Real talk - what is people's appetite for forming a software developers union/guild/association?
Posted by davidblacksheep@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 376 comments
A few disparite thoughts:
- Software engineering has identity of being a meritocracy, with these very high salarys for the people right at the top of the game. There's the thought that 'well that could be me'. So this leads to people working on side projects out side of work etc, because 'I just need to be better than the other developers, then I can I get the 500K job'. Great for the employers.
- We've probably all worked with other software developers who we thnk aren't particularly good, and there's a thought that the purpose of a union/association/guild shouldn't be to uphold mediocre standards.
- I think agile is suffocating the profession. It's before my time, but I think previously software developers had more power in determining how things got done, because they were able to get together and plan it out. Now, it's all broken down into Jira tickets and the developer is just assigned 'do this thing'. It means we get shoddy solutions and the job sucks.
robby_arctor@reddit
When I can afford to get fired, it will go up significantly, lol.
I think a trade union built with the goal of establishing industry standards and registering industry talent is the most obvious way forward.
Everyone seems to think the hiring process for devs is broken, but I haven't seen a lot of people connect the dots that that's a problem trade unions might be able to fix.
edgmnt_net@reddit
Companies are not interested in hiring hypothetical body-certified candidates anymore than they're interested in low-level certs. A trade union forces them to but doesn't exactly solve the problem, it's just reducing competition artificially to keep the jobs of those already in the system.
The real broken stuff is on a macroeconomics level. Hiring in the Western world is already much more difficult due to increased costs. Trade unions increase such costs.
Standards and registration can already be done competitively. Enforcing the control of a single body is gonna cause more issues.
putocrata@reddit
As someone without a degree I'd also be concerned of they introduce requirements such as having a degree in order to be able to become body-certified.
techzilla@reddit
It wouldn't gain support that way, every time in history they grandfathered the existing professionals without degrees.
robby_arctor@reddit
I feel like there are too many devs without degrees for that to happen.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
Unions don’t care about people who are outside the union, though. The point of restricting who can be a developer is to reduce the supply of developers, giving the union more leverage for those inside of the union.
This is a fundamental point that gets overlooked in Reddit union discussions. Unions (of the United States collective bargaining type) aren’t a benevolent organization benefiting all developers everywhere. They are intended to advance the interests of members of the union, which can (and usually does) include limiting admission to jobs so that they have more leverage for the people in those coveted positions.
robby_arctor@reddit
Reports show around 62% of devs have a CS degree. If a software trade union formed today with say, a random sampling of 1,000 engineers, almost half of them wouldn't have a CS degree.
That restriction is simply not a realistic outcome unless this trade union forms in academia.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
Have you ever seen a trade workers union protesting a job site for using non-union labor?
They DGAF about those non-union laborers getting paid. They want to shame the company for not picking union labor (at a much higher cost). They want the company to refuse to give those people the work, and give it to them instead.
That’s the point: These people aren’t looking to lift everyone up. They’re looking to create a more limited club where the members can have more negotiating power for themselves.
robby_arctor@reddit
My point is that there would be non-degree havers in the union from the beginning. Why would they impose a requirement that would put a large percentage of union workers out of work?
They would protest non-union work regardless of whether or not they have degrees.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
Unions will take anyone they can get at first.
But just read the proposals further up this thread. These people aren’t even in a union, yet they’re already brainstorming ways to keep people out of the union and out of industry jobs.
That’s how this whole sub-thread started: Someone proposed a union as a gatekeeping body that acted as a “register” of industry talent that met certain standards.
Internationally there are union structures that accept anyone and where people can join or leave as they find convenient. These structures don’t have the massive negotiating power that people think of when they see the word union, though. They’re more of a professional organization where you pay dues and they might have some light services for you.
The type of unions that drive hard bargains with employers and negotiates amazing salaries for members need to have more control over the labor supply and be able to negotiate deals that exclude non-union labor.
I think a lot of commenters in these threads don’t realize that a union isn’t a magic structure that takes power away from companies by merely existing. It all has to be negotiated.
robby_arctor@reddit
I understand all that, but you didn't answer my question.
Why would unions propose a requirement (CS degree) that would exclude around 40% of their own union body? Are you saying they would apply that requirement to new members only or something?
I think what's happening here is that you have a polemic about unions scheming to exclude people generally and you're trying to make it apply to a case where it doesn't make sense.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
They’re not saying they’d kick people out of the union. They’re not saying they’d impose degree requirements.
They’re saying union membership is supposed to become the indicator that you are a talented industry member. Anyone who is already in the union is included. They start raising the bar after they have the critical mass to demand things from companies.
Ladder pulling, basically. Filtering based on degrees may or may not be part of the plan because they don’t really care about absolute education requirements, it’s more about balancing supply and demand at a point that is favorable to their negotiation power. Being too large or too small is harmful to that negotiating power.
robby_arctor@reddit
The comment that started this thread was this:
Can you link what comment you're referring to? I didn't see any pro-union comments proposing degree requirements and I read quite a bit of this thread.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
It was your comment
I think you just didn’t like the second step where people (not me) suggested college degrees as one filtering mechanism.
Again, I’m not suggesting degrees are the filtering mechanism nor that unions would evict people (they wouldn’t). I’m pointing out that as soon as the union establishes itself as the registry of industry talent, they have to start excluding people by definition. If they allowed everyone in, it’s no longer a useful registry of talent, is it?
robby_arctor@reddit
Oh, so you were changing the subject from degree requirements to exclusion generally. Sorry, didn't catch that.
Yes, that is also my understanding of how trade unions work. So I'm not really sure what we're disagreeing about.
It seems self-evident that you can't enforce standards without excluding people who don't meet them. So I'm not sure why you thought someone who supports more standards in tech labor would balk at the idea of exclusion.
FWIW, what I would rather have is a "One Big Union" model (industrial union vs craft union), which is by definition much less exclusionary, but I don't think that's politically viable at the moment.
MagnetoManectric@reddit
Unions will absolutely look after people outside the union if they get into trouble, usually with the proviso that they join the union then.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
Unfortunately that’s kind of the goal. People will dance around the topic, but the idea is to reduce supply of devs, therefore giving increased leverage to those already inside the union.
putocrata@reddit
The company I work for has a sort of syndicate / employer's guild in which they meet with management and discuss relevant topics regularly: better chairs, accessibility for disabled employees, salary discrepancies, shortening of trial periods, better perks, etc. we all get their meeting minutes.
I find that type of employee organization productive. But creating an artificial entry barrier for the profession is total bs.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
Yeah, this is where people start realizing that real-world unions aren’t like their imaginary ideals. Being exclusionary to increase job security and negotiating leverage is part of the goal.
putocrata@reddit
I mean, the real world union from my workplace isn't like that. There are no degree restrictions, I'm part of a union and there's an emoloyee social comitee.
I don't have a degree and there are absolutely no difference in my contract / role / etc from other employees with a degree, we all get the same rights, titles and level of protection.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
The organization you’re describing above isn’t what people in this thread are thinking of when they talk about unions, though.
edgmnt_net@reddit
Exclusion can arise from more indirect barriers to competition and negotiation, such as minimum salaries or mandatory raises. You all get the same rights if you get employed, but beyond that you're not seeing how many jobs are lost to increased costs, for example. Or how your individual raises get affected by this. Or why the company starts demanding degrees more often than before as a way to reduce hiring risks.
Note that I'm not trying to say baselines are bad, but, coupled with an unnatural advantage such as mandatory membership or making it more or less illegal for the company to refuse certain union demands, this goes way beyond voluntary collective negotiation and becomes easy to abuse.
putocrata@reddit
I'm all in favor of employees getting together to even out the power dynamics with the employers but gatekeeping with degrees and artificially reducing supply of good employees to keep the pole of already existing and potentially shitty developers will take the merit out, and also stifle innovation.
For example, the company I work for has a social-economic committee , that's kind of an syndicate/ emoloyees guild in which a set of employees band together to demand better conditions to the employer (better chairs, discuss salary raises, accessibility concerns for people with disabilities, etc.) and I find that productive, but I can't agree with the artificial degree requirements.
johnkapolos@reddit
Well, the whole idea is to reduce supply, so of course "you" are on first row of the chopping block.
Good news is this will not happen, it's impossible is this industry (barring outliers like the decline of civilization, alien overlords etc.)
new2bay@reddit
Good news, everyone! Global civilization is literally in the throes of collapse right now.
chicknfly@reddit
FWIW you can’t even claim to be a software engineer without registering with the appropriate engineering body. So a company offering the same job to candidates in Canada and the US are more likely to use the name application developer or programmer.
robby_arctor@reddit
I don't agree. Every employer I know of right now that's hiring junior engineers does so through programs like boot camps. They don't select randomly from a job pool, they go to some organization that's already vetted the talent.
But those orgs are not controlled by us, and the standards are all over the place. We can make it easier for employers to find and vet talent, and use the leverage of a trade union to help un-fuck the hiring process (i.e., push back against seven rounds of interviews).
MagnetoManectric@reddit
Thoroughly agree - I don't know why anyone would disagree with you, frankly, unless they're in the temporarily embarassed millionare trap.
We should have our own professional standards body that MBAs can't go anywhere near. I see a lot of engineers in this thread thinking they're untouchable, despite the ample evidence to the contrary. They are actively looking for ways to devalue our labour and lower standards with AI, like, right now.
We can and should take control of this.
robby_arctor@reddit
Period!! And it boggles my mind how people can't see that.
SolFlorus@reddit
I have the exact opposite experience. The companies I work for never look at Boot Camp grads unless they have enough experience that it’s no longer relevant. I always assumed most boot camp devs ended up at marketing consulting companies.
robby_arctor@reddit
Every job I've had has had boot camp grads. And many of the younger workers with CS degrees had done internships prior to working at the company.
The larger point is that employers are keen on finding devs with vetted work experience. Particularly for juniors, a trade union could help solve this problem. The current situation is chaotic and wasteful in a way that's hurting workers.
edgmnt_net@reddit
That's assuming the standard is going to be relevant. If those orgs, including universities, generally fail to deliver relevant certification right now, what makes us think they're going to do it once this is enforced? There may be some argument to be made for centralization and efficiency, but I think monopolistic incentives trump in the long run. I'm basically asking not how you'd do it best, but how you'd prevent such a system from devolving into a mess and make sure it reaches stated goals, because politics is politics. Will you or I be there to call the shots?
