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Comment by shams93 | Hacker News Reader

If it wasn't for Steve Jobs we might have agents like Hollywood actors. To me the real question is why don't we have agents like actors and basketball players? We could be like actors and have both a union and our own agents. But thanks to Jobs conspiring to hold back engineer income we have a situation where we are often leveraged into poverty.

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Leveraged into poverty? Developer salaries range from 50-65k starting to 250k plus. Then there's freelancing.

Depends on where you're at, right? You'll find tons of developers on Upwork willing to work for less.

Isn't that the future for most of us? We're tomorrow's factory workers. Corporations have already shown that they'll work to suppress wages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

The long game is to promote STEM fields and increase supply - pushing down wages and benefits.

Haven't people been saying that for decades now?

No offense, because this isn't directed at you specifically, but developers on Upwork selling themselves short are doing so because they lack the social skills necessary to thrive in a freelance environment.

There are so many business opportunities to build quality software for a very steep price it's incredible. But developers can have a pretty hard time understanding how to sell themselves.

Well, what if the union was more of a supplier of Benefits if contract worker (Group healthcare plan, dental, vision), had a lawyer on staff to checkout contracts to make sure they're up and up for freelancers, helped encourage companies to raise incomes for devs across the board, and also had a marketing team/sales team dedicated to helping freelancers who are primarily introvert sell their skills for the top dollar...though -- you could work for an outfit like Topcoders which does do a lot of these types of things..

You are describing consulting.

Could you point to these opportunities? One concrete opportunity. Please and thank you.

http://meetups.com

Networking.

Isn't that the future for most of us? We're tomorrow's factory workers.

Speak for yourself. What I do takes a lot more creativity, flexibility, and variety of types of skill than most factory jobs. I intend to continue to develop skills that can't be commoditized.

That is just it, too. We have to continue to get better. And wouldn't we want to be the best we can be or if you were a company have the best engineers you could afford creating your software? Why is the interview process at google so tough? They only hire ~1% of the applicants because they want to be the best. Developers are more than just simple assets they can be worth more than the sum of their parts/ their teams and that is why a compentent developer will always be well employed. If you think you're lacking maybe look into learning how to sell yourself better; seek opportunities to develop more confidence in interpersonal settings, get your finances in order to maybe take a risk and turn that side hobby into the next big thing. In an age where anyone can do anything with an API and an idea why stick to thinking the only way to move up is at your next performance interview?

So not teaching more people engineering is a good thing? Are you really advocating ignorance to artificially constrain the supply in the market of competent engineers? Non-competes, no-poaching, etc and illegal acts to constrain salaries are deplorable, yes, but are you going to be able to change the profit motive of business? Nope. What you can change is how you market yourself and seeking other opportunities for income be they freelancing or something similar. Think of a world that is much more educated now. There's untold industries and innovations that can be had and we markets for us to be employed in.

There is a quota on doctors why not on engineers? We're already OK with the former.

I'm not okay with a quota on doctors. I'm certainly not okay with a quota on engineers, especially since that's a massive incentive to offshoring to somewhere that isn't stupid enough to artificially constrain the number of engineers.

Got a link to that quota on doctors?

There is no formal quota on doctors but the number of residencies limits the number of doctors that can actually get licensed. I've seen it argued that this is intentionally restricted to limit the number of doctors entering the field.

Good point but you misunderstood my argument. It's in the interests of corporations to push up supply and if you look they are doing just that.

My concern is that without a counterbalance of developers advocating in the interest of the workforce; individuals will always be at a disadvantage.

Why? In a business everything comes second to profits and the accumulation of capital. Anyone who has worked at a startup outside of the US coasts knows this well.

I'm not saying we employ the old methods of unionization, but what am I saying is that we need collective bargaining.

It's up to us to identify a modern model that addresses your concerns.

I don't subscribe to all or nothings. Nobody is "always" a jerk. Nobody is "always" lazy. Neither are companies solely profit motivated. We don't live in a pure capitalist environment. This isn't a Ayn Rand novel. For example why would Google pay for free food for employees, why would other startups invest in so many "perks" to appease their employees.

I just think unions would dilute the market with highly paid developers on average but then average developers. Once you get the title of developer and get to be part of this union all developers regardless of skill would be paid the same. How is that fair? (If that's not how unions work then I cede my point).

Companies don't offer perks out of the kindness of their hearts, they do so as an investment out of which they expect a greater return.

The cost of things like "free food" is usually paid for with lower salaries, longer work hours or cuts to benefits. In other words, if the value of a perk is n, then the company offering that perk is extracting a greater than n value from their employees elsewhere, without compensation, or else passing the cost on to customers, or both.

TANSTAAFL.

I'm not competing with people who are willing to work for only $10 an hour on Upwork. There are plenty of opportunities for people who are skilled architects, and real engineers.

Worse case, if I were either just starting in the industry or wanted to learn a new technology, I might take one or two low paying jobs to get practice and build a portfolio but that would be about it.

Then there's create your own software company.

Why would developers need agents? Hollywood actors earn orders of magnitude more than your average 10X-er developer.

Actually, a good recruiter can serve the role of an agent. They will look for opportunities for you because it's in their own best interest. But just like an athlete, you have to be smart enough not to get taken advantage of.

Even starving actors typically have agents.

Agents are expensive overhead. Agents are for people who shift between "clients" frequently. The thing that both actors and athletes share (at least the ones with agents) is giant salaries and a frequently changing employer.

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