How Long Will Programmers Be So Well-Paid?

This really should be 'How long will 'some' Programmers Be So Well-Paid'?<p>C'mon lets be frank not all programmers are well paid, You really have to be working at Google or other big place or make it big in the start up area. None, of that is any different than any other profession I know of. In fact even the author seems to be talking of 'Google and Facebook' employees, the number of people working at Google and Facebook are small enough to consider them a clear exception.<p>What you really must be talking about is of a time around a decade and a half back when programmers seem to be paid well. And even they were paid well not because they were programming, its just that the IT sector grew so rapidly there was a immense demand in the middle level management areas that caused a impression of rapid career progress in the software industry. That is what made people to 'come in the game for the money'.<p>The only distinction that I see programming has compared to other professions is programmers tend to think of themselves as people 'who solve problems' and not just people who write code. No other profession, I know of carries that tag line.

I think the premise that professional salaries are determined entirely or even primarily by supply and demand is weak. When you can't measure a workers quality easily, all sorts of other issues influence salary.<p>I think the more interesting question is: how much higher can programmer salaries go if they play their cards right? Programmers seem to have positioned themselves as a step above IT. But there is money in perception and the perception you want is to be just a notch below the "real men" (execs). This is particularly true in places that aren't software houses, but have programmers internally. What's important is not just supply and demand, but the perception that quality matters, as well as having easily digestible signals of quality.<p>Compare programming to accounting. I don't think the intellectual horsepower necessary for the two jobs is that different. But accountants at big companies make more money, and external accountants at accounting firms make even more. Why? The demand is obviously there--everyone needs accountants. Supply is limited--accounting takes some mental horsepower. The same things are true for programming. Do what's different? The difference is that there is a perception that quality matters, and there are proxies for quality (association with a big firm, education, CPA) that are easily digestible by C-suite execs. Companies don't cheap out on their accountants or their lawyers because there is a perception that executives will be held accountable if the company suffers problems related to that choice. But companies aren't afraid to cheap out on programmers. If a project fails or is late, there is a perception that that's just how software goes, no decision they could have made could have changed the outcome.<p>I think programmer salaries are going to continue to go up. First, Google and Amazon, etc, are creating a perception that quality matters. They aren't hiring the cheapest people they can get. Second, the next generation of F500 execs will have grown up with their friends taking a gig at Facebook instead of going to Barclays or McKinsey. That's extremely important for the profession. Programmers want the industry to be seen as being in competition with banks, consultancies, etc, for "talent." Third, I don't think supply is going to expand, and I feel like industry groups may move to create certifications (rigorous ones like CPA or Series 7) to create indicia of quality.

I would say likely forever. Programming is a commitment. Many people will just not be able to sacrifice other things in life to keep up.<p>Programming isn't a "learn it once and you're good for life" sort of career. Programmers have to keep learning every day to stay relevant.

The author glanced over the fact that "software is eating the world", and I think that therein lies another factor - the constant demand for more software.<p>As software becomes more complex and critical, more companies need not just people who can code, but mature engineers (<a href="http://www.kitchensoap.com/2012/10/25/on-being-a-senior-engineer/" rel="nofollow">http://www.kitchensoap.com/2012/10/25/on-being-a-senior-engi...</a>). Meanwhile the path for more of those to appear in the global economy involves waiting for the standard of living to rise across the world, more people to grow up in such an environment, get their education and at least 10,000 hours of experience.

Regarding the author's company, HappyFunCorp, perhaps they should do a little bit more moderation on their site if they're really trying to hire. They have a section of their site called "happy thoughts" where anyone can submit text. Here are a few gems:<p>&#62;when one black guy does something and then other black guys go "OH DAMMMMNNNNN"<p>&#62;blowing my load in someone's mouth<p>&#62;jiggly breasts

A succinct quote and something I had never really put thought into. Nicely said.<p><i>It’s not until you reach a near First-World level of development that pursuing your passions rather than escaping poverty seems like a reasonable and/or admirable thing to do.</i>

as a "senior" se in latam, what i see as the biggest problem is the separation in location. i tele-commute, but it takes luck, experience and a <i>shared culture</i> to make it work. thankfully, i am english so share a little more, culturally, than most chileans when it comes to dealing with gringos. even so, most job offers i receive drop as soon as i mention telecommuting.<p>and i don't think the problems of telecommuting are going to change for a while - reproducing physical presence is hard.<p>what <i>will</i> change sooner is the rise of <i>internal</i> markets (and development) in these countries. the people there want software too, and local companies <i>may</i> be able to win out in some way (eg more sensitive to market requirements, lower prices). once that happens, then the same software may start to be sold in the usa.<p>so demand will be lowered, eventually, but the process is indirect. cheaper programmers will write code for <i>local</i> companies; competition from the code they write will drive down the demand for code produced in the usa, and so lower programmer demand and salaries there.<p>the "passion argument" is bullshit. i know plenty of passionate chilean programmers. they're not just in it for the money.

I didn't find much of this article very stimulating but the last comment made a very good point about fields in general:<p>"So why aren’t there more people drawn into the[any] field out of sheer interest? Because when you’re poor, which most of the world is, money is more important than passion. It’s not until you reach a near First-World level of development that pursuing your passions rather than escaping poverty seems like a reasonable and/or admirable thing to do."

Apparently, the author doesn't really has an overview, how the programmers are paid outside of Google and Facebook. Lets take a look on Germany. Lots of lots of IT companies here. I was looking for a development position one year ago and got about 7 offers. Basically, I wasn't rejected even once. But the problem was, that the offered salaries were not even close to those in Silicon Valley. The salaries are not significantly different from other (non-IT) engineering positions here. And it's not a matter of being A or B player. All interviews were so ridiculously easy and non technical, that the companies aren't even able to distinct between bad and good programmers. There is no notion of A or B players here. A software developer here is basically the lowest level of the hierarchy of the R&#38;D department and are merely considered as code generators.<p>A new tendency here -- to hire remote "code generators" in India or East Europe and to manage them having only managers or architects on site. So, this transition of development jobs to East the author doesn't see, has already started here in Germany. And as a programmer you never get rich in Germany, you have to move to management.

