Why are programmers’ salaries so high? Peking University Jade Bird Nanshao School of Computer Science reveals the secret for you?

In today's society, engineers often represent knowledge level and social status.

Whenever ordinary people hear this title, they always look at it with admiration. However, there is a kind of engineer, although he is also a genuine senior technician, but he rarely enjoys the same benefits as his peers. Social treatment: Programmer.

Different from the dazzling image of engineers, programmers in the eyes of most people are closer to a group of dry-minded otakus than to an elite group with high IQ and high income.

Objectively speaking, these evaluations are not fair. As senior technical personnel, most programmers in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou can earn more than 10,000 yuan a month, no less than other engineers or professions. Most people who laugh at programmers are far less likely to achieve a class counterattack.

2023 China Programmer Salary Survival Survey Report?

Many people will complain when they see the salary of programmers. Some people say, "These people have no idea what programmers do." What!”, some people also said, “Writing code earns 1W+ per month, and it can reach 2W+? Are?you?kidding?me...”

When programmers are hacked, everyone You are all very happy, but when you see the high salary of programmers, you become jealous...

In today’s world, Apple, Google, Alibaba, Facebook, etc. are all written by my programmer with my hands. the world! The same goes for WeChat you are using now! Programmers make this world such a wonderful place, and yet you still complain about it if your salary is high!

As for why programmers’ salaries are so high? Mainly starting from three aspects:

High value creation

The salary of programmers is not determined by a company, but is determined by the high value created by programmers. Think about it, the single game Honor of Kings is said to have a quarterly revenue of 12 billion, and there are dozens of game developers and programmers, and it only takes a year at most to complete the development. For enterprises, employees who can create great value for the enterprise will certainly not be treated badly.

Frequent overtime work

Although programmers' salaries are high, they also put in more energy. They often work until early in the morning. There is a joke: "I don't "I know it's Los Angeles at 4 a.m., but I know it's Beijing at 4 a.m." Long working hours and high-intensity workload are a great test for programmers' health and perseverance. Programmers spend a lot of time at work and are "blind to what's going on outside the window", making this group of people more proficient in device code and specialized in skills.

03

There is a huge gap in market demand

The wages of each industry are determined by the market, and demand and supply must be analyzed.

1) Supply:

There are not many programmers. It is said that there are only 2 million people in China who can write programs (accounting for 0.14% of the population), which is quite small. Think about our neighbors. ——India has a total of 2.7 million programmers, accounting for only 0.2% of the population. The number of employees in the Tech industry (including IT) in the United States has reached 7 million, accounting for more than 2% of the population.

However, it is inappropriate to compare the entire industry, because only a small number of people in the high-tech industry are programmers. The number of people in the United States who are professionally engaged in software programs seems to be only 1.02 million (according to the 2010 population Census), accounting for 0.3% of the population.

In addition, in the ranking of occupations in the United States, programmers rank 30th in population among all occupations, less than: lawyers, 1.04 million; financial asset management, 1.1 million; university teachers, 1.30 Ten thousand.

If you think it is reasonable for finance and lawyers to have high salaries, then it is also reasonable for programmers to have high salaries.

In other words, the software industry is also classified in detail into various languages, platforms, and special requirements. In terms of programming languages, only 30% of programmers are familiar with Java to a professional level; Python is estimated to be 20%; C Less than 10%; niche languages ??like Golang don’t even have 1%.

Other industries are not so troublesome. There are always many people who are qualified for a position. With more choices, companies are able to keep wages down and so on.

But in terms of program recruitment, the right to negotiate salary lies with the programmer, because the other party has no choice. Programmers are so rare, and programmers who are very suitable for the requirements are even more rare and cannot be missed.

2) Demand:

High-income programmers are generally involved in either the Internet or some large-scale software.

This is because the marginal cost of software and Internet services is almost zero. The marginal cost is the cost of producing one more unit of product, which includes the labor, materials, etc. required for production. The corresponding cost is called fixed cost, which is the cost that you have to pay no matter how many units of product you want to produce, including R&D, marketing, etc.

Every time software and Internet services serve one more person, it generally means a little more electricity and Internet fees. The cost is almost zero, and the expansion can be very rapid, which means that almost all profits can be allocated to research and development (programmers ) and managers, so the salary ceilings in these industries are naturally higher than those in general manufacturing.

For a few dozen people like WhatsApp to serve hundreds of millions of people, it is unimaginable in traditional industries. Traditional industries, such as Gree, have to pay a lot of production costs, logistics costs, and sales costs in production. Even if the sales revenue far exceeds that of most Internet companies, it is impossible to raise the wages of most employees. At the same time, the number of programmers is far from enough relative to demand.

There has been a joke before that "all you need to start a business is one programmer", but it actually reflects the reality: the supply of programmers is significantly less than the demand.

The two conditions are superimposed together, resulting in relatively high wages for programmers.

When it comes to this, some people will definitely complain, "It is difficult for programmers to find jobs now", "Programmers are already saturated and it is difficult to find jobs" "The current environment is not good, many companies are laying off employees, and programs "The salary of employees is now very low"...

Beida Jade Bird Nanshao School of Computer Science found that programmers who complain about the industry and the general environment can be roughly divided into two types:

One is Programmers who have just graduated or are about to graduate and looking for an internship.

There is also a programmer who has worked for less than two years or about a year. I feel that the mobile Internet industry has been flooded with too many developers these days, causing it to be almost saturated, so it will inevitably be more difficult for programmers with no or little experience to find a job.

When you fail in interviews many times, or fail in job-hopping and salary increases, would you take a look at the overall market situation, look at the recruitment requirements of most companies, and then reflect on yourself?

For the former, the advice given by Peking University Jade Bird Nanshao School of Computer Science is:

In the process of learning technology during college, you must try to learn technology according to your own interests, hobbies and ideas. If you try to do a bigger project, your resume will not look so crude and have nothing to write about.

Don’t tell me that you can’t do a big project. There are so many classmates. It’s fun to find someone with “like-minded interests” to work with. If you encounter problems, you can still discuss them and solve them. Anyway, there are Those who are responsible can always think of ways to do it.

If you are now a senior in college, or about to graduate, and have not found a job yet, don’t worry, don’t compare yourself to others, stabilize your mentality, and spend two months working on a bigger project. There is no rush to go out and look for it. If you only worry about it all day long without thinking of solutions, it will not help you find a job no matter how anxious you are. It is better to get down to work to improve your skills, consolidate your foundation, and prepare for finding a good job< /p>

For the latter, the advice given by Beida Jade Bird Nanshao School of Computer Science is:

One or two years of work experience is a relatively embarrassing stage of work experience. "It's not enough".

At this time, everyone needs not to only focus on money for the time being (of course money is very important), stabilize your anxious heart, and find a horse by riding a donkey, that is, looking for a job on the job, and don't resign naked.

During work, one is to accumulate more work experience and learn more to improve one's skills. The other is to accumulate more contacts, get to know more friends and colleagues, and contact former classmates to see if there are any opportunities for internal referrals. . The third is to establish a target company for your job search, study and improve yourself according to the requirements of that company, and adapt to local conditions.