The article is technically well written, but somewhat uninformed which stems from the author's limited experience and what he sees in popular media.<p>I thought the top comment below reflected what I have seen in my 10 years in the industry, much better:<p>"
This is a very well written piece, but it's only covering the frothy tip of a very deep phenomenon. I too am a Rails developer, have been coding professionally for 15 some odd years, and I too find what VCs are chasing nowadays to be mostly time wasting crap. But that's not what software, even web software, is really about right now. It's just the glam side of the game.<p>The real folks making real things happen are building tools and technologies that literally could not have existed 10 years ago. In my personal experience, I've built integrated web portals that show real-time electricity usage for factories, saving them 10-50 grand a month by lowering usage during peak hours. I've built sales management tools that allowed a 2 man company to scale to a distributed team of dozens. Online rental advertising systems to cut out costly newspapers. Medical order management systems.<p>It's not glamorous, it doesn't get on TechCrunch or Hacker News, but it's real value, delivered by real professionals. And that, more than the stupid photo sharing cruft, is what's really driving developer salaries.<p>During the late 90's, the joke/threat was "go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script" - the point being that lots of human work could be automated by a savvy developer. That threat has become a promise, and we (costly) web developers are the ones fulfilling that promise across a huge range of industries." - Rob Morris
You will always have the nagging guilt of passing by the janitor, whose job exists because cleaning bathrooms is dirty and time-consuming, and wondering why your work has more value than theirs.<p>But what if there is no logic to the system, that it's arbitrary, and random, and has simply found an equilibrium at the moment? You could drive yourself crazy thinking about it. Why are writers valued as they are? Because that's what people are willing to pay them. Why don't they just rise up and demand better pay? Who knows. Maybe people just don't value reading that much. Is it because they're uneducated? etc. ad infinitum.<p>Why does a web developer making to-do apps lead a better a life than someone researching cancer cures? Beats me. But it would be a complete waste of their good fortune, to be at the right place at the right time, if they didn't use this advantage. Already the system is saturated with hacker school grads, and the buzz is moving towards mobile, I can easily imagine a day where knowing Rails is no longer a golden ticket.<p>It's as silly as wondering why you got to cross the Atlantic on the luxurious Titanic, while everyone else is scrambling to the life boats. If you truly think that your present value is purely a matter of luck or a bubble, that it's illusory, then there is no <i>why</i>, you'd damned better make sure you find something concrete before everything goes to shit.
I've decided to "rotate out" of CRUD-ish web and app development for these very reasons, after doing it for about 15 years. I can't help but feel most of the skills that developers have that get them showered with high paying, high security jobs are on a crash course with being commoditized. It's only going to get easier to develop networked data-flow oriented applications that solve business problems, so if you want security in your career you should be working on things that are, at least for now, deeply challenging and have a reasonably high knowledge barrier to entry. Particularly things that require some serious domain knowledge that your average software engineer won't pick up naturally in a short time on the job. Rails app development is not that.
In Germany there is a lot of talk about a "Fachkräftemangel", meaning a lack of specialists, especially for IT jobs. Many IT professionals assume that the reason is that the companies want more IT professionals so they can drive the wages lower.<p>I find it amusing that the author of the article talks about a secure future, when there are so many "everyone should code" initiatives. It seems pretty obvious that the economy tries to drive the supply of devs high so they can lower the wages.<p>Also, are developers (or "coders") really so highly paid in the US? In Germany, the wages for devs are relatively low, despite the often summoned "Fachkräftemangel".
"“Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two–and only two–basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.”<p>-- Peter Drucker<p>Are coders valuable? F ya. The reality is that almost every start up today is on a chase to grab people's attention with the glittering lure of technology. Why? Because once you get someone's attention, you can basically sell them anything. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Instagram, Pinterest, etc etc the list goes on...valuations are all based on one metric - DAU. Why? Because DAU means <i>any</i> business can market and innovate their product, which as per my Drucker quote, are the only two basic functions of a business.<p>PS - If the OP reads this, the "artform" of journalism is no different than a coder writing pinterest. Coding just scales WAY better.
Thanks for sharing the article, I think it was a pretty thought provoking read. I do think that this guy has impostor's syndrome, and feels like his accomplishments are not worth what society says they're worth. But I disagree with his woebegone attitude about it as if it is his responsibility for the market's behavior. And I disagree when he tries to pin the pulse of American thought in 2014. For example, when he says that we're slowly turning to a society where<p>> "I do this enough times each day that a simple association has formed in my mind: if you’re not technical, you’re not valuable."<p>That kind of mindset is abnormal, a sign that he needs to diversify his media intake, and I don't think that represents the mainstream. If all you consume is TC, VentureBeat, Silicon Valley, and Betas, you'll end up thinking something along those lines. But I can tell you that out of all the people I know, that is not what they believe. In real life, you learn that people in sales, people in social work, people doing non-programming things in life are just as important. As for market behavior, there are probably unfair events happening. But I wouldn't beat myself or anyone else up about what the market does.<p>And maybe the whole tech scene is more and more part of the news but I think that it's no reason to feel doubtful about the things programmers do everyday and their purpose no matter how mundane it may seem. The whole idea of purpose in my mind is a bit pretentious. Why does it always seem like purpose is equated to the lowest tier on maslow's hierarchy of needs? Is a doctor in a hospital more morally purposeful than a programmer at Snapchat? We're living on a rock in the middle of space, on a speck of dust. Purpose is what you make of it. Snapchat helps me keep in touch with my sister. Facebook lets me keep track of my friend's birthdays. I met my girlfriend of 7 months on Coffee Meets Bagel. I'm achieving self-actualization though these mundane products. I'm grateful for everyone working on those products. And I feel appreciated by customers of my social media marketing software, marketers who have just saved themselves a boatload of time and hassle. So I don't beat myself up because I work in marketing and advertising because I know that I helped someone. And as long as you too feel appreciated and help another human being out, I think the whole moral argument is bunk.
