Techies make too much...house of cards?

Microsoft / Eng
oofoo

Go to company page Microsoft Eng

oofoo
Dec 1, 2020 32 Comments

The last time engineers (with barely a real degree) were making more dollars than licensed MD brain surgeons, the nasdaq crashed 80% to wipe out fortunes and ship the jobs over to India, making TC questions the last thing on their minds.

It took 15 years for engineers to shed the shame of dotcom bubble.

Question: how can these ludicrous valuations and salaries hold up much longer? Is the guy bragging about 20 LC under his belt, a shitty degree, and 600KTC worth anywhere close to a brain surgeon?🤔🤔......I'm sure we all feel overpaid...but any thought otherwise??

#tech

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TOP 32 Comments
  • Snap
    snap

    Go to company page Snap

    snap
    I assure you brain surgeons make more than $600k
    Dec 1, 2020 7
    • Your extensive list of rebuttal arguments is really convincing Capital One, and yes please, give us some lessons on social awareness while working for one of the main agents of the worst financial crisis of this century and insulting peers online.
      Dec 1, 2020
    • Microsoft / Eng
      oofoo

      Go to company page Microsoft Eng

      oofoo
      OP
      Uhh... "mathematical skills"?.....please be honest about how much math you do at work. I think we all realize that software doesn't require any genius ....otherwise losers with 20-LC credentials and degree from shitty college wouldn't be able to get a job and make 600k TC so easily
      Dec 2, 2020
  • NetApp / R&D
    craft_

    Go to company page NetApp R&D

    craft_
    Doesn't matter if it's an engineer, a bootcamp graduate, a brain surgeon or a plumber.

    They will continue to be worth their price if:
    - They're consistently capable of solving problems that are sold at a price tenfolds higher than their salary (e.g. scale)
    - Qualified professionals are relatively scarce

    It's not about what you or society think about what they "deserve", how difficult their work or how long they spent practicing. It's about the price of the problems they solve reliably again and again.
    Dec 1, 2020 2
    • Microsoft / Eng
      oofoo

      Go to company page Microsoft Eng

      oofoo
      OP
      I guess my question is "what's different now compared to 2000, to make such high salaries/valuations sustainable"?..... especially given low barrier to entry for CS jobs?
      Dec 1, 2020
    • Tech companies are making money this time. Would you buy 3 million for 50k? Definitely. Would you buy 3 million for 400k? Still a great deal. It has nothing to do with barriers of entry, because the scarcity is for a certain level of quality. For salaries to crash you need companies to stop making money. ads and cloud are eating the world right now.
      Dec 1, 2020
  • Don’t be so naive. Your normative understanding of pay scales between industries won’t always be, and there aren’t any moral laws governing that hierarchy, only supply and demand. Being rare is what makes you expensive.

    Also brain surgeons or whatever are cream of the crop of MDs. They’re like the fangs of the doctor world. All industries have tiers within.
    Dec 1, 2020 0
  • Uber
    windupbird

    Go to company page Uber

    windupbird
    So long as there is such intense competition and demand for engineers, I don't think this is going to change.
    Dec 1, 2020 3
    • New
      dog ghost

      New

      dog ghost
      If it was the case that anyone could just go in and become an SWE, why do you think it hasn't happened? Why do FANG+ companies still pay >$200k for newly graduated CS students?
      Dec 1, 2020
    • Microsoft / Eng
      oofoo

      Go to company page Microsoft Eng

      oofoo
      OP
      LC seems like poor man's ACM programming competition.....99% of LC-ers would shrivel and fail miserably at actual problems. "Longest palindrome", and other petty LC problems are dumbing down candidates....often times the interviewer doesn't even articulate the question fully in english....only Chinese or indian can understand and pass it
      Dec 2, 2020
  • Google
    huli lifer

    Go to company page Google

    huli lifer
    The difference between Google and Pets.com is that Google actually does $1M in revenue per employee, so paying us a third to a half of that is fine. The strongest people from overseas have already been coming to the US to work for these companies. If those people can just do the job from overseas that's fine but it doesn't change the number of opportunities for you here. Now, for smaller stage startups, yes, I think that is a bit more inflated with VC money (think of that "Yo" app getting funded) and they are really just pouring it down the drain. For small startups where visas aren't worth the overhead, and who are already burning cash, I could see some of those jobs go overseas. But we'll see how far that can go. We are still having IPOs so the VCs won't stop soon, and there is still excess demand for good engineers, so it will take a while at least for that to become problematic for US/Europe engineers.
    Dec 1, 2020 0