The Rising Power of Developers 122
msmoriarty writes "Google's Don Dodge, GitHub's Tom Preston-Werner, New Relic's Lew Cirne and others recently got together in San Francisco on a panel called 'The Developer is King: The Power Behind the Throne.' According to coverage of the event, the panelists all agreed that programmers — both independent ones and those employed by companies — have more power, and thus opportunities, than ever. Even the marketing power of developers was acknowledged: 'The only way to convince a developer is by giving them a demo and showing them how it's better,' said Preston-Werner. 'The beauty is, you plant these seeds around the world, and those people will evangelize it for you. Because another thing that developers are great at is telling other developers what works for them.'"
Pat on the back (Score:4, Insightful)
Some rich guys got together, told themselves how great they are and how they deserve to be rich. News at 11.
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The same applies to pretty much all professions. It never ceases to amaze me what salaries managers command with little if any reason for it.
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It's a bit hard for an employer to open a man
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Software architects decide how the food should taste and which bits of food aren't compatible with other bits. Software developers design and build the first of a particular type of meal from the raw parts. It's more comparable to inventing the meals for the first time than a fry cook. System customizers then take the food and prepare it neatly as a meal but don't change any of the flavours or individual items on the plate, they just re-arrange the plates.
Software technicians that install software on the
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You obviously don't know much about software development. The spectrum of mastery in software engineering varies from burger flipper to head chef.
Re:Pat on the back (Score:4, Interesting)
That's why I call bollocks on TFA. VCs favour developer-founders now? It might be a good move but then again, it might not, and next month they'll favour people with neatly trimmed hair, just like last month they were favouring people with business experience. As for programmers, their power has declined. A long time ago (in tech-land terms), programming was a respected profession, not just amongst peers but also by the general public, and by those programmers' employers. That had already ended when I got into the game, but even back then, programmers did have a significant amount of influence on the design and parameters of the program. As a programmer I got to join meetings on product and service design with the CTO and marketing manager of a large mobile telco. Small projects were generally left to be managed by team leads who were also programmers. And project managers of larger projects often deferred to his developers.
Today, most larger corporations keep their programmers in the basement. The aspect of the job that involved contact with clients, management and business representatives is now handled by sales reps, project managers and business analysts. Most of whom have a very weak grasp of technology, I might add. The chasm between tech and business hasn't widened, but the bridges have gone and we're reduced to flinging memos across the gap. On top of that, now we're seeing heavy compartimentalisation of the work, by defining standards and procedures that attempt to turn creativity and flexibility into predictable monkey work. Now, standards and procedures aren't necessarily bad, and the field of software development can do with some professionalisation, but what's being introduced now moves us in the wrong direction. Even the master coders' jobs are being reduced to burger flipping, or at least managers are trying to.
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Can we please put developers in the back seat as run of the mill production workers like they belong. I respect a minority of software architects, but plain jane code toads need to be getting the treatment and pay of the few steps above fry cook that they are.
Giving developers that kind of treatment causes a very low productivity and little attachment to the company. That's going to hurt your bottom line. But hey, it's your bottom line. I'm not going to complain the karmic blowback that's going to hit you
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Can we please put developers in the back seat as run of the mill production workers like they belong. I respect a minority of software architects, but plain jane code toads need to be getting the treatment and pay of the few steps above fry cook that they are.
The way most companies work aritechture is an underfunded joke and each and every decent programmer is their own architect. The REALLY good ones play well with others AND do their own brilliant designs.
If the developers you are employing are a step above fry cooks, please tell me which company you work for so I can avoid having anything to do with that disaster waiting to happen.
The joke in my town is that "architect" is the title of the person who ships the work to the offshore coders.
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it might be true, but not very convincing panel (Score:5, Insightful)
A group of successful developers get together on a panel and, surprisingly, everyone on the panel agrees that developers are very important and goin' places in the world.
Re:it might be true, but not very convincing panel (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, you get back to work and tell the boss that the new product feature is a bad idea, and you get told to shut up and keep rowing.
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It depends on the place you are. Perhaps, more generally, it's better to say that in some companies developers have a lot of power, whereas in some companies they don't. If you don't like how developers are treated in your company, have you considered your options?