'Coders' who knows.<p>Programmers are definitely worth it, if you spend $10K on a programmer to build a system who writes a system that makes a process that used to take 3 people 2 days and now takes 1 person an afternoon to complete then the RoI is clear (the last system I put into production actually saved that amount of time).<p>Silicon Valley and the start-up scene grossly distorts the whole argument because of the insane salaries paid to developers on "It's facesmash right..but for dachshunds".<p>Outside of the reality distortion field, there are thousands (if not millions) of developers building unsexy workmanlike products that supply a need for a business and reduces costs by more than they cost to develop.<p>My "startup" is not sexy, I don't care about j-curves, accelerators, user trends or anything else, it is simply a well engineered (hopefully!) solution to a regulatory requirement for a specific industry, in theory I can reduce several days worth of tedious and error prone paperwork to an hour at most and make it an intrinsic part of the company and project.<p>When it comes to hiring I won't by hiring "coders", I'll be hiring programmers.<p>Now get off my lawn ;).
The writer talks about Hemingway, he should learn from Hemingway to express himself in less words. Hemingway learned from news reporting.<p>I personally know people that writes professionally, including Nobel prices in Spanish literature(I organized writers meetings, specially promising young people with already famous ones). Most of them do not believe writing is hard.<p>In fact I remember Francisco Umbral being asked about it, how he could write something everyday for the newspaper. He said it was extremely easy, you could always find something interesting if you think about it.<p>Thinking writing is hard is a self fulfillment prophecy.<p>About working hard, coders do not do all the work, that is the question. Most of the work is done by a machine, the computer, like current coal miners, they use machines for doing 95% of the work, from drilling holes for explosives to removing material.<p>They(the miners) also earn lots of money, and breathing issues are improved with machines too(full masks). The reason the retired at 40(with full pension) in places like Spain.<p>So working hard is not that important anymore, when machines are the ones who work hard. Those do not suffer or feel bad or exhausted.<p>Some people believe that work for being worth something needs tears, sweat and blood. Martyr psychology.
First, I agree with the sentiments of some of the above commenters, "coders" just sounds ridiculous.<p>Now, this question is ambiguous between two different interpretations of being "worth it". Clearly engineers are "worth it" by any economic metric--viz. high employment rates and high salaries (when mean rates are compared to other disciplines/jobs). But I take the OP to have an existential dimension built into the query. Meaning: does a hacker value what she does when contrasted against what she could be doing? So, whether or not hackers value what they do is completely different from what they do being worth while. Perhaps someone working on something at Google may value what she does less than working on her own startup idea. In this respect, to each his own.
Yes, there are a ton of tools that help us software engineers, but to put together a software it still takes a ton of expertise to piece it together. Let's talk about Finance, are traders not provided with excellent tools? Are analyst not provided with Factset or Bloomberg to give them insights? The whole world works like that, not just software development.
The most valuable developers are the ones that also have a good understanding of the business-side.
A very valuable skill is the ability to talk to the business-types in their language. You become their conduit into the tech-world and they trust you. Most business-types are scared of the technical world.
The essay starts out with a good premise, but in the end, he seems to have conclude that "fair market price" is equivalent to the added value to the society of the job. That seems quite a bit off of a conclusion to me.
>In today’s world, web developers have it all: money, perks, freedom, respect. But is there value in what we do?<p>Sorry, no. The author needs to pull his head out of the bubble. In today's world (the actual world), web developers and programmers are given less credence than assembly line workers, and are considered at best a necessary evil in businesses where the actual product, itself, is something other than code. Money? As little as possible. Perks? Perks go to sales. Respect? It's not even considered real work.<p>Granted, it's not flipping hamburgers but let's not pretend what the author describes is in any way the norm.
Junior programmer (22): makes $80-100k, 120k in the Bay Area. Easily gets jobs.<p>Senior programmer (28): 5-10 times as valuable as the junior. Makes $120-140k, possibly 150k. Serious stock options possible with the right company. Three-month job searches.<p>Expert programmer (37): 3-5 times as valuable as the senior, so 15-50 times as valuable as the junior. Makes $150-200k. Leaves the Bay Area/NYC because he can't afford to raise kids there. Has a defined specialty. Job searches take 6-8 months because he's overqualified for everything but high-level positions, and those in his specialty number in the single-digits nationally.<p>Master programmer (45): TO;DH.<p>This industry pays well at the entry-level (<i>if</i> you went to a reputable college, live in the right city, know where to look and how to play the game) but doesn't have a clue when it comes to rewarding excellence. Getting better tends to backfire when this industry (being run by dumbass MBA types) continues to insist on structuring itself like a pyramid.
Good designers, good developers, good <insert profession here> have an acute sense of where their role is in the business.<p>Employees who have an unclear idea of what they're doing or why they're doing it, also don't have their focus on improving their company and the lives of their customers. Hence they'd often make arbitrary decisions regarding how to prioritize their limited resources (time, money, which features go into the next milestone etc.). And in this way they may end up dragging the company down.<p>An employee asking themselves "am I worth it" can be a sign of a dysfunctional company culture, or the problem may lie with the employee, but wherever the blame lies, people who don't know their worth are in the long run not worth that much to their company, fad and cargo cult caused disbalances notwithstanding.