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by kjellsbells
1427 days ago
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> 'If your relationship with the industry is transactional, you rarely develop into a great software engineer' You may be right but I'm curious. I suspect that the issue is one of trust that the employer will adequately reward great code. If I'm a jeweler, its very evident that I will get paid handsomely for the finest work, and I will get to work with the finest materials, creating a virtuous circle. It is not at all evident that this works in software. You dont get reliably comped better for creating better code. In fact it's so bad that people publish code outside of their jobs to demonstrate to the next employer that they should have been comped better. on that basis I can see why the transactional mindset takes hold. you want to treat me as a fungible disposable fixed price asset? then I will act like one, starting with a demand for the highest possible asset valuation. |
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I think this is the crux of the issue. Many companies invest quite heavily in improving engineers. My last company would send people to conferences, bring in consultants to train, have extended onboarding and training programs, and each engineer had a set budget for any training materials they wanted to purchase. They were absolutely not fungible or disposable. Other companies, I am sure, don't invest in their employees.
But perhaps this is just the system working: "mercenary" engineers will go work for the highest posted salary and will work at companies where they are treated as fungible and disposable. The "growth" engineers will go work at the companies where they can learn and grow and are invested in.
As long as both types of engineer make their way to the appropriate companies, the system works.