[abat]

1) Some programmers really are worth orders of magnitude more than others. Really great programmers will help drive product decisions that can change direction of the company and the ultimate success/failure. The more responsibility a programmer has over product/quality/cost/delivery schedule, the more they can be worth a huge amount. 10X is probably a more common variance, but I'm sure there are single developers building the right thing that are worth more than 1,000 crap developers getting bogged down in product management BS.

The thing is that communication/management gets harder the more people there are, so crap developers have very little value (and maybe even negative marginal value in certain cases). IE a developer that's 10X better than another developer can actually be worth 1000X because you can't just hire a 10 mediocre developers and have them be worth the same as a single great developer.

2) Really great developers are really paid a lot more than less good ones (but not their full value). Smart developers with no experience are paid more than what he suggests. A smart college grad can get paid 6 figures without any experience in the right job (not ~50K). People who prove their worth can ultimately get paid a lot more. However, they're pay will usually be increased above their peers outside of salary using RSUs/options that will be very valuable but vest over time. It is true that great developers often have to either co-found their own companies or take high level management roles to get 100X pay of an average developer. That said most companies don't pay programmers their true value, and it often takes a long time for a developer to fully demonstrate their value and develop a name for themselves.

edit: TBC, I'm not arguing anything about immigration or the OP as a whole. I just take issue with the idea that there is little variance in value between programmers.

[skylan_q]

1) This can't be discovered through an interview, nevermind an immigration process. It would just be increasing the entire pool of people who might qualify as "top talent" or "average" programmers. The author raised the point that 3rd world countries probably don't have as high a proportion in their general populace of skilled labour as the US.

[oe]

We are not talking about 3rd world countries though? Most of Europe has as skilled programmers as the US, of which some would like to move to the US.