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Software Developers Are Now More Valuable To Companies Than Money, Says Survey (cnbc.com) 168

Posted by BeauHD from the new-breed-of-corporate-leaders dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: As our global economy increasingly comes to run on technology-enabled rails and every company becomes a tech company, demand for high-quality software engineers is at an all-time high. A recent study from Stripe and Harris Poll found that 61 percent of C-suite executives believe access to developer talent is a threat to the success of their business. Perhaps more surprisingly -- as we mark a decade after the financial crisis -- this threat was even ranked above capital constraints. And yet, despite being many corporations' most precious resource, developer talents are all too often squandered. Collectively, companies today lose upward of $300 billion a year paying down "technical debt," as developers pour time into maintaining legacy systems or dealing with the ramifications of bad software. This is especially worrisome, given the outsized impact developers have on companies' chances of success. Software developers don't have a monopoly on good ideas, but their skill set makes them a uniquely deep source of innovation, productivity and new economic connections. When deployed correctly, developers can be economic multipliers -- coefficients that dramatically ratchet up the output of the teams and companies of which they're a part.
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Software Developers Are Now More Valuable To Companies Than Money, Says Survey More

Software Developers Are Now More Valuable To Companies Than Money, Says Survey

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  • So why not treat them well? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Thursday September 06, 2018 @05:03PM (#57266246)

    Naa, that would be un-capitalist. Developers must be cheap wage-slaves that do not have a real career-path and are unable to find a job once they hit 50. That will surely not have any impact on whether smart people go into software writing or not, right?

    • This is really true. As the fact that the IT leads the world.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I don't understand this. I am 44, have been doing software development since college. I am already a millionaire (if you include my 401k savings), and am on track to be a multi-millionaire when I retire. I have never worked an 80 hour week, and only had a few 60 hours and one 70 hour week in my entire career.

      It helps that I never married or had kids, and invested wisely. But even so, I hear these horror stories about how software developers are treated and I just have not seen it.

      The city I live in is a

      • Re:So why not treat them well? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Thursday September 06, 2018 @05:43PM (#57266430)

        But even so, I hear these horror stories about how software developers are treated and I just have not seen it.

        Me neither. I have worked for companies that had catered meals, free soda, laundry service, sky diving bonding trips, etc. I have had plenty of opportunities to travel. I have worked some late nights, and done a few death marches, but those only lasted a few weeks, out of a career lasting decades.

        Software developers are likely the most spoiled employees in the history of the world.

        People will alway whine.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          People will alway whine.

          And there you are wrong. I have a pretty good career myself. But I see how many coders are treated and I am not surprised at all that there are by far not enough good ones.

          • As much as I'm for better treatment and perks for coders, the issue of "not enough good ones" isn't because of that. There's only so many smart people, dumb people and mediocre people don't make good coders. Some of the above-average ones might make the cut as maintenance coders or some incredibly soul-crushing AGILE environment where they don't actually have to think, but for the most part any programming position of note requires a 150+ IQ to do even moderately well.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by gweihir ( 88907 )

              The issue is very much that a lot of the few people that could be good at it, see the working conditions and career options and go somewhere else. Also, 150+IQ people basically do not exist. I gather this is some wired non-standard US scale...

              • Re:So why not treat them well? (Score:4, Informative)

                by _Sharp'r_ ( 649297 ) <sharper AT booksunderreview DOT com> on Thursday September 06, 2018 @09:48PM (#57267298) Homepage Journal

                Having a measured IQ >150, I can tell you with my excellent two-minute Googling skills there are approximately 300K in the U.S. if you're using the Stanford-Binet scale. For the Wechsler scale, it's more like 140K, which is still a lot of people. Heck, the Prometheus Society's cut-off for membership is 160+. I guess to you, they basically don't exist...

                • Re: (Score:1)

                  by Anonymous Coward

                  Did I miss something? Why does software developing require 150+ IQ?

                  Most development work can be done by competent craftspeople that are well trained, and somewhat smarter than average.

                  Having gone to a major technical institution, that contained many very high IQ individuals, I can attest that the most effective programmers are not always the smartest.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by gweihir ( 88907 )

                  As I said, "wired non-standard US scale". It is basically designed to sell IQ tests and you fell fro the scam. The standard scale goes from 50 to 150 and loses accuracy drastically at something like 135.

