[jltsiren]

My impression is that the top 20% of the job market pays competitively, while the bottom 80% doesn't.

The average developer writes and maintains custom software for large organizations. While that kind of secretarial work is useful and necessary, it's not particularly valuable and doesn't pay that well.

[drumhead]

Not particularly valuable.....until your system goes down and you cant access the data or pay your employees or activate your machinery, or miss vital deadlines, etc etc.

[jltsiren]

A job may be vital without being particularly valuable. Just ask any of the "essential workers" who had to continue working on-site last year. The value of your job depends more on the costs of replacing you than on what would happen if nobody does the job.

[drumhead]

I dont understand you definition of valuable? Do you mean in terms of revenue generated? Is that what you mean by valuable?

[jltsiren]

I mean economic value – what people are willing to pay for something.

For example, drinking water is incredibly important. Without it, we would die in a matter of days. However, you can't create much value by producing clean drinking water (branding it is another story), because people are not willing to pay that much for it under normal circumstances. As long as people can reasonably assume that someone will produce drinking water anyway, its value remains low.

In the same way, many jobs are essential but don't produce much value under normal circumstances. There is usually another person or another company willing to provide the same good or service.

[908B64B197]

> My impression is that the top 20% of the job market pays competitively, while the bottom 80% doesn't.

Truth is, it's the top 20% that creates the most value.

[TheCoelacanth]

"Not competitive" for a software developer is still a pretty high paying job by most peoples' standards.