As a software engineer who just turned 40 and starting a new position in the coming weeks, I've been giving some thought lately to the future of our profession, and I'm wondering if we're at the high-point in the salary scale, and if we'll see average salaries decline from this point on.
The reason I suspect this might be the case is the combination of the popularity of programming, along with the tools which are making programming easier.
Every year a new framework/library is introduced which makes the challenging and time consuming work easier and easier.
Are we reaching a point where we have a massive number of programmers doing a job which takes a fraction of the time it took years ago?
Yep. Every developer's greatest fear should be that so many new, young people are learning to code that the base salary will dive dramatically in the next 10 years.
That's why I want to start a campaign called "Don't code." Trying to prevent young minds for learning the trade.
I like being in high demand.
Reverse argument, for context, I'm just about to graduate from a mediocre state university in the mid-west:
Not all of the young minds that are "learning to code" really have the potential to write programs at the same level as the average ValleyBoy RoR Jockey™ (or even the average casual Hacker News reading hobbyist coder). The number of students in my program that had massive interest in our numbers ( 100% placement with the highest average starting pay ) and almost zero interest in actually learning to code is frightening.
These students tend to slither through the technical classes with a lot of help from google and their friends, only to find themselves unable to compete for real developer positions and settling for the same 4x,xxx "business analyst" warm body jobs that seem to be the holy grail of the hoards of non-stem degree holders.
On the flip side, if you can actually get fizz buzz to compile and can stomach the idea of living in the midwest, prepare to be wined and dined by everyone under the sun.
Not everyone learns to program because they want to devote their life to code and worship the bit gods. I am in a similar situation as you and I have noticed quite a few students like you mentioned. My question is, whats so wrong with them getting a degree/job doing something they enjoy even if they aren't a rockstar at it? Is it so wrong for someone to want a 9-5 job doing something they enjoy? Yes they can't compete for "real" developer positions, but maybe they don't want to live in the valley and work 80 hours a week on a Facebook for cats and then hope Google buys their company. The truth of the matter is there is a ton of crappy code all over the world making things run and making people money. You don't need to be a rockstar to be valuable to a company so long as you get things done. I'm not activating mediocrity, I'm simply suggesting that programming isn't some exclusive of club for obsessed geniuses.
In regards to the Midwest, I know. Who would possibly want to live in one of the most beautiful parts of the US, surrounded by lush forests, the Great Lakes, and friendly people who say hi when you walk by?
I absolutely agree with everything you wrote (particularly the last paragraph, as a Duluth MN resident nothing will beat the view over Superior)
Nothing is wrong with the path these students are choosing, I just don't see business analysts creating specs or writing user stories in the same competition for career roles as myself. Even though I intend to stay in the midwest and generally detest the culture of excess in the valley I was replying to the parent saying the influx of people learning to write "hello world" in java and make visio diagrams or project workflows won't have a measurable impact on the people currently making money building productive software (regardless of weather that software is immaculately well structured or a snarling mess of perpetual spaghetti) .
I think demand for development skills is going to continue to increase.
While there does seem to be an increased popularity, there is still a number of people who exit the profession either due to burn-out or retirement.
Anecdotally, in the UK there has been concern for some-time about the number of people retiring from technology positions in the financial sector (people in there 50s due to very generous retirement provisions); industry crunches like this along with 'software eating the world' would suggest to me that the good times will continue for some time.
The word of warning I'd have is more around the economics of VC finance - money is cheap right now, if/when interest rates rise there might be an impact on the amount of money available to start-ups. But it's not like any other industry/profession is going to be unaffected by macro-economic issues.
I don't feel like there should be any real concern within the next 5 years, but I do believe that within the next 10+ years, we could see a major shift in salaries.
I don't have any data, but nothing will continue "going up forever"...
> I don't have any data, but nothing will continue "going up forever"...
Take a look at historical production per hour over the past few decades or centuries. It's been going up "forever".