                  • From wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:

                    The most commonly used individual IQ test series is the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale for adults and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children for school-age test-takers. Other commonly used individual IQ tests (some of which do not label their standard scores as "IQ" scores) include the current versions of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales, Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities, the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, the Cognitive Assessment System, and the Differen

              • ... see the working conditions and career options and go somewhere else.

                Where do they go?

                Doctors, lawyers and investment bankers work longer hours than programmers. Nearly everyone else makes less money.

                Maybe they become underwater welders?

              • Re: (Score:3)

                by dcw3 ( 649211 )

                There is more than one IQ scale...you can wiki it. Oh, and they do exist.

              • Also, 150+IQ people basically do not exist. I gather this is some wired non-standard US scale...

                All the smart people moving to and living in the US doesn't make it a non-standard scale.

            • If theyâ(TM)re mentored well, maybe. However, I have worked with several managers who had a crippling fear of high IQ people, and would let them rot. Iâ(TM)m going to go out on a limb and guess 115 is probably enough, with 110 being enough for Ops. An engineering mindset and attitude are probably more important. Empathy helps other be more productive as well.
              • I seriously doubt there's anyone under 120 doing more than Wordpress, ops tends to be best around 125, business 135, middle management can likely do fine at 110.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by jebrick ( 164096 )

            People will alway whine.

            And there you are wrong. I have a pretty good career myself. But I see how many coders are treated and I am not surprised at all that there are by far not enough good ones.

            I think it depends on the company. I've worked for an established startup that still expected 70+ hours per week of it's coders. The company had all the things you expect for the startup. Free snacks. Break room with gaming consoles, ect. They were most happy with unmarried coders right out of college. If you were married you had better not have kids. If you are married and have kids your wife had better not work. Basically, anything that would take away their coding time is not a good employee. They

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          The *only* reason companies are presently treating developers well is because there are not nearly enough good ones to fill the need.

          Look, by contrast, at how badly developers are treated specifically at video-game making companies. Everything that people complain about is true there. Ridiculous hours, low pay, shitty office space, etc. The companies get away with that because most young developers want to do that, so the supply is high enough for them to get away with it.

          And that is exactly what happens

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dcw3 ( 649211 )

          I have worked for companies that had catered meals, free soda, laundry service, sky diving bonding trips, etc

          Me too, during the internet bubble, but not in the last ~15 years...have you? I get free coffee and oxygen though.

    • Re: So why not treat them well? (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Dude, I will hit 60 next week, and have never had trouble finding an IT job. The market will dictate that valuable people get paid. I know a lot of guys that retire to part time programming, and make more than they did under salary. Just a matter of the will to keep your skills sharp.

    • Re:So why not treat them well? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by spagthorpe ( 111133 ) on Thursday September 06, 2018 @07:53PM (#57266940)

      It won't really have any impact, because young people don't think they'll ever get old. Or it will be different for them.

      Had a 20-something at my last job make a number of comments about some of the older developers there, saying they'd hate to still be working at that age, and that they are probably stuck doing the same work because they can't learn anything new. I don't know why he was telling me this, as I was twice his age at the time, but it's obvious that he doesn't think he'll be in the same position.

      They ultimately did lay off a lot of their senior engineers and replace a lot of the position with 20-somethings, including in project management positions. A number of those projects never saw the light of day after years of re-writes into new frameworks.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      This seems to vary a lot by country. The UK has low wages too, but Ireland pays a decent amount. Lots of EU immigrant workers in Ireland too.

    • And actually, that leads to a way to get even cheaper software developers: Hire ones over 50 to do the legacy technical debt stuff.

  • And yet there's agile (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Thursday September 06, 2018 @05:04PM (#57266250)
    And open concept offices.

