為什麼工程師的薪水和生產力如此不成比例？ » Mr. Jamie 看網路與創投

算起來軟體工程師大概是全世界最特別的一種職業，因為一個最好的 programmer 和一個最爛的 programmer，生產力相差至少 10 倍，有時候甚至可以高達 100 倍。這在其他的職業幾乎是沒聽過的 — 像 Jordan (麥可‧喬丹) 這樣強的籃球員，平均一場比賽的生產力，頂多也只是菜鳥板凳的 10 倍。即使是其他腦力、創意密集的行業，例如：IC 設計、建築、商品設計等等，生產力的差別也都是在 10 倍的這個級距，很少達到 100 倍的。

但又為什麼，當 Jordan 的薪水是 NBA 菜鳥的 100 倍，一流建築師的費用是菜鳥的 1,000 倍時，最好的軟體工程師，他們所賺得的卻往往連新人的 5 倍都不到？這個問題我一直想不透。它也不是壞事，因為很久以前當我第一次發現了這個現象後，我就學會要花 3 倍的價錢去顧一個 10 倍強的工程師 — 多麼划算的一個買賣啊！只是這件事情發生的原因，讓我非常的困擾。第一，它一點都不符合經濟學上「邊際效應遞減」的原則，你看其他職業，例如上面提到的 NBA，當你要僱用一個生產力 10 倍的球員，你必須付出 100 倍的成本。更重要的是，它一點都不公平，生產力 10 倍的人，就算沒有拿 100 倍的薪水，少說也應該要拿 10 倍的薪水。

直到昨天，讀了 John D. Cook (強‧庫克) 的這篇文章：「Why programmers are not paid in proportion to their productivity」，才給我了一個天大的啟發。

原來，這件發生的原因主要有兩個 — John 其實也是引述  Joel Spolsky (喬‧史波斯基，有名的 Joel on Software 作者) 的說法：

第一，雖然全世界的工程師優劣差很多，但是一間公司的工程師優劣卻是差不多的，因為一流的工程師不可能長期忍受跟一群蠢蛋一起工作，所以遲早會離去，於是久而久之這間公司的工程師品質就會趨向一致 — 這也就是為什麼你必須要花很多力氣在團隊上面。

而另一個更重要的原因，是一個好工程師的生產力，其實很難被察覺。如果你要判斷一個業務好不好，那很簡單，看看他的業績就行了。你要看一個建築工人的生產力，那也很簡單，看看他多快把房子蓋好就行了。以此類推，如果你要知道到一個軟體工程師的生產力，就看看他寫了幾行程式…

大錯特錯!!

一個軟體工程師生產力最高的時候，是當他可以少寫幾行程式的時候。當他可以用一些現成的東西，在很短的時間內拼湊出你需要的產品、解決方案的時候；當他可以跟你明確的溝通，不會浪費時間在開發錯誤的東西上的時候；當他可以正確的解讀數據，然後快速的修正產品的時候。這些…

通通不是用幾行程式碼去衡量的!!

問題是當一個優秀的工程師，快速的把產品湊出來，或者是很有效率的溝通時，老闆的反應是什麼？99.9% 都沒有辦法聯想到這就是極致生產力的表現，然後說：「嘿！我應該幫他加薪 10 倍！」所以，難怪好的工程師往往沒辦法獲得合理的報酬。

因此，如果你是創業團隊，該怎麼做？當然是用力的利用這個市場不平衡，把優秀的、在大公司鬱鬱不得志的工程師，通通都吸收到你的團隊來。而這也就剛好解釋了為什麼 EZTABLE 會說：我們在找的是「人」，而不是技術。

PS. 意猶未盡的人，這裡有一篇 Hackers vs. Coders 的故事。

(Image via scobleizer, CC license)

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via mrjamie.cc

Why programmers are not paid in proportion to their productivity — The Endeavour

The most productive programmers are orders of magnitude more productive than average programmers. But salaries usually fall within a fairly small range in any company. Even across the entire profession, salaries don't vary that much. If some programmers are 10x more productive than others, why aren't they paid 10x as much?

Joel Spolsky gave a couple answers to this question in his most recent podcast. First, programmer productivity varies tremendously across the profession, but it may not vary so much within a given company. Someone who is 10x more productive than his colleagues is likely to leave, either to work with other very talented programmers or to start his own business. Second, extreme productivity may not be obvious. This post elaborates on this second reason.

How can someone be 10x more productive than his peers without being noticed? In some professions such a difference would be obvious. A salesman who sells 10x as much as his peers will be noticed, and compensated accordingly. Sales are easy to measure, and some salesmen make orders of magnitude more money than others. If a bricklayer were 10x more productive than his peers this would be obvious too, but it doesn't happen: the best bricklayers cannot lay 10x as much brick as average bricklayers. Software output cannot be measured as easily as dollars or bricks. The best programmers do not write 10x as many lines of code and they certainly do not work 10x longer hours.

Programmers are most effective when they avoid writing code. They may realize the problem they're being asked to solve doesn't need to be solved, that the client doesn't actually want what they're asking for. They may know where to find reusable or re-editable code that solves their problem. They may cheat. But just when they are being their most productive, nobody says 「Wow! You were just 100x more productive than if you'd done this the hard way. You deserve a raise.」 At best they say 「Good idea!」 and go on.  It may take a while to realize that someone routinely comes up with such time-saving insights. Or to put it negatively, it may take a long time to realize that others are programming with sound and fury but producing nothing.