What we have seen in the physical world is that the people who reap the wages of this productivity has been shifting to the holders of capital (physical capital, land, finance, etc). In software, there's very little need for physical capital (factories) and land - "holders of capital" really means "holders of human capital"; i.e. intellectual capital. I do believe productivity will continue to increase, and since programmers own their own minds (human capital), they will see the wages.
As tools get better, we'll build more complex things. There is still a lot of work to do. But yeah, if you are in the business of putting up WordPress sites, then you'll probably see your salary decrease as more people start doing this without the help of a developer.
New frameworks might make our work easier, but companies don't typically respond by employing fewer developers. Instead, they ask for bigger and larger projects.
As for people actually learning to code, I don't actually think there's much risk of increased supply. The majority of people simply cannot think in the logical manner programming requires. They might learn a couple bits here and there, but they'll never be employed as engineers. (I've seen this myself with people who've taken months of classes—ask them to compute a program and they're still incapable.)
I know it's a cliche, but I do think there's a difference between the lone high school weirdo who stayed up late learning Commodore 64/Apple IIe/386/whatever internals and the person who learned how to program adequately well at university in order to get a "good career". I hesitate to use the word "passion" but you know what I mean.
Anyway, the long and the short of it is it's the weirdos who are in short supply and I can't imagine why that would change anytime soon.
My suspicion was that larger projects done with better tools results in near equal amount of time invested.
Everything you say could be right, I still struggle to understand how people who call themselves programmers can't do fizzbuzz, but one of the great things about being a programmer is that you don't have to go to University and get a degree (I didn't), so I don't think the linked article really provides much input. Interesting read though.
Out of everything in that survey the gender gap (page 6) strikes me the most. It's sad that it even exists, honestly. To see the continual increase in male salaries, and that fairly stagnant top end for females.. seriously!? For an industry that is trying to employ more female engineers, the trend sucks.
As articulated in the synopsis at the bottom, 'This disgraceful disparity lays bare the false — but cherished — belief that our profession is at its core a meritocracy.'
I'm not saying a gender gap doesn't exist, but the data you're looking at doesn't prove that it does.
It's well documented that women prefer other benefits, such as more time off and flexible work schedules (at the expense of base salary) more than men.
It would be interesting to know why the gap exists.
Is it simply that males are typically offered higher starting salaries?
Do men typically try to get raises more (more aggressive at asking)?
Are women more satisfied with their salaries, where men are always wanting more?
Probably a lot of interesting, complicated dynamics that effect the gap.
One fairly widely reported influence is that women are less likely to request raises (or promotions) and less likely to negotiate salaries on an initial job offer. One hypothesis for why this is so is that women who ask for things are seen as pushy/demanding whereas men who ask for things are seen as go-getters, not sure what the research on that is like at the moment.
However I also remember reading a study that showed people reading a resume with a female name proposed a lower salary offer in the first place (academics in math, I believe). So, all of the above?
Putting aside the irony of this article sitting next to the "Statistics Done Wrong" article, a cumulative average to detect a gender/race wage gap is absolutely insane.
Here's a short list of factors that could contribute to the results the article in OP has:
-Lower number of years working in the field due to taking time off for maternity leave, or going back to work after raising a child. I suspect this is probably the biggest single contributor to the pseudo-gap in the article's charts.
-Concentration of male/female developers in different subfields. Ex: men may be more inclined to work in security penetration, which may pay higher than other disciplines
-Male/female college degree/other pedigree rates
I'm no statistician, but I think these factors are more than important enough would have to be taken into account when trying to figure out the size of the gender wage gap.
Don't forget to leave a comment telling me why I'm wrong when you downvote my comment for being unproductive.
On the surface, the points you cite are inflammatory and often used a priori to justify paying women less.
It's a bit irresponsible after that slide not to put the rest of the results into the context of gender.
Are women represented proportionally by age? The last table in the article ("What Matters Most") would blow the lid off of many of the arguments. Do people who "could find seven attributes of their job more meaningful than base salary" in general make less than others? Do women and men respond differently to those questions? What is the disparity between men and women who value base pay most?
