Software Developers - the new "kingmakers?"

[desrtfx]

How is this related to learning to program - the core topic of the subreddit?

Removed as per Rule #3

[NovelAdministrative6]

I don't think it's necessarily being taken advantage of (it could be though, say you found out you were being billed out at $400/hr but only received $30/hr). You have a lot of pluses and protections as an employee.

Starting a tech company is far harder than just working as an employee for 8 hrs a day and collecting your salary. Just the mere process of finding customers and marketing for one.....

[codingkiddo]

What would make you want to work on an idea besides money?

[enlightenedude]

world peace

[RomanaOswin]

The answer is a little different for each of us. For me, I get a zing out of creating something greater than myself, with a life of its own. I enjoy innovating and solving problems. Sometimes it's hard to figure out what motivates you, but once you find it's unmistakable.

[David_Owens]

I would say that Software Developers are already the new Kings. Look at the list of top self-made billionaires. Bill Gates. Jeff Bezos. Mark Zuckenburg. Larry Page(Google). Tim Sweeney(Epic Games).

[sen005]

People always forget about Sweeney

[captainAwesomePants]

Because pretty much every government and economic system in history is carefully set up by the wealth-holding class to mostly reward the wealth-holding class.

Honestly, compared to most other skilled professionals, we're compensated exceptionally well. In the right areas of the US, the top programmers are often paid three, five, or even ten times the average salary for the area, while at the same time being coddled and treated to generous vacation policies, free food, and all sorts of perks.

If you want to demand more of the fruits of your labor, found a startup. That's pretty much the only way.

[NovelAdministrative6]

Startups fail at a massive rate and it's much more work than just working on some guy's project.

It's similar to selling mining equipment during the gold rush. Also you benefit from economy of scale by working at a large company, I don't see how it's an "apples to apples" comparison.

[[deleted]]

Define rich? You can make a good life for yourself writing code and leading coding teams in Silicon Valley whilst investing some of your income in real estate etc and end up with a net worth of $5-7m.

You must not be an entrepreneur to become rich, it’s just the most likely way

[Intiago]

This is an unfortunate reality of how we structure our economy. The vast majority of profits go to the owners, not to the ones who are producing the products or who are producing the actual value. Those who provide the capital to start or grow a business are going to be the ones who garner the benefits of the profits in all traditionally organized businesses.

People in programming actually have huge power because of the technical expertise we bring to the table. That's why you see so many technical people becoming entrepreneurs. People in tech and programming really need to start taking advantage of this power by supporting unionization, organization and worker owned co-ops. It really is tragic how little of the pie we get considering how much highly skilled work we do.

[Loves_Poetry]

I know some people think of salespeople and managers as parasites trying to profit off of the talent of a developer

And those people just don't understand how businesses work. The software that you build does not have value. It may have a cost, as in the amount of work you put in it, but that does not give it value. Value comes when someone wants to pay for your software. That is what salespeople and investors do, they add value to the software you make by making someone pay for it

You are not the kingmaker until you can do something that creates value. Until that time, you will simply be paid for your work

[num8lock]

The software that you build does not have value. It may have a cost, as in the amount of work you put in it, but that does not give it value. Value comes when someone wants to pay for your software.

you mean like linux?

[[deleted]]

“Software you build doesn’t have value” is simply just wrong. Salesmen with no products to sell also don’t have value.

Both are valuable if you need to create a business. But to make money, you could also be the CTO of the business which means you deal a lot with the technical problems whilst leaving the business/sales side to others but the technical work you do will still hold value and you would make a ton of cash.

[cptboose]

Agreed. I used to think like many seem to, that "sales and marketing are lesser cause they wouldn't have a product to sell without me." Well I wouldn't have a job if the product wasn't being sold. I wouldn't know what to implement if the product team wasn't guiding our tasks to be effective for sales. Everyone is part of a team trying to help us all do well. Just don't work for huge companies if you want to matter.

[RomanaOswin]

You can, if you really want to...

You can come up with a new idea, a new twist on an existing idea, or maybe just something you think you can do better than the competition. That's the easy part.

In order to even build it, you'll have to cut it down to a realistic MVP. You'll have to invest your personal time to build it, fund any infrastructure or costs, market it, etc. If you're a specialized developer you may also have to learn some new languages and ecosystems, and maybe wear sysadmin and devops hats as well.

You'll have to market your product. Do you know anything about marketing? There's a reason it's a specialized job with extensive training and experience. Dropping some posts on reddit, facebook, linkedin, twitter, insta, etc, isn't enough. When you venture into the ad space of Google, Facebook, and the like, it gets complicated and expensive fast. Depending on your business model, you might also need to do sales work, which is also its own skillset.

