There has always been a bottom-tier category of software development, which is programming at the level of "tweaking wordpress websites". Not that all jobs at this level are doing this, but the technical skill is what it takes to setup, configure, operate, and tweak a wordpress website, which requires some understanding of how websites work, web servers, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, a plugin ecosystem, backups, etc. It is quite simple for a software pro, but light years beyond what someone untrained could do.
Also, this can be extremely high-impact to a business. Consultancies exist at this technical difficulty making lots of money but also delivering lots of value. Go into a non-tech business, notice how 1000 man hours per month are essentially updating Excel files, automate most of it with a Python or VB script, and save the company hundreds of thousands of dollars.
You don't need to feel attacked or nervous that these jobs exist. "Software [Developer|Engineer|Architect]" has no legal definition and the title is meaningless, which is why hiring developers has overhead where you need to check far beyond what the resume says to assess a candidate's true skill.
It's great that $50-80,000 salary jobs can exist for people who have a modicum of software development talent. I'm very happy for these people.
Is fixing Wordpress really bottom-tier programming jobs? I know people who do that as freelance consultants, and they have a lot of freedom in their lives. Compare that to some enterprise developers who get hired right out of the university to build exactly what they are told, when they are told for long hours until they turn 36 and get replaced.
I mean, the latter requires a higher education, which is something that doesn’t exactly rain on people below the middle class, it also pays better and the problems are more interesting, but I know which of the two I’d personally prefer.
> It's great that $50-80,000 salary jobs can exist for people who have a modicum of software development talent. I'm very happy for these people.
My impression was that these jobs have always existed but are disappearing, we used to call them support developers but that is a job title that seems to have disappeared lately, the jobs themselves seem to be disappearing in our rush to make everyone "full stack" interchangeable parts. Management sees the skill overlap and seem to think their roles can be replaced by real developers, which is a terrible term but I can't think of a better one, this may even be part of the problem.
The even bigger loss is that they could be great entry level roles for bringing less experienced people into the industry.
I work 9 to 6 on one of the most prestigious companies of the country, write high-quality C++ and Java for a complex domain almost on daily basis, and only make $15,000 a year.
And here I am debugging TCP stacks, reverse engineering custom network protocols, writing ISRs in assembly, and doing fullstack, embedded, and native development while making that same amount.
which requires some understanding of how websites work, web servers, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, a plugin ecosystem, backups, etc. It is quite simple for a software pro, but light years beyond what someone untrained could do.
Most WordPress sites I’ve seen for small businesses are using some type of managed services where the person isn’t dealing with the server.
I worked teaching factory workers how to use a software, and can say that no matter how much education and training the majority of these people receive they are not going to become software developers, and it isn't just the older generation. It takes a certain level of abstract thought to be a software developer. The kind of software development jobs that a typical factory worker is capable of are quickly disappearing if they aren't already gone.
A friend of mine wanted to give back and started teaching programming to disadvantaged kids.
He was shocked to ultimately discover that for most of his students, they simply didn't seem to be fundamentally capable of the abstract thought required, and it didn't matter how much time he spent with them. He came away from the experience fairly disillusioned, and I also never expected the difference in ability to be so extreme.
I personally really wonder -- is this something "genetic", like an athletic ability? Is it something learned, but somehow acquired at a young age? Is it a mindset, that we just haven't figured out how to communicate? Or a question of motivation, if it seems "hard" to think that way?
I would agree. In addition to abstract thinking being a software dev also means to be willing to put up with a lot of boring and tedious tasks most people would find extremely boring. Also, constantly learning new stuff is not everyone.
"Your job screwing bolts on cars disappeared? Learn to code and be a programmer." Great advice for the typical HN reader, but a lot of people who can learn to screw bolts on cars just don't have what it takes to be a good coder.
I don't know if it's due to innate intelligence, upbringing, environment, attitude, or what. But there are millions of people out there who just don't seem to be able to master the abstract thinking required. And I'm not sure they'll ever be able to, regardless of how much education we give them.
