[Helmet]

Can you comment on why this is? Speaking broadly, software development tends to attract intelligent, hardworking, and educated people - not always obviously, but I think more so than a most other "office" jobs. What is contributing to the low social standing?

[mattmcknight]

If you aren't in charge of others, you are at the bottom of a hierarchy of people.

[webmaven]

There is an alternate measure, less commonly found but certainly existing in the mainstream: Rather than how many people are below you, how few people are there above you (in a large organization).

By that measure, the senior developer on a 'special projects' team reporting directly to a CxO could be quite high status. Similarly, the US National Security Advisor only has a small staff reporting to them, but their influence on US policy is as great or greater than the Secretary of Defense and/or Secretary of State.

[erics32]

mattmcknight's comment addresses one of the reasons.

I think another part of it is a lack of understanding of what developers actually do - people perceive developers as manual laborers that just type stuff into a computer based on what a higher-up has designed/created. They attribute the actual creative/engineering output to the manager.

It's also a low-paying job in a materialistic society. There's a feedback loop of Low pay -> no respect -> low pay that's hard to break out of.