Employers tend to use those low-level certs purely for mass filtering reasons and as proxy indicators. They absolutely do not gauge skills accurately/meaningfully and I get the feeling such gauging is implied by proponents of said regulation, at least on a "bare minimum" basis.
I'm personally all for standards, but I think there's a need for standards to compete.
robby_arctor@reddit
The current situation is already a mess. I'd rather have a mess where you and I have a worker-focused organization fighting for something that at least resembles worker interests.
Right now, powerful tech companies are calling the shots and there is no labor-focused counterweight.
MagnetoManectric@reddit
Ideally, you'd want such a union to be global. Nobody lowballs, everybody holds firm. Realistically, this would be a tall order. It's hard to bully out the scabs when they could come from anywhere.
Getting North Americans on board in general would be tough, simply because the endless, endless reams of propaganda they've been exposed to since birth aiming to disuade labour from organising. I'd like to think eyes are begining to open on that front, but you've got decades of programming to undo.
I'd be ok with a certain level of gatekeeping to this profession. Bad engineers waste a lot of time and money, and cause the rest of us stress.
edgmnt_net@reddit
Can we control and steer it into the right direction, though? People seem to envision a precise picture of what the union is going to do, but how do we get there? The stronger the union protections, the harder it's gonna be to keep things in check, too much power corrupts.
floral_disruptor@reddit
Did you say one single authoritative body is gonna cause issues, while also attempting to speak for all companies?
edgmnt_net@reddit
In normal speech, "women like flowers" does not usually mean "all women like flowers". It also isn't necessarily an attempt at speaking on behalf of any woman in particular.
floral_disruptor@reddit
is that in the negative too? women do not like flowers. fish do not live in the sea. companies don't hire homeless people.
edgmnt_net@reddit
I'd say so, but I admit I might be mistaken. Phrases like "men are attracted to women" and "men are not attracted to other men" seem rather strong and I'd even say about equally strong, although they might not be intended to be truly absolute. Might be context-dependent or maybe this particular example was too special. I'd also consider phrases like "Americans don't care about X" to be quite clearly statements about collective / aggregate beliefs.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
The problem with these ideas is that if you ask 10 different people what it would look like, you’d get 10 different answers that all favor the person you’re asking.
Older developers would tell you it’s a system that values years of experience above all else.
On the other end, college students will tell you we need to ignore years of experience and find a way to force the industry of giving entry-level jobs to them.
The problem for the juniors is that they’re not in the union, so they have no say. The 30 year developers would be, and they’d be interested in rules that protect their jobs against the juniors.
And that’s how unions end up favoring seniority and protectionism over elevating talent.
Whenever the union topic comes up on Reddit everyone speaks of unions like they advocate for all developers in a general sense, but unions only advocate for union members, even if it hurts the job prospects of people outside the union.
If you think the tech job application process is broken, you should look into what it takes to even get a shot at joining something like the dock worker’s union. There’s a subreddit here where people swap tips about getting in. You have to do things like make yourself available to pick up spare shifts at a moment’s notice for potentially years, competing with others trying to do the same. You have to build relationships (aka politics) and work extra hard whenever they give you a chance to work. You might have to do this for a very long time to even be considered to get a real union job, and even that doesn’t get you seniority until you hold on.
I think a lot of developers imagine themselves already inside the union but never think about the dynamics of trying to get into unionized jobs.
robby_arctor@reddit
These are legitimate issues, but the alternative is to continue to let employers do whatever the fuck they want. How is trying to get consensus on the hiring process from the worker side worse than that?
This is also an issue now, the main difference is that workers don't have an organization weighing in on the process (for better or worse).
We aren't comparing to a perfect world here, the status quo is also quite bad. I'd rather have it be bad with a worker org I might have some voice in rather than leave it to employers, where I am guaranteed to have none.
0xsbeem@reddit
Letting people do whatever they want is the essential reason free markets work well. The companies with the best talent funnels will get the best developers by definition.
If capitalism isn't your thing, then I absolutely think giving the most senior, most politically-talented software developers the most say in what defines a good hiring process is a terrible idea, especially with how fast tech moves.
edgmnt_net@reddit
The alternative is to unfuck the economy so we have a better chance at negotiating our own priorities, instead of making everyone submit to collective decisions. Because this isn't emergent consensus, it's forced consensus.
robby_arctor@reddit
Not sure what action I can take as a worker to unfuck the economy. We can only work with the conditions we are given.
If you're just in principle opposed to collective decisions, that's fine. I agree that there are downsides. I just think achieving an organized workforce is still worth it.
doubleohbond@reddit
Nor do I particularly want to wait for the economy to unfuck itself, especially when half the country votes for the guy who explicitly ran on fucking the economy.
Much-Bedroom86@reddit
The dock workers union is a terrible example. There are only around 70,000 dockworkers in the US and they can make $200k without a college degree. Of course it's going to be hard to join. It's basically the FAANG of low skill jobs. The non union solution would be to pay a fraction of the union pay, decrease: safety, benefits, and job stability, and now congrats they can hire many more people and it's easier to get a job there.
Compare that to somewhere between 1 and 2 million software engineer positions that also require a college degree( or more). Unions are hard to get into because unions turn the job into a stable and highly sought after career relative to all the non union jobs. Imagine if we had other unions so that most jobs could be more stable instead of the relatively few union jobs.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
It’s actually a good example of why it’s incorrect to extrapolate from small, highly paid unions on to an entire industry.
Many commenters throughout the thread assume that engineers joining a union will get the same compensation benefits they hear about from these small, localized unions. That same concept does not scale to an industry-level union for a job that can be done from anywhere.
Much-Bedroom86@reddit
So basically you're pivoting from your incorrect original argument that we would have all the downsides of this small competitive union that you used as an example, to now arguing that maybe that's not true but we wouldn't get any of their benefits either. You're just flip flopping from one argument to another based on zero evidence.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
No, I’m pointing out that union forms come with tradeoffs.
You can’t pick and choose all of the good points of the different union formats while pretending that none of their negatives apply.
It’s not flip-flopping, it’s showing that different structures have different tradeoffs. If you can’t acknowledge those tradeoffs or acknowledge that there are different forms of unions with different tradeoffs, it just turns into a discussion of people imagining some perfect form of union that doesn’t exist.
Not unlike discussions about communism where people only want to talk about some hypothetically perfect communist society that doesn’t exist, but they also don’t want you to talk about the downsides of actual communist governments that have been tried in the past.
Much-Bedroom86@reddit
The only legitimate trade off you mentioned was seniority. The other trade offs are invalid via my initial comment about why the dock workers union is hard to get into as well as your flip flopping about how you can't scale up small unions and expect them to operate the same. So most of the downsides you listed do not actually apply to the conversation at hand.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
Sorry, but if you don’t see the tradeoffs involved in different union structures, sizes, and operating philosophies then this isn’t a real decision about how real unions work.
Much-Bedroom86@reddit
I didn't say there are no tradeoffs. I said most of the tradeoffs that you are explicitly arguing do not apply.
HalveMaen81@reddit
"Seniority sucks"
"Does if you ain't senior"
FlashCrashBash@reddit
Way to many people like the idea of unions and yet have never had to interact with unionized labor and it shows.
tehfrod@reddit
Not all unions work the same way.
GILLESPEEPEE@reddit
+1, the longshoremen/dock-workers union is notorious for gatekeeping.
urbansong@reddit
One of the benefits of the current system is that women and minorities (except for East Asians and Indians) have a clear way of getting it - show you can code. Sure, it is not easy as it is but these people are not part of "the club" and if the club puts up barriers, it would get even worse for them.
edgmnt_net@reddit
Because, lo and behold, people have different priorities. And the reality is collective action can only cater to the least common denominator. Sometimes that's a decent compromise, other times it isn't. The larger the group, the more you get into the latter category, especially when enforced and alternatives get excluded, or if it's something avoidable.
As a more extreme example of "avoidable", if we all vote what we're going to eat tomorrow chances are many or even most of us will be less satisfied than if we made an individual choice, unless something else balances it out.
melted-cheeseman@reddit
I completely agree. I've seen the hiring process on both sides at this point, as CTO of a moderately successful, now older startup, and as a job candidate very recently (mostly to see how other companies hire). It's a nightmare on both ends.
There's really no way to vet (especially junior) candidates without rigorously testing them, and making bad hires (which I've done) is incredibly costly in time and money. On the flip side, going through tests as a candidate sucks too; tests outside of FAANG are seemingly random, nearly impossible to prepare for, and you'll be failed out for silly reasons.
I'm strongly in favor at this point of a professional association and certification, and appropriate state legislation regulating who can use the title of software engineer. It would save everyone so much time and money.
Mithrandir2k16@reddit
Also, trade unions would establish standards as well. It's astonishing how many mistakes that were documented over 50 years already are repeated at every company I interact with..
quantum-fitness@reddit
Unions are purely about game theory. Increase income for members by controlling supply.
tehfrod@reddit
And improving working conditions. It's not always about pay.
quantum-fitness@reddit
Improved working conditions are part of pay or at least benefits.
the_fresh_cucumber@reddit
As he writes this from his $2.5mm home while taking his early retirement.
robby_arctor@reddit
I wish people realized how stupid their baseless assumptions made them look.
Appropriate-Let-2739@reddit
At Stellanova Globaltech Pvt Ltd, we’ve found that while the dev agency space is crowded, there’s still appetite—but only if you bring something specific to the table. Generic "we do it all" shops struggle. Clients value reliability, clear communication, and niche expertise over scale or flash.
We've focused on building long-term, trust-based relationships with a few clients rather than chasing growth—and that’s worked well for us.
MangoTamer@reddit
Why would you throw that controversial last bullet point into your post?
AccountExciting961@reddit
While I'm all for milking the employers to the last drop, I've had my share of co-workers for whom, without an exaggeration, it would be prudent to pay not to work - and keeping them around would be a good way to make everyone else quit. So, for the union to be viable, it would need some way of dealing with this.
