Michael

In my experience in the Silicon Valley, a person's educational background has not been the determining factor as to who is productive for software engineering unless the employee is going to develop new low level protocols, encryption, structural analysis, physics/nuclear analysis, heavy mathematical calculations, etc. Over 90% of the software engineering jobs don't require that knowledge even if the project is about those capabilities. For example, I wrote a VPN application which required encryption and changes to the protocol on the router and all I needed to do was understand the interface to call the already developed encryption module and understand the basic protocol of routing to make those changes. The encryption and protocol implementation was less than 1% of the total project and was actually one of the easier tasks in the project.

I suspect many managers are biased since they may have a post graduate degree and expect their employees to have the same.

With my educational background, I wouldn't attempt to define and develop new encryption algorithms or define and develop a new protocol such as a faster WI-FI, Bluetooth, USB, SATA, Internet backbone, or 4G protocol. For that, someone should have post graduate degrees with emphasis in those fields. On the other hand, most of the work in software engineering is logically thinking how to implement the project and writing the code without the need for in depth knowledge in any field since an already designed and developed application program interface (API) is available to perform any of the above.

Uncle_Bob

So if you can't afford kids then don't have them

Uncle_Bob

Which is why your job is essentially low wage in the global economy where code monkeys (NOT engineers) are two a penny in India.

Embedded Software Engineer is the real software real job.

scrubbedexpat099

I was expecting more IT jobs to be outsourced than seems to have been the case. I know from experience years ago there are issues but nothing that could not be got over.

As far as children, earnings, benefits, child care etc, then for many people you need to look at the totality of the package, wage is just one element of it.

Uncle_Bob

personal responsibility and living within your means defines your "package" though doesn't it?

scrubbedexpat099

I would like to think so, I was more commenting on the nature of means, just limiting it to waged income.

scrubbedexpat091

Until there is a birth control method that is 100% effective, there will always be people having kids who can't afford them.

If in the low income bracket, you probably cannot afford the medical procedure for a permanent fix, but who is to say someone at 25 who can't afford a kid, wont be able to at 40, so even the permanent fixes are not really viable.

A low min. wage probably ends up costing society more in the long run via more people on various assistance programs.

Sally Redux

Who is going to get sterilized at 25 believing their situation will never improve? Not really the 'American Dream'.

scrubbedexpat091

Probably very few, its just not a viable option, and since other forms of birth control are not 100% effective, there will always be the oops babies where people did their best to prevent a baby, but a baby still happened.

Uncle_Bob

No, the 'American dream' is not entitlement, you need to go back to the UK for that, you've been told before.

Sally Redux

Also most people would eventually like to have a family, with the current situation where social mobility is restricted, they are effectively being told to slog away on minimum wage forever without being able to afford that.

Sally Redux

The dream is very restricted nowadays.

Michael

There is a lot of complexity in Silicon Valley projects, few require a new low level protocol, and I was paid a very good salary. I worked on embedded software, OS development (internals), VPN, networking, and many other engineering jobs. None take a lot of specialized background and embedded software for me was probably one of the easiest since I had 15 years of hardware background before I went into software engineering. Since that time, embedded software has become more complicated such as graphics cards but I wouldn't specialize in that since it doesn't interest me, it's repetitive, and eventually it will likely be a dead end job (knowledge of graphics internals is probably not very transferable to other jobs). By working on almost everything, I had a lot of fun and was able to keep my interest high.

One of the most complicated projects was putting two different operating systems together that were written in two different languages. All you have to do is understand how each of the two different operating systems work and after that, write about 100,000 lines of code that is bullet proof. Another relatively complicated project was changing an operating system that worked with linear memory (8006) to segmented memory (80286) to allow for expanded memory addressing. I even worked on one of the 1st implementations of cloud computing (wasn't called that at the time) but hardware and communications was so slow that it wasn't useful.

When I worked on the VPN project, an Indian on a H1-B visa with a master degree specializing in encryption was supposed to develop about 1,000 lines of code to interface to the encryption API but he mucked everything up so badly that I took over his code when he went on vacation, doubled the size to add desired features, and fixed all the problems. There was no need for someone with a master's degree specializing in encryption for that code. He may have understood encryption but he had extremely limited coding and trouble shooting abilities. To assume that someone with a specialized education will be productive is more often the opposite of what I've seen.

I wouldn't consider a median income of $120K-$130K plus stock options plus bonus in the Silicon Valley is low wage. 15 years ago, I retired with a base salary of $150K and I wasn't even a manager since I thought management jobs sucked (at one time I was a manager and it did suck).

Oregon4now

Restricted to those who have an aversion to hard work, This is still the land of Opportunity , there is plenty of work out there and our economy is showing it. So big woop Prince & Princess have to work 40 + hours to make ends meet, educate yourselves to a higher position and salary or learn a new trade. Otherwise shut the hell up, you are a worker Bee, nothing wrong with being a worker Bee BTW. Nobody owes you a damn thing except your Mother & Father who chose to bring you into this world. If you want more out of life, bust a nut and make it happen, do not count on me as Joe Taxpayer to fund your lifestyle.
The world is what we make of it, the sooner we teach our Kids this lesson a better world we shall live in.

Sally Redux

Isn't that the point though, 'Joe Taxpayer' is subsidising the employers paying low wages.