I'm an engineering managers, with developers reporting to me. They figure out where the product needs to be going. I provide input, which they often, but not always, listen to. Generally, they listen to our customers (internal people) more th
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the good new is that there will be extra rations
the bad news is that the fat bitch will want to water ski tonight.
Re:it might be true, but not very convincing panel (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, when I read the headline, I was hoping this article was about programmers starting a union, to collectively fight things such as diverging programming ecosystems, software patent abuse, deliberately broken/abandoned APIs, walled API gardens, etcetera.
Re:Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
I have never met a competent developer who had trouble finding work.
I HAVE met incompetent out-of-touch, burnt-out, full-of-themselves developers who can't find work. It's this second kind that think they're good but are not and who should be in another field.
As far as finding work goes, you're probably correct. I have, however, met a fairly large number of good developers who are 10x more productive than an average programmer, but have difficulty getting paid what they're worth.
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This is easy if you just want average-skilled developer work, all you need to do is have a degree/work experience/answer interview questions. It's a LOT harder if you want to convince people to pay you for significantly above average work, but that is the skill you need if you want that kind of pay.
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To find work, you need to be in the right city, and have the right credentials, which are typically inflated since they'd rather outsource the work anyway.. Otherwise, do you want fries with that?
Re:Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
I have been out of work in the past for nearly a year. Lots of people claiming that they wanted to hire me, if only they had the budget. When the economy is bad and there are no job openings, it doesn't matter how competent you are. Maybe a lot of these new people haven't really been in a bad economy or downturn except the current one. Also the fads comd and go, if the current fad is web sites with scripting language of the day, and you don't know web stuff, then all those jobs pass you by no matter how good a programmer you are.
Some of the people that do the best with getting jobs are the dabblers, quickly learning the rudiments of something and then moving on in a few years when fashions change; client/server turns into palm pilot apps turns into web design turns into mobile apps, etc.
Also very important to finding a job, is to not be geeky and nerdy. You need people skills and that is not easy to learn for the borderline autism spectrum people who are great coders and hardware designers and mathematicians. You have to learn to NOT be yourself in an interview.
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Also the fads comd and go, if the current fad is web sites with scripting language of the day, and you don't know web stuff, then all those jobs pass you by no matter how good a programmer you are.
Some of the people that do the best with getting jobs are the dabblers, quickly learning the rudiments of something and then moving on in a few years when fashions change; client/server turns into palm pilot apps turns into web design turns into mobile apps, etc.
Yes, people who never believed this new-fangled interweb "fad" was going anywhere, or never bothered learning any new technology after they left tertiary education because gosh darn it if C was good enough for Kernighan, it should be good enough for everyone - they might find it hard to get a job.
Lawyers need to keep up-to-date on precedent, accountants need to know the latest tax changes, and doctors need to follow the latest developments in medicine. A developer needs to keep up with the changing nature o
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But the languages used to program on the web are changing all the time.
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So are the languages on the desktop - but they're not changing fast enough that remaining relatively current is particularly difficult. I still see more job advertisements for PHP and Java than I do for Ruby on Rails or NodeJS.
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I'm not sure why you're comparing RoR and NodeJS to PHP and Java, so the following might feel a bit confused. This is my take.
The RoR fad is over and Ruby is starting to fall in popularity, so I don't expect to see it pass PHP (which, despite the hate, is actually growing).
The NodeJS fad is just beginning. I'm not comfortable making any predictions about it just yet, though I suspect it won't gain much ground in the near-term, for practical reasons. JavaScript, on the other hand, isn't going anywhere any
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Java is essentially dead on the browser.
Has it ever been alive in the browser?????? Other than applets at the end of the dot-com bubble 13 years ago, I've not seen any major use, if any, of Java on the browser. It has always been a de-facto server-side technology.
While it has a nice niche on the server, it's not really a significant player.
That doesn't make any sense either. Every major banking, online transaction or e-commerce system out there is in Java. Ebay? Java. Amazon? Java. Office Depot? Java? Anything enterprisey? Java. There is a lot more going on in terms of custom soft
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Where do you get the statistics for that claim?
Here you go [w3techs.com]. Let's just say it's a bit better than a "quick look" at a couple of job websites.
That doesn't make any sense either.
Sure it does. It's found a nice niche with high-traffic sites. It's share as a server-side language for the web sits at around 3%. I'd call that pretty minor!