What should our economy do with those people going forward? For social stability and ethical reasons, we ought to give them a path to decent middle class lives. How do we make that happen?
I think the key's that from 1880 to 1980, we invented mainly technologies that pulled more and more people into the labor force. Now we've started inventing technologies that push more and more people out of the labor force.
How do we reverse the trend? What kind of technology can we try to invent that pulls in a huge number of people to work, the more laborers, the better?
> Training, mentoring and counseling people — often from disadvantaged backgrounds — is not a mass-production process.
Yes, yes it is. It literally is. Maybe you need some additional sorting of raw materials in, maybe the machines (the teachers, the mentors) have a relatively low number of cycles in their lifespan (number of students they can teach), maybe there's more sorting on the output (just like chips are sorted after production), but at nation-scale software engineers are definitely mass-producible.
"Today, Mr. Davis, 27, is a cybersecurity specialist working on an incident response team at the company. He earns above $40,000, more than twice his salary in retail."
Isn't that like what people at Costco make for running a cash register and being friendly?
And who do you think has more job security?
edit: To be less coy about it, if you are any good at this stuff and are only making "above $40k", you are getting f-ed.
Costco jobs are an outlier in retail as I understand it.
$40k/ year in Georgia may be a liveable salary, and if this is an entry level job for him there’s probably the possibility to increase that salary by a 1.5x factor or more over 5 years if he can continue career growth (not sure exactly what a cybersecurity job path looks like, but I assume there is some upward mobility or increased ability to transfer to other higher paying tech roles).
I'm tired of the continued devaluation of my profession.
Software development (I hate the term "coding") is not a manufacturing job, as much as some company wants it to be. And apprenticeships at body shops isn't going to create software developers, it's just going to create terrible software with obvious rot and decay as the years go own.
I don't understand why your post is so defensive. For years, "tech jobs" were marketed as a way to the upper middle class for a broad swath of people (in America and elsewhere). This was not the doing of "two-bit journalists" (and Steve Lohr has a track record of pretty good work!); it was a concerted effort by tech companies.
It's turning out to not really be the case and the successful stories are comparatively few and far between, while the rest of America falls further and further behind for reasons largely not of their own making.
Hate to break it to you, but well trained software engineers create terrible software too. Everywhere I’ve worked had some really boneheaded things going on. A reasonable person showing up with a keen eye to making things better can contribute a lot. We had one software engineer at YouTube just hunted down and deleted unused code. This reduced the maintenance complexity and generally made the codebase more maintainable. Was she a rockstar? Probably not, but every day she made the codebase better. For the most part, showing up, being reasonable and having a handle on the basics goes a long way. I’ll take that over a hotshot working on the wrong problem any day. There’s nothing like the smart man monkey trap to make otherwise intelligent people cause more harm than good.
>apprenticeships at body shops isn't going to create software developers, it's just going to create terrible software with obvious rot and decay as the years go own...
Well, if we're intellectually honest as software developers, we also "...create terrible software with obvious rot and decay as the years go on [sp]..."
The devaluation of the profession happened a few decades ago, otherwise most of us wouldn't have been able to join the industry. Especially in the last decade most people in the industry have been cheering on the abstraction of what you do from what you make. At some point someone is going to call the bluff. I think people who join the industry now can do very well. And they probably see it more as a profession than most of the industry with all their social conventions. Then we can go back to the profession being valued for what it actually delivers.
I agree with your hatred of the term "coding". It rings like "typing" or having typist skills. It demeans the many years of time it takes to learn real software engineering skills, which includes proper software requirements analysis, design, testing, packaging, and deployment.
I work with a bunch of data analysts teaching them programming for data analytics and machine learning. If I use the term "software development" the managers think it is out of scope for their job ("that's something IT does, not our group"). But when I use the term "coding" the managers don't seem to mind. They need to grow up and appreciate what it takes to develop analytics software.