DualActiveBridgeLLC@reddit
Except those people exist in today's system as you said, having a union does not change that. Half the shit that other industries complain about unions are just things that the unions negotiated.
AccountExciting961@reddit
"exists when the management is incompetent" is not the same as "exist even when the management is competent" - and unions absolutely can make the difference between he two
davidblacksheep@reddit (OP)
Yes, I agree with this.
The way I would frame this is that:
urbansong@reddit
If the companies don't need engineers with those skills, why should engineers learn them?
davidblacksheep@reddit (OP)
I think that's the point I'm making.
Companies are prioritising getting functionality done now, and it leads to crappy codebases.
What I'm thinking about is how developers don't get several weeks to investigate and come up with a strategy, any 'planning' is one in 1-2 hour sprint planning session.
It doesn't help developers or the companies.
Something like a developers advocacy organisation could come into organisationa and say 'hey, this is a frequent pattern we have reported by the developers in our network, here's how you would solve it'.
urbansong@reddit
Yeah but if the companies don't think it's a problem, why is it a problem?
MagnetoManectric@reddit
I dunno. Because we care about our craft? Is that not a good enough reason?
urbansong@reddit
If your employer pays you to have a good time, then yes, feel free to care about the craft as much as you like.
davidblacksheep@reddit (OP)
Companies do all sorts of inefficient things. I don't think what companies do is a good yard stick of what's good or effective by any means.
urbansong@reddit
Of course but they foot the bill.
davidblacksheep@reddit (OP)
Sure, and the whole point of this conversation is 'what can we do to make things better, maybe some kind of developer advocacy organisation would help'.
xiongchiamiov@reddit
They eventually managed to make a PE exam for software engineers. And then so few people took it (less than a dozen?) they killed it.
putturi_puttu@reddit
I think its too contextual to have a guideline. A doctor can lose their license due to malpractice. What would be a malpractice in software engineering? Not meeting deadlines? Having poor unit test coverage? All of these are very contextual.
Point 2 is correct.
BanaTibor@reddit
Writing bad software which is killing people. Uncle Bob have painted a very dire picture of this i one of his seminars. You can watch it on youtube, called "coding a better world together".
No-Extent8143@reddit
Malpractice is about outcomes, not processes. A doctor that made a big mistake but no one got hurt is a completely different story from a doctor that made a minor mistake but people died. Same applies to programmers. Poor unit test coverage in a mobile game is non issue. Poor unit test in a piece of code that administers cancer medication is a different ball game.
putturi_puttu@reddit
That reduces the scope of standards then, doesn't it. To take your own example, what standards would apply to someone working on angry birds.
No-Extent8143@reddit
Well yes, of course. Angry birds code base is not the same as the control system in the nuclear plant.
Technical_Gap7316@reddit
Yes, but the human body is largely consistent over geography and time, and thus, training and licensing medical practitioners is relatively straightforward.
The same is largely true with legal professionals as well.
Software development is far too varied and dynamic to be licensed or accredited outside of very specific niches.
HorribleUsername@reddit
Wait, what? If people died, how is it a minor mistake?
blackgoatofthewood@reddit
Leaking ppi. We all dropped a db or two but leaking info?
Wonderful_Device312@reddit
In the context of actual engineering - it would be stuff that gets people killed or causes serious damage in other ways.
It's like how no one really cares if a poorly built shed falls over. No one cares if your random app breaks. But people care a lot if a skyscraper falls over or... Google search breaks.
The questions asked would be around if proper engineering standards were followed etc.
coloredgreyscale@reddit
Building sql queries by string concatenation that allows trivial sql injection.
anotheridiot-@reddit
Dropping prod db.
Uploading keys to public git.
Making needlessly O(N³) or worse algorithms.
/s but not so much
deathhead_68@reddit
I think a lot of 'developers' hear about the potentially high pay of the profession and jump on the bandwagon, many of these people are still good, in my experience most of them are shit at their jobs and painful to work with.
dacydergoth@reddit
UK has the British Computer Society (a Royal Society) for this. They confer "Chartered" status which is respected engineering qualification. Aside from that they are mostly, but not entirely, completely useless.
USA has ACM who these days are even less relevant.
edgmnt_net@reddit
There's much more incentive for the body to increase standards arbitrarily to reduce competition and collect fees in the long run (I'd also argue there are plenty of bad/inexperienced lawyers so that's not a complete solution either). Competition between devs, standards and so on is essential here.
Customers and companies can already demand more assurance but they don't, they go for low prices.
pablosus86@reddit
A professional or licensing organization are very different things than a union.
davidblacksheep@reddit (OP)
Sure. Which is why 'association' is in the post title.
WriteCodeBroh@reddit
Trade unions already have a way of dealing with this. You continually get furloughed into oblivion because no foreman from the hall will bring you onboard a job. Part of unionization would likely have to include work contracts, similar to how things function in Sweden. If you are deeply unpopular in your programmers union, I imagine it would be very tough to get work still.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
This implies shifting everyone to job-based contract work, giving up their full-time salary.
That proposal would be a quick way to kill any interest in unions. A lot of people imagine unions as an extra layer of safety and protection on top of their current job, not something that requires them to give up their steady paychecks.
WriteCodeBroh@reddit
I’d gladly give up my salary for a guaranteed 40 hour/week contract with overtime pay. The way Sweden handles this is fixed term vs “indefinite” term contracts. You can be signed for up to 2 years of fixed term contracts, after which you are transferred to an indefinite term contract. Indefinite term contracts are true stability. Termination notice and severance are factored into the contract, so no more getting an email on Friday that you lost your job as of today.
If a hypothetical programmers union functioned like a trade union does in the US today, you also wouldn’t have to go through the broken interview process if a company did decide to terminate you before the 2 year cutoff. It could function more like consulting firms do today, where Meta, Google, etc. come to the union for engineers, architects. When a programmers is getting tired of their gig, they give their agreed upon notice and rejoin the pool, maybe take a peek first and try to line up other work. All the while, they still have union benefits so long as they work X hours per year, are paying reduced dues, etc while they are off.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
The comment above was saying that the work would not be guaranteed.
If the job foreman doesn’t like you, you don’t get picked. If you don’t get picked, you don’t work. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid.
If you thought office politics was bad now, imagine a workplace where you have to constantly schmooze the foreman (or manager or lead or …) to even get picked to have a chance to work.
WriteCodeBroh@reddit
I’ve worked in tech consulting and I’m not much of a schmoozer. If you do decent work, you have work. Maybe the best projects are reserved for schmoozers, but how is that any different than now? People are passed up for promotions, laid off, etc for not being ass kissers all the time.
Unionization in tech isn’t some pipe dream, impossibility like a lot of people here are pretending. It doesn’t lead to the worst devs being protected from any scrutiny. There are effective engineer unions in Sweden, Unionen and many join Engineers of Sweden. In Australia, many engineers are under Professionals Australia. German tech workers are heavily unionized at an industry level, and tech councils exist within large companies where workers can discuss company specific issues.
Boom9001@reddit
As a worker you currently have no say in who is on your team. So it's not like a union can give you less power. It's a level of bureaucracy you add to your job. But it's at least typically a more transparent one to the workers than the bureaucracy large companies already have. It can also help navigate that often intentionally opaque company bureaucracy.
There's really no argument against a union I buy at this point. I was raised very Republican so until recently was very even about them. But I have since changed my tune and recognize most of the more even arguments are actually just anti-union propaganda. Dues are only 1-2% of salary on average, but union workers earn 10-20% more.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
If a union ties your manager’s hands about who can be on the team, then your team as a unit has less power to choose their own fate. Arguing that employees can’t fire coworkers is a strawman because that’s not what the union would change.
I was raised in a way that sounds opposite of yours. I watched older extended family members go into unionized jobs where they came to loathe the union politics. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, and if you can’t think of any downsides to a union then your understanding of how real unions work is undoubtedly incomplete. There are real tradeoffs and downsides you have to acknowledge if you want to have a real discussion.
the_fresh_cucumber@reddit
That will never happen in a typical union.
I worked with IBEW for years and seniority is how unions rank members. There is no other criteria.
ThrowRADisgruntledF@reddit
I think giving everyone job security would help some of these pain in the asses chill out a bit. I often find that some developers go above and beyond (and stress everyone else out in the process) constantly because they think it’ll give them better job security.
Salty_Map_9085@reddit
I’m in a union, CWA. We’re in a unit with CS and sales as well, the developers were a little bit harder to get on board but not very hard. We honestly haven’t seen huge benefit but we’ve seen some benefit and there’s basically no negative.
I think if you are looking to unionize, it’s probably better to look at existing unions rather than making a new union, the more people are in your union the more power you have.
zhivago@reddit
The big problem with these discussions is that Americans don't understand unions.
As far as I can see the American union is a kind of guild designed to protect privelege.
As opposed to a vehicle for collective barganing for work conditions.
In a very real sense what unions do is to establish safety standards.
From which qualification standards follow.
And then performance standards follow.
And then wage standards follow.
They're not about making it hard to fire people.
They're about establishing standards for employing them from which follow standards for disemploying them.
Plenty of people have been removed by unions for not meeting standards.
Bigmeatcodes@reddit
I'm In let me know how to help
BertRenolds@reddit
None. It comes up very often on this sub and I figure if people can't use the search bar, it's the exact kind of coworkers I do not want.
deadwisdom@reddit
I don't think people understand how much money we could be making if we had a union. C-level are getting so so rich off of us.
larktok@reddit
Opposite. If we cost any more and are any more trouble to keep on the roster, it’s just more incentive to hire Indians and Europeans and Indians in Europe
TheyUsedToCallMeJack@reddit
Yes, stop hitting Americans because they have a union, so let's hope the unionised Europeans with stronger Labour laws.
larktok@reddit
yes unironically because they cost half our price WITH union laws priced in
now add union laws to American hires and boom we will be triple cost of EU hires
As an American SWE you have to be sober about this - if you were starting a startup would you hire your teammates at their current market rates? maybe if you want 4 months runway
valence_engineer@reddit
And a fifth the comp. Maybe unions aren’t the answer….
robby_arctor@reddit
This would be a more compelling point if they weren't already doing that anyway.
deadwisdom@reddit
Let me put it this way, you are issuing a WARNING for collective bargaining, you are not issuing an ERROR. It's a good thing to think about, but it's not something that should stop the whole thing.