There is a lot more going on in terms of custom software development than web sites.
Obviously! Now try to put that in the context of the discussion.
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I'm not sure why you're comparing RoR and NodeJS to PHP and Java
Because the OP was saying the only way you can get a job in development is to follow the new hotness. I was demonstrating that actually, there are more jobs for older technologies than there are for the new, faddish ones.
change is a decades old foot print (Score:2)
But the languages used to program on the web are changing all the time.
So? Where have you been in the last two decades?
You are describing the same thing that has been happening on the desktop, and what occurred in the Client-Server arena. On the later, I remember when people rabidly debated about products based on AS/400, or AIX or OS/360, or Honewell-Bull or PICK. How about network platforms? Ethernet or Novell's token ring? And on the desktop, hmmm, VB or PowerBuilder or Delphi or FoxPro or Clipper or DBase? Or maybe Fujitsu COBOL? Sometimes straight up C++ with Borland or
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Also very important to finding a job, is to not be geeky and nerdy.
Yep.
And it's not just for the interview. Unless you are a code monkey working robotic-like to the requirements that someone else makes for you, you need to have people skills for the job.
You are probably not such a good coder if you don't have people skills. Just like it's hard to be "good" in bed if you are the only one there ...
It's not you, it's me! (Score:2)
Lots of people claiming that they wanted to hire me, if only they had the budget.
I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but I have never had a client whose budgeting process was so rigid that exceptions were forbidden, even when a good business case was made. When a company can hire a person for $X and that person's work will make or save the company some multiple of $X, then budget gets freed up to hire that person.
You how chicks like to dump us saying, "It's not you, it's me!" so that we supposedly won't feel badly about it? That's what is happening to you, except in your case it'
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These were actual friends of mine who were the hiring managers. I don't know if this still happens but it was certainly the case in the 90s.
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I have never met a competent developer who had trouble finding work. I HAVE met incompetent out-of-touch, burnt-out, full-of-themselves developers who can't find work. It's this second kind that think they're good but are not and who should be in another field.
By "burnt-out", of course, you mean "old". Try getting a job when you're over 50. It almost doesn't matter how good you are, the resumes get dumped automatically if you say your college degree is from the 70's.
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I have never met a competent developer who had trouble finding work.
I HAVE met incompetent out-of-touch, burnt-out, full-of-themselves developers who can't find work. It's this second kind that think they're good but are not and who should be in another field.
So you're like 18, or something?
From mid-2001 to the same time in 2003 I spent more time not working than working. Headhunters all ran and hid. Before that, I had been part of the OS support team on one of the larger mainframes in town, solely responsible for several mission-critical products, then a developer for software for various different platforms. I was an early adopter of both C++ and Java, worked with J2EE before JSPs had been invented. I actually developed and brought one of the very first C++ co
Some one forgot to tell (Score:1)
Executives and project managers. Somehow they still think their ability to think of 'innovations ' is the only bottleneck.
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The fun fact is that the opposite is true. It's not like there's any shortage on pipe dreams.
Power? For who? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Power? For who? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Power? For who? (Score:4, Informative)
Yup. I noticed that devs tend to be truthful. Really insane bunch of geeks.
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Truthfulness is so God damn awkward and unprofitable..
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Not to mention that odd notion that information is best shared with others to multiply it. Who wants information to become more? Scarcity is the rule of the market!
Don Dodge? WTF???? (Score:1)
Microsoft is dead (Score:2)
When Paul Graham published the article in 2007, Microsoft has around 46 billion $ in revenue. Now Microsoft has around 78 billion $ in revenue. Looks like Paul Graham was the moron - the article has crossed 6 years to get vindicated.
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If it's the article I think you're talking about it was spot on, but you've misunderstood it.
He never claimed microsoft was dead as in about to go out of business. He claimed that the big bad microsoft, a threat to the entire industry was dead. He was right. Perhaps you don't remember the world from back in the 90s ad the wake of destruction microsoft left in its path. The big fear of almost any software company was that microsoft woule enter the area and destroy them.
I doubt github has ever had such a fear
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He also wrote in that article that Microsoft is dead in the desktop market. He said only grandmas use Windows on the desktop or laptops - everyone else uses Macs or Linux.
