Why Coder Pay Isn't Proportional To Productivity

theodp writes "John D. Cook takes a stab at explaining why programmers are not paid in proportion to their productivity. The basic problem, Cook explains, is that extreme programmer productivity may not be obvious. A salesman who sells 10x as much as his peers will be noticed, and compensated accordingly. And if a bricklayer were 10x more productive than his peers, this would be obvious too (it doesn't happen). But the best programmers do not write 10x as many lines of code; nor do they work 10x as many hours. Programmers are most effective when they avoid writing code. An über-programmer, Cook explains, is likely to be someone who stares quietly into space and then says 'Hmm. I think I've seen something like this before.'"

Comments

Because it's hard to measure

[rolfwind]

Especially for organizations that love their metrics.

With a trucker, it's easy: they drove X miles, had Y accidents, Z fines/tickets, and Q complaints from customers he dropped stuff off. They'll want to maximize X, and minimize everything else.

Because a programmer's code doesn't live by itself but is meshed in between those of other programmers most likely along with a bunch of other factors - it's hard for a point haired boss to measure his productivity just by bug count and whether the project gets done. In that case, it might be best just to have his technically minded supervisors judge members of their team.