The only value I can extract from this survey is that a) it's BS that female compensation stagnated while male compensation rose (was there a mini-baby boom during which a lot of women took unpaid maternity leave?) and b) Dr Dobbs is getting less and less relevant, given that they consider "Company-paid smartphone/wireless email" to be a form of compensation.
I upvoted you, but I do disagree. Overall I see your points as explanations for/additional evidence of a more general gender gap — not as reasons to think it's a statistical illusion.
One point you didn't make, though it is hinted at by your first point, is that if the proportion of women in the field is increasing over time, women's average age will be lower than men's (assuming people tend to enter the field from college and not from other fields, which seems reasonable), which would distort the salary numbers in a genuinely misleading way.
There are a ton of developers outside of Silicon Valley. I'm sure there have already been plenty of studies done focusing on the Bay Area specifically if that's all you care about, but a nationwide survey is helpful for indicating the state of the industry at large, including non-tech hubs where VC funding is not nearly as available.
For a nationwide survey, I have to say these median salaries are actually pretty high. Very, very few careers requiring only a bachelor's degree can boast these numbers taken across the country.
80k as a US Average translates to about 120k in San Francisco, adjusted for cost of living. According to the startup jobs on angellist, SF is paying average salaries (adjusted for cost of living): https://angel.co/salaries
PS: Where are these 200k salaries? I have 7 years of experience and would happily switch for <redacted> more money each year.
I'm a little surprised to see such a differentiation between salaries for Software Engineers and Software Developers. I've always treated the two as synonyms.
The titles may be used interchangeably in casual speech a lot, but I'm told there was originally meant to be a real difference in scope/capacity/level of operation, so it doesn't surprise me.
I'm in Canada these days, and my understanding is "Software" is not recognized as a kind of "Engineering" here, so I actually can't call myself and Engineer.
This survey was in the US, though, where the term "software engineer" isn't regulated in any way. You can become one just by impressing someone with your Github profile: no other accreditation or experience necessary.
I don't think there's actually a difference in the two titles themselves, but rather in the kind of company which uses each title.
A software developer at a small startup is likely doing similar work to a software engineer at a large corporation, but the software engineer gets the BigCorp bonus.
They might do similar work, but I see software engineers as being accredited engineers, with that is a legal attachement to the title.
Instead of startup vs bigcorp, I see it more like startup building some social phenomon that will be forgotten tomorrow as opposed to BigCorp coding airplanes systems.
In the US (which this survey seems to have been limited to), that is rarely the case. Only Florida and Texas consider "Software Engineer" a protected title, and even in those states you are usually only restricted from using it if you are offering engineering services. In most of the country, a "Software Engineer" could just as easily be working on a social networking website as on embedded software for an airplane. It is extremely common to use the title "Software Engineer" for people who are not actually doing engineering.
I would be HIGHLY cautious of using this data as the basis for any sort of decision making process.. There is a lot of heterogenity in the engineering world, and without any sort of statistical or methodological information it is very hard to know what is real here. For example, the female salary distribution smells fishily of small sample size and I don't believe their results without a standard-deviation-of-the-mean at the very least.
All we can say for sure is that this measures the average salaries of people who respond to drdobbs surveys. They are significantly less than the salaries we are seeing on our platform at Hired. ( see: https://hired.com/blog/late-stage-companies-winning-the-war-... )
I have huge issues with these 'surveys' as they never seem to reflect market realities in my geography. In the last three years I don't think I've seen many engineer or developer jobs listed in the whole state of Arizona listing salaries above 80k. I'd guess the average advertised openings range 50 - 80k, with the majority of 80k-ish ones near Phoenix.
However, most AZ companies needing devs seem to be Java shops with government ties hiring entry-level devs, which probably distorts the picture as most developers would then logically be graded up every year or whatnot and probably making above 80k after 3 years.
