paying the bills I'd be working on them full time. As they don't (yet!) I'll trade a bunch of my time for some guaranteed income working on something not as interesting.

That's not to say I'm only there for the cash - I legitimately do like my job - but the salary offered is the sole reason I started working there over anywhere else. Raises and bonuses are what'll keep my eyes from wandering over other job ads in the long term.

This is exactly right. Good programmers can for the most part take their pick of job offers. The key part here is in order to motivate a good programmer to work for you you have to offer competitive pay and a competitive environment. The reality is that they can probably quit working for you and get a raise to boot if they feel unhappy.

The best programmers aren't motivated simply by money, because you can't get to that skill level without being highly motivated to learn things that won't necessarily ever pay off. To get there you have to read very widely, and experiment, and not stick to learning only salable skills. You have to have a lot of knowledge and capabilities that aren't ever going to show up in a job description, many of which won't ever be useful. The best programmers are algorithm inventors, and cross-pollination from one field to another is what makes that possible. Nobody's going to pay you to go out and get that broad swathe of knowledge, nobody. You either have that very strong internal motivation to learn logic and mathematics related anything-at-all, or you don't.

I'd like to reword it as "Programmers don't code for money. But if they code for other people it better be good money."

I will gladly work on a side project all night and weekends with no expectation of a return. But if it's your idea that I'm working on, I insist on being paid well for it.

That's especially true since the time you're working on job stuff is time away from your pet project. Basically you're losing your full night's sleep and weekends not to work on your pet project, but to go to work.

As my Dad told me "The mortgage doesn't care about my job satisfaction."

Pay is always in the mix (unless you are independently wealthy), but most people (not just programmers) take it as one factor. A plumber will turn down higher paying work if s/he knows it will be a pain in the butt.

I just wanted to say : they don't work for 'only' money. Company culture, career scope and other people in the team are more more important for programmers than money I think. Though some people may disagree. BTW, I have corrected the sentence, thanks.

> Good programmers just don’t work for money

Say that to programmers in Wall Street see how it goes ;)

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