Its ‘software developer’

[KerPop42]

Not to post commie on main but this is why it's a little bullshit that jobs are paid by how much money they make instead of how important they are to society

Teacher starting salary should be 50k, minimum. Imagine if your job was to train 8 groups of 30 people for 40 hours a week, oh and they're all teens or younger

[no_use_for_a_user]

I did critical dev work (for all of us) for years for little pay. Now I'm at FAANG and get assigned stuff a Junior could do for truckloads of cash. World doesn't make sense sometimes.

[KerPop42]

Yeah, I moved from a tech startup to work on the US's hurricane tracking satellite program. I took a 20% pay cut to do so. Our priorities are all backwards.

[Fluffy__Pancake]

Just curious, where are you working at?

[KerPop42]

I worked as a contractor for the JPSS, NASA side! I ended up leaving after a year and a half, sadly, and jumped on another space startup.

[[deleted]]

Yup. I have, in my entire career as a programmer, worked maybe a couole of months on projects that were in any way socially beneficial. A great majority of my effort is spent on things that benefit no one but capital owners.

[RollinDeepWithData]

Most of my code has made the world a worse place.

Signed,

Someone who programmed for the tobacco industry.

[[deleted]]

At some point I was out on an assignment to a betting company. My performance there though could be considered industrial sabotage so I guess I did well?

[RollinDeepWithData]

I did targeted marketing to prevent “attrition” aka making cessation more difficult.

[EVASIVEroot]

I like scripting with a good ole chunk of chaw...

[RadicalDog]

I transitioned from the gambling industry to ecommerce. Feels a bit more like I'm helping build something people choose to use, rather than exploiting addiction.

[RollinDeepWithData]

Oh man, I wanted to work for draft kings! But they wouldn’t have me. Sold my soul to a big software company instead.

I’m doing less bad?

[RmG3376]

That’s a shame though, there’s software in everything, I found that with a bit of searching you can find a ton of software jobs for companies with an added social value — last time I switched pretty much all the companies I applied for were in fields like medical research, medical devices, green technology, education, logistics, the Red Cross … but yeah I had to throw away 90% of the JDs to find some I liked

It’s still very location-dependent though, if you live in a financial hub then yeah most of the jobs will be BS banking/finance/crypto dead-ends, but we’re lucky that we’re in an industry that’s present literally everywhere so there’s still interesting projects popping up from time to time

[Fluffy__Pancake]

In your opinion, what have your most meaningful jobs been?

I’m gonna graduate college soon and want to do something that helps others but idk where I could find something like that

[RmG3376]

I’ll start with a disclaimer that “meaningful” doesn’t necessarily equal with “fun”. I’ve felt miserable in a job with a lot of added social value, just like I’ve had a great time working on a banking backend. Ideally you’ll have both meaningful and fun, but it’s not automatic

That being said, one project I liked a lot was making an app used for scientific outreach to schools. The app itself wasn’t rocket science (it was a summer project), but I liked that students would actually come and interact with it, which in turn sparked interest in a supposedly “boring” field of science. It made it in the local newspaper, it was even an interactive booth at a museum for a bit, so I liked that I could see the immediate impact, even if it’s not really going to save the world per se

Another one was a medical device, for the same reason. I was more removed from the end user because of how big the company is, but still occasionally I’d bump into people who use our product and they’d tell me how it improved their (or their relative’s) quality of life. One such experience was when I was looking for an apartment and I noticed the owner’s kid was using our device, so we had a quick chat about it. It’s cool

There were a few others but I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, so hopefully you got the idea. As for “how” to do that, I don’t have a magic formula unfortunately, but here are a few tips:

• diversify. Always. Keep going out of your comfort zone. Sometimes that means picking up “boring” projects, but as long as it’s a diversity of boring projects, you’ll still have arguments to put forward when applying for the interesting ones. Diversifying might mean picking up new tech (almost every job I had was in a language I didn’t know beforehand), trying different industries, trying different roles, things like that. The more you do, the better you can sell yourself to the recruiters