So maybe I'm not really saying the numbers are wrong, just that they seem wrong for entry level and sub 25-year-olds in the AZ/NM region. Or that there's a big disconnect between listed salaries in job openings and the actual average salaries among those with established positions in most markets.
I wasn't going to bring it up, but I'll definitely dogpile. While I generally prefer the SPA (ajax) style site, I don't mind the old-fashioned "each click renders a new page" so long as it's efficient, but navigating the different pages on this site was an exercise in patience... pages seemed to take from 1-3s to render, reminding me of the old ASP classic sites.
I'm not sure where in the Northeast this is pertaining to, but around midatlantic, it's never gotten better from the recession. Certainly salaries are much worse now than they were prior to it.
I was just recently awarded a Junior Developer position in my company. Does anyone have any information related to salaries for this type of position?
I have a suspicion that this title can mean so many different things to different people/companies and therefore can offer an extremely wide range of salaries.
Anyone have any info they could share on the matter?
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 127 ms ] threadThe reason I suspect this might be the case is the combination of the popularity of programming, along with the tools which are making programming easier.
Every year a new framework/library is introduced which makes the challenging and time consuming work easier and easier.
Are we reaching a point where we have a massive number of programmers doing a job which takes a fraction of the time it took years ago?
Not all of the young minds that are "learning to code" really have the potential to write programs at the same level as the average ValleyBoy RoR Jockey™ (or even the average casual Hacker News reading hobbyist coder). The number of students in my program that had massive interest in our numbers ( 100% placement with the highest average starting pay ) and almost zero interest in actually learning to code is frightening.
These students tend to slither through the technical classes with a lot of help from google and their friends, only to find themselves unable to compete for real developer positions and settling for the same 4x,xxx "business analyst" warm body jobs that seem to be the holy grail of the hoards of non-stem degree holders.
On the flip side, if you can actually get fizz buzz to compile and can stomach the idea of living in the midwest, prepare to be wined and dined by everyone under the sun.
In regards to the Midwest, I know. Who would possibly want to live in one of the most beautiful parts of the US, surrounded by lush forests, the Great Lakes, and friendly people who say hi when you walk by?
Nothing is wrong with the path these students are choosing, I just don't see business analysts creating specs or writing user stories in the same competition for career roles as myself. Even though I intend to stay in the midwest and generally detest the culture of excess in the valley I was replying to the parent saying the influx of people learning to write "hello world" in java and make visio diagrams or project workflows won't have a measurable impact on the people currently making money building productive software (regardless of weather that software is immaculately well structured or a snarling mess of perpetual spaghetti) .
While there does seem to be an increased popularity, there is still a number of people who exit the profession either due to burn-out or retirement.
Anecdotally, in the UK there has been concern for some-time about the number of people retiring from technology positions in the financial sector (people in there 50s due to very generous retirement provisions); industry crunches like this along with 'software eating the world' would suggest to me that the good times will continue for some time.
The word of warning I'd have is more around the economics of VC finance - money is cheap right now, if/when interest rates rise there might be an impact on the amount of money available to start-ups. But it's not like any other industry/profession is going to be unaffected by macro-economic issues.
I don't have any data, but nothing will continue "going up forever"...
Take a look at historical production per hour over the past few decades or centuries. It's been going up "forever".
What we have seen in the physical world is that the people who reap the wages of this productivity has been shifting to the holders of capital (physical capital, land, finance, etc). In software, there's very little need for physical capital (factories) and land - "holders of capital" really means "holders of human capital"; i.e. intellectual capital. I do believe productivity will continue to increase, and since programmers own their own minds (human capital), they will see the wages.
As for people actually learning to code, I don't actually think there's much risk of increased supply. The majority of people simply cannot think in the logical manner programming requires. They might learn a couple bits here and there, but they'll never be employed as engineers. (I've seen this myself with people who've taken months of classes—ask them to compute a program and they're still incapable.)
Put simply, CS is hard. That's why, despite the general awesomeness of our careers, so few people major in it. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/04/students-majoring-i...)