    • Re:And yet there's agile (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Seven Spirals ( 4924941 ) on Thursday September 06, 2018 @05:45PM (#57266444)
      I've quit one job and refused two others because of open offices. The two I refused were absolutely flabbergasted by my refusal. They literally could not understand why anyone wouldn't want to be in an open office space surrounded on 3.8 sides by glass-walled manager offices, loud ugly marketing girls, and a bunch of H1B dudes who couldn't be bothered to wear deodorant. That place (MX Logic) had the worst looking office I've ever seen. One of them offered me the job on the spot after the interview and I was already shutting them down and refusing it before they even got started. I told them there is about a zero percent chance of getting anyone really talented to take the gig, because they had this ridiculous noisy slave pit thing going. I nearly left before I even *did* the interview I was so disgusted with the place. The hiring manager was (of course) offended, but he was also clueless. About a year after that interview I had a guy come up to me at the local Maker Space who was one of the "technical resources" for the company during the interview (quiet guy in the back of the room). He told me "My god was I cheering when you refused them over the goddamn open workspace idiocy. My boss was upset over that for weeks. They still talk about it during the hiring process and argue about it."

      • ....One of them offered me the job on the spot after the interview and I was already shutting them down and refusing it before they even got started.....

        It begs the question, why even apply there in the first place.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Klaxton ( 609696 )

          It begs the question, why even apply there in the first place.

          So you could see their office environment tucked away behind the job description on the internet?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          No, it "raises" the question. Begging the question [wikipedia.org] is a logical fallacy in which the conclusion is assumed as a premise.

          I know, I know, so many people have used it wrong that the wrong definition is now right. That, however, will not prevent me from pointing out that someone is wrong on the Internet.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Ocker3 ( 1232550 )
        "But I can See everyone and I know that they're working" - Manager If someone doesn't know enough about their direct report's job that they don't know whether they're working or not without seeing them at their desk, there's a problem. Not all jobs are reduced in efficiency by a cubicle farm, but if your job is primarily about mental focus for the time-intensive tasks, then most people will benefit from having their own room. And the employer will probably benefit enough that an actual room is a worthwhile

        • A cubicle farm with a decent pair of noise canceling headphones is head and shoulders over an open floorplan bullpen that everybody walking by can read your monitor.

      • Sounds like a real horror show. Safe to say you made the right move.

      • Sounds a bit like my previous job... Thou there the noise was mostly a system test rig with an old, not-currently-in-production-use, version of a system we were in the process of re-engineering running a stability test in case a customer wanted our system on site in an expedited manner running in the "engineer room" with me and 3 co-workers. I tried asking my boss, whose idea it was to have the old system running a 24/7 stability test and to have all the engineers in this room, if this was absolutely necess
      • Office layout and the bathrooms are honestly two of the most accurate indicators of how employees are treated that I've seen. If you interview at a place with a bathroom that looks like a place you're likely to be mugged or raped, or if the toilet paper is empty or so thin that you can see through it, run.

    • Re:And yet there's agile (Score:4, Informative)

      by Klaxton ( 609696 ) on Thursday September 06, 2018 @08:22PM (#57267028)
      I've worked in the industry for many years, usually with a private office or shared with one person. Recently got a job in an agile "scrum" shop, which went to an open floorplan a few months later. Miserable experience on both counts. Every day you get a Jira work ticket for some "the user wants to see" granule of a thing that you had no part in designing. Zero privacy. It is amazingly de-motivating.

  • Yeah, right (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 06, 2018 @05:08PM (#57266262)

    If they considered developers more important than money, they'd pay the developers more to keep the skilled ones. Every time a developer leaves a company, a hunk of business knowledge walks out the door with him.

    Companies care about that quarter's finance report, and the C-level execs care only about fleecing the company for all they can stuff into their own pockets. Look at what they do, not what some survey says.

    • they'd pay the developers more to keep the skilled ones. Every time a developer leaves a company, a hunk of business knowledge walks out the door with him.

      I've consistently found that companies do NOT value domain knowledge in developers very much. Many colleagues have agreed with me on this. I'm not sure exactly why, other than perhaps co's would rather have somebody skilled in the latest eye-candy UI's more than an expert on their domain; and somebody who has been in the company for a while may have let t

      • Microsoft has now automated that with PowerBI. Most of those eye candy devs are going to be replaced by their customers soon.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          PowerBI seems more geared toward charts and graphs, and less on the input and CRUD side.

