| I'm surprised that so many of the comments/replies to this post accept the premise that programmers are underpaid and don't get respect. Everyone I know who writes code is making a hell of a lot more than people who aren't. The people I know at Google aren't making $150k. They are making a lot more and would be making a lot less as a management consultant or a politician or whatever else. In fact, to say that top management consultants clear $500k is true, but top engineers clear a lot more, both of those industries strike me as massively paid industries. Then there's banking. Engineers at banks make ridiculous amounts of money just like non-engineers working at investment banks. Sure, there are engineers working for $60k just like there are management consultants working for $60k. But I know a lot of unemployed management consultants, and I don't know a single unemployed engineer. So I think people have raised very interesting thoughts about why doctors make more or less, but I couldn't get past the premise of the article. I think engineers are making a ton of money, and they deserve a ton of money. I think they get a ton of respect, and they deserve it. Maybe that's just what I'm seeing. But particularly when you then say that teachers are paid more than the average American, I start to wonder who this mythical "average American" is, particularly knowing that my sister is a high school teacher and has to buy her own chalk. She would probably disagree with the article based on all the corvettes and teslas sitting in the Google parking lot. :-) |