A380 captain's pay

On May 26, 11:04 am, Martin Hotze wrote:
On 25 May 2007 15:34:25 -0700, Robert M. Gary wrote:

-Robert, BS Computer Science, MBA, holder of 3 U.S. patents for
software

hopefully we (EU) won't introduce software patents ...
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/intro/index.html

I'm not an idealist, I'm a pragmatist. I excel in the environment I'm
in. I agree that software patents have gotten out of control in many
ways but I swim in the pool I fall in.

-Robert

On May 26, 4:19 pm, Sylvain wrote:
Robert M. Gary wrote:
Yea, HP is now where you want to be, especially if you are in a one
employeer town. However, the best money has always been at smaller,
riskier companies. You always take a salery cut to work at a more
"stable" company like IBM, HP, etc.

not always true actually;

If it was always true it wouldn't be "risky". You have to be dynamic
and see the writing on the wall. Don't ever be the last guy who shuts
off the lights.

-Robert

On May 26, 8:25 pm, wrote:
On May 26, 5:35 am, (Paul Tomblin) wrote:





In a previous article, "Robert M. Gary" said:

The cost is actually a very small factor in overseas hiring in the
software industry. Our two main motivating factors are 1) we want a
large pool to hire from, in the U.S. right now its very much an
employees market, its hard for employeers to find "good" (not the high
school kids that were hired during the internet bubble, real engineers
with real engineering degrees) programmers to pick from and 2) Since a

Bull****. At least 50 percent of the programmers I know are not working
as programmers because their employers fired them and replaced them with
off-shore workers. There are plenty of very good programmers here in the
US who can't get work because employers don't want to pay a living wage.

I told my kids not to bother getting engineering degrees because in a few
years there won't be a single job left in the US.

--
Paul Tomblin http://blog.xcski.com/
"Harry very carefully read the manual - four times - because Snape would
cut off his breathing privs if he asked him a question that the manual
could answer..." -- Harry Potter and the Book Of The BOFH

Hi Paul,

Yes, I told my nephew not to become a Mechanical Engineer for the same
reason. He is going into business and Lanscape Architecture instead.
They can't offshore that.

One of the reasons that engineers are disappearing from the
marketplace is because a lot of them are getting sick of the lack of
job stability, declining pay, and generally poor workplace
environments that have come into being in recent years and have left
the profession for other vocations. I know of several that did that
here in Idaho.

Maybe they are really, really old. I got out of school in the 90's
just ahead of the internet boom. I don't ever remember there being job
stability(if you define it as being able to work for the same company
for 40 years), and hours have always been long (actually they were a
lot longer before the industrialization of software). The bottom line
is that there were *WAY* too many people calling themselves
programmers during the internet bubble. Now you have to know what you
are doing.

-robert

On May 26, 4:35 am, (Paul Tomblin) wrote:
In a previous article, "Robert M. Gary" said:

The cost is actually a very small factor in overseas hiring in the
software industry. Our two main motivating factors are 1) we want a
large pool to hire from, in the U.S. right now its very much an
employees market, its hard for employeers to find "good" (not the high
school kids that were hired during the internet bubble, real engineers
with real engineering degrees) programmers to pick from and 2) Since a

Bull****. At least 50 percent of the programmers I know are not working
as programmers because their employers fired them and replaced them with
off-shore workers. There are plenty of very good programmers here in the
US who can't get work because employers don't want to pay a living wage.

Personally I have seen salerys do nothing but go up in the U.S. since
early 2000's (yes, they did drop for a bit, but have more than
recovered). My friends and I have been moving around and have found 6
figures still available. However, if the last time you updated your
skills was 1995 you probably won't get much work. Things change fast,
you need to keep up with recurrent training (JEE, .NET, etc). The days
of sitting at your desk and expecting the world to sit around and wait
for you are gone.

I told my kids not to bother getting engineering degrees because in a few
years there won't be a single job left in the US.

Sounds like something from talk radio but certainly very contrary to
what I've seen. In fact the biggest issue is that other types of
engineering have been taking good programmers out of the pool. Sales
engineering is now very, very big and can't be off-shored. There is
travel involved but you usually work from home.

-Robert

On May 27, 8:13 pm, "Roger (K8RI)" wrote:
On Fri, 25 May 2007 15:22:00 GMT, John Theune
wrote:

Kingfish wrote:
Interesting article here on the arbitration case between Singapore
Airlines and its pilots. The court ruled SIA must pay A380 captains
more than 747 captains. Duh? If it's bigger, heavier and has more
seats that should be a no-brainer IMHO, unless of course the airline
is trying to contain labor costs. I was amazed to see their monthly
base pay of $10k for 747 captains. $120k/yr to fly a 747? Even
allowing for per diem and other stuff, SWA's 737 captains make a lot
more than that...

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles...court-rules-si...

Pay is always based on the location of the job. Software engineers in
the US make 75K but in Bangalore they make 5K. Why would it be

They took a pay cut? My late cousin was making considerably more than
that 10 years ago. That too depended on what you were doing and where.
I understood that a lot of pilots flying the "big iron" have taken
some serious pay cuts in the past few years.

Software engineers who are still using skills from 1995 are probably
making 75K. If you aren't attending conferences (like Java One, etc)
and going to training at least once a year you can't expect to make
much more.

-Robert

Robert M. Gary writes:

I've been in this industry for about 15 years so I've probaby been
through 20 rounds of layoffs. Everytime I see people standing in the
hall complaining that their jobs are going to India, etc. Its just
sad. These people joined the technology industry when things were
going really, really well. Apparently they thought the world is
static, and that nothing ever changes. So they sat at their desks and
thought they'd be there until retirement. I don't have a lot of
sympathy for those types. There are *LOTS* and *LOTS* of opportunities
in the U.S. but you have to see the writing on the wall and change as
the industry changes. You have to keep updating your skills. I went
and got a company paid MBA and several patents knowing that the future
was in strategic management, not code monkeying.

That's exactly what people said about most IT jobs not so long ago.

Robert M. Gary writes:

Maybe they are really, really old. I got out of school in the 90's
just ahead of the internet boom. I don't ever remember there being job
stability(if you define it as being able to work for the same company
for 40 years), and hours have always been long (actually they were a
lot longer before the industrialization of software). The bottom line
is that there were *WAY* too many people calling themselves
programmers during the internet bubble. Now you have to know what you
are doing.

There hasn't been any job stability since the first oil crisis.

Even if you know what you are doing, someone in India knows what he is doing
even better than you do, and he'll work for 10% of your salary.

Robert M. Gary writes:

Sales engineering is now very, very big and can't be off-shored.

Sales engineering is an oxymoron.

Robert M. Gary writes:

Software engineers who are still using skills from 1995 are probably
making 75K. If you aren't attending conferences (like Java One, etc)
and going to training at least once a year you can't expect to make
much more.

Conferences and training are just ways to make money from the naïve.

On May 30, 2:09 pm, Mxsmanic wrote:
Conferences and training are just ways to make money from the naïve.

Interesting statement. Perhaps you could tell us how this philosophy
has helped your own career in IT?