I like what you said "apprenticeships at body shops isn't going to create software developers, it's just going to create terrible software with obvious rot and decay as the years go own." These junior apprentices produce stuff that barely works, and it is rotting crap whose "technical debt" never disappears, and eventually requires a senior software engineer to rewrite it after it fails.
Just like manufacturing jobs, some software work could be completed by uneducated felons, and some work could only be done by PhD specialists. In fact I work at such a place that has an extremely wide gamut of both software engineers and production staff.
Sure, the professional developers are paid well. However the more Jira and agile ideas takes over, you become more replaceable. Why? You're just a card-filling machine dealing with feature requests or problem reports.
And sure, the next developer may fill less cards, but they will improve with time.
And if you don't work in a protected area (federal, etc), then you can buy card-filling devs for 1/5 to 1/8 of US... And have them QA'ed for less than 1 USA dev.
Face it: I, a sysad, am a service worker. And devs are line workers. We're well paid, but so were factory workers at one time.
how can someone else "devalue" your profession? market forces decide the value of your profession. if you feel like your value is being diluted then I hate to break it to you but the truth is that you're not valuable anymore. you are welcome to upskill (in order to be able to deliver more value) or change careers.
like I love people praising the maw of capital (startups rule the world yay!) and simultaneously inveighing against. you have an issue? unionize (but you'll be excommunicated from the church of capital for trying to).
[+] [-] seibelj|6 years ago|reply
Also, this can be extremely high-impact to a business. Consultancies exist at this technical difficulty making lots of money but also delivering lots of value. Go into a non-tech business, notice how 1000 man hours per month are essentially updating Excel files, automate most of it with a Python or VB script, and save the company hundreds of thousands of dollars.
You don't need to feel attacked or nervous that these jobs exist. "Software [Developer|Engineer|Architect]" has no legal definition and the title is meaningless, which is why hiring developers has overhead where you need to check far beyond what the resume says to assess a candidate's true skill.
It's great that $50-80,000 salary jobs can exist for people who have a modicum of software development talent. I'm very happy for these people.
[+] [-] jaabe|6 years ago|reply
I mean, the latter requires a higher education, which is something that doesn’t exactly rain on people below the middle class, it also pays better and the problems are more interesting, but I know which of the two I’d personally prefer.
[+] [-] flukus|6 years ago|reply
My impression was that these jobs have always existed but are disappearing, we used to call them support developers but that is a job title that seems to have disappeared lately, the jobs themselves seem to be disappearing in our rush to make everyone "full stack" interchangeable parts. Management sees the skill overlap and seem to think their roles can be replaced by real developers, which is a terrible term but I can't think of a better one, this may even be part of the problem.
The even bigger loss is that they could be great entry level roles for bringing less experienced people into the industry.
[+] [-] BadJokeReality|6 years ago|reply
You people live in a great country.
[+] [-] caseymarquis|6 years ago|reply
I feel underpaid. :(
[+] [-] scarface74|6 years ago|reply
Most WordPress sites I’ve seen for small businesses are using some type of managed services where the person isn’t dealing with the server.
[+] [-] frankbreetz|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crazygringo|6 years ago|reply
A friend of mine wanted to give back and started teaching programming to disadvantaged kids.
He was shocked to ultimately discover that for most of his students, they simply didn't seem to be fundamentally capable of the abstract thought required, and it didn't matter how much time he spent with them. He came away from the experience fairly disillusioned, and I also never expected the difference in ability to be so extreme.
I personally really wonder -- is this something "genetic", like an athletic ability? Is it something learned, but somehow acquired at a young age? Is it a mindset, that we just haven't figured out how to communicate? Or a question of motivation, if it seems "hard" to think that way?
[+] [-] maxxxxx|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kinnard|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] csense|6 years ago|reply
I don't know if it's due to innate intelligence, upbringing, environment, attitude, or what. But there are millions of people out there who just don't seem to be able to master the abstract thinking required. And I'm not sure they'll ever be able to, regardless of how much education we give them.
What should our economy do with those people going forward? For social stability and ethical reasons, we ought to give them a path to decent middle class lives. How do we make that happen?