Anyway, the long and the short of it is it's the weirdos who are in short supply and I can't imagine why that would change anytime soon.
Everything you say could be right, I still struggle to understand how people who call themselves programmers can't do fizzbuzz, but one of the great things about being a programmer is that you don't have to go to University and get a degree (I didn't), so I don't think the linked article really provides much input. Interesting read though.
As articulated in the synopsis at the bottom, 'This disgraceful disparity lays bare the false — but cherished — belief that our profession is at its core a meritocracy.'
It's well documented that women prefer other benefits, such as more time off and flexible work schedules (at the expense of base salary) more than men.
Probably a lot of interesting, complicated dynamics that effect the gap.
However I also remember reading a study that showed people reading a resume with a female name proposed a lower salary offer in the first place (academics in math, I believe). So, all of the above?
Here's a short list of factors that could contribute to the results the article in OP has:
-Lower number of years working in the field due to taking time off for maternity leave, or going back to work after raising a child. I suspect this is probably the biggest single contributor to the pseudo-gap in the article's charts.
-Concentration of male/female developers in different subfields. Ex: men may be more inclined to work in security penetration, which may pay higher than other disciplines
-Male/female college degree/other pedigree rates
I'm no statistician, but I think these factors are more than important enough would have to be taken into account when trying to figure out the size of the gender wage gap.
Don't forget to leave a comment telling me why I'm wrong when you downvote my comment for being unproductive.
It's a bit irresponsible after that slide not to put the rest of the results into the context of gender.
Are women represented proportionally by age? The last table in the article ("What Matters Most") would blow the lid off of many of the arguments. Do people who "could find seven attributes of their job more meaningful than base salary" in general make less than others? Do women and men respond differently to those questions? What is the disparity between men and women who value base pay most?
The only value I can extract from this survey is that a) it's BS that female compensation stagnated while male compensation rose (was there a mini-baby boom during which a lot of women took unpaid maternity leave?) and b) Dr Dobbs is getting less and less relevant, given that they consider "Company-paid smartphone/wireless email" to be a form of compensation.
One point you didn't make, though it is hinted at by your first point, is that if the proportion of women in the field is increasing over time, women's average age will be lower than men's (assuming people tend to enter the field from college and not from other fields, which seems reasonable), which would distort the salary numbers in a genuinely misleading way.
For a nationwide survey, I have to say these median salaries are actually pretty high. Very, very few careers requiring only a bachelor's degree can boast these numbers taken across the country.
PS: Where are these 200k salaries? I have 7 years of experience and would happily switch for <redacted> more money each year.
If I were to guess, they're most likely in the Wall Street-powered high-frequency trading firms. That, and/or big pharma, big oil.
So, in Australia at least, A Software Engineer is a "real" Engineer.
Am I wrong on that?
Some of it is just mental... "engineering" as opposed to "developing".
A software developer at a small startup is likely doing similar work to a software engineer at a large corporation, but the software engineer gets the BigCorp bonus.
Instead of startup vs bigcorp, I see it more like startup building some social phenomon that will be forgotten tomorrow as opposed to BigCorp coding airplanes systems.
My job title is "software engineer" and I don't have any accreditation to speak of. Such is the case with the vast majority of people with this title.
All we can say for sure is that this measures the average salaries of people who respond to drdobbs surveys. They are significantly less than the salaries we are seeing on our platform at Hired. ( see: https://hired.com/blog/late-stage-companies-winning-the-war-... )
However, most AZ companies needing devs seem to be Java shops with government ties hiring entry-level devs, which probably distorts the picture as most developers would then logically be graded up every year or whatnot and probably making above 80k after 3 years.
So maybe I'm not really saying the numbers are wrong, just that they seem wrong for entry level and sub 25-year-olds in the AZ/NM region. Or that there's a big disconnect between listed salaries in job openings and the actual average salaries among those with established positions in most markets.
I have a suspicion that this title can mean so many different things to different people/companies and therefore can offer an extremely wide range of salaries.
Anyone have any info they could share on the matter?