[parfe]

People hand the company money when sales do their job. No one hands the company money because you wrote an extra 1,000 lines of code this week down in your cube on B2. Just like the janitor who doesn't get paid 10x as much if he spends some extra time scrubbing the bathrooms.

[Joeri]

Sales need something to sell. Jobs are paid based on the perception of how difficult it is to find someone to do it. CEO's are paid ridiculous amounts because the perception is almost no one can do the job. Janitors are paid little because the perception is almost anyone can do the job. The result of this is that many buildings are cleaned poorly, so nxt time you see a dirty bathroom, don't blame the janitor, blame the person hiring the janitor. The supply of good janitors is much more restricted than it appears, but that's because the person hiring typically can't see the value in paying more.

For programmers it's the same. Good programmers can make or break a business by building software which sells itself, or by building software with 10 times less effort, turning loss into profit, but many people hiring the programmers don't see it that way, so many programming jobs underpay, and many people paid to program have no business being anywhere near a keyboard.

[marcosdumay]

No?

Then why does your company employ you? Are they doing charity?