[whack]

> we are collectively living in an illusion of whacked up expectations. Yes, it's super hard to hire good people, but most of the time it's because "good enough" isn't good enough anymore, and while we may think our company is a 9 and we deserve 9s, we are probably more of a 4 based on what people are actually working on.

You're essentially implying that companies like FAANG can get by just fine, even if they hired "average" programmers, as opposed to "exceptional" ones. If this were the case, they wouldn't need to pay anyone 250-350k compensation either - they can just hire some average programmer for 70k and call it a day. Or better yet, hire someone in a country with much lower COL, pay them 30k, and everyone walks away happy.

I don't think this is true, for the simple reason that companies are far too greedy to pay people 200k a year, unless they really need to. Do you honestly think that a company like Amazon is going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on someone, if they can get someone else for a fraction of that? Maybe I'm wrong and one day, some startup will grow to be a unicorn while paying their developers sweatshop rates. I'll believe it when I see it.

[fogetti]

I think FAANG has too much money, so they try to solve all problems with money, which could otherwise be solved with better planning, allocating more time, changing the mindset and/or better understanding the problem at hand. That might explain why they pay hire salaries than the rest of the industry.

I don't think that there is necessarily a causal relationship between the salaries and the competence, but that line of thinking is common in those companies.

[gniv]

> be solved with better planning, allocating more time, changing the mindset and/or better understanding the problem at hand

You're describing a good manager, who costs a lot of money, even more than a good SWE.

[scarmig]

You radically overestimate the difficulty of the work performed by the modal SWE at Google. A bright-but-not-exceptional high schooler can do the usual job: writing code and tests and the occasional design doc, and way too much proto to proto work.

[Nextgrid]

> companies are far too greedy to pay people 200k a year, unless they really need to

Maybe the high salary is to compensate for something else (poor work environment, boring job, etc) rather than attract very skilled people?

[jacobsenscott]

It is absurd to think that any more than a small fraction of the 20+ thousand engineers at Google are "exceptional". When you get to those numbers you are just seeking warm bodies to push buttons.

[z3t4]

If you could choose between solving hunger, curing cancer, colonizing other planets, or working for a rent seeking ad buisness, the latter would have to pay a lot more for you to work there.

[arp242]

Just because some companies think they need to pay that much doesn't actually make it the case.

[hogFeast]

Dear God, I wish companies were run like this. Everyone refers to these faceless "companies"...no, you are being hired by employees just like you who almost always overpay for staff. They overestimate their ability to assess talent, HR usually link their own salaries to the people they hire...it is a shitshow.

Look at CEO pay, most CEOs are clueless. They are way overpaid. Google is a perfect example, that business is a cash machine, it could be run by a ham sandwich, and they are paying people $100m+ to run it...lul. Jokes.

Btw, this also shouldn't matter. If your business relies on hiring these 1 in 1000, super-smart individuals (ignoring the fact that it is statistically impossible to actually do this if you are hiring thousands of programmers), you will fail. Every time. You get into a bidding war, and your budget depends on the intelligence of others to not overpay. If you can work out how to turn average employees into good ones, you will print money because no-one wants average employees...supply is infinite, you will never overpay (I know companies that have done this...they usually end up acquiring the companies that hire the "boffins" and fire everyone on day one).

In tech, the opportunities for this are basically limitless. It is pretty easy to teach someone how to code, the main challenge is really all the stuff you learn "on the job"...and guess what? You have a job to teach them. Why doesn't this happen? Try telling a coder he has to help a junior guy out one day a week and stop fucking about with Haskell/burning cash. Try telling HR that you want to hire unremarkable people. Try finding an executive who wants to work somewhere where they hit singles...he has an MBA you know, he swings for the fences every time. You are vastly overestimating, ironically, the intelligence of most people who work in companies (I worked in equity research for a while...Buffett's dictum of a company that could be run by a ham sandwich has much wisdom).

[z3t4]

Actually most software business use that business model. Eg. buy low, sell high. The difference between market rates and wages are their profit.

[hogFeast]

That is true. It occurred to me after that I had seen that in consultancies...that works, it is possible to do this sustainably and with less churn.