Constant_Still_2601@reddit
europeans and insanely more likely to unionize than americans.
larktok@reddit
they can feel free to unionize and double their wages or something, average senior SWE salary is 90k usd in Europe, while it is 200k+ in U.S. t1 hubs
it’s still cheaper to hire in Europe paying double! Let that sink in guys
Constant_Still_2601@reddit
there's two things to consider to this:
gjionergqwebrlkbjg@reddit
And earn 1/3rd of what you do in the US, kind of denied the main supposed benefit of the unions.
jepperepper@reddit
not really. many european countries have univeral public healthcare, and are unlikely to ever face medically-induced bankruptcy, regardless of employment status.
americans have no health insurance unless we have a job, and being homeless usually means you don't have a job.
and while the UK has the highest "homelessness" rate per capita in the world, out of 424 people per 100,000 who are technically homeless, 410 have temporary shelter, while in the US while the technically homeless population is just under 200 per 100,000, the number living in the streets is more like 75.
on top of that there's a huge unemployment rate, and that's not even counting the fact that we have a giant incarceration rate per capita, bigger than several OECD countries combined.
all of this adds up to "costs" we pay out of higher paychecks.
I've lived in europe a little bit, and I can testify that their poor people have it significantly better off than we do, and people with cushy jobs like ours have extremely comfortable lives, moreso than i do in the usa when you calculate all those things into the equation.
europe is already effectively unionized, because the labor laws there are so much better than in the us - for instance some countries have employment contracts, which is laughable here in the states - so I don't think europeans have a good sense of how rough life can be here without unions.
Constant_Still_2601@reddit
depends on the company actually.
gjionergqwebrlkbjg@reddit
The IG Metall jobs in Germany tap out at 100k euros, and that is the most prominent union there.
edgmnt_net@reddit
That's true, although it also shows that unionization has negative side-effects. The market is smaller there due to increased total costs and risks.
Constant_Still_2601@reddit
i don't think it's related. it's almost certainly just historical reasons.
edgmnt_net@reddit
Well, I agree it's not very obvious for US vs EU, but some places like Eastern Europe are way more relaxed about this stuff and it is still easier to get a job with good working conditions even without degrees. You can attribute that to differences in cost of living/employment, but at least part of that cost is kept high by such regulation. Companies are much less likely to hire someone if they could end up unable to fire them in 6 months, or give raises based on impact if unions demand basic raises for everyone.
papayon10@reddit
I am not too well informed on what it takes to form a union, but I have always wondered why SWE has never even has a small group of people even try to form a union. Especially with companies wanting to outsource and such
thekwoka@reddit
Because they can easily outsource it.
What is the use of a union when it has no power?
jepperepper@reddit
this is the major problem, and is in fact the reason corporations are constantly lobbying to enable outsourcing. they know that if a group of workers gets it in their head that we deserve a fair cut of the profits they will need leverage.
thekwoka@reddit
Isn't the working agreement already a fair cut?
How else would you define fair cut?
jepperepper@reddit
a percentage of the profits. so if the profits go up, my cut goes up. that's not currently the deal.
thekwoka@reddit
How do you identify what is a fair percentage?
What if the profits go up but not because of anything you've done?
jepperepper@reddit
you split ownership, like a partnership. people who own stocks today always get profits they haven't earned. same thing.
thekwoka@reddit
They did take on the risk though.
Should the employees also have to share the debt of the company?
jepperepper@reddit
if they agree to. right now, the option is never presented.
and the employees already take on a risk when they specialize in whatever they're working on for the company.
we need to stop idolizing company owners just because they had a little more money to start with. that's literally the only difference between us and them.
thekwoka@reddit
And that that little more money is on the line.
I mean, it's normally not "a little more money". It's normally a lot, and most businesses fail in 2 years, and even successful ones the owner rarely makes much money for quite a while.
That's a risk tolerance most aren't willing to accept. Is there some more meaningful reason that the high risk shouldn't come with high reward?
I think we can agree there are instances of the imbalance being inappropriate, but until you at least acknowledge that there is some claim to "more" of the business, you won't get very far in moving things.
No_Interaction_5206@reddit
Still ways to combat it, if you have a union and are worried about outsourcing you could strike/ disrupt service. At the first sign of outsourcing, you’d have the power to collectively refuse to work with outsourced counterparts.
thekwoka@reddit
And then what?
They just outsource faster?
No_Interaction_5206@reddit
Possible but unlikely, can you imagine firing ever dev and replacing them over night? It would kill most companies.
thekwoka@reddit
If the devs get too expensive and walk out regularly, that would also kill most companies.
No_Interaction_5206@reddit
That’s very unlikely of course because as companies approach being unprofitable the unions loose more and more power.
Employees don’t want the company going under so they are also incentivized to bargain in good faith.
thekwoka@reddit
Sure, but then can't many kind of agree that it's pretty good as is already?
Constant_Still_2601@reddit
if it's so easy, why haven't they done it already? hint: it isn't easy.
thekwoka@reddit
Hardly, we've SEEN they do outsource.
It's just about balances. That the outsource is cheaper, but not as good per dollar in many cases.
So now if you make non-outsourced even more expensive....
Constant_Still_2601@reddit
they do outsource. and then they usually stop because the results are horrendous.
thekwoka@reddit
But it's overwhelmingly about value. There can become a point when outsourcing becomes more value, especially when you start looking at ones closer to US wages but offshore. Where the value isn't really there now, but could get there.
Not saying unions are inherently bad, but these issues exist. It's not unlike tariffs. You make one thing more expensive and other options that were unviable start to become viable.
flowering_sun_star@reddit
It's a bit weird to see someone say that software engineers haven't unionised when you're a member of a union! And I know it's not the only one in the UK.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
But there are already tech worker unions, and they’re not making bank.
The jobs tend to pay less than they could get on the open market because people are willing to give up some salary in exchange for the union benefits.
You also need to be willing to give up that salary for an indeterminate amount of time to strike if the union calls for it. The last time the New York Times tech worker union tried to strike they ended it early without gaining anything and a lot of members were already going back to work before the strike officially ended.
ltdanimal@reddit
And yet you won't get off your ass and put together a 2 page proposal.
This is purely naive optimism founded on empty wishful thinking. What's stopping you from creating this reality where a tech union exists and we all make so much money?
dynocoder@reddit
It's the other way around---people don't understand how much money they would NOT be making if they unionized. Outsourcing then becomes tremendously more attractive, or software projects simply won't be greenlighted because the labor pool is artificially limited and the cost of execution is too high to venture in. Also further incentivizes the speedier improvement of AI coding tools.
Suitable_Speaker2165@reddit
If you think it's difficult to get anything done right now as a developer just wait until you have to ask the union leader if you're allowed to optimize your search algorithm. Also kiss performance based bonuses goodbye.
And instead of complaining about Agile, get into a higher position within your company and do something about your company's shitty practices. Unionizing will only add 10x to your problems.
prescod@reddit
Agile was invented precisely to give teams more say over development procest. It’s a total myth that “planning out” a six month project from an incomplete and quickly obsolete “product requirements document” meant we had more autonomy. It just meant more finger pointing at the end when the project inevitably failed because software developers demanded that product managers do the impossible (think about work on six month chunks without a feedback loop) and product managers demanded that programmers do the impossible (put together a project plan for six months of work at a time.
Everybody failed and by the metrics used back then, the project might well fail as well.
If your union is going to take us back to those days then NO THANK YOU!
Additional_Olive3318@reddit
Agile was invented to increase the visibility of what developers are doing on a daily basis, particularly the daily standup, which is most certainly a status meeting despite energetic claims to the contrary. The purpose of a system is not always what it does, but in this case it is.
prescod@reddit
No. The agile manifesto does not mention daily stand ups and they are not a requirement of Agile.
What is required is:
From those two statements, daily standup might arise naturally but you might also fulfil them in other ways.
Additional_Olive3318@reddit
The purpose of a system is what it does. I’ve never been in a company where the introduction of agile didn’t lead to daily standups, added processes and more ceremonies. In fact I’m experiencing that now as a non dev (well a product engineer) as we move, with reluctance on our team, to agile.
prescod@reddit
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpose-of
As an engineer, I’ve found regular (at least three weekly) standups to be incredible knowledge sharing and prioritisation opportunities. As such, the Agile thing for me to do at any company meeting less often than that would be to advocate for them as an effective practice. So yeah: you might experience a high correlation of this technique with agile because it’s a good practice appropriate for most teams.
In some team with an odd delivery system it might not make sense (e.g. a team of scientists working on disconnected stuff) and in that case the Agile practice would be to the discouraged the contextually inappropriate practice.
Additional_Olive3318@reddit
Im aware of the article by Scott. Which is why I said the purpose of the system isn’t always what it does, but it is here.
And I’m not arguing against scrum, which has its uses. I’m merely saying that the supposed agile manifesto isn’t what is being implemented, and I kinda wish people would stop quoting it. It’s fighting dragons anyway, the heavy documentation driven waterfall method didn’t really exist in practise, and people communicated well enough and self organised as they needed to. The propose of scrum is daily status meetings, processes that keep track of work daily, and demos to stakeholders. This really isn’t denied. That’s all about reporting progress and keeping managen happy. And processes. Lots of processes.
prescod@reddit
(Comment in progress)
It’s what’s been implemented at the last three places I worked, and at one of them I was reorged into a department that had the same dismissive attitude towards the manifesto that you do. That was my first hint that I was going to have to quit. After a couple more hints I left and found a place that took it seriously again.
I should say that very seldom do people “take it seriously” in terms of constantly quoting it. Rather they take it seriously in terms of embodying it in the corporate culture. The ideas in the manifesto just make sense can easily be argued from first principles if you have a management that understands software development and human psychology.
And if you don’t, well…ignoring the best practices embodied in the manifesto are unlikely to be the only thing they are missing.
I lived it. I spent two unpleasant weeks in a room building a data model for a system that was never built in the end. I received (and once wrote) 50 page Product Requirement Documents.
