One shtick I have is the "Young person, why don't you have a brokerage account"?
I know so many people, who are not so young any more, who are professionals and with solid salaries, who will do things like have credit cards, have cars they finance, a coinbase account, maybe a robinhood account, certainly a facebook and instagram account.... but no Schwab, Vanguard, or other basic Individual brokerage account.
They have the income and technical know-how to make complicated online accounts and make use of financial services.. but even though it takes ten minutes to make a Vanguard account, and 2 business days to credit it and buy boring index funds... so few people who can (ie have money and knowledge), actually do... or even have much interest. It's sad and fascinating at the same time.
I understand their perspective though. Some of them are very driven people. They are just not interested or oblivious to the power of wealth.
Some of them only care about career ladder. They must climb and optimize for that. Others care only about fame. Some clamor for benefit of their children.
It's true money can bring a lot of freedom. But to many people, it is not the be all end all.
> Back in the '90s, "Object-Oriented" got redefined in popular imagination to "good". If your language or system was good, it was then by definition object-oriented. Anything good had therefore to be called OO. Saying something was not actually OO (e.g. this) was taken to mean it was not good, generating spurious conflict.
Excellent point, and I think in our contemporary age something similar is happening with "Agile". It has ceased to become a project management technique useful for a certain class of products. It has instead become redefined to mean "good" - for example, in popular imagination, if a team is not "Agile" then they are somehow backwards or out-of-the-loop. Now teams, products, and situations where Agile is not appropriate are finding themselves having it forced upon them, or spinning what they do as agile.
Agile has meant 'bad' for years now ever since Agile processes were formalized and adopted by big orgs. At least that's how I've thought of it: 'Agile' means the worst of all worlds. Run if you can.
Well it's become the exact corporate management hell that the original manifesto authors sought to fight back against. I personally avoid joining teams or companies that drank the kool-aid, and additionally find agile to be a particularly counter-productive way to deliver value to customers quickly. About 7 years or so ago I had the first inkling things were wrong when "Agile Coaches" appeared who were not developers.
It does, at least, facilitate micro management and burnout.
Location: DC Metro, Northern VA
Remote: Remote or Hybrid
Willing to relocate: Probably not
Technologies: rust, python, C, docker, Linux, distributed systems, network programming, QA and V&V, embedded systems, systems engineering.
Résumé/CV: https://billvb.github.io
Email: vb.temp@gmail.com
Interesting problems and interesting colleagues? I'm happy to talk.
Started my career as a spacecraft flight software engineer, and carried that rigor with me throughout.
Much more info about the types of teams I work with and problems I solve on the website.
I made a fairly popular reddit post recently on how I down-leveled my career in recent years. Each time I down-level, I get a raise in salary -- it's pretty great.
What that permitted me to learn about myself is that - at the end of the day - I just like solving interesting and challenging problems, working with colleagues as equals, and creating products and solutions that I'm proud of. I have utterly no interest any more in climbing any sorts of ladders, or "chasing" a role, position, or title because I think that'll somehow be the road to riches. Having autonomy, the flexibility to work when I'm productive and inspired (and to not work when not), and interesting/meaningful work is infinitely more important than role or salary. I also feel like I'm not the first person to come to this conclusion.
I mean at the end of the day the title is only to feed your own ego. At family gathering nobody's gonna ask you why you were Principal and now you're Staff. I find no difference between being called a "Director" or a "Manager", because the title alone tells me absolutely nothing
Reminds me of American Psycho, where everybody is a damn Vice President (reflective of the time)
It's more complex than that, though. If you're meeting with people outside your company, your title can influence how they see you. If you're meeting with a bunch of "Director" level people and you're a "Senior", they may treat you as a lesser member of the group. This can be impactful to your ability to accomplish your goals within that group at times.
That may be true, but definitely not in my experience. I have included my job historically on emails eg: Software Engineer but never my level. I don't even put that on internal emails because I see it as my business and no one else's. This includes when I worked side by side with sales folks from time to time at a start up. If you didn't feel like working with me if I was a SWE I but you feel like it with a Principal, why would I want to work with you?
People do care that someone will show up and answer all their questions in a thorough and non-elitist (read: talking over people's heads) way.
I think your experience is fairly characteristic of software developers. However, there's a lot of other segments out there where title comes into play a lot heavier; where it caries weight in the same way experience does.
It's probably also worth noting that title can impact pay when it comes to a job; a lot of companies have pay caps based on title.
Really, my point was that title is more than just self-gratification.
Vice President has legal meaning as a title. Only a vice president or above can make some loans. Since banks make those loans all the time they need a lot of vice presidents to do it. In a small town bank with at most 10 people it makes sense, but for a large banks with branches all over the country you end up with a ton of vice presidents just for that need, but they don't really get any other authority.
Interesting. I always wondered why Senior level engineers at banks got the VP title. It seemed odd for someone formerly an IC to suddenly step into a VP level role, but this makes sense now.
No, but there are people at that level in the company who need to sign those contracts (I don't think it's loans specifically), and it's easiest to use a consistent title for everyone at that level.