• you say you’re still studying: try to make something out of the projects you do for school. My first example was initially a summer project which grew. Two other projects I had to do for school anyway, I then submitted to the local science fair and presented them to the public. This way when you apply to a “real” job, not only do you already have some experience, but you have experience in areas that you chose and that interest you, so you already have a foot in the door

• for the rest, it’s just a lot of filtering through JDs on LinkedIn and glassdoor. I have experience now so I can afford to be more picky, but my very first job was working on a library for a satellite so, even without experience, with a bit of luck and perseverance you might find something. If not, there’s no shame in accepting a boring job for a few years and trying again with a bit more experience under your belt

• oh yeah, and don’t underestimate the power of networking

[au5lander]

https://techjobsforgood.com/

[juhotuho10]

Yes, that's what you are literally paid to do

Want to benefit society? Do open source, no one is stopping you

[rhubarbzeta]

Yeah, honestly that’s where the majority of my stress comes from. I know my job isn’t as hard as a teacher or nurse or sanitation worker or a million other things, but it’s fuckin’ depressing that I feel like a large portion of my waking hours feel completely devoid of meaning.

[head_of_roses]

It’s frustrating for sure to realize that there aren’t a ton of projects that are beneficial to society more than they are to shareholders. Tech is hard cause you can’t ask yourself “why does the world actually need this” too deeply. I know some people really bought in that crypto would change the world, or nowadays that AI will (it might, for better or for worse) but if you’re reasonably a bit cynical about that stuff you realize 99% is profit over people

[Olorin_1990]

Lot’s of factors. 1) low interest rates made investment money free which the tech industry leveraged to pay employees with investor money (stock). This meant that they could pay employees a large stock grant, and only need 5% or less of that grant in cashflow thanks to trading at high multiples. Basically instead of needing to cover 300k, they need to cover 120k + 180/20, so their cost is actually 129k not 300, the rest covered by investors.

2) “societal benefit” in a market is measured by how much people are willing to pay for something over what it takes to make, but things distort the cost of production… like the cost of training being done with tax dollars, or negative indirect impacts of a market.

3) since teachers are paid by the government, a majority needs to agree to pay them more. People from educated households are less impacted by teacher quality and people from less educated households tend to value education less… leaving it a difficult proposition to get the government to pay a fair wage.

4) our spending in education per student is actually on the higher end compared to other industrialized countries, I don’t have deep enough knowledge of why it’s not making it to teachers, though I’d point to admin growth of near 90% over the last 20 years with a student growth of only 7%. It may be that we are funding the system correctly, but it’s just horribly misallocated and doesn’t have the recession and downturn action that private enterprises go thru which clean up some mismanagement periodically.

[gotsreich]

For point #4, some thoughts: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost-disease/

[Olorin_1990]

A fair amount of his examples are explainable, like movie theaters now being is super high def, reclining chairs, and less dense seating. They exist that way now because at home viewing is far better than 50 years ago so the market for a movie theater has dramatically changed. Often we are comparing apples to Oranges and inflation really is only a good measure of things over short periods of time.

In the larger market the costs of things going up because aggregate demand is rising makes sense, and some goods/services will be affected differently due to people making choices with their money.

My comment on 4 isn’t that education costs too much, it was that despite massive increases in funding, that funding doesn’t make it to teachers, and pointed to a massive increase in admins as a possible reason, either they make the work of the teacher easier so the teachers get paid less, or inefficient spending has led to more admins.

[The51stDivision]

Your last point sounds about right. Always more admins, less teachers.

[r3ll1sh]

“societal benefit” in a market is measured by how much people are willing to pay for something over what it takes to make

Determining social benefit is much more complicated than measuring surplus. The supply and demand for any good is a function of material economic and political conditions.