The romantic image of an über-programmer is someone who fires up Emacs, types like a machine gun, and delivers a flawless final product from scratch. A more accurate image would be someone who stares quietly into space for a few minutes and then says 「Hmm. I think I've seen something like this before.」

Related posts:

Writes large correct programs
Experienced programmers and lines of code

Bookmark This 

via johndcook.com

Hackers vs. Coders | Amir Khella

Photo Credit: Pranav Mistry

Being a good hacker is an invaluable skill. But is being a coder the same as being a hacker? Is it possible that coders are at a creative disadvantage to hackers who don't know how to code?

Here's a story that helped me see the difference.

I was recently invited to mentor at Startup Weekend. On Friday night, we gathered to eat pizza, pitch ideas, create teams and discuss launch plans. At the end of the day, everyone was feeling great about what they'd be working on for the rest of the weekend.

I arrived Saturday morning to find people hard at work. Some people stayed overnight to jump start their ideas. That's the startup spirit!

But I was surprised to see so many teams already writing code! It seemed that the rush to get something up and running by Sunday evening made most teams focus on implementing their first ideas, rather than exploring different ideas and hacking the best ones.

Sounds familiar?

One team stood out because they didn't have any coders. So they spent their time creating prototypes with PowerPoint, going around the room testing them with other teams, getting feedback, and returning to their table to discuss and refine their ideas. They were the loudest, most animated, most outgoing, and they seemed to be having lots of fun. Most importantly, they were progressing much faster than other teams because they weren't lost in the details of figuring out how to make something work in Rails or PHP.

On Sunday morning, they had an epiphany that made them abandon all their previous prototypes and go back to the drawing board. I saw them creating a new concept in a matter of hours. Because they didn't write code, they didn't feel bad about throwing away previous day's work (that's what prototypes are for, anyway). And because they were using PowerPoint to "hack" their concepts, they were able to get new idea done quickly.

On Sunday evening, they didn't present a working application, but they walked the audience through a great presentation with a click-thru prototype of the final concept. Not only did they present the final idea, but also took the audience through all  the previous ideas and iterations that led to it.

The result? They won first place!

They didn't win because their idea was significantly better or more functional than other teams' ideas. There were many great ideas that weekend. But when other teams were focusing their limited time on implementation detail,  that team stayed focused on high level aspects of their ideas, and spent more time hacking it and less time coding.

They weren't coders, but they were hackers. And that ended up working great for them!

Many founders believe they are at a disadvantage to someone who knows how to write code.  They believe they are not hackers because they are not coders. The truth is they might have a creative advantage because they won't be jumping into code too soon. Instead, they'll be forced to "hack" their ideas and test them using high level tools and platforms that will keep them at the level of detail. They'll be focused on solving user problems, rather than solving implementation problems.

Hacking isn't just about coding skills. it's a mindset of getting things done while focusing on what matters the most at each stage, without getting lost in the detail too soon.

via blog.amirkhella.com

啾咪～Hello Kitty上演瘋狂crossover變裝秀 | 大人物

由 Grandaddy 於 一, 2010/06/14 - 3:00pm 發表

• 公仔模型
• 掌上把玩
• 搞幽默
• hello kitty

大人物其實一直搞不懂，Hello Kitty這隻無嘴貓是哪來的魅力，可以讓粉絲們失心瘋般的全面收集牠所有周邊產品，大人物曾經介紹過一個「Hello Kitty Hell」，裡頭總是能發現讓你瞠目結舌的Kitty商品，是個專門介紹無嘴貓商品的無間地獄啊！這回有人幫Hello Kitty設計了一系列的跨界變裝組，就讓大人物帶你瞧瞧唄！

Hello Kitty向來是流行文化的象徵之一，與不同流行指標跨界合作真的會讓粉絲們整個動心呢！看看這組「Star Trek」的Kitty，真的會讓星艦迷愛不釋手啊～眼尖的朋友應該已經發現偽裝成鋼彈跟巴斯光年的阿貓了吧！一整個就是俏皮啊～啾！

有「Star Trek」怎麼能少了「Star Wars」呢？！整系列穿上星際大戰服裝的Hello Kitty，整個超有梗，像是金色大眼的機器貓C-3PO超有喜感，還有全身漆黑的黑武士Kitty原本威風的氣勢，卻硬是被別上蝴蝶結整個娘了起來啊XD～

看完以上這些百變造型，你只能用玩偶界的Lady GaGa來形容這隻沒有嘴巴的阿貓啊！

-----
「大人物 臉書團」新 開 張囉！
快點用臉來玩書吧～
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啾咪！史上最娘的機油「Hello Kitty引擎油」

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回應

Re: 啾咪～Hello Kitty上演瘋狂crossover變裝秀

由 Marvin 於 一, 2010/06/14 - 3:45pm 發表

 Star Wars跟那機器戰警都很想要呀~~~~~!@#$%^&*()

創意無限~無限創意~

 

Re: 啾咪～Hello Kitty上演瘋狂crossover變裝秀

由 BX (未確認) 於 二, 2010/06/15 - 3:03pm 發表

請問黑武士在哪可以買到 XD

回覆: 啾咪～Hello Kitty上演瘋狂crossover變裝秀

由 junnifer_wang 於 一, 2010/06/21 - 6:18pm 發表

 請問，這些公仔，台北買得到嗎???好想要呀

發表新回應

via daman.cool3c.com

藝術無處不在[54p]

30

藝術無處不在[54p]

ivanchaos @ 藝術 , 2011.04.28 / 11:15 / 7,918 pv

藝術源自生活，高於生活，如果能再混入生活無處不在，那就更好了。不過由於城管這一職業的存在，我們很難在身邊看到這樣的神來之筆……不過沒關係，大家看看圖，領會一下精神就好了。

(OaKoAk)

# 分享到： Twitter +新浪微博 , 騰訊微博 , 人人網 , 開心網 , QQ空間 , 豆瓣

via jandan.net