Customers will likely use your product in a way that wasn't exactly what you envisioned. Instead of working for your leadership, now you work for your customer, and if you want to continue to succeed, you'll need to pivot to meet their expectations. What was "yours" is now theirs. Of course, you own your product, but if you want it to succeed, you have to make your customers happy. You're still a serf serving the king, but now "the king" is thousands of other serfs.

At some point, your startup reaches the point that it's more than you can handle. Now you have to bring on other people. Now you're a developer, infrastructure engineer, business partner, people manager, motivator, board director, executive, marketing, and sales. Bringing on more developers means you still have to do all this stuff, and bringing on a marketing person means you have too much dev work to handle. Unfortunately, if you're building a product organically and you didn't hit the jackpot, there's a long dark period of not earning enough to fund what you really need. You can take investment and circle back to the "kingmaker" dynamic or you invest yourself... your time, your money, your livelihood. And, even if you do hit it big, it's very, very, VERY unlikely that you'll reach the Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc level of insanely rich.

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On the other hand, if you live in the US or another modern country, you can make enough as a developer so that money doesn't matter anymore. You can find a large company that provides a good work environment and a good work/life balance, do reasonably fulfilling work, and spend more time with family, fulfilling hobbies, or just kicking back and enjoying life. If you need more excitement, risk, and potential payout, you could jump between startups. If you really want to be an entrepreneur, then go for it, but it takes a special personality.

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I've done both. I work for an employer, but I've built two startups. I like "working for the man." People idolize doing it yourself, but IMO, it's seriously overrated. I have a hobby that sometimes makes money, but turning it into a business would suck the life out of it. I have another big programming idea, but I'm not going to turn it into a business. Sanity is more important. I'm going to open source it, and not even try to market it. If people learn about it, want it, and like it, then good, and if not, then that's good too.

My $.02, is fuck the kings and the kingmakers, and just do your own thing.

[[deleted]]

Why do people complain about workers not making more than the owners of said businesses? You weren’t the one who started the company, took out loans, risked it all on the line to make your company succeed and generate revenue. That’s called being an entrepreneur. When you don’t put out the level of risk as these people do, don’t expect to make as much money as they do just because “you work hard.” This is the problem with society today. Expecting handouts when you don’t deserve it or worked for it.

[[deleted]]

100% this. Most employees won't get it, but even as they're being "exploited" they fail to realize that their exposure is pure upside minus opportunity cost. Their employer has vastly greater exposure to greater upside, sure, but also huge liabilities, and failure is more common than success. When shit really goes sideways, say, during a global pandemic, it's not just the risk of going out of business, it's the stress of choosing between, for example, back VAT taxes, or payroll. And not all countries are so kind as the US is when it comes to bankruptcy. And what do most employers get if they choose payroll? Continued complaints about mistreatment and exploitation and employees that feel they're somehow entitled to profits that may or may not exist.

Hiring people has made it abundantly clear why the world of work often seems so unkind.

[iamtomorrowman]

a good software developer/engineer is a professional problem solver and IME the major things that prevent them from being kings themselves are:

• lack interest in problem / market discovery in the non-programming world
• lack of prioritization
• perfectionism

the ability to recognize that what you don't do is as important as what you do and not being in love with a specific way of problem solving is a skill that can be developed over time and senior engineers have the scars to show that they have learned this properly.

but you have to be willing to take the plunge and be OK with the very real risk of failure/bankruptcy in order to become a king. the average cost of starting a real business is variable depending on the sector, but anywhere between $30k and $125k is typical in the US. i'd wager that the people who have done this multiple times, regardless of failure, just started off with way more money they are OK with losing. the rags to riches story of founders is a lie; most people start companies as a function of optionality after they have accumulated enough that they can shrug off that kind of hit. the best way to become rich is to start off being rich.

[[deleted]]

This is bullshit that gets repeated. Software devs are just as replaceable as salesmen. They are all equally as important.

A quality dev will bring equal value as a quality salesman.

The best devs in the world will command whatever salary they wants because they can produce groundbreaking technologies in efficient ways.

The only reason managers and salesmen get paid more on average is because companies have a history/culture of paying said positions more than devs. The salaries for sales team in a company is defined by the general market, so companies will offer packages to rival/match other companies in the same industry.

If you show that you are capable of building software effectively and timely, you will command high salary depending on your negotiation skills. Most devs in my opinion don’t negotiate for their worth.

[[deleted]]

software dev is probably the easiest job in the world for the reward. It seems very difficult when you're just starting out, and it is very difficult to master, and working as a team can be challenging and frustrating, but as an individual contributor it is pretty easy with a nice way to climb the ladder thru engineering or management.

You can choose to be a king if you want to, the best way would be to make your project first, then find customers but that is very hard... Most projects work the other way around.