          • It is- for now. Dang tool is evolving rather rapidly though, and it's easy enough to create input and crud for it in the C# sdk. Thing is though, it's extremely cloud based. If you are a large enough corporation, you MIGHT be able to get an onsite server, but even if you do, it will constantly be several months out of date. ONLY if you're willing to buy a bunch of seats for your executives to use the desktop app (which does have CRUD and data entry built in) or rent an Azure server, is it really an opti

  • Yeah haven't heard that one before (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Crashmarik ( 635988 ) on Thursday September 06, 2018 @05:10PM (#57266278)

    Maybe it just sounds too much like 40 years of businesses claiming there was a shortage of engineers in the U.S. when what they meant was there was a shortage of engineers that could be treated really badly.

    Or maybe it's the fact that companies only seem to be willing to hire H1Bs that will do anything not to go back to their shitholes, or young kids who are stupid enough to believe managements promises and have no family or social life to distract from putting in 80+ hour weeks ?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by zlives ( 2009072 )

      you misread, and i quote
      "developer talent is a threat to the success of their business" thus the hiring of no talent, spot filling h1b. and if they accidentally get a talented h1b... replace and repeat.

  • FTFY (Score:5, Funny)

    by thevirtualcat ( 1071504 ) on Thursday September 06, 2018 @05:10PM (#57266284)

    Software Developers Who Are Willing To Work For Uncompetitive Wages And No Benefits Are Now More Valuable To Companies Than Money, Says Survey

  • .ORG (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Thursday September 06, 2018 @05:15PM (#57266302)
    This just tells me that developers need to get organized and start saying no to 80+ work weeks collectively. Otherwise it will be divided they fall, forever.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Ocker3 ( 1232550 )
      How do we re-invent Unions without calling them Unions and avoid the very real baggage that the term has in the USA? Guilds?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        They're called Professional Associations.

        Actual professions like Law, Medicine, Accounting and Engineering have them. Not only are they "unions", but they have a set of standards that members much achieve in order to practise and they enforce a code of ethics that members must abide by.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I suggest instead moving to co-ops and employee-owned companies.

        You can't really have an impasse between management and labor when management *is* labor!

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      80+ hours a week ?!! How do you even write functioning software after 40+ hours in a week ? When your brain is your tool and it is fatigued how can that work ?
      Better work 40 hours a week and write something proper, go home and refill your battery, enjoy life and be fresh the following day. 80+ hours is just 'making hours' not getting actual work done.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      or.. you could learn to work smarter not harder. ;) That's why I get paid the big bucks and make it all look so easy.

    • ...and start saying no to 80+ work weeks collectively.

      That only works when there aren't a hundred H1B's (or other non-USA-equivalent) from shithole countries waiting to take each job. If all non-shithole-country IS/IT worker joined the union and said no to abusive working conditions, there would be only shithole country workers in IS/IT.

      And no, that wouldn't convince companies to start paying high salaries for highly skilled workers. It would merely convince them to hire more shithole-country workers to fill the void.

  • The sun rose today.
  • Microsoft has just announced paid extended support for Windows 7 as too many companies are using it. There’s a lot of server 2003 systems out there too, with companies rather risking security exploits than upgrade.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      So I'm supposed to upgrade the single Windows 2003 system I have, running as a non-networked VM, hosting a proprietary application on a system we need to lookup legacy data that never changes so I can pay to upgrade to a modern system, figure out a way to migrate the data from one proprietary application to a new and different system just so I can have support I don't need on a system that can't realistically be exploited in the first place?

      OR I'm supposed to pay a premium for extended support on the curren

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      That is a different problem. Their new offerings are just really bad. Also, nobody sane used MS crap on server-side.

  • Yet us 50+ folks are unemployed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Snotnose ( 212196 ) on Thursday September 06, 2018 @06:05PM (#57266518)
    Forget how long I've been out of work, it's been 2-3 years now since I quit looking.

    • Re:Yet us 50+ folks are unemployed (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Thursday September 06, 2018 @06:34PM (#57266630)
      I'm 57 and got at least 3 calls TODAY offering to submit me for contract software positions. Granted, a lot of recruiters try to low-ball me on the hourly rate, but they change their tune as soon as you call their bluff and tell them you're not interested at that low rate.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I'm 57 and got at least 3 calls TODAY offering to submit me for contract software positions. Granted, a lot of recruiters try to low-ball me on the hourly rate, but they change their tune as soon as you call their bluff and tell them you're not interested at that low rate.