> Reminds me of American Psycho, where everybody is a damn Vice President (reflective of the time)
My understanding was that this still happens as a way to get around corporate card policies (either from the company or the credit company) that prevent anyone with a lower-than-leadership title from having signature power for purchasing. Want to give someone a corporate card so they can buy their own necessities? Give them a VP title.
idk to me salary determines the level. you can't really "down level" when you get paid more. titles doesn't matter. I know for a fact a lot of people with "manager" are paid significantly less than me with my bland title, but it lets everyone sleep at night so all is well.
All the things you mentioned important to you are indeed important stuff, and you are not wrong to prioritize them. But that doesn't mean you should completely ignore the title. Think of the title as giving you more freedom to choose. By completely ignoring, you are potentially missing the extra freedom you can have in choosing your problem and team. So, I would agree you don't want to chase a title, but as a secondary nice-to-have goal, it absolutely is worth considering.
Mostly agree, but how about a person (lets say like me) who would like to offer skills in exchange for a great salary and thats it? No need for challenging problems, just the autonomy and time - thats what I would care about the most (and € ofc).
Personal motto: work for living, not live to work. Therefore: screw those titles.
In a similar vein, I refuse to use the euphemism "students" when referring to customers of many US university programs (particular MS programs, but applies broadly)
What you wrote is really interesting. I too was in a software group at a "hardcore" engineering institution for a while and took just a bit of that rigor with me throughout my career - and have often been seen as the "quality" guy because of it.
> It's also why I think that today's engineering culture of "24 months, max" at corporations is pretty corrosive to Quality.
This is something I think a lot about. The problem is this is the incentive gradient that is an emergent effect. Obviously, if it was generally in organizations' interest to retain people, there would be some kind of incentive sink to keep them there (i.e., everyone would stop finding more competitive compensation at other companies).
> The problem is this is the incentive gradient that is an emergent effect. Obviously, if it was generally in organizations' interest to retain people, there would be some kind of incentive sink to keep them there (i.e., everyone would stop finding more competitive compensation at other companies).
It's cultural.
The tech scene has turned into a "gimmegimmegimme" culture. People have been incentivized to live a lifestyle, and hold values, that are commensurate with significant wealth.
My secret is that I've lived like a pauper, my whole life. It has earned me many sneers, but I don't really care. That would not be the case for a lot of people. I'm kinda weird.
In my case, I have found that shallow excess is not actually very satisfying, but no one wants to hear that. I'm told that "I'm just jealous, because I don't have it."
There's also tremendous cynicism; for good reason. Corporations try to sell asceticism, so they don't need to pay their developers (so their corporate officers and shareholders can live large). I know that there are "compensation consultants" that specialize in synthesizing low salary scales, so corporations can feel justified in offering a pittance. There was that collusion thing, in SV, where all the big companies colluded to suppress salaries.
That goes a long way towards earning respect and loyalty. </s>
Until there is less of a cultural "pull" to excess, there will always be people using money to "keep score."
The recording industry figured this out, long ago. Most of the excess that you see musicians (at least, ones getting started) living, is actually owned by their recording company. If they leave the recording company, they lose the crib and the ride. Sort of a seven-figure "company store."
I think that fostering an atmosphere of simple, basic respect would go a long ways towards retaining talent.
True Respect; not "pretend" respect. Most folks that run companies have very little respect for their employees, and that makes it easy for employees and applicants to justify holding their feet to the fire, compensation-wise. It's really the only leverage that a lot of folks have. They hate me anyway, so why shouldn't I make them pay for it?
I think this is obvious in the ridiculous hazing rituals that masquerade as job interviews. Corporations go to drastic lengths to make it plain that they are the ones in charge of the relationship, and that applicants are, in reality, supplicants.
This results in cynical people that learn to manipulate the hazing process, and extract what they want; with absolutely no respect or loyalty to the people that deliberately humiliated them, on the way in. I can't say that I blame them. No pride of ownership or craftsmanship. No loyalty. No incentive to leave a legacy. Just "smash and grab." I'll be gone in a year, so why bother writing software that's maintainable? It won't be my problem.
It's a very different world, from when I had been doing the interview circuit.
Also, as long as customers (including B2B customers) are happy with dreck, then dreck, they get. Why bother putting in the considerable extra cost for Quality, when the suc- um, customers, will be happy with garbage?
I agree with pretty much you said. I'm pretty new to the tech scene and it's just mind-blowing. I previously worked in the Mech Engineering industry and it's completely different. Coworkers are respectful and care about each other. Management does their best to listen to staff. Trying to basically foster a proper community. (Albeit, the salaries was way way lower.)
> I'll be gone in a year, so why bother writing software that's maintainable? It won't be my problem.
I would say that's why it's so important to have a core of competent technical employeers. One thing that is so underrated is company culture. If your technical managers or supervisors enforce stricter code quality, naturally everyone will follow on. Culture trickles down not up. The result you're seeing is from the effects of bad management or bad technical leadership.
>Also, as long as customers (including B2B customers) are happy with dreck, then dreck, they get. Why bother putting in the considerable extra cost for Quality, when the suc- um, customers, will be happy with garbage?