6 years after the article I think Windows still has 80% OS share in the Desktop laptop market.
I think we're misunderstanding (Score:2)
that article was clearly written as a project during a self help seminar to build self esteem.
Ready for an H-1B increase? (Score:5, Insightful)
programmers — both independent ones and those employed by companies — have more power, and thus opportunities, than ever
Sounds like part of a campaign for an H-1B quota increase.
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Yep (Score:5, Funny)
In the long run (read : I mean the next 30 years), every job in existence has a programmer involved.
Manual Labor? In the long run, it'll be robots that do nearly all of it, and software is the only real obstacle that stops us from automating more tasks.
Manufacturing? Software problem. Healthcare? Most of a doctor's thinking could be automated with existing software techniques. (sure, not the physical procedures part, but that's only a portion)
Of course, in the LONG, LONG run, someone will advance the art of software to the point that we have software that can write itself, and then we're all out of work...
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Re:Yep (Score:4, Insightful)
Luckily in 20 years it will still be 30 years away, which will give us a little time.
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Behind the throne (Score:1)
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By the way, no, you silly devs, you can't have root access to production.
*smug grin* You needn't give me what I already have had for a long, long time...
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you can't have root access to production.
Who the fuck wants root access to production? Lotsa liability, little profit...
We'll screw it up (Score:2, Insightful)
We (software engineers and developers) are the dumbest group of skilled professionals in the history of skilled trades. No other field, no other economic opportunity has been so badly squandered as the field of software development -- ever.
Compare software engineers to doctors or lawyers. Both doctor's and lawyers have to pass exams. They are certified by boards of other professionals. If a doctor or lawyer screws up badly enough they lose their right to be a doctor or lawyer. Not software engineers. When a
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Both doctor's and lawyers have to pass exams. They are certified by boards of other professionals.
Do you mean the way that doctors form professional associations to limit the number of doctors allowed to practice? That is just to ensure that qualified immigrants and too many newly minted doctors don't lower their wages. That's what doctors do.
Why spend thousands of dollars to get a degree to compete on Craigslist for $6 and hour?
I sure hope that after getting a degree you are well above "competing on Craigslist for $6".
It kinda seems like you want to be in a union.
Re:We'll screw it up (Score:4, Insightful)
No wonder people don't respect our field -- we don't respect it ourselves. ...
We've taken the secrets and tools of our trade, open sourced them
I definitely don't respect programmers who think they need to keep their source hidden in order to stay competitive.
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No wonder people don't respect our field -- we don't respect it ourselves. ...
We've taken the secrets and tools of our trade, open sourced them
I definitely don't respect programmers who think they need to keep their source hidden in order to stay competitive.
I think more accurately, we don't respect our work.
There's too much of the "Git 'er Dun!" philosophy these days. System crash? Who cares? Have You Tried Powering it Off and Back On Again?
We're too obsessed with being "efficient" and being "productive" and not enough with the quality of what we produce. So we produce crap, people see that it's crap, don't respect our skills, and say "Any 10-year old kid can do software!" Because so much of what we as "professionals" produce looks like it came from 10-year ol
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That's definitely true, and the sad part is writing relatively reliable and software doesn't really take any longer than writing crap software, if you know how to do it.
Perhaps not, if you include all the time spent going back and fixing stuff that broke in front of the while world (production).
Unfortunately, management typically thinks that "time to write" is only the time spent getting a pretty picture up on the screen.
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Re:We'll screw it up (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the problem: Most all of what makes a good lawyer or doctor isn't at all about finding creative, novel ways to solve problems. Much the opposite in fact; Creative application of law or medicine is most likely to get you disbarred or thrown in jail. It's much easier to create a quantifiable exam when the subject matter is so well defined and creativity is shunned.
In software however, it's completely the opposite. Creative, novel application of existing technology and/or the invention of entirely new technology, is a good software developer's bread and butter. It's a big part of the essence of what makes them a good developer rather then a coding drone.
So how do you create an exam to quantify a good developer? By the very nature of what you're looking for the only "right" answers are "wrong" ones. But which wrong answer is right? That's completely subjective in an exam setting, however in the real world it's much easier to quantify: Your shit works and works well or it doesn't.
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That's funny. I think most developers are held in high regard because they have NOT built a mote around the profession like doctors and lawyers.