        I get recruiters wanting to submit me all the time. Then after a week, I follow up and the "the position is closed." I think recruiters are assholes who got fired from see car lots for ethics violations.

        So, when you get a real job with health insurance, you'll be an outlier.

        Of course, that's assumimg you're not full of shit.

        • I agree; I regard recruiters as people that weren't ethical enough to get jobs as used car salesmen. I interviewed for a job once, didn't get any response, so I started another position. A month after the initial interview, the recruiter for the first position offered me $1500 cash in a plain, unmarked envelope to quit the job I'd just started and take the other position instead! (Apparently the cash came out of his commission.) So yes, recruiters know nothing, rely almost entirely on keyword searching in r

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I just turned 53 and I get about 10 a day from names I could never pronounce... "Rajesh Rajamanickkam", "Nitish Sharma", "guru prasad", "Tripti Sharma", "Vivek Mishra"

        All with some random company some random Microsoft technology in some random small city..all wanting contact info that is in my resume. All wanting to know if I am authorized to work in the USA so I can go work with a bunch of clueless foreign code monkeys that purchased a masters degree... No thanks.

        IDC Technologies is currently looking to fi

  • Employees are our most valuable asset? I'm pretty sure it's actually still money.

  • It's like saying "gold is worth more than money!" - totally meaningless.

    One (gold, developers) is a commodity that IS exchanged, the other (money) is the medium OF exchange.

    Saying that "commodity X" is worth more than "exchange medium Y" makes no sense because a commodity CANNOT be worth "more" or "less" than the medium of exchange used - it can only ever be worth a specified amount of Y.

  • Talk about not understanding an article / Poll (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Harlequin80 ( 1671040 ) on Thursday September 06, 2018 @06:56PM (#57266718)

    No where does it say that companies think developers are more important than money.

    The results state that the companies perceive the risk of not being able to find skills as higher than the risks of not being able to access capital.

    This is especially true if you're a cash rich organisation.

    In the current financial climate finding returns on your investments is hard. Interest rates are at historically low levels, bond returns are zero, and so that leaves higher risk investments to get returns. That effectively translates into money moving into the stock market and VC type investments which pushes money further and further up the risk tree making funding generally easy to find.

  • What management school fails to teach young inexperienced executives: If the company's future existence depends on whether or not an employee does the job correctly or not, they are "worth more than money".

  • Incurring technical debt is a business decision.
    And it may well be the right decision.
    For example, in a startup, time to market typically trumps software quality.
    And there are a lot of startups in the software field...

  • Not at my company, and certainly not at any other publicly-traded company.
    Maybe at some privately-held company until it gets bought out.

  • Employees are our Most Valuable Asset (Score:3)

    by R3d M3rcury ( 871886 ) on Thursday September 06, 2018 @08:16PM (#57267004) Journal

    Right behind carbon paper. [dilbert.com]

  • Post-scarcity society. Post-scarcity economy. The worth of money degenerates and disappears - ECB negative interest is almost a standard now and Jeff Bezos wears the same jeans I do and has the same phone. The worth of knowledge however suddenly rises because in a functioning post scarcity society is the only thing left that counts. Hence people are starting to notice the nerd camp who value knowledge above popularity actually on to something.

    Seems very fitting to me. I'm just wasn't expecting that to happe

  • What does the headline even mean? A business quantifies things by ROI... developers should be no different than any other asset. Maybe they just need to work out what the 'R' means.

  • And yet (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    You fire us and replace us with H-1B drones or outsource to 'dev centers' in third world countries.

    As we age, you push us off onto the shit projects which keeps us from getting experience in new technologies, thus making us unhireable after you lay us off.

    You refuse to train us but expect but demand that anyone you hire has years of experience in your particular tech mix.

    etc., etc., etc.

    Maybe the problem isn't that there's a lack of available tech talent, maybe the problem is that there is a lack of managem

  • money can be borrowed - mgt thinks so can s/w talent...

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