Should Younger Developers be Paid More?

Experienced engineers who were more than capable of learning something soon realized that their growth at company was limited b/c boss didn't see them as being different than their current state. So, if you are code Java now, boss thinks you are a "java engineer". People started to leave quickly.

Experience shows what not to do more than it shows what to do. Imagine someone who "knows python" trying to build django, twisted or tornado w/out having general real world experience, domain experience or really understanding why those need to be built. That is a recipe for disaster.

Smart, capable engineers are constantly reinventing themselves. If they feel they are not going to be given a chance to work on something interesting b/c they don't have X on their resume they will move on. The business will suffer as they take domain knowledge and experience with them.

That boss is still at that company. Engineering staff has over 150% turnover in past 18 months (when above boss started). Most engineers have moved onto things that are much more glamorous and interesting but still say they would have preferred to stay there and work on that system. The company itself has slowly started to lose market share and customers are not renewing their contracts. A former clear #1 in the space has become a #3 or #4 at best. Those months watching this boss destroy this company are some of the best lessons I could ever learn...on what not to do and how not to do it.

Anybody who pays a premium for new college grads is an idiot. Comp Sci programs don't teach you what you need to know to produce production code. It takes a good three or four years of professional experience for people to pick that up. Some never do.

There's a reason new grads are having a hard time getting hired in this crappy economy. It's not because employers don't know better - it's because employers do know better. Yeah, it sucks to be in that chicken-and-egg position, but everybody was there in the beginning.

I recall at one of my companies we had some incredibly strong devs, but all with Unix backgrounds. We needed them up to speed on Windows and COM. We did two courses for them -- probably WinTellect or something (one Windows, the other COM). In less than a month we had a small team of Windows devs that were as strong as any I'd seen.

We hired for really bright people first. Moving them to the technology was pretty easy. And if one month is the difference between making and breaking a market, you may want to reassess the market.

It's often worth it to have periodic career breaks simply to refresh your skillset. Found a startup in whatever the hottest area is. Take on a side project to teach yourself something knew. Switch to a new job working on hipper technologies.

But if you're expecting to gradually keep your head down and put in your 40 hours a week at the same employer for the next ten years, you're going to be disappointed. Basically everything you started out knowing will be obsolete by then.

The company needs someone with skills Y and Z, for some new project. They hire some kid, and pay him 30 or 40% more than they are paying me. They tell me they have to pay that, because there is a lot of competition for people with Y and Z. OK, fine--although if management had done their job and figured out we would need Y and Z ahead of time, I would have been happy to learn Y and Z.

So what happens a year down the road, when that new project is done, and we no longer need Y and Z, and that kid is now doing the same work I do--but with a lot less knowledge of the company systems, a lot less experience in U, V, W, and X, and is still making 30% more than me?

Is the company going to cut his pay to match mine? That won't work--the kid will quit. Are they going to raise my pay (and everyone else in a similar situation) to match the kid's? Probably not financially viable.

They are going to have to find something to do for the prior workers at this point, or moral is going to be low, and they will probably have a lot of people leaving.

Alternatively, if Y and Z turn out to be something the company still needs a year after hiring the kid, then by that time the rest of us will probably have learned them, too, after seeing how lucrative such skills are. Do we all get raises up to the kid's level? If we are actually now doing Y and Z we'd certainly expect at least equal pay. If we aren't doing Y and Z, then we should be going to other companies that need Y and Z, and getting the big bucks.

The big lesson is that you should continually refresh your skills and develop new things on your own time.

That being said, nobody should get too bent out of shape if someone else makes more than them. If you agree to work for a salary, then live with that decision... don't come crying to management because someone else bargained better.

Let's say you join a company as, I dunno, a Unix sysadmin. When you go in, it's because they hired you for your Unix skills. But after 5 years, your value to the company isn't just those skills anymore, it's that you know the company's systems, its business, the particular way "we do things here", you have a network of people within the organization and can "get stuff done" and so on. And probably, by now, your Unix skills are falling a bit behind, because the company is not about the bleeding edge, they say if it ain't broke don't fix it (many large organizations only upgrade when the vendor desupports something) and besides, your time is spent in meetings now.

So people can fall into a trap - they're doing very well in the company - and don't even notice they're falling behind until it's too late...

Having in depth skill with a new technology is certainly a desirable attribute but I'd rather have the reliability of a n experienced developer (especially since they should be able to pick up something new).

This is very easy. If you know stuff that few other people know, you can make more money. Once everybody figures out that's where the money is, the money isn't there any more.

Companies will only pay to train you after they have figured out they need something -- and with most companies this is about six months or more after they actually needed it. So they are in a bind and have to hire talent immediately. Folks who come in knowing what the company wants pick up the extra bucks.

The trick here is that you cannot rely on your company to train you. You have to figure out where the market is going, all on your little lonesome, and then do whatever you can to master the tech -- including writing programs for local charities if that's what it takes to get real-world experience -- before the market gets there. This is called investing in your future. It's the tech equivalent of going to night school.

I've been playing this game for a long time, and I've been the young buck making the big bucks (although I've never been the older complainer guy). After I worked my way through code monkey, architect, lead, and pm roles, I ended up training and watching software teams. So I've literally either participated in or worked with folks helping and evaluating hundreds of teams.

Best teams? If I had to generalize, I'd pick the old guys who keep picking up new tech. They know the business, they've been around long enough to play nice with others, and -- if they've stayed current this long -- genuinely are having a fun time with what they do. Plus they tend not to get stressed out by too much. Second best? A mixed team with mostly young guys with lots of current tech and a couple older guys to provide that gray-beard kind of balance.

But that's just a generalization, and like all generalizations it's very limited in its application. Each team is completely different. That's what makes this biz so much fun. Just like my generalizing, I think companies get too caught up in buzzwords. Smart guys with good attitudes can do a lot. I wouldn't go ape-shit with concern simply because buzz word X wasn't in somebody's job experience (or vice-versa) If you know you have to learn X for this next project and you're sitting around waiting on somebody else to come and teach it to you? That's just a little bit too passive for my tastes.

I hate to sound like such a hard-ass (well maybe not really) but this is a very simple business that hasn't changed much in several decades. The pace might have changed, sure, and the tech is all new, but the mechanics of being a good project member, what makes a good project, and how people get paid and such are all the same as they were in 1980 or something. Not much mystery to kick around here in this narrow area of "why Joe makes 30% more than Fred"

That being said, I don't really understand what the dev was upset about ... Its just good ol' supply and demand.

Being skilled at new hot technology is always a good thing. In my short time as a dev, I've seen the crazy salaries for WPF (.NET), Rails, facebook (if that counts) and now iphone/android developers and I'm sure this won't be the last time either.

Want to make $200k+? Pick up the skills that are attracting that kind of coin. Simple.

Some people start out eager to learn, but lose it. And others become learning machines. Pay more for the latter, regardless of their age.

Makes sense.

  George looked down and sighed. “So you are telling me 
  there are no guarantees, and oh by the way, you want me 
  to mentor these new guys on the business requirements?”

  “Yep, that sums it up,” I responded, not half as 
  convinced as I sounded.

  “Well, that sucks.”

My impression from this: It's the person, not the age.

EDIT: I've had the opportunity to work with some plenty smart women, too. (I realized the prevalence of the masculine in the above.) Again, several were "older". Same conclusion.