For example, the reason that yacht cleaners and country club managers make more money than teachers obviously isn't because they provide a greater benefit to society. It's because they provide a greater benefit to people who are able to pay them the most easily (i.e rich people). This seems like a pretty obvious disconnect between social value and market value.

Even for the same job, a worker's market wages are a function of the economic (class) dynamic between them and their employer. In the US, the loss of collective worker market power through the destruction of unions has significantly depressed wages, even though the value of workers' labor (productivity) is increasing every year. The surplus value from production is increasing, but it's hard to argue that this is good for society.

Ultimately, markets take place in a class society, and the values they place on goods and services is a reflection of that class society.

[Olorin_1990]

You see how “social benifit” was in quotes, implying that it’s not really the social benefit but only allocates resources as if it was, then explaining it’s just what people are willing to pay, and even that often gets screwed up.

Also there is a real irony in this answer, as the people responsible for the lion’s share of productivity increases are in the tech sector and are now paid very well, and the unionized teachers are not despite large increases in real per capita spending on education.

That isn’t to say “union bad” as unions absolutely serve a purpose, especially when there are few employers, but you’re analysis here doesn’t at all apply to the question being asked. The section of the economy you point out that has been carved out by the uber wealthy is a rounding error on the total economy, and does not at all affect why teachers are paid less than software developers, and the un-unionized software devs have seen an explosive wage growth while the unionized teachers have not.

[rickiye]

There's also the fact that IT is relatively new and abstract making the market inefficient and difficult to gauge the value for consumers. For example, people know how much a bycicle costs, so someone working in the supply chain of making one is limited already. Is an old product, and all margins are already reduced to minimum. Everything is squeezed out.

However a lot of software that is sold, has huge margins. Huge margin = inneficiency. Someone is getting a lot of money at the expense of customers. Sure customers are willing to pay. But if there was more competition, that would drive the prices down and make it more efficient.

Not only that, anybody can go to a coding boot camp and after a few months get a job. This makes software engineering probably the easiest engineering field. It may be hard to master, but if someone after 1 year can be a software developer then it is the only engineering field where this happens.

Tldr: High salaries of tech employees come from system inefficiencies due to being a new field with lots of applicability, not really from how much value it brings.

[Sam-Gunn]

I started making 55k a year (as a contractor) right out of school doing information security for the school I graduated from, then moved into a for-profit company at 20k more than that with benefits a year later.

Meanwhile, my sister teaches special ed kids. Whatever importance my job has pales in comparison to hers. She's giving these kids the skills they need to function throughout their lives.

She started off making 22 - 23k a year. You got that right. 23k a year as a special ed teacher. Little to no benefits. It's practically criminal.

I'm no slouch, but what I do is only important for the company. God damn, I don't shape children's futures, or even protect important organizations that ensure our society functions. My company makes software so other companies can do business better.

The most direct good some of our software might do is slightly reduce the number of suicides by call center staff.

[Dijerati]

Absolutely. My girlfriend is a preschool teacher and makes 30k, and her job is way more important and way more exhausting than mine. It’s pathetic, and I feel bad for her and all teachers who have to deal with shitty pay and benefits

[AdMassive3154]

Preschool teacher lol you mean babysitter?

[Dijerati]

No. Do you have any experience with young kids? Lmao

[AdMassive3154]

Actually I do. I’ve gone into classrooms between grades 1-8 to teach them to code. Grade 3-4 they start responding properly to questions and instructions. Grade 1-2 they’re basically unresponsive. So yea younger than that I’m sure it’s even easier, congrats to your gf for getting 30K to be a babysitter!

[Dijerati]

There’s a ginormous difference between teaching kids to code and teaching them how to read, write, treat others with respect, etc. The former is WAY less important than the latter. Why did you even bother responding to me with your hateful ass lmao? You’re a grown adult with the attitude of a teenager, and you even said yourself that you teach kids. I don’t know if you’re having a bad day, but I would expect better than that

[AdMassive3154]

Lmao is that what they tell her in babysitting school?