That's the thing. No customer likes garbage. Garbage here defined as buggy, slow or unusable product. They make do either because there's no other alternatives and/or this product meets their needs or is the market leader. However, there is still always a tradeoff between quality and time to market. It's impossible to get perfection and sometimes good enough is well... good enough.
Yeah, I read that over too - crap data in, crap analysis, and crap results out. There's a lot that's wrong with the article:
- Someone else in this thread correctly highlighted that on stackoverflow, for example, simply having one answer to a question puts you in the top 25th percentile. Most accounts are probably idle or passive or abandoned, so using those to get the result is obviously wrong. Maybe, what are the expected earnings for users investing more than 8 hours/week (purchasing equipment, producing content, editing, publishing, marketing)?
- People on this thread need to stop looking at the $145/month figure from the title. It doesn't come from anything. A lot of people are kind of stuck on that. By no means what so ever should it be interpreted as "girls who have only fans make $145/month", which people seem to be doing. Based on the income distribution, virtually no one makes approximately $145/month. It's just an artifact being the quotient of two numbers the author chose. A small-ish proportion of total users make _way more than $145/month_, and a large proportion of the user base (including idle and abandoned accounts) makes pretty much zero. Maybe I'm just broadcasting my lack of statistical knowledge, but I'm struggling to understand what does an average or median even signify for extremely long-tailed, skewed distributions?
- And finally, if one is making a serious analysis - lots of jokes and euphemisms about masturbation and theatrical contempt for the consumers - seem to suggest either discomfort on the part of the author or some kind of motivated reasoning to arrive at their results.
Basically, why do I get such big raises when I switch companies, but getting a nontrivial raise when at a company is like pulling teeth?
How come every company I work for is willing to give me a huge raise and reward me for my achievements at other companies, and not do the same for achievements at that company?
The discussion that followed was illustrative. But I just came to accept it as a fact of life. I wish I could find a place to invest myself in long term, but that has yet to be found...
It's important to remember the whole "30-40% raise when you switch jobs" only really happens at the beginning of your career. Your next job switch will maybe be 20-30%, your next one 10-20%, etc. until you reach the inevitable compensation plateau. I'm over 20 years into my career and my last job change was for +1% or so. No company would offer more.
If one could actually get a 40% bump every job change perpetually through their entire career, someone who starts at $100K would only have to change jobs seven times to reach >$1M. No way on earth that is happening for the vast, vast, vast majority of tech workers who job hop.
Of course, the idea is you reach that upper limit sooner, and making so much more earlier in your career - when properly invested - compounds upon itself dramatically and had enormous implications for one's own financial safety and lifestyle.
And also, thanks for your reply there, nice to hear from you again!
The short answer is that this is how it is in a growth industry with high talent demand. If you were, say, a grocery bagger, you wouldn’t see that kind of salary jump. The moment coding is no longer an in demand talent, this won’t happen anymore. Hope you retire before that happens.
It seems like the similar thing here - literally everyone sees how agonizing, exhausting, detrimental, and counterproductive the current system is. No one likes it. But yet, despite that, there's some gradient it goes against that prevents clearly better alternatives from emerging. I wonder what that case is in Korea, the subject OP, Japan, Taiwan, and other countries.
It's very simple actually.Koreans hate the working culture and long working hours but at the same time require convenience that can only be achieved by maintaining this hellish working culture.
With all due respect, this analysis is grossly reductive and only touching the surface of a complex phenomenon. Long working hours can be found in many East Asian countries not limited to just Korea. Sure, love of convenience is partly to blame, but let's not ignore the history and cultural elements behind it. It goes without saying, but without the long working hours, Korea would not have become the "middle power" that it is today either. The "hell joseon" article you linked is an interesting phenomenon especially because no other East Asian country is so critical of its own culture and conditions. S. Korea is unique in that its people are almost always looking to criticize and change their ways to compete on the world stage.
at the same time require convenience that can only be achieved by maintaining this hellish working culture.
That's a core problem for every industrialized country. We've become addicted to the cheap goods that NAFTA has allowed us. And it may end up eating societies alive.
Location: DC Metro, Northern VA
Remote: Remote or Hybrid
Willing to relocate: Probably not
Technologies: rust, python, C, docker, Linux, distributed systems, network programming, QA and V&V, embedded systems, systems engineering.
Résumé/CV: https://billvb.github.io
Email: vb.temp@gmail.com
Much more info about the types of teams I work with and problems I solve on the website.
One shtick I have is the "Young person, why don't you have a brokerage account"?
I know so many people, who are not so young any more, who are professionals and with solid salaries, who will do things like have credit cards, have cars they finance, a coinbase account, maybe a robinhood account, certainly a facebook and instagram account.... but no Schwab, Vanguard, or other basic Individual brokerage account.
They have the income and technical know-how to make complicated online accounts and make use of financial services.. but even though it takes ten minutes to make a Vanguard account, and 2 business days to credit it and buy boring index funds... so few people who can (ie have money and knowledge), actually do... or even have much interest. It's sad and fascinating at the same time.