Comment by throwawayyy9876 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwawayyy9876 | Hacker News Reader

throwawayyy9876

I am curious as to why some people think being paid $140,000 a year is 'disgusting'? I live in Australia so the comparison is a bit different, but here electricians and carpenters will very frequently make over $130,000 a year. Traffic controllers can make up to $180,000 a year, which is an unskilled job with only two days training [1].

In the prime of their careers, dentists, lawyers and doctors can commonly make over $300,000 per year. At the top end of the spectrum, specialist doctors and commercial lawyers can make over $1,000,000 a year, as can those who work in investment banking for instance.

What is it about software engineering that people think is less valuable that these other occupations? Why do people think that earning $100k a year is overcompensation? My personal theory is that it is because impressive wages are a relatively new phenomenon in software (there is a much longer history with doctors and lawyers) and people are not comfortable with the idea yet. But I can assure you that there are many groups in society earning over this amount and one shouldn't feel disgusted by doing so. (Of course, there are many who are not - but that is a longer conversation)

[1] https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/sweet-deal-traffi...

That article is a crock of shit by the way. I know two traffic controllers and they're both on $25 an hour. I'm sure there's a couple somewhere that are well connected with the unions and get sweet gigs, or some actual engineers that get put on traffic control duty and earn that salary, but you can't just walk into a $140k job off 2 years experience doing traffic control like you can in software in SV.

A fair point. It was a silly example to use and seems to be limited to CFMEU members which is not part of the market operating as normal.

Still - do you think $140k is too much for any one person to make?

Many programmers hit their peak salary very fast. Making $140k a year for 35-40 hours of work a week <4 years out of college with no graduate school is pretty insane.

Continuing to make that $140k 20 years later is also insane, but in the opposite direction, but that's not the situation the post was describing. As a programmer you're fantastically highly paid at the beginning of your career but often not at the middle and end.

I always tell that to young people that look at their peers and see them very well paid - not 140k here in Uruguay, more like 30k but most other young people would be lucky to hit 15k.

However, an accountant, doctor, lawyer or other professional will have an upwards trajectory while programmers have a tough-to-penetrate glass ceiling and will plateau VERY early (late 20s to early 30s) unless they switch to management or start their own company or move to the U.S.

it’s weird because that’s starting salary levels in a lot of silicon valley..

envy?

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