From the website “departmenrofproduct.com”:
There are tons of websites still advocating for detailed feature by feature requirements:
Another website says:
You seem to be extrapolating from a strangely awesome experience of the before times and a strangely horrible experience of the current world. Mine is the opposite. As I have had the increased opportunity to be picky about my job, I have left most of that bureaucratic junk behind me.
That’s completely false and easily disproven.
When I worked for a few weeks on a “product” that had only my spouse as a “product owner”, I showed it to them every day because I wanted feedback on whether the product was heading in the right direction. It had a lot of UI and I wanted it to make sense for my spouse and people like my spouse. I didn’t know the domain so I relied on my spouse to say “no we don’t work that way because X.”
If I had a team of three or whatever, of course they would have been included as well. How can they do their jobs properly if they don’t know the context of their work?
My question for you is what would YOU do in that situation I described? You have a single stakeholder. They are not your boss or management but they represent the users of the system. They are busy so you need to schedule their time in advance. You have developer teammates.
What would your meeting rhythm look like and why not a daily standup?
MagnetoManectric@reddit
Colour me thoroughly interested. My workplace is already unionised.
Everyone in the comments seems to think that unions/guilds. will protect shit engineers. The opposite should be true. A good association will demand that standards in the profession are maintained, and that crafstmanship is upheld.
It's the bosses that want corners cut. As software engineers, we're effectively a type of artisan. We should act like it more.
Shot-Buy6013@reddit
Let's be more real about the profession.
The huge variance of skill levels is the first issue that comes to mind, and there's really no way to definitively know someone's capability.
You can't base it strictly on education because some of the best programmers ever are drop outs or never even went to school
You also can't base it on experience, because some people could've been doing the same repetitive shit for decades or years
You also can't even base it on someone's capability itself - because in order for someone to create good software, they need to want to create it. You'll always get a subpar product if it's half-assed and not thought-out no matter who makes it
You also can't judge capability alone - because even people who are terrible coders skill-wise have created unique and insanely profitable products.
Finally.. the best programmers don't even want to work for anyone. Most of them usually have the desire to create something of their own and sell it.
All in all, it's just not a job for this kind of unionizing. The ones making a ton of money at a job just played their cards right and played out the corporate cog wheels like they should. You know, the expensive education -> internship -> some connections/networks -> job at FAANG
theDarkAngle@reddit
You don't have to judge capability in a union.
Personally I think seniority based pay is always better on average than subjective eval and negotiated pay, which I think mostly selects for ability to sell oneself rather than ability to do the actual job. And for people from financially secure backgrounds due to stronger negotiating mindset.
But you don't have to enforce a particular pay scale at all. Maybe some minimums would be appropriate, perhaps a pay scale for folks in the first 1-5 years on the job or something like that. But all of that is optional
Shot-Buy6013@reddit
But thats the problem, it's hard to declare seniority in a field like this. You can't just go by X number of years worked because everyone is different and has different skillsets in this field
theDarkAngle@reddit
If you accept that no system is perfect, you definitely can go by years of experience only
Shot-Buy6013@reddit
So why should someone with only 5 years of experienced be paid significantly less than someone with 15 years of experience if the person with 5 is significantly better/faster/smarter/etc?
Why would that person even want to be in a union?
Unions make more sense in jobs that are both necessary for society, but also something that can be done at a similar level by everyone more or less - so that they don't get exploited or pushed out of the market. Garbage men, truck drivers, cleaners, lower skill ceiling trade jobs, etc
theDarkAngle@reddit
Because "better" is highly subjective and hiring/promotion is even more prone to biases and frankly gamesmanship in this field compared to others.
But like I said you don't have to force 15y to be paid more than 5y. You could call all 5y and above "seniors" and just have a minimum for seniors, with freedom to negotiate above that minimum. Or you could not have any salary scale like SAG, it'd be more about outlining working conditions, rules, overtime pay, etc. Game dev for sure could use rules about managing crunch.
liquidpele@reddit
Agree, but I do think we need to organize a political group per-country to manage lobbyists to fight things that make outsourcing easier, etc. That kind of thing is very much in our best interests for everyone.
RestitutorInvictus@reddit
How is this in the best interests of everyone? Why should Indian software engineers fight outsourcing by Americans?
liquidpele@reddit
That’s why I said per-country.
cscqtwy@reddit
I largely agree with your post, but I'd dispute this. Under good conditions plenty of the best engineers are very happy to avoid the uncertainty and grind of starting their own company. And plenty of terrible engineers try to start startups.
Shot-Buy6013@reddit
Well, consider that also some of the best programmers are literally unemployed and live in their grandpa's basement somewhere in Siberia and never socially adjusted to real life and responsibilities
cscqtwy@reddit
I'm disputing that "most" of the best engineers want to start their own company, not that there's one of them that does.
inscrutablemike@reddit
Unions aren't a good fit for the tech industry in general. Even artistic guilds like SAG or the Animator's Guild don't really fit how tech people do work in tech companies.
Plus, any organized effort would immediately be taken over by the absolute worst, most useless, most psychotically dedicated people in the entire profession; A profession that already draws far too many neuroatypical people. It would be a volcano of burning napalm sewage in under six months.
Goodos@reddit
Why wouldn't it fit the way tech people do work in tech companies? I work with a lot of Americans and me being in a union has literally no impact on day to day work. I just get some protections and benefits they don't.
Also my union isn't immediately taken over by the absolute worst. Where are guys getting these ideas? SWEs are fairly organised across the EU. You can see the actual benefits and draw backs from there instead of just making them up.
edgmnt_net@reddit
The EU market is underdeveloped due to unionization and strong worker protections. Companies are less likely to give people a chance if they can't fire or if they cost a lot. It might not seem like it, but there's a hidden cost to it. Conversely, Eastern Europe has a much greater appeal, partly due to weak unionization.
Goodos@reddit
The EU market is underdeveloped only compared to the US and even then because of worse access to financing due to a weaker banking sector. Worker rights have very little to do with it. They take chances just fine having worked in the system for years and years. Probation periods are common. Even now I hear that states side new grads are struggling to get offers while EU companies are filling entry roles normally. So that doesn't really fit the narrative.
There is a hidden cost but it's to companies which complain and scare people about how it will make the business unprofitable and lead to worse conditions for workers but still continue to operate in organised countries and turn a profit despite the fear mongering. I've never heard of an actual place where introducing worker protections had made the situation for the workers themselves.
cscqtwy@reddit
The underdevelopment of the tech sector in the EU compared to the US started with startups - look at how many fewer of them showed up in the EU ~10-15 years ago, and where nearly all of the big tech companies in the US came from. US startups are funded almost entirely by VCs, not banks. You can't blame banks for this.
Goodos@reddit
Banks as in financial institutions/industry in general. We're making the same point.
cscqtwy@reddit
I still don't really buy it. The VCs in the US are really just "people with money". They aren't deeply embedded in the financial system and don't depend on the financial system much (they typically aren't debt-funded, for example). Hell, the earliest-stage startups are typically talking to angel investors, which are literally nothing more than "people with money" plus a bank that can cash a check. I know Europe has "people with money" - so you have to dig a bit deeper to understand why they don't invest in tech startups.
Underdevelopment of the financial sector is a good explanation of why there's less PE in Europe. That really is a business that relies on a complex web of financial products and deep relationships with financial institutions. But venture capital? Doesn't add up.
edgmnt_net@reddit
In my experience, probation only covers senior staff well. The rest take a long time to ramp up and could turn out to be dead weight even 6 months later. People also change or fail to improve in unexpected ways and ways that make objective and provable assessment difficult.
It might also have to do with the fact that the US market may be overinflated. You want good costs of employment, but cheap money is likely to cause malinvestment in the long run, they're not equivalent. So there may be confounding factors.
Eastern Europe seems a bit better off and has been so for a while now.
Goodos@reddit
Sure you can argue that about probation but in practise companies view it as sufficient here and are willing to take chances on new people with the current laws so it doesn't matter in this context if it works properly or not. I'm guessing Eastern Europe is more visible to you because US companies offshore there due to lower costs but European IT companies operate in higher cost countries just fine and stay competitive. They just don't make sense for offshoring. Lack of US offshoring doesn't mean there are significantly less opportunities.
I can promise you working in IT in Eastern Europe is not better due to weaker worker protections when compared to Northern Europe let's say. Neither opportunity or benefits wise.
edgmnt_net@reddit
Yeah, I am in Eastern Europe. Salaries versus cost of living seem to be considerably worse in the West and hit a ceiling compared to low wages, especially if you account for costs that become more relevant beyond the preferences of lower-class workers. There's no way I'd move to, say, Germany without a very large increase in salary, because once you account for stuff like rent, private transportation, prepared food and various other services things get out of hand quickly. Also note that Western Europe outsources here too.
I can agree that there are fewer high-level opportunities here, though, as expensive engineers have diminishing costs, it's the low-level stuff that's extremely expensive in areas that have a high cost of living/employment.
Also, historically it seemed like degrees were much less important here than in US. Or that's my feeling at least. Perhaps it may be partly explained by the low quality of the degrees available here.
bluetrust@reddit
I'm on the fence if a union would be good or not for us for that exact reason. We're full of autistic people who have a strong sense of justice, which could be good, but the people I've worked with who put up a fuss about the most inane shit at work in the name of justice (e.g., "we should have a committee of under appreciated developers who the c suite brings problems to and the committee solves them!")--fucking exhausting.
FortuneIIIPick@reddit
Another comment disparaging people with autism. What is it today, it's cool to pick on people are are different now?
bluetrust@reddit
I'm actually autistic myself, and yeah, my comment was flippant. It was fair for you to call it out.
My concern isn’t about autism broadly. It’s about a specific behavior I’ve seen in a few junior devs (also on the spectrum) who latch onto activism with way more energy than actual work. They’d dominate a union not to improve things, but to be heard, bringing up broad social causes way beyond our tiny company’s scope.
Someone once said, “How are you gonna call yourself a community organizer when you can’t even get along with your roommates?” and I instantly thought of all of them.
throwawayyyy12984@reddit
I don’t think the comment you’re replying to really disparaged autistic people… BUT yeah this is all over Reddit.