That's a bit frustrating to read a post like this one. There's lot of good developers and very few good coding jobs. Why does everybody still claim it's hard to find good developers?, we're everywhere.. Maybe i'm missing the point or i don't know how to find a coding job..

As long as only about 20% of the population has the ability to learn to program, programmers won't have to worry.

&#62;First, you have to grow up wealthy enough to have a decent education, some exposure to technology, and the ability to choose between options in your life, which immediately rules out most of the planet.<p>No, all you need is access to a computer and someone to start you going in the right direction. And the latter is really just a nicety. You can get there without it.<p>I'm largely self-taught, with a little push back in Elementary School. They introduced the ideas and taught us to write Apple II BASIC programs. I took it from there.<p>I eventually got a 2-year degree, but I practically slept through the classes. I learned a bit about database normalization, and nothing else. 4.0 GPA.<p>My first job didn't care about the degree at all. They only cared about my actual skill. I stayed there long enough that any other job would know I had skills. And my career was on its way.<p>There's no need for an expensive education.<p>However, you <i>do</i> need to have a head for logic. Passion for logic helps tremendously. And a computer.<p>But who doesn't have a computer these days? I don't know anyone who doesn't have one. And there are charities that help people get computers if they can't afford them.<p>So no, I don't think rich-poor artificial scarcity is what drives the price at all.

The $500 or so you need to buy your first computer is too much of an upfront investment for a lot of people in the world. And the time required to learn how to program, time you could be spending making money at a local job putting food on the table, is an insurmountable investment.<p>Part of my family is from a small fishing town in Croatia, I go the their every year on holiday. And every year I see so many intelligent and hard working people there who walk around with that lost expression on their face, longing for a way to make a good living. But there's no role models, no people to set an example. The wealthiest guy in town owns a cafe. To them, what is programming? How do you convince someone like that to spend a month's salary and many more months of hard work learning something when they have no sense of the implications or the benefits of it. A lot of this world doesn't even know what programming is or why we need it, no wonder programmers are in short supply.

I make less than in 2007. I must be doing something wrong.

My bet is: till strong AI is developed.

Find a position that supports value-based pricing.

If only there were a guiding economic principle that could be applied that would relate the <i>supply</i> of skilled workers with the need or <i>demand</i> for them.<p>God with such a framework, we might even accidentally elevate the discourse beyond that of a comic-laden TC "article".

Programmers aren't "so well-paid". In fact, I think we're underpaid, when you consider that the top technology companies earn several hundred thousand dollars (and sometimes, low millions) per employee, averaged across <i>all</i> employees.<p>I actually think we're underpaid, and that's a problem, because if an engineer only costs $100-200k, then executives can cost-justify using programmer time on a lot of stupid shit that doesn't add any value (the hits, the projects that deliver $1 million per person per year in value, make up for it). The fact that software adds so much value (on average) should give us a huge risk allowance (that startups have visibly capitalized on) but it's only people with VC connections and executive douches, for the most part, who can actually take that risk.<p>It's not even about money, from my perspective. Engineer salaries are low compared to the value we add, but reasonable for the most part (we don't starve). What bothers me is that 90% of software engineers have to do stupid stuff with minimal autonomy or career growth, and I think that engineers (as a class) would be better treated if they were more expensive. Of course, the AbstractVisitorSingletonFactory crowd (who bring down the reputation of the field) would all be fired, but that's a good thing, too.

Just a note: In 1999, before the jobs disappeared, it was the same articles...

Open source will eventually kill wages. Why?<p>Why would I pay a software engineer lots of money to write an entire system when I can get the engineered parts for free and hire a software mechanic (IE: less skill and less pay) to make the changes?<p>I've already worked at a few companies where we should have had 3 or 4 developers and only had me because of open source software.<p>This is why I plan on running a business that utilizes it rather than a career that depends on it.

Programming bubble will pop. Automated Machine learning is taking over. Even at google, Jeff Dean has recently stated that his Perceptual AI project is aimed at reducing feature engineering in their machine learning projects. In plain terms this means eliminating the need for programming in their search engines and other machine learning focused projects like google now and google goggles (the mobile app, not google glass). The only programmers left will be to manage cloud computing infrastructure and front end programmers. As things like siri and google now take off, front end programmers will also be in less demand. Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon are also increasingly focusing on machine learning. Automated analysis of text will take over the role of sql databases as demonstrated in IBM watson. In manufacturing, the role of programming also diminishing as vision guided robots like Baxter by Rodney Brooks's team take off.<p>All this is a good thing though, programming is slow and data is agile, as talked about by Peter Norvig in his startup school 2008 speech <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNjJTgXujno" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNjJTgXujno</a><p>Startups should aim at doing as little programming as possible and leaving it to data crunching.

Programming jobs are not much to brag about. Many IT people don't just check out after 5pm. They are on-call after work, stay up late at night trying to finish X or fix Y. They are expected to show up to the office on the weekends to do Z. In the meantime, the HR people are relaxing at home with their families.<p>As long as programming jobs are worse than regular jobs, people will require higher compensation to take those jobs. More stress, more requirements = higher compensation.

As long as Tech Company are not willing to out-source them (which is already happening, everything can be outsourced). there is not one profession that cannot be out-sourced. Is it good on the long run? well global business are not tied to a local consumer base anymore , so i guess it is for them , and consumers do not care.