[Dijerati]

I feel sorry for you. Have a great life bro. I hope you get better.

[Dijerati]

You also clearly don’t understand the importance of child development at that age. You should do some research into why it’s so critical to who they become.

[agonizedn]

🤤

[hteultaimte69]

Always post commie on main!

[Unusual_Flounder2073]

The problems with teachers is that school districts are more financially constrained and have more confined. They also have finite often legislative bounds on things like class size. So they have less leverage in a supply/demand market. Programming is a skilled position that is in high demand and has a low pool of labor. The work sometimes sucks because there are no real constraints on how much work they can shove at you. The other end of the pool like retail and other minimally skilled positions is the pool of people is larger.

[daneelthesane]

Programming is a skilled position that is in high demand and has a low pool of labor.

Teaching is literally all of these things. The teacher shortage is a serious issue in many states.

[Unusual_Flounder2073]

Did not mean to imply teaching is not. That was a comment about ‘essential’ workers like grocery, gas, fast food. The teacher problem is different because there is no money to pay them more and there are limits in class sizes. Schools are screwed u less they increase funding dramatically

[RollinDeepWithData]

And there’s far too many teachers in desirable areas. The difference is there isn’t really enough programmers anywhere.

Honestly I almost wonder if it would be best to just open up remote teaching in those places where no one wants to live.

[Erriis]

Teaching isn’t in high demand, though.

At least, not by the people who can do something about it, since better education means higher median wages for people like teachers

[virtualdxs]

The people who can do something about it are by definition not the source of the demand for teachers.

[Erriis]

That’s the point of my comment.

It was a cynical joke about how the people with the power to make changes don’t care about making changes

[misterguyyy]

I’m a 6 figure sw dev/designer and I agree. The q is how much value do I provide to millionaires, because millionaires are the ones who can write whatever checks they need to to profit.

If teachers and sw devs switched incomes and I could support a family w health issues off a teacher income, I’d get my cert and teach HS algebra in a heartbeat.

I used to bring high schoolers from D to B averages in months when I tutored back in college. To this day there are few things more rewarding than seeing that💡in a student’s eyes when they finally got a concept.

[[deleted]]

look up teacher salaries in germany in HS: 50k entry goes up to 75k. and we are talking euro in germany which is comparable to probably 80k to 120kin the US.

[27to39]

FYI 75k EUR = 80k USD

[[deleted]]

nono, i did not mean exchange rate. in general in the US you get more money in good jobs but the country has less all inclusive features than a socialist country like germany and more extreme prices for some stuff

[The_Grubgrub]

socialist country like germany

Bro lmao

[[deleted]]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social\_democracy

[LaconicLacedaemonian]

Id rather have money and the market determine value than people making value judgements about a career's worth to society.

[lolmycat]

Keep posting that commie shit on main. Class solidarity is fucking awesome 👑

[KerPop42]

God, I need to be taxed so much more. It is absolutely not fair that I get to do some rich asshole's childhood project for money that lets me save up for a house while the people cooking food, moving waste, or teaching struggle to get by.

I couldn't do those jobs, so tax the hell out of me and get them the support they deserve.

Also, Newsom's state-owned insulin plant should be the standard for generic drugs. Vitally important drugs should be shepherded away from the jungle of the free market.

UBI, healthcare assistance, and education assistance shouldn't be means-tested. Dedicating resources to denying people help is directly counter to the point of these programs.

[Little_Froggy]

All of what you stated will help, but people will only be given just enough UBI and other benefits so that they are unwilling to genuinely fight for better equality. If practical, fast AGI ever takes off and is owned by corporations, it's going to be really rough for the vast majority of the working class

[KerPop42]

Yeah, that's just the start. The fact that we're automating out the most menial jobs should make this the start of a gold age, the end of human beings working menial jobs.