Here’s the deal - using “autistic” as a pejorative hurts all autistic people. Just don’t do it. Even when talking about Zuckerberg.
No_Interaction_5206@reddit
I work in an industry we’re the manufacturing is unionized and we get all the holidays they bargain for … I get 42 vacation days a year because of the union! I was really wishing we had a union a couple years ago when they laid off half of my team, all decent developers company had record earnings that year … yeah it could be that we just make a new c suite … I would strongly advocate that any union leadership positions don’t make any more than typical developer, or perhaps are volunteer, but I would say at least it’s an avenue for some power. We’re used to being in great demand with limited supply, but that dynamic will not last forever.
I’d love to see developers unionize, we don’t have to protect the lazy or bad developers, let companies replace them, but tell them they must replace them with someone at the same salary level or higher, disincentivize them from firing workers to cut costs.
edgmnt_net@reddit
The core issue here is that devs are expensive and good salaries and working conditions have always been dependent upon competitive skills. There really isn't any way around it. Increase costs and you'll get less of the good stuff (jobs, working conditions, salaries) even if you do manage to do some redistribution. And the mere existence of strong unionization often leads to escalation of collective action and problems fester. How do you propose to steer things in the right direction and ensure the bad things don't happen?
FortuneIIIPick@reddit
You group "psychotically dedicated" people with "worst, most useless". I'd rather see someone who is dedicated, even psychotically dedicated who will get the job done than someone who is useless.
You say neuroatypical people in a pejorative context by stating there are "too many" in this industry.
Why disrespect people are are dedicated and those who are neuroatypical in a discussion about unions, or at all for that matter, it seems like a low thing to do.
inscrutablemike@reddit
Perhaps you aren't familiar with the power-seeking personality type. The people who think everything would be perfect if only they had total power and everyone had to do as they were told? The people who would dedicate their entire lives to taking control of any thing or organization that gives them even the illusion that they can dictate how Things Must Be (TM) to everyone in an entire industry?
It's not clear how you are unaware of this unless you're one of them and think no one has noticed.
freekayZekey@reddit
well, i don’t
pushes “normal” people away, and you still need them. is it ideal? nah, but we don’t live in an ideal world.
freekayZekey@reddit
the thought of electing a union president alone frightens me. the personality types in swe can make that process unbearable
davidblacksheep@reddit (OP)
🤣
It's a valid concern. There's already a lot of bullshit in the industry. This could be just another place for bullshit jobs to exist.
chipper33@reddit
You just end up fighting the union instead of the company to get what you need. There’s hierarchy and bureaucracy in unions too.
The world needs more problems to be solved where software is the solution. That will bring the jobs back.
OnlyGoodMarbles@reddit
This is absolutely the trade that needs to get unionized
IPv6forDogecoin@reddit
I am thoroughly uninterested in talking about a theoretical union. I have seen far too many people give vague aspirational ideals of what it could do.
If you want to talk about a union I want to see a specific, concrete plan for how this would work. In detail. Every advocate hasn't even provided enough detail to fill out a one-pager. So I want to see details before I invest my time.
If you can do that, I'm game to have a discussion.
deadwisdom@reddit
We first have to come to the table, no one is going to have the meal all cooked for you, ready to go.
jajatatodobien@reddit
That's literally how unionizing works you donkey. See? You've got no idea either.
bluetrust@reddit
That actually is how unionizing works. You gauge interest in your co-workers. Then you contact established unions like CODE-CWA or OPEIU for resources, legal advice, and organizing support. These organizations can provide training, help with legal protections, and guide you through the process.
You don't like... sit down with a blank page unless you have a lot of time on your hands.
Odd-Investigator-870@reddit
You've helped the cause with sharing specific organizational resources. 🫡
cballowe@reddit
I feel like it's hard to get interest without some form of 30 second sales pitch. What problem do you see? How does forming a union solve it?
The mechanics of turning that interest into actual organizing come later, but the interest needs something to get people willing to help.
ltdanimal@reddit
Yeah pretty crazy to think that in order for a hugely complicated organization to function there would need to be at least SOMEONE that actually gives a shit enough to spend effort putting together something. I'm sure if a enough upvoted reddit comments happen it will just appear.
Lets just show up to a random house at a random table. Can't expect someone to have put together some thoughts around what we're eating. Or who will be there... but seriously this is one of the laziest analogies I've seen in a minute.
I always get triggered when the "unions would make everything better" comments come up here. So many speak about how they will solve all our problems ... but apparently not enough for anyone to try and get one going.
IPv6forDogecoin@reddit
Dude. I literally said I am uninterested in talking about vague ideals of some theoretical union. If you have no plan at all then you are just wasting bandwidth. Do not come back until you have something worth discussing.
annoying_cyclist@reddit
I struggled with this for a while. I'm pro-union in the abstract, but tend to not resonate with a lot of unions from other professions for various reasons, and the unionized tech job I worked way back when exhibited most of the anti-union tropes (people who didn't do anything sticking around anyway cuz it was too hard to fire them, below market compensation, pay not reflecting contributions, etc).
What stuck for me, as something I'd actually voluntarily join:
What I wouldn't want:
jepperepper@reddit
That's because you have to participate in the process, not just stand outside all huffy until someone else does the work.
FrameAdventurous9153@reddit
Sure, but in this case the commenter you're replying to is asking to be sold on the idea.
Telling him "well I can't make a compelling pitch unless you participate" isn't very optimistic.
Once sold on the idea of unionizing maybe he'd sit down and participate.
freekayZekey@reddit
yeah, that’s why i hate most of the union talk here. the people selling it don’t want to take the effort to pitch a union. it’s like they expect people to say “sure” to them suggesting a union
ThrowRADisgruntledF@reddit
Join the Tech Workers Coalition, there’s literally so much already happening and not “theoretically”.
davidblacksheep@reddit (OP)
Yes, so that's sort of the sticking point for me.
I'm not sure exactly what this should look like.
A few thoughts:
Ozymandias0023@reddit
I have yet to see a good argument for why we need a union aside from "all labor should be unionized", which I don't think makes practical sense. Overall, we make really good money with solid benefits without a union. I don't know what a union could give me that I want and don't already have.
jepperepper@reddit
the only reason you make good money is because you can't be replaced by a machine yet, but AI is coming for you. better start planning now.
Ozymandias0023@reddit
I have yet to see an LLM get anywhere close to doing what I do without such heavy oversight that I might as well write the code myself. I'll be worried if and when that changes, but I haven't seen any indication that it will with the current tech
IPv6forDogecoin@reddit
Unions always lose against automation. At best they can delay things a bit but the result is always the same.
jepperepper@reddit
i don't disagree with that. unions do, however, push up teh floor on incomes, force employers to provide health insurance, and offer a good deal to employees as a way of keeping unions out of the shop. if you threaten to unionize you'll get the same benefits, unfortunately it's difficult to organize people that way, you have to actualy form the union. it's always about bargaining power. really what unions need to do is take control of the government away from corporations, but i don't have a lot of hope for that.
kevinossia@reddit
Most of us deal with needs not being met by finding another job.
Again, same thing. Developers have lots of flexibility in where/how they grow their careers.
You mean like levels.fyi?
Goodos@reddit
These things are not mutually exclusive. I'm in a union but I can also switch employers and have all the same flexibility. I can use levels.fyi but have charts for base reference pay for different seniority positions that employers must give.
It just means I don't have to worry about getting let go on a days notice if a manager gets annoyed with me and I get additional protections e.g. I cannot be let go immediately after parental leave ends and the employer cannot hire new employees before offering the job to me if they fire me due to financial reasons etc.
SrR0b0@reddit
Job security is something I'd unionize for. Where are you from though? I'm not from the US but this kind of union doesn't look like something I'd see in the land of the free.
Goodos@reddit
Yeah, I'm in the EU. Point still stands. In the US there are some misconceptions about unions and their benefits and draw backs in this field which I find weird when you can directly look at how things function in Europe. I get that getting there from the current point in the states is super hard and requires a lot of work but some of the reasons people give why not to do it are just plain odd.
Btw, US has similar strong unions in places but you collectively decided they are ok only for blue collar work for some reason. Some of the stuff US longshoremen unions etc. get up to is a bit much even for my European commie sensibilities.
turtleProphet@reddit
This same kind of poster will complain about mass outsourcing btw
davidblacksheep@reddit (OP)
The advantage that a union-like organisation would have is that
If this is the case, then why does the industry seem like it's in such a shambles?
putturi_puttu@reddit
I don't think that levels.fyi has fake data or if that is too big of a problem. I know salary bands of all major companies and most salaries fall within that range.
So I'm not sure if this is as big of a problem as it's made out to be. Offers are frequently discussed on Blind so you can gauge salaries there as well.
To be clear, I am sure there is fake data but it seems to be in the minority.
jepperepper@reddit
Another approach is to monopolize the field with a giant consulting company that's owned cooperatively. Partnerships are a legal framework for this and Mondragon is an example.
pomelorosado@reddit
For this things was created the concept of DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) for steal power from the minority concentrating it.
Each member have power of vote in decisions based on the tokens owned. Then the profits are shared in the same blockchain based in participation. Everything is transparent, auditable and incorruptible.
Zetus@reddit
These are generally crypto scams that obfuscate with words like "decentralization" and "governance" how the groups are still run by only a few personalities.
pomelorosado@reddit
That is what c corps want you beleive that every attemp to decentralize power is a scam.
Is a blockchain, is impossible to centralize governance. The contracts are public and inmutable you just have to read it.
The massive campaign anty crypto was heavily impulses by people losing a lot of power if the society move to decentralized solutions.
Zetus@reddit
C Corporation structures are artifacts of codifying in progressively more abstracted manners the same kind of structures that the Dutch East India Company used to allowed limited liability in a joint venture.
It is not that there is anything inherently wrong with decentralization of power, that is actually what a society inherently is, is a series of relations amongst multiple power centers.
There is a certain willful and perhaps wishful ignorance at display in your reasoning and thinking regarding sociotechnical systems if you are to claim that the mere technical artifact being distributed somehow makes the social system and inherent dynamics of the usage of blockchains decentralized. Smart contracts are essentially programs running on a distributed, append-only ledger, but they do not solve the work of coordination, trust mechanisms.