I think the key's that from 1880 to 1980, we invented mainly technologies that pulled more and more people into the labor force. Now we've started inventing technologies that push more and more people out of the labor force.
How do we reverse the trend? What kind of technology can we try to invent that pulls in a huge number of people to work, the more laborers, the better?
[+] [-] richdev|6 years ago|reply
https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/44bmmq/why_agi...
[+] [-] ngcc_hk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] killjoywashere|6 years ago|reply
Yes, yes it is. It literally is. Maybe you need some additional sorting of raw materials in, maybe the machines (the teachers, the mentors) have a relatively low number of cycles in their lifespan (number of students they can teach), maybe there's more sorting on the output (just like chips are sorted after production), but at nation-scale software engineers are definitely mass-producible.
[+] [-] richdev|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jstewartmobile|6 years ago|reply
Isn't that like what people at Costco make for running a cash register and being friendly?
And who do you think has more job security?
edit: To be less coy about it, if you are any good at this stuff and are only making "above $40k", you are getting f-ed.
[+] [-] javagram|6 years ago|reply
$40k/ year in Georgia may be a liveable salary, and if this is an entry level job for him there’s probably the possibility to increase that salary by a 1.5x factor or more over 5 years if he can continue career growth (not sure exactly what a cybersecurity job path looks like, but I assume there is some upward mobility or increased ability to transfer to other higher paying tech roles).
[+] [-] Kalium|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marsrover|6 years ago|reply
Software development (I hate the term "coding") is not a manufacturing job, as much as some company wants it to be. And apprenticeships at body shops isn't going to create software developers, it's just going to create terrible software with obvious rot and decay as the years go own.
[+] [-] eropple|6 years ago|reply
It's turning out to not really be the case and the successful stories are comparatively few and far between, while the rest of America falls further and further behind for reasons largely not of their own making.
Should that not be talked about?
[+] [-] true_tuna|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bilbo0s|6 years ago|reply
Well, if we're intellectually honest as software developers, we also "...create terrible software with obvious rot and decay as the years go on [sp]..."
Sometimes, we are our own worst enemies.
[+] [-] njepa|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] richdev|6 years ago|reply
I work with a bunch of data analysts teaching them programming for data analytics and machine learning. If I use the term "software development" the managers think it is out of scope for their job ("that's something IT does, not our group"). But when I use the term "coding" the managers don't seem to mind. They need to grow up and appreciate what it takes to develop analytics software.
I like what you said "apprenticeships at body shops isn't going to create software developers, it's just going to create terrible software with obvious rot and decay as the years go own." These junior apprentices produce stuff that barely works, and it is rotting crap whose "technical debt" never disappears, and eventually requires a senior software engineer to rewrite it after it fails.
[+] [-] thelasthuman|6 years ago|reply
Then again I've never strived for comfort, just the rarest thing of all... equality.
[+] [-] colordrops|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scarface74|6 years ago|reply
As far as creating software that last for years, I also think you overestimate the longevity of most software that is being used today.
[+] [-] crankylinuxuser|6 years ago|reply
Sure, the professional developers are paid well. However the more Jira and agile ideas takes over, you become more replaceable. Why? You're just a card-filling machine dealing with feature requests or problem reports.
And sure, the next developer may fill less cards, but they will improve with time.
And if you don't work in a protected area (federal, etc), then you can buy card-filling devs for 1/5 to 1/8 of US... And have them QA'ed for less than 1 USA dev.
Face it: I, a sysad, am a service worker. And devs are line workers. We're well paid, but so were factory workers at one time.
[+] [-] Alex3917|6 years ago|reply
The typical tech job is more like someone getting paid 30k a year to delete porn from Facebook or draw boxes around pictures of stop signs.
[+] [-] mlevental|6 years ago|reply
like I love people praising the maw of capital (startups rule the world yay!) and simultaneously inveighing against. you have an issue? unionize (but you'll be excommunicated from the church of capital for trying to).