No, but just remember - when you're working for people younger than you, it's probably time to become an entrepreneur or director. Very rarely does "programming" offer a salary commensurate with the level of seniority older people actually have attained.
When you're middle aged and not paid what you're really worth, it borders on pathetic, not just merely sad.
the above reply was in response to what i read as a dismissive post about middle aged programmers in general.
it had nothing to do with my wage level. that is not something i have never cared about much, and the idea that the quote was "all about" wage seems somewhat odd to me.
maybe i misunderstood. i don't think so, but i would delete the post above and walk away if i could. i can't, so i am posting this qualification.
Help yourself out. If you were paid what you're really worth, you wouldn't have any desire to say that. I'm sure there are programmers out there reading HN who make over 200 grand (or are wealthy from other means) who are not trying to say "fuck you" to me, because they are in the class of professionals who are actually paid what they're worth.
Is this you? Wonder why you're based in Chile.... something to do with the cost of living, perhaps? Wage arbitrage means you don't disagree with me at all, in fact you seem to be in vehement concurrence.
I said people who are middle aged and not paid what they are worth are pathetic.
So what you're saying is that you work for less than you are worth.
Can I ask you why you feel the desire to go work at a job where you are paid LESS than you are worth? There are plenty of programming jobs available for smart people in the 200k+/year category, which is what a real professional in any other industry makes.
You are either fundamentally misunderstanding my message, or are a complete and utter tool.
I don't think programmers are really worth more as they age. Experience lets you add more value to a point (probably around 10 years), but lots of young programmers are equally if not more productive. Many are willfully ignorant of "business" concerns and make terrible managers.
It's not a scalable career for most people.
Making $200k+/yr is not especially hard in high cost of living markets, but it's also not a lot of money there. In New York, 22-year-old Analysts at Goldman make ~125k all-in and most live in crappy studio apartments.
That is false. There are many software developers who well over 100k/y. Of course, they are generally very experienced professionals who are in high demand.
There's nothing wrong with working for people younger than you. Plenty of my coworkers are fiftysomethings working for thirtysomethings, and nobody objects to the situation.
And salary should have more to do with productivity and skill than seniority. If anything, I think programming is a good field for getting paid what you're worth. New skills and languages come around so often, you can (and have to) compete with the next crop of "3 years experience in NewFangLang" programmers head to head. So I think it's easier in this field than in most others to appeal directly to the market.
Yeah, if you're older and just starting to learn, you won't be worth as much as someone else your age who's been doing it since high school. So what? Isn't that true with any career change?
Care to elaborate? His guidance seems to be reasonable and consistent - while it should be taken with a grain of salt (some of it feels anecdotal rather than factual), I don't find it unhelpful, as you posit.
Joel isn't outright dishonest, but when he presents his views he usually does it with the intent of improving his business, or rationalization for his business decisions - so there's a strong slant to his talks. You can see this in a lot of places -
Everything from his talk about 'great work environment' - "and that's why every programmer at Fog Creek has two monitors and their own office!" to his suggestions of how to hire the best programmers concluding with "That's why you should use StackOverflow Careers". When he's not outright pitching his company or products, he's rationalizing decisions. Clearly, Ruby on Rails was too immature for FogBugz - that's why his team developed a custom programming language to power BUG TRACKING software.
New York has old, old, old, old infrastructure. It might surprise you to know that they still dump their trash onto the streets, where it rots in the summer heat and mixes with AC condensation that drips down (because their AC units hang out of windows) and creates giant rivers of foul smelling shit water that you must step over carefully to avoid.
If you don't have an account to read the NY Times I don't know whether I should laugh at you or pity you. Maybe both.