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Comment by nforgerit | Hacker News Reader

Gosh I like this comment so much. This is exactly how I felt and saw ourselves whilst sitting in hipster startup offices getting way too much money compared to the rest of society. That said, tech people in general publicly don't get enough respect or disrespect for their work.

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>getting way too much money compared to the rest of society

Personally I feel that the "rest of society" is getting way too little money vs. us getting way too much (opinion based on the fact that profits/productivity have outgrown salaries for too long).

Yeah, man, I've been trying to tell people this for a while. Programming isn't overpaid; it's just the one field where market forces actually work to provide a livable wage that grows with inflation.

When I was working at a non-FAANG for normal pay, I was basically living the exact same lifestyle as my dockworker grandfather. I could afford a house and car, wife didn't have to work, one vacation per year, moderate savings.

exactly, we have an 'economic crisis' among record profits. This is the first time in human history.

There is another name for it - getting shafted

There's a guy in a massive yacht who won't let anyone on board. You're in a one-man lifeboat. But you say you're simply too well off compared to the people swimming in the water.

> getting way too much money compared to the rest of society

A good engineer can make a great deal of money for the company, far more than a plumber ever could.

I.e. an engineer has leverage.

The plumber at the house with an overflowing toilet sure has some leverage, too.

I mean, not really. Every house has a main water shutoff valve. You can watch a 5 minute YouTube video on how to snake a toilet yourself. Or spend an hour installing a new toilet.

That’s what every MBA wannabe tech startup founder is saying about using wordpress to achieve his goals.

Why pay software engineers anyways? We should just have the company leadership code, it’d save a lot of money.

I’m familiar with the work you’ve done, I respect you, and I know you know that this is a ridiculous and argument. You can walk into any hardware store and buy a new toilet, and the installation instructions are included. Its dead simple. IKEA furniture is often more difficult.

I don’t think it’s ridiculous, but perhaps I haven’t fully explained my position? I have never installed a toilet but I’m confident that I could go into a store and buy one, and the instructions are probably straightforward. That said, I would probably still call a plumber because the risk of me doing it wrong seems uncomfortably high, and I could end up with a smelly mess or thousands of dollars in water damage.

And my position is that teaching you to install a toilet without causing water damage by turning the shutoff valve 90 degrees is in no way comparable to teaching c-suites to code.

Your comparison is wrong

Installing a toilet is more like wroting a bash/shell script that is 99% googleable - most people can figure it out in a weekend

Writing a whole applocation is more like doing plumbing for an industrial installation. that handles hangerous chemicals

That may be true but that's not the type of plumber people think about when you just say "plumber".

The water damage would occur over months and years, eventually requiring an expensive remodel and repair of the floor underneath. Not a personal story because I don’t own a home but, you know, it happens.

I'd love to see a suit fixing his toilet

Problem tho is that they're already pretty busy managing managers that are themselves managing managers.

Right, and most people have things to do and time that is better spent not learning how to install a toilet.

The best plumbers can always pivot to content creators on #DrainTok

Enjoy :)

Depends on the number of engineers available to do the work.

That number is entirely dependent on their leverage.

It works like this. If I could hire bob for $10, but he produces $100 worth of value, hell yes I'm going to hire Bob. But Evil Corp sees that and thinks "damn, I want Bob to contribute $100 to my bottom line, so I'll hire him away from Bright Corp by enticing him with $20 pay.

Then, BadAss Corp thinks the same thing, and hires Bob away for $30. This process repeats until Bob's pay + opportunity cost == $100.

However, there is a point of diminishing value being added. If lots of Bobs are available, the incremental value (leverage) each one adds becomes less. There are only so many redesigns of one's database that improve productivity much.

As you can see, the more Bobs, the less they'll get paid. Until Frank comes along with a new idea for adding value, and starts the process over again.

Consider also that although an engineer has the potential to engineer large amounts of value, that doesn't mean he will. Hence, the value of him to the company is discounted by the risk that he won't deliver.

I.e. an engineer who has a track record of delivering value can command a much higher salary. I know one who got a million dollar salary.

This is also why CEOs get paid so much. Leverage. Nadella is a prime example. As an MSFT shareholder, I'd say he was darn well worth it.

> This process repeats until Bob's pay + opportunity cost == $100.

I usually find that this typically stops at something like $10 for most people. Despite people being “valuable for millions” offers for that much don’t magically seem to spring up. The people I know making a million a year typically make the company tens of millions…

It's always been a sensitive topic. Reminds me of the 5000 dollars punch fix story.

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