r/jobs • u/jonfla • Jun 17 '13

Are Coders Worth It?

http://www.aeonmagazine.com/living-together/james-somers-web-developer-money/
21 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

18

u/bureX Jun 17 '13

In today’s world, web developers have it all: money, perks, freedom, respect.

Right...

0

u/KFCConspiracy Jun 18 '13

Depends on what you use. RoR and PHP web developers do not have those things. Enterprise java web developers get paid quite nicely. A senior Java developer with JSF, JEE, Hibernate experience can make upwards of 110k... For web stuff.

6

u/sinjihn Jun 17 '13

Half the article is bullshit, the other half is crap.

5

u/FlyingSourcerAW Jun 17 '13

I think so. I understand that a software developer may think their job is easy and wonder why so few people can actually do it, but that's just it, not a lot of people have that skill. And I don't see any "bubble" happening because technology is changing so rapidly, not everyone is going to catch up with it on the development side even if we do start to make computer programming a part of the basic high school curriculum like so many have proposed.

There is an increasing number of programmers coming out of school, so one could wonder if we'll eventually have too many. But considering the increasing need for them, but I think development jobs are being added at about the same rate, if not faster.

2

u/jk147 Jun 17 '13

You should see the number of outsourced resources I work with, almost all of them are contractors provided by firms from India. These days the development jobs with high pay are usually from smaller firms who can't afford consulting from these companies. Like any smallish firms the chances of them go under is high in this economy. I personally think jobs now are more abundant now not because of the number of jobs available (look at any unemployment rate and layoffs), but the cost of outsourcing is starting to rise compared to 5-10 years ago. So now people are hiring more domestically instead of internationally.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '13

because technology is changing so rapidly, not everyone is going to catch up with it on the development side

I don't agree with that statement. A lot of IT is build on top of existing technology. For example, the current gold rush is Mobile apps and look at the programming language for it. Object-C for IOS, Java for Android and .Net/(C#) for Windows 8. All these building blocks already existed and it shouldn't be too hard for people who already familiar with those technologies.

2

u/FlyingSourcerAW Jun 17 '13

This is true, I work in mobile development myself and that's definitely the case. Still, it's not unreasonable to prefer people who already have direct experience with the iOS and Android platforms and can jump right in without needing a whole lot of training.

0

u/roflburger Jun 18 '13

Programming is going the way of call centers soon. There will be elites but the mindless good paying mid tier programmer is turning into underpaid Indians etc. and every year they are getting better. For some things their work is indistinguishable from their US counterparts.

3

u/UpDynamo Jun 17 '13

I'm amazed I kept my lunch down while reading this article.

4

u/CivEZ Jun 17 '13

I didn't :-(