Why do software engineers get paid so much compared to others?
Others such as: Electrical engineers Mechanical engineers UX designers Digital marketers Janitors/garbage truck drivers Etc....
Revenue generated by their work is far more and scarcity of the skillset.
This is the answer. Income has a ceiling of min(productivity, supply/demand).
Software can update by patches, OTA while hardware recall is more costly and slower. Therefore software has far quicker cycles to advance.
Yawn.... All that matters is the industry and supply/demand. I'm an ME pulling down more that I'm seeing from the software guys. And the software guys that post here from the elite companies are the tops for their field.
How much do you make?
^ Ya srsly, how much? From what I've heard it's quite difficult to pull 6 figures as a junior ME, where it's hard not to for new grad SWEs. I personally think it's bullshit and that we're super lucky to make what we do, but I'm not complaining bout the paychecks 🤑
Reason: Software engineers can potentially deliver the most scalable revenue/value per individual (among engineers). Let me explain with a simplified example: you create a good app, company makes 1m USD, you make great app, the company CAN make 100m USD by just scaling their AWS infra. No other industry allows this level of scaling. The second best is EE, make great design leading to huge revenue but it's not instantly scalable like software - still need to contract it to tsmc, manage supply chain, sign contracts for deploying somewhere etc... The other extreme is say, mechanical technician at factory, revenue his output is directly proportional to his time, so he gets paid lowest among engineers. So it's not just supply demand. Even if supply is more than demand, the 'good' engineers output disproportionately scales USD revenues, so they'll be paid higher than best performers in other engineering fields.
Yes, correct. Both factors are at play here.
Agreed. If the software development can be semi automated without compromising scalability then those software engineers will get thrown out in a heartbeat. A lot of that is already happening.
It was not the case 20 years ago, so demand and supply.
The job output wasn't this scalable 20 years ago either, people were building customized software. People who built scalable output 20 years back (MSFT Google etc engineers) all made millionaires.
Contrary to popular belief, we are the only ones who know how to leetcode. Take that airplane builder guys.
Demand. People hate math and computer science. So the few that do it are valued highly because of slim pickings.
Software has high profit margins, so they can pay better.
Supply << Demand FTFY.
Likely undefined behavior. Unless demand is really small.