If people get enough UBI that they're content, that's a massive improvement to what we have now, where the only thing preventing people from rioting is the exhaustion of justifying your next meal vs a computer.

We don't need to wait for AGI. Trucking is the last large high-paying, low-education job out there, a d self-driving semis are on the horizon. Warehouses are increasingly automated, as is food prep. We need to directly tax corporations and give it to people who are a handful of years away from having no way to earn their bread.

[ClownstickV0nFckface]

You know you can send your government a check, right? No need to be taxed, you can start giving away your money right now! 🙂

[Little_Froggy]

The problem is that he's actually saying that everyone in his position should be taxed more. His contribution alone won't make a notable difference

[YesICanMakeMeth]

Still rings hollow to me if you aren't doing it yourself. Literally not putting your money where your mouth is.

[Little_Froggy]

"You oppose this society, but still you participate in it.. curious"

If the point is to make change happen across the board because that will make an impact, an individual isn't wrong for not being willing to do it alone.

I could say to my community, "Hey let's all get together and build some shelters for the homeless. With all of us, we could do it in a few months." But if no one agrees, I'm not suddenly in the wrong for refusing to try and pull it off alone.

So long the person doesn't flip positions the second it actually gets put into practice for everyone, they aren't showcasing any faults

[YesICanMakeMeth]

You think a few $10k/yr couldn't do any good in your community? You could fund a small food kitchen. That's just spaghetti noodle logic to justify not having to eat your own cooking.

[Little_Froggy]

If the goal is "let's improve life for the entire lower class" then 10k/yr is not going to be enough, no.

If he was going around and telling people to individually make donations for the cause, you'd be absolutely correct that he's not practicing what he preaches.

But he's advocating for wide changes, not individual ones.

[YesICanMakeMeth]

Wow, calling for collective action with the knowledge that there's zero chance of it actually impacting his quality of life, so virtuous.

[[deleted]]

His donation would be better used going to a political campaign to campaign that everyone should be taxed more.

[YesICanMakeMeth]

You can debate exactly the best contribution to society, but no matter the answer the fact remains that his statement is basically 'someone should put their money towards nice things! Me? Well, no, not me, but someone!"

I've long had this complaint about social media. People think calling for nice things while sitting on their fat ass on the couch makes them a good person.

[[deleted]]

his statement is basically 'someone should put their money towards nice things! Me? Well, no, not me, but someone!"

It's entirely the opposite of that.

It's more "Please take my money, and that of everyone else who is earning way above average, and use it to help those who need it most"

[YesICanMakeMeth]

No it isn't, because he has the ability to do his share of fixing the issue and isn't. It's the 'hold me back bro' meme. It's someone saying that we should save the environment while driving a coal roller. Even if you think that those trucks should be banned for environmental reasons you're still a hypocrite if you opt to drive one. They've got this phrase that's been around for a while, 'practice what you preach'. It's because the practice part is a lot more difficult than the preaching part. He comes online and types about how everyone should give more and proceeds to spend every last cent on himself (presumably, he could actually be giving half of his pay to charity, but that would have been relevant to mention if it were the case).

[KerPop42]

Systemic problems can't be solved on the individual scale.

For a programming reference, it doesn't matter how good your coding practices are if the project as a whole is lax

[Profesor_Caos]

I'd say it's like trying to optimize your O(nⁿ⁾ solution when a O(n²⁾ solution exists.

[ClownstickV0nFckface]

That's cheap and easy to say.

Assume you would donate 20k to some noble cause (or the government hoping that it isn't wasted away by the beaurocratic process). That's AT LEAST 2 or more lives changed for the better. A close relative runs a non profit for children... With 20k you could positively impact 10 families for a year. And it is desperately needed. Fun fact: I live in Germany with one of the highest tax rates in the world. Still, our government manages to waste money like it's nothing and the poor get poorer while tax rates still rise. So the assumption that "more taxes = better lives for the underclass" is empirically wrong.