There doesn't need to be any campaign against crypto, there is no one organization or group of people in charge of the narrative, it is cryptoeconomics itself that has built itself a bad reputation. Growth at all costs leads to eventually scams becoming the primary driver of activity until it's become a sort of meme to synonymize "crypto" with "scam", because in the average YouTube comments section that is unmoderated you have endless and unbridled scams being used.
Crypto, as it's being co-opted by the same status quo in order to hedge their bets, a16z, the lot of them, their ilk of professional gamblers see the value in allowing people an obfuscated way to gamble en masse, masquerading the value of these systems as currencies when they are moreso speculative devices that propel technological oversimplification of reality.
Distributed databases and data structures have a utility, but mostly for all the things that are real, people are the bottleneck, our cultures, our values- these are the things that prevent power from being in check.
For instance, this is largely an English forum, that means many of the same values common in the English world will come to predominate the kinds of articulations and discussions here, from market capitalist to other kinds of ideologies.
Cryptoeconomics presupposes a fantasy of being able to manage complex systems of humans and machines through a protocol that provides consensus, but this is a narrative that often does not match reality, the unregulated nature of much crypto quite a few years ago, the cargo cult nature of its mechanisms, these are all more related to obscurantism as understanding.
If we want decentralized solutions, we will empower people by investing in things that actually allow them to communicate in structured and nuancee manners, instead of allowing the conversation to be easily overtaken by botnets that are motivated primarily by currency.
Often times, blockchain projects with good intentions are corrupted into the ego plays of several individuals that control the direction. Open-Source development is a much better model than blockchain for anything transparent, sans blockchain.
Bstochastic@reddit
Well said. Ditto.
wiskinator@reddit
I’m currently unemployed and would love to join a union wherever I end up.
floral_disruptor@reddit
IMO it would be more like an old freemason guild. Make it less about "workers rights" and "equality" and more about skill qualifications, interview streamlining, and tool/practice standardization. No one is stopping you from making one.
ButchDeanCA@reddit
Once upon a time I used to be completely against unionization but now feel that we as software engineers don’t have enough control in determining our careers, we can literally be fired on a whim and don’t have enough control in the direction of our careers.
You are totally right on your third point in our roles before Agile, I started my career a few years before it took hold and the job was far more enjoyable and fulfilling. The only reason why we have Agile is not for our satisfaction, it’s for the non-technical business heads to have metrics to determine individual output/production. I hate it and it’s absurd.
So, I am now a supporter of unionization.
flynnwebdev@reddit
It wouldn't work unless you could get rid of the cargo-cult elitism. Far too many devs get on the bandwagon of the new shiny tech and it becomes a religion to them, rather than just a tool.
Unless you can overcome that kind of zealous groupthink, you're never going to get substantial agreement on anything, much less what the standards should be.
tehfrod@reddit
Already joined one.
ivancea@reddit
First, about agile, it has nothing to do with engineers power. Like, nothing.
About the main topic, hard to say. Some countries already have a company work council made by employees, which usually is enough for the basic needs. And even there, many oppose it. I, for example, don't really care. It could be better, or it could be worse. But I don't think it would greatly affect our lives. At least, at the companies I worked on.
About the "making side projects is better for the company", I would say that it's also better for the co-workers, and therefore for all engineers. Developers that do the bare minimum, only know how to do an average webpage, and aren't interested in learning, are actually taking the positions of good, passionate engineers. And I've seen many like those. I think we all have.
I try not to be elitist, but it's literally negative for me and others. Directly. Because we have to work with them. Yes, everybody wants a job, and some teenagers won't know what to choose, and end up in this career. It's a complex ethics question IMO that I can't really answer
Additional-Map-6256@reddit
I would be all for a nationwide union, but I have some issues with your arguments because I don't think they are relevant.
For the first bullet point, you say that working on side projects is great for employers. Are you talking about working on side projects that benefit the employer, or personal projects? I can see how doing extra work for no reason would be counterproductive for advancement, but that's usually not going to improve a person's skills like a personal project would. That is completely unrelated to unionization unless there is some stipulation that people are no longer allowed to do volunteer projects that benefit their employer outside of normal work hours.
For the third point, that poor planning has nothing to do with good agile. Good agile implements a lot of meetings and planning, and having the team refine the tickets. What you're talking about is the fact that non technical people tend to be the ones writing tickets in a lot of companies these days. That's an issue for sure, but not caused by the agile mindset. Companies just exploit/ poorly implemented agile and blame it on that.
not_napoleon@reddit
If you haven't yet, I would suggest reading the book You Deserve a Tech Union
throwmeeeeee@reddit
I think programmers tend to be highly individualistic so I don’t see this getting much traction.
zman4000@reddit
I think we’re all desiring a voice at the table and a way to demand job security with our bosses.
valence_engineer@reddit
Don't speak for others. I have a voice at the table and I'm fine with the risk of getting fired if it means I don't have to deal with low performers and union bureaucracy all day.
Free_Afternoon_7349@reddit
Why would a tech company hire unionized developers?
davidblacksheep@reddit (OP)
Why would a movie production company hire SAG actors?
Free_Afternoon_7349@reddit
I don't know the film industry, I am asking about tech.
I personally wouldn't want union-bureaucrats impacting my life, nor can I think of any reason why I'd want to hire unionized devs.
The best upside I can think of is that it could help connect non-technical people with employees, but that is only a benefit for non-technical companies.
davidblacksheep@reddit (OP)
Alright, I'll answer the question for you.
The reason movie companies hire SAG actors, is because the SAG contracts state that if you want to hire one SAG actor, then all of your actors have to be SAG.
And the SAG contracts include things like minimum pay.
This means that the movie companies can't do things like hire one big name actor, and underpaying a bunch of desperate wanting-to-break-into-the-industry actors.
At some point it has a network effect. Even though a big name actor would no problem finding work and getting good rate with the SAG, because almost everyone is in the SAG, they too need to be in the SAG if they want to work.
So it's not a matter of wanting to hire unionized workers, if a successful software developers guild adopted a similar appraoch as the SAG, you would have a hard time finding enough non-guild members to do your project.
valence_engineer@reddit
Here's the difference between actors and software engineers. Without SAG, the vast majority of actors would literally starve to death if acting was their primary job. So step 1 to adopting such a system is to drop 95% of software engineer salaries to below the federal minimum wage. Are you willing to go first?
JonDowd762@reddit
With a rule like that companies would look at unionized developers like they do GPL software. There aren’t superstar, A-list performers that companies must hire and could force them into SAG. There’s no Tom Cruise or Pat Mahomes or Juan Soto.
If you’re not relying on superstars then you’re relying on having a significant portion of devs signed up to your union. But how can you achieve that if the immediate effect of joining your union is to destroy job prospects?
Free_Afternoon_7349@reddit
Just last week I wanted to use something but it had a GPL license so I skipped it.
cbusmatty@reddit
I thought like 99% of actors are making shit money and that only the famous ones make insane money. I’m very confused as to why you’re saying that actors are a good parallel here, when they have a much larger disparity, and the sag stuff is more of a drain than a benefit to the poorer actors
nemec@reddit
I'm just waiting tables until I get my big break as a React webdev /s
Free_Afternoon_7349@reddit
I think in tech it goes backwards.
Software built by a team of 5 great engineers will likely be completed faster and be better than the same software built by a team of 50 or 500 mundane devs.
So I'd venture to guess that many cutting edge tech companies would simply not hire a single developer from this 'tech-SAG' and many good developers that want to work on interesting things would not join it.
Constant_Still_2601@reddit
because they want quality, and they have no other choice. same as with every union.
liquidpele@reddit
When was the last time you found a company that cared more about quality than getting the bare minimum needed via the cheapest labor they could find?
Constant_Still_2601@reddit
well do you want the bridge to be built with unionized experienced workers, or bunch of scabs who've never done it before?
the difference often wouldn't be between deliver a good product and delivering a bad one, the difference often would be between between delivering and not delivering at all.
companies don't like playing stupid games and winning stupid prizes.
liquidpele@reddit
There you go, comparing bridges to some manager's ETL report that they report to their own boss who doesn't read the damn thing.
Constant_Still_2601@reddit
Listen, I'm sorry if your job consists of that, but a lot of us are actually doing somewhat important-to-get right work.
liquidpele@reddit
Ok.
SolFlorus@reddit
Low. I already have good pay and benefits, and I enjoy working at places that fire the low performers.
I don’t do side projects for the job interviews. I only do side projects that solve a need I have.
I have this power in my day job. If you are just a ticket monkey, then that’s either a company culture problem or a you problem. You should always be empowered to discuss the merit of a ticket and the implementation.
robby_arctor@reddit
This is the classic engineer solipsism I find particularly obnoxious and self-defeating.
All you really said here is that you don't personally have this problem. And if someone else doesn't, they shouldn't.
What tool could solve the problem of a company culture where workers don't get enough of a say? An organized workforce. What tool could solve the problem of devs who struggle to be more than ticket monkeys? A trade union. You know what won't do shit to solve either of those problems? Just saying "You should always have that power. That's either a you or a your company problem."
Tman1677@reddit
I don't want the median software engineer in the industry anywhere remotely near technical decisions. My lived experience is that in the vast majority of tech companies the best engineers have lots of technical design input - and that's how it should be.
davidblacksheep@reddit (OP)
Is it fair to say, that your opinion is that:
and
and therefore:
?
valence_engineer@reddit
If you’re a shitty software engineer then why should I subsidize your choice to be a software engineer?
Tman1677@reddit
It's a little more complicated than that, but that's the general idea. I'd say it's more like: - 5% are great engineers with strong system architecture and OS understanding that makes them suitable for architecture design at massive tech firms. In an ideal world all of these people are able to accelerate quickly and get extremely high paying jobs - 60% are solid coders who can get tasks done well and will be successful in the industry, but don't have a strong engineering base and struggle to make architecture decisions and designs. They can generally make really solid apps - but only by following industry standards and if you ask them to explain those decisions things fall apart. These people are often still really successful and coast along making a ton of money at mid-level positions - 35% are serious liabilities. There's a shocking number of people in the industry with literally zero technical knowledge or even a desire to learn it and who everyone wonders how they passed the interview
I'm generally a believer that intelligence and skills is a learned thing so I think most people in the lower brackets can make it to the higher bracket if they're genuinely interested in learning and put in the effort - but that doesn't often happen and if you're just in it for the money and don't love tech it's never gonna happen.
