Equal Pay for Equal Work?

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wormie

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Tuco_sl said:
I know about software development and I agree with him. What's annoying is that before your rant you agreed with what he said. Switch jobs.
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I realize that. I didnt read his entire post and jumped to conclusions. I mentioned that earlier. I am dumb, Lyrical is right.

Tuco_sl said:
Oh and we go around about this in the CompSci thread. Yes, there are a lot of great software developers without degrees and a lot of poor software developers with degrees. The degree, however, is hard proof of your accomplishment. Proving your a good software developer is very difficult. Pointing to a 5 year body of work is nice, but it's difficult for someone to determine your impact on that project.

Every software project I've ever worked on has had people involved with it that were carried. If we all go out and look for jobs who can gain the most credibility in claiming ownership of that project? Generally the people who can talk the talk the best. It's just like MMO gaming. Someone claims to be a big part of a server-first kill of Heroic Lich King, then later you find out that they weren't even in the raid and were only invited to the guild because their brother-in-law was the MT.
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I cant agree with this. Unless he is in some specialized field, a generic CS degree is not useful once one has experience. Jake said he has 2 years experience in development. He has learned more about programming in those 2 years than almost everyone in college has in 4. Most hiring managers realize this. Of course if he is looking to go into a specialized field then a degree is a must.
 
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wormie_sl said:
I realize that. I didnt read his entire post and jumped to conclusions. I mentioned that earlier. I am dumb, Lyrical is right.



I cant agree with this. Unless he is in some specialized field, a generic CS degree is not useful once one has experience. Jake said he has 2 years experience in development. He has learned more about programming in those 2 years than almost everyone in college has in 4. Most hiring managers realize this. Of course if he is looking to go into a specialized field then a degree is a must.
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Maybe my college experience or first two years programming was a different experience than yours but I don't really feel like my first two years out of college made me a more capable software developer than the four years I spent in college.

I'll repost what I said a bit ago in the CS thread when talking to someone deciding college vs learning to program on their own:
Tuco_sl said:
Think of it this way. Maybe you can spend the next two years learning stuff the hard way and build up a portfolio of some kind. Maybe build a website for a friend's band, write a plugin for some tax software, do some personal hacking or evaluate a friend's network for security threats. You look for a job but some 90% of places hiring CS people won't even look at your resume without a degree. You bust your ass and make some connections and with a little luck you find a programming shop that will talk to you and you get the right connection to get hired. Boom there's your first job. You spend 3 years there and become adept at writing python to automate user interfaces for programmatic testing. You now have a real skill and demonstrated that you've got a real skill but don't want to work in someone's basement on a folding table writing python scripts for cheap. So now you're on the job market again. And now 95% of the places hiring CS people that have a job you'd take won't even look at your resume without a degree. And now instead of having a somewhat diverse set of knowledge of data structures, microprocessors, math, algorithms and software engineering you know how to write python for UI stimulation.
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I think the part about only knowing python for UI stimulation is very true. A 4 year degree can be used to get marketability for a much broader set of jobs than your two years of experience can.

This is relevant to this thread because someone who has higher marketability outside of their current focus can more easily find a new job with a higher salary. If they can't find a new job for a higher salary, why give them a raise? Why pay more for a product than you need to?
 
wormie

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Tuco_sl said:
Maybe my college experience or first two years programming was a different experience than yours but I don't really feel like my first two years out of college made me a more capable software developer than the four years I spent in college.

I'll repost what I said a bit ago in the CS thread when talking to someone deciding college vs learning to program on their own:


I think the part about only knowing python for UI stimulation is very true. A 4 year degree can be used to get marketability for a much broader set of jobs than your two years of experience can.

This is relevant to this thread because someone who has higher marketability outside of their current focus can more easily find a new job with a higher salary. If they can't find a new job for a higher salary, why give them a raise? Why pay more for a product than you need to?
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Well we really dont know what skills Jake has. He says he is better than most others on his team so i am assuming proficiency in 2-3 languages and a solid knowledge of data structures and a rudimentary understanding of complexity analysis (i dont think these assumptions are a huge leap). This backed by a few years of experience in the field should be very marketable.

As to the main point of this thread, it is my understanding that promotions within a company never lead to salary increases similar to those that can be achieved by switching jobs. Corps looking for people outside their organizations have to compete for those people while when promoting from within the levels of competition are perceived to be non existent.
 
Deathwing

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This thread had me thinking last night. How does one accurately self assess what you should be paid? I mean that in the strictest sense, self assess. I know I could go out, do interviews, get offers, and make a judgment from those results. And while that whole process is largely innocuous, it's definitely not without its tradeoffs in terms of time, vacation days, away from family, etc.

I'm largely happy with my job. I'm a bit worried it's a dead-end in terms of career development because it's test related. But, as someone with 10 years of admittedly varied experience, I feel like I should have been making more money at this point.
 
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Literally speaking, you're worth what someone will pay you.

When I graduated and got my first job I thought that number was too high. When I got my second job I thought that number was too low. Right now I feel it's about right.

In a more figurative sense you're worth what you can find someone to pay you without a great deal of luck or effort.
 
Deathwing

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Yeah, I understand that, just wondering if there's a way to come somewhat close to an accurate number without going to through all the recruiting, interviewing, and negotiating bullshit.
 
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Deathwing_sl said:
Yeah, I understand that, just wondering if there's a way to come somewhat close to an accurate number without going to through all the recruiting, interviewing, and negotiating bullshit.
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IMO: Best you can do is look at salary averages in your area. But I've never really trusted those values because they always seem too high.
 
Deathwing

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I wouldn't trust those either. It's especially bad for my area(Ithaca NY) because it's really small. So I'm ending up having to compare salaries to areas with vastly different levels of costs of living and competition.

And, of course, people willing to report their salaries in an anonymous, yet still public manner strike me as either dumb and/or ego stroking. So the data likely isn't representitive.
 
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Tuco_sl said:
Literally speaking, you're worth what someone will pay you.

When I graduated and got my first job I thought that number was too high. When I got my second job I thought that number was too low. Right now I feel it's about right.

In a more figurative sense you're worth what you can find someone to pay you without a great deal of luck or effort.
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Maybe you're born with it. Maybe it's make believe.
 
Cad

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How is this complex?

Here let me make a flowchart.

I don't like where I work because I don't make enough. ----> Apply other places. -----> go elsewhere and make more
 
Deathwing

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Cad_sl said:
How is this complex?

Here let me make a flowchart.

I don't like where I work because I don't make enough. ----> Apply other places. -----> go elsewhere and make more
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Not sure if you're responding to me. I didn't say it was complex. Step 2 can be arduous, especially if it confirms you're making what you should be making. And, as Palum specifies, step 3 can be a mistake. But, somewhat impossible to know that beforehand.
 
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