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Discussion on: What software technologies will earn you the highest pay?

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jamesd profile image
James David

Well I'd say you're making a mistake if you think "follow your passion" is for the 1990's. Your "passion" is what you want to do, whether that's programming, earning money or sky diving. If you're not doing what you want to do then you're not going to be happy.

If your passion is "earning more money", then dedicating years of your life to programming isn't a wise choice. You'll spend your time sitting down, looking at a screen and learning a very deep subject you don't care about. Slowly developing back issues while turning into a nerdy coffee addict who groans at the distant sound of a question.

A realistic salary of a senior dev is $150K, maybe up to $200k if you're particularly good. This is a huge a failure for someone whose goal is to become wealthy.

As for no-code/low-code tools and decreasing salaries. Who do you think builds and maintains these tools? That's right, people who are actually good passionate developers.

While the median programming salaries are decreasing, the higher paying jobs increase gradually. This is because the demand for lead/senior developers and architects is through the roof.

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zan_toka profile image
Zandra Kubota • Edited

I said earning more money, not having a goal of being wealthy. Increasing your earnings and getting rich are certainly two different end goals. I don't think you mean to imply that simply desiring to increase one's income means that one has a passion for earning money or wants to become wealthy, do you?
Sometimes you need to find the most efficient way to pay the bills for your family. Not everyone who drives a truck, screens your lab samples, designs the print on your bedsheets, or fixes your car is necessarily passionate about those fields. Same for development -- some folks are getting into it because they need better jobs, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
The "follow your passion" advice wasn't so rampant in previous eras in the US, such as the postwar and Depression eras, because many people didn't have the luxury to explore what they WANTED to do; they sucked it up and did what they HAD to do. Today with inflation and wage stagnation, many people can't afford to follow their passions (it's just more hidden today because everyone is in debt or two paychecks away from disaster). I enjoy coding and have moments of flow, dream about my code, etc, but I'm not passionate about programming as a pursuit. A person can be passionate about programming and create awesome code, but be a terrible communicator, lack empathy, or disregard the client's wishes. Have they still created a good product?
Saying not everyone has to be passionate about their job in order to produce great work != my "passion is earning more money". I just happen to have a passion for paying rent, traveling to visit relatives, having health insurance, etc., which are things most devs can enjoy.