I've seen too much doctoring done by nurses, too much law done by paralegals to have much respect for either profession. Then of course there's the whole, "Why don't you take this drug, you know the one with the same logo as the pen you used to sign the form?". This definitely happened to me. The drug? Celebrex, which wasn't even indicated for my condition. I
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Let's not pretend that programming is anything like engineering or any other type of professional work. Anyone can become a programmer in their spare time -- and build a career for themselves afterward. (It's not exactly difficult. Children can easily teach themselves computer programming. I'd bet that a sizable percentage of Slashdot users were hacking away on the family micro before the age of 10!)
The same can't be said for physicians, lawyers, electricians, plumbers, truck drivers, or hair-dressers.
Developers, developers, developers, developers! (Score:2)
Sorry, it has to be done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8To-6VIJZRE [youtube.com]
Reality (Score:5, Interesting)
Its hard to explain to folks who see my resume and employment status why I refuse to accept money to train train local young people.
First of all people aren't used to people with ethics. So they don't understand why I wouldn't want to take money from kids by leading them into pauperism.
Secondly they've been led to believe that domestic programmers with equal skills have an equal shot at the high income positions that are going to foreign aggressors. Its one of those things that's just too depressing to admit to one's self about the horror of the government's oppression of the citizens. This is especially true in rural areas where almost every family has a young man who has served in the military and either killed, or been indoctrinated that is is ok to kill for the government (if they, themselves haven't been permanently disabled if not killed).
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Mod parent up (Score:2)
Amen. Three years ago, I moved 650+ miles to take a new job. Sequestration caused my team's contract to get cancelled. Tomorrow I move 200+ miles to take a new job.
Even with 20 years experience...I'm a freaking migrant worker.
Moms, don't let your kids grow up to be computer programmers.
Re:Mod parent up (Score:5, Insightful)
Opposite anecdote: I live in a major city on the West coast of the U.S., and I've never had a period of the last 7 years where I couldn't get a six figure offer when I wanted a new job. And I didn't even have to move.
The lesson from your travels isn't that being a computer programmer is a bad gig. It's that you shouldn't move to a place where there is only one job. Move to a major metropolitan area, and you can earn a lot of money with virtually zero unemployment in the field.
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Silicon valley was the place to form a family (with a female from the upper bay area -- not from the male-saturated engineering ghetto of the lower bay area) for young engineers for precisely the reason you describe.
Nowadays, however, there are other -- major -- factors to consider. Your anecdote is more akin to a slot machine
Is this true? (Score:2)
I can't imagine this being true.
all the power? (Score:5, Funny)
Fresh from Rome (Score:1)
"Pope Francis, former Pope Benedict and others recently got together in The Vatican on a panel called 'Jesus is King: The Power Behind God.' According to coverage of the event, the panelists all agreed that Catholics — both regular people and priests — have more power, and thus opportunities, than ever. Even the marketing power of the papacy was acknowledged: 'The only way to convince a Catholic is by giving them a wafer and showing them how it's the body of Christ,' said Preston-Werner. 'The beauty is, you plant these seeds around the world, and those people will evangelize it for you. Because another thing that Catholics are great at is telling other people what works for them.'"
That was really easy. I didn't even have to change "evangelize."
/. works for me (Score:1)
What an empty fluff piece (Score:5, Informative)
Not one example of developers succeeding or what they might have done to stand out in a sea of offshore contractors, but a bunch of self-congratulatory pap about how successful their own businesses are. And not ONE developer in the panel -- all pompous management taking the credit for themselves.
Yup. Developers are KING (Score:2, Insightful)
...right after
1) Shareholders (reason why we're in business)
2) Customers (who pays the bills?)
3) Salespeople (who brings in the customers?)
4) Top management (whose vision makes the difference between a big success and an also-ran?)
5) Marketing (who identifies and attracts the customers?)
6) Finance and accounting (who brings in investments and manages the cash so we can stay in business?)
7) Lobbyists (who ensures that the government doesn't pass taxes and other legislation that would interfere with our busin
Don Dodge (Score:2)
Is he the guy in Mad Men?
this'll boost self-confidence... (Score:2)
...which is great, because the one thing that all developers lack is ego. everything else, they're absolutely brilliant at.