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Originally Posted by candybar
These may or may not be your personal issues but jobs like that exist. You leaving and moving on doesn't mean the job isn't around in some form. And you didn't happen to leave the only low-paying programming job in the world - there are tons of low-paying programming jobs.
I'm sorry, what programming job did I have? I wasn't a programmer at my last job(s) in LA. I simply was not supplied the tools to do my job properly, so I built them. At no point was I ever considered a programmer and at no point was I expected to program. I was expected to manage a large part of a company from end-to-end, which included logistics, customer service, sales, inventory, product listing, etc. The size of the work wasn't the intent on the outset, as my section was about 1% of the company and grew to 75% of the company.
The tools that were available were not up to the tasks at hand. The software that is commonly available for ecommerce companies are pure trash, and despite using the #2 product in the space, we struggled to get our work done. I merely built out a database and that was it. One of my coworkers built tools in Excel and VBA, and we combined some of our ideas to create other items. We only did the work because we cared about doing a good job, and had nothing to do with our "job titles." Our names were on our work, and we simply did what we did out of pure pride.
The job before that, I was assigned the position "marketing," but once again, I was not supplied the tools to do it, so I built out my own programs to do analysis and other work. My job description was simply "do what yo have to do and figure this out." Just because I did programming doesn't mean I was a programmer. I had to wear 10 different hats, and the programming stuff was a small part of my work, and certainly was not my position.
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Jobs at attractive startups and jobs at top tech firms are the exceptions. The vast majority of programming jobs don't pay well - try getting a programming job at a non-software company in a field where no one gets paid well outside of the major metro areas. The guy mentioned that he's moving overseas and mentioned Japan, which rules out most high-paying programming jobs.
The issues are far more complex that this. Reality is that many companies, especially small businesses, need programmers and analysts, but they are too technophobic and prone to sticker-shock to understand why this stuff is needed (plus GOTO comment about the software being pure trash).
Companies that buy and sell hard products work under the same debts and redlines that 90% of startups do, but they end up having to be more defensive because so many software products are being aggressively sold, and the vast majority of them would obviously bring a company to its knees. There aren't many VCs who focus on hard products, though there are handful who are doing very well in this space.
There is much more complexity: if a company hires one developer and that developer leaves, they are kind of screwed, so it is in their best interest to be conservative, not only with hiring one in the first place, but mitigating the risk by paying far below market share.
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Credentials outside of programming matter hugely in terms whether you're able to land those kinds of jobs. One of them has substantial experience in the industry, some even as a developer and has a MIS degree from a good school and the other graduated from UNC Chapel-Hill which is a top state school. It's absurd to argue that they just started to code and got a great job. Again, I'm not arguing that you can't make 70K as a junior developer something remotely like that - that's entirely silly. I'm just saying that projecting that as an baseline outcome for someone considering leaving a lucrative career behind is insanely irresponsible given that we don't know if he has anything remotely close to strong aptitude for programming or any kind of credential that will attract attention.
There's quite a few other blog posts about getting a job with zero, like zero at all, programming background and landed stuff after 6 months. Literally going from first seeing a command line to landing a job. Most of this revolves around RoR, which I think is why so many bootcamps focus on that stack. I'm not really in the mood to research the point.
If it matters any, I once interviewed a girl with a masters from UC Berkeley, straight A student with an impressive internship program. She also build out an inventory system in Java, but couldn't land a job after a year of trying. She was also able to type 95 wpm with zero errors. So, credentials, etc...
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Originally Posted by candybar
Well in some fields, seniority matters and soft skills always matter. But I would assume the best carpenters have their own businesses for the most part and work on custom projects for rich people with high standards. Carpentry is not a skill that scales that well so I don't expect top people to work on construction sites building one house after another.
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=carpenter&l1=
Average carpenter salaries for job postings nationwide are 37% lower than average salaries for all job postings nationwide.
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=programmer&l1=&tm=1
Average programmer salaries for job postings nationwide are 29% higher than average salaries for all job postings nationwide.
I'm not even sure where the notion of being a business owner is even relevant to anything and I'm not sure why so many conversation devolve into this, as "owning your own business" surely should never be called "average."
Ok fine... the "average" carpenter is on his own, working a constant stream of 1099s, must supply his own tools, etc. Imagine a world where each programmer must have a pickup truck, must buy his or her own Mac Pros, chairs, desks, etc, and must bring his or her own coffee and water to work. Of course, tack on the unpaid er... "vacation." Oh right, and have your programmers work from 6 am to 10pm, and don't even think about letting them take a break or offer a free breakfast burrito, because that **** is weak. Finally, be sure to rip them a new ******* for releasing a buggy line of code, which results in immediate dismissal, but only after redoing the work for free.
Just ask the plumber how much he earns a year next time you have one come over. Ask him how hard it would be for him to earn 70k a year and I'm sure he'll ask if he can have whatever you are smoking.
I did custom work for rich people, installing sunken tubs with graphite tiles and gold-plated accents, toilets with tampon pullers, membrane sinks, and outdoor brick fish tanks, just to name a few of the higher-end stuff I've installed that each cost more than 3 months of my pay. I earned nowhere near 100k.