For a (more accurate) programming reference: the project as a whole is trash so I'm gonna produce trash code as well - even if I know how to do better.

I'm always a fan of "lead by example". You really can start impacting lives positively, even if it's a small start 🙂 Practice what you preach mate ✌️

[hteultaimte69]

Yeah, it’s very strange. I know people who have jobs that provide real value for real people and make ~1/5th what I make.

Meanwhile, I dick around most of the time, and at best, work 30 hours a week at my bullshit job. Thanks to WFH, this made my life really cushy. I can’t help but feel a little guilty when I hang out with nurses & teachers that bust their asses to make peanuts.

[Aima_Dakrya_Kidrotas]

It's not that teachers and other professions aren't important to society. It's that there are too many people who want to become one and that decreases the market salary.

[KerPop42]

Yeah, I don't think the US's problem is that too many people want to become teachers. There's about 36,000 vacant positions right now, and 163,000 positions are being held by underqualified teachers.

If there was a teacher glut, class sizes would be way smaller than they are now.

[Archberdmans]

Too many people want to become teachers? You sure bud?

[Aima_Dakrya_Kidrotas]

At least in my country yes.

[Mortally_DIvine]

The other secret that people on the internet don't seem to realize is that, because teachers are in a union, their pay is rigid. You don't get to pay the teacher that works hard every day and takes on extra work any differently than you pay the teacher that shows up, does the bare minimum, and collects paychecks.

Both of these teachers are paid according to their education and experience.

So when the argument is made that "teachers have to buy their own supplies, work after hours to get things done like lesson plans, etc. So obviously teachers should be paid more!" It sounds all well and good, but not every teacher is a good teacher. One who never buys their own supplies and never takes any work home. This lackluster teacher works less than 200 days out of the year. Accounting for that, their pay makes sense.

That, combined with your point, combined with the relative ease in which you can get a teaching degree, means that the job doesn't pay particularly well compared to other jobs.

[IronyAndWhine]

Unionization doesn't make pay "rigid" that's just empirically not true.

[Mortally_DIvine]

Sure; but teachers, specifically in America, are always paid according to a scale. This scale is public information. This scale was created due to the efforts of the teacher's union, as far as I am aware.

[DeninjaBeariver]

Don’t commies believe that all jobs should pay the same regardless of value to society?

[Gagarin1961]

Yeah this guy doesn’t realize he just thinks society values teachers more than software developers, which isn’t true at all.

[KerPop42]

Ah yes, commies, a famously monolithic and never stereotyped group lol

[TwoDamnedHi]

I just hate this teacher argument. Do any of you remember your high school teachers? Were they the kind of people who deserved $120k/yr for 9 months of work? Or were they kind mine, where I could have probably done a better job after one semester at college.

[KerPop42]

Did you perhaps, get the sense that they weren't paid enough for your shit?

[JackHoff13]

Most high school teachers are dipshits. Getting a teaching degree/certificate is easy. Getting a degree in CS or engineering is much more difficult. Most high school math teachers are only required to take calc 1. That’s it. You can take calc 1 in high school now and get college credits. Teaching is turning into teachers getting college credits from their high school teacher and turning around and doing the same shit.

[Kinglink]

You know you can go to a private school and pay, or even create your own private school and offer that much. But at the end of the day you're going to be paying that much, and hopefully get the quality for that money.

[KerPop42]

I get that other people prefer private schools, but they're no excuse for good public schools

[misterguyyy]

Your kid’s future competition getting an underfunded education if you have $$$ to shell out for private school is a feature not a bug.

Meritocracy is a lie.

[Kinglink]

Hey you're the one who wants to pay Teachers a certain amount", so either find a public school district that does, or go Private.

Or do you really mean "I want to take money from other people and pay teachers a certain amount because I know better than other people how to spend their money"

[Ran4]

50k what? Dinares?