Summary: we don’t understand why programmers are paid so well. If
you’re a programmer, there’s enough of a chance that this is temporary
that it’s worth explicitly planning for a future in which you’re laid
off and unable to find similarly high-paying work.
If you look at law, you have to win the prestige lottery
and get into a top school, which will cost hundreds of thousands of
dollars. Then you have to win the grades lottery and get good enough
grades to get into a top firm. And then you have to continue winning
tournaments to avoid getting kicked out, which requires sacrificing
any semblance of a personal life. Consulting, investment banking,
etc., are similar. Compensation appears to be proportional to the
level of sacrifice (e.g., investment bankers are paid better, but work
even longer hours than lawyers).
Medicine seems to be a bit better from the sacrifice standpoint
because there’s a cartel which limits entry into the field, but the
combination of medical school and residency is still incredibly brutal
compared to most jobs at places like Facebook and Google.
My sister is currently a second-year medical resident, and “incredibly
brutal compared...” feels like a understatement to me. She works 80hr
weeks, often nights, helping people with deeply personal and painful
issues that are hard to leave behind when you go home. This is after
four years in medical school, with still at least a year to go before
starting to earn doctor-level money. When I compare it to how I
started programming right out of college, making more
money for 40hr weeks and no on-call, I feel embarrassed.
What makes me nervous, though, is that we don’t really understand why
programmers are paid this well, and especially why this has persisted.
People have a bunch of guesses:
Demand: as software eats the world there are far more profitable
things for programmers to do than people to do them.
Supply: it’s hard to train people to be programmers, fewer
people are suited for it than expected, and bootcamps haven’t worked
out as well as we’d hoped.
Startups: big companies need to compete with programmers
choosing to go off and start companies, which is harder to do in many
fields.
Novelty: the field is relatively new, and something about new
fields leads to higher profits and higher pay, maybe via competition
not being mature yet?
Something else: I’d be curious if people have other
thoughts—leave comments!
Things are pretty good now, and seem to have gotten even better since
Dan’s
2015
post, but something could change. Given how poorly we understand
this, and the wide range of ways the future might be different, I
think we should treat collapse as a real possibility: not something
that will definitely happen, or that’s going to happen on any certain
timescale, but something likely enough prepare against.
Specifically, I’d recommend living on a small portion of your income
and saving a multiple of your living expenses. It’s far more painful
to cut expenses back than it is to keep them from growing, and the
more years of expenses you have saved the better a position you’ll be
in. If you take this approach and there’s no bust, you’re still in a good
place: you can retire early or
support things you believe in.
If being laid off and unable to find similarly high-paying work would
be a disaster, figure out what you need to change so that it wouldn’t
be.
(This isn’t really specific to programming, but I think the chances of
a bust are higher in programming than in more mature fields.)
Programmers Should Plan For Lower Pay
Link post
Summary: we don’t understand why programmers are paid so well. If you’re a programmer, there’s enough of a chance that this is temporary that it’s worth explicitly planning for a future in which you’re laid off and unable to find similarly high-paying work.
Programmers are paid surprisingly well given how much work it is to become one. Here’s Dan Luu comparing it to other high-paid careers:
My sister is currently a second-year medical resident, and “incredibly brutal compared...” feels like a understatement to me. She works 80hr weeks, often nights, helping people with deeply personal and painful issues that are hard to leave behind when you go home. This is after four years in medical school, with still at least a year to go before starting to earn doctor-level money. When I compare it to how I started programming right out of college, making more money for 40hr weeks and no on-call, I feel embarrassed.
What makes me nervous, though, is that we don’t really understand why programmers are paid this well, and especially why this has persisted. People have a bunch of guesses:
Things are pretty good now, and seem to have gotten even better since Dan’s 2015 post, but something could change. Given how poorly we understand this, and the wide range of ways the future might be different, I think we should treat collapse as a real possibility: not something that will definitely happen, or that’s going to happen on any certain timescale, but something likely enough prepare against.Demand: as software eats the world there are far more profitable things for programmers to do than people to do them.
Supply: it’s hard to train people to be programmers, fewer people are suited for it than expected, and bootcamps haven’t worked out as well as we’d hoped.
Startups: big companies need to compete with programmers choosing to go off and start companies, which is harder to do in many fields.
Novelty: the field is relatively new, and something about new fields leads to higher profits and higher pay, maybe via competition not being mature yet?
Something else: I’d be curious if people have other thoughts—leave comments!
Specifically, I’d recommend living on a small portion of your income and saving a multiple of your living expenses. It’s far more painful to cut expenses back than it is to keep them from growing, and the more years of expenses you have saved the better a position you’ll be in. If you take this approach and there’s no bust, you’re still in a good place: you can retire early or support things you believe in.
If being laid off and unable to find similarly high-paying work would be a disaster, figure out what you need to change so that it wouldn’t be.
(This isn’t really specific to programming, but I think the chances of a bust are higher in programming than in more mature fields.)
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