Now I'm not saying we live in a world where things are sorted perfectly - there are plenty of posers in FAANG level companies and plenty of top talents undiscovered working beginner web dev jobs. Even more than that, there's a massive pay discrepancy between lots of the mid-that being said, it seems to me that as you get to more senior level positions and more years of experience things generally tend to balance out in the long run.
The way I see it a union would pretty much just entrench people in different classes by whatever their first job in the industry was and make it significantly harder to fire people who aren't performing and promote people who are. Even a lot of the possible benefits don't seem realistic in the tech world. Like protection from layoffs would be great, but there's no union in the entire world immune from layoffs, and most tech firms already provide quite good severance packages comparable or better than most union options elsewhere.
robby_arctor@reddit
What about a trade union makes you think it couldn't work that way?
Do median electricians set the standards and curricula of an electrian's union? Presumably that would be the job of more experienced electricians.
cscqtwy@reddit
You've figured it out here. It's the job of more experienced electricians. Not better ones. Many (most, perhaps?) SWEs shouldn't be trusted with major technical decisions regardless of their experience.
The majority of unions in the US protect people based on tenure. That's not a good fit for SWE. To be fair, it's not a good fit for some places it is used either (this is one of the biggest issues with teaching in the US), but you can imagine why folks here aren't excited about unions given that typical model.
If someone proposed what a union would do and how it would work without this downside, there'd be a discussion to be had. But no one is doing that. I'm skeptical there's any union structure that benefits me.
robby_arctor@reddit
Well, I can't guarantee to you it wouldn't work that way. All I can say is that the existing situation in tech, as I have have experienced it, is not a meritocracy when it comes to who makes decisions, so I don't feel like I would be losing much in that case.
It's possible you are such a shining star that a union might not benefit you personally. Tbh the case to be made isn't that every single engineer would benefit from a union, but rather most of them and the industry itself would.
The funny thing about engineers is that most of us seem to perceive ourselves on the far right of the bell curve, and I think there is a certain level of self-delusion going on there.
cscqtwy@reddit
I'm not saying unions would be bad for most SWEs, just that it would be bad for me. Pretty sure that was the question at hand. Seems kind of telling that most people think that, though.
I make well over a million dollars a year. I'm pretty confident it's not self-delusion on my part. Maybe it is for others.
robby_arctor@reddit
In a country with more than a century of anti-labor propaganda and suppression, it's not that surprising.
Yeah, we're on the same page. I probably wouldn't be knocking on your door in a unionization drive.
thekwoka@reddit
Workers that refuse to work there.
robby_arctor@reddit
Which only works when workers have the leverage to walk away. Idk if you noticed, but we've been watching that leverage get significantly eroded over the last few years.
If individual preference was a viable strategy for workers improving their working conditions, unions wouldn't exist in the first place.
thekwoka@reddit
And then a union won't work.
robby_arctor@reddit
We have more leverage as a collective than as individuals.
There's a difference between one or two workers quitting in protest and all of them.
SolFlorus@reddit
I don’t understand how getting permission from a union would be any different than getting permission from your company. The problem is that you’re waiting for permission instead of taking the initiative.
robby_arctor@reddit
I think the idea is that unions are generally more receptive to workers' interests than employers are.
You can fight for what you want individually and within the collective of a union. Like, a union's existence will not prohibit you from taking the initiative to quit a company whose culture is not serving your interests.
No_Secretary_930@reddit
Given a full time job, a house, and a family how do you find time to do projects outside of work?
SolFlorus@reddit
As of now, I don’t have kids. I’m able to either wake up early or stay up late when it’s something I’m interested in. My side projects don’t consume my life though, they come in spurts.
Side projects aren’t very important though. Like I said, I only do them to solve problems that I have in my personal life.
JonDowd762@reddit
I probably wouldn’t sacrifice the pay for a union. Some people will argue that a union will automatically increase pay, but software engineering is not a field where there is one factory in town run by one company. In a big city there are many options and with remote work there are thousands.
An engineer that comes attached with union restrictions is less valuable to a company than one with no restrictions. A company therefore which does not have a union will typically offer more the same engineer.
If you want the protections, or the CBAs or what not fine. But in terms of plain salary software devs (in the US) are doing pretty well. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t be better, but a union is unlikely to be the way.
The only way I see it working is if you get the government support to license developers and cap the total number of developers. Something like the AMA or taxi medallions. But that’s not feasible and do you really want that?
SolFlorus@reddit
I wouldn’t be opposed to making engineer a protected class. The meaning gets a bit watered down when you have people with Bachelor of Engineering degrees and Code School both calling themselves Software Engineers.
In truth though, that would probably only help my ego though. I’ve worked with many people with no formal CS education that deserve to call themselves engineers.
thekwoka@reddit
I think this is a big issue.
Both the perceptions most devs seem to have that they're better than other devs, but also just the reality of there being really bad devs.
eddielee394@reddit
This
jeffvanlaethem@reddit
Pretty much this. And I don't want to be lumped in with anyone else.
Least_Rich6181@reddit
If people are thinking that unions will prevent layoffs or somehow argue for better benefits or wages....I don't think that's going to work.
Unions primarily derive their power from collective action through refusing to work. Refusing to work is very effective when labor is difficult and expensive to replace because the labor is also tied to capital investments tied to a particular geography location like factories.
Software jobs are so easy to replace. Sure there will be some friction and overhead but compared to dealing with a union many companies will simply offshore even more aggressively. There's no "factory" to shut down costing millions everyday that can't be quickly put back online with a few remote contractor hired online.
Unions have downsides too--political corruption. Having to pay dues. Controlling who gets promoted or what pay or benefits you can negotiate for. Often times nepotism or union favoritism runs rampant.
Certifications...why do we want this as an industry? There's already so many companies peddling certs we KNOW don't teach you any practical skills... we want to some how mandate everyone paying for these? How does that make our industry better except to feed an industry of administrators and parasitical certification peddlers, tutors, etc.
People are so desperate to increase the barrier to entry that we want to emulate things that don't work for us.
StatisticianWarm5601@reddit
There aren't any certs for software engineers though. More for DevOps/Infrastructure.... what do you mean?
Least_Rich6181@reddit
Exactly mostly because there isn't a big need for them. The ones that do exist (like Oracle's Java Programmer cert) are considered pretty useless.
But once you start creating silly requirements like you need some certification that you can code or to be called a software engineer it's going to create more.
StatisticianWarm5601@reddit
Certs aren't just about capability but guaranteed fitness to practice, in highly regulated industries. Medicine, law, finance and accounting are good examples. More than anything it also allows individuals to be blamed and disciplined for failings.
I can see it being implemented for mission critical systems where someone has to answer to the courts. But the majority of software engineers don't work on such important things anyway,
Least_Rich6181@reddit
I've heard that argument a lot but what it fails to address is that those fields where rigorous certification can happen are by their very nature not changing as quickly as software.
All of those examples (medicine, law, finance) are highly regulated industries because there are decades and even centuries of practices and legislation on fundamental things that don't change.
The human body is not changing at the pace of software. The legal system doesn't change at the pace of software. Finance changes faster but even then the laws and regulations surrounding financial institutions don't change that quickly.
You can't take 10 years to build a "med school" or "law school" or Bar like process/bureaucracy/infrastructure for something like software when everything about the software industry can change in a year or two. Look at where we were in software compared to where we are now with Gen AI. A school campus will not have even been built in that time. A certification process will not change in time.
Sure I'd love to gate keep and make it harder for people to learn software.... like it is for law or medicine. Sure let's make it so that only people who can afford law school, med school, or they have connections in top schools can make it into software. Works for me.
But realistically speaking that's not going to keep the software industry competitive when your competition is churning out innovation without all of that red tape. Entrepreneurs and wiz kids will simply move elsewhere to build.
For mission critical systems we already have some guard rails in place w.r.t what you can do or not do in terms of software practices....where has that gotten us? Has that made the tech better? Or just older and harder to change? Healthcare, financial institutions, military, and government already have a hard time hiring software talent. How is raising the certification bar even higher going to make that better?
It will simply make it even less desirable to go into those fields when a social media company is generating 100X the revenue and can pay you 5 times more.
StatisticianWarm5601@reddit
Languages , frameworks etc are merely tooling, which change frequently. The fundamentals of software engineering don't. Ultimately it's about the method and mindset.
This is what's lacking in current 'tech' certs, it's all focused around vendor products and just a memorisation game. All those other fields aren't just about raw knowledge, they're training you to think in the required way.
Leaving aside the regulatory aspect. You seem to think a lack of qualifications means no gatekeeping. When actually, it results in no skill benchmark. As a result, software engineers have to keep proving their basic competency multiple times, even if they've been doing the job for decades. Leetcode, take-home assignments, multiple rounds of interviews.
I'd rather do the hard bit of getting 'qualified' at the start and just top-ups throughout my career that prove my competency. Instead of being subjected to the above. And FYI CPD (continuous professional development) can be part of keeping a qualification. So it's not like there's a risk of getting stale.
shifty_lifty_doodah@reddit
Not high
Union freezes the industry in place. Harder to get hired. Lower comp. Stiffer role profiles.
The problem is that unions that start with reasonable demands eventually yield to politics and bureaucracy. You start with a nice little union. Eventually you have the same corruption, protectionism, and strict hierarchies we see in other industries.
kevinossia@reddit
Why is this a bad thing?
I think a bigger issue than this is thinking all software engineers are the same. There are plenty of people who would be better described as "technicians", and that's fine, but thinking that a hotshot building distributed systems from scratch at Google should be lumped in with someone churning out CRUD apps at Bob's IT Shop is misguided. Developer skill exists on a multi-modal spectrum and different groups have different needs. Unionizing implies that these groups all have the same needs which is nonsense.
This is more of an issue with your company than a broader industry issue. I've never been on a team that operated like this.
If you don't like your team's work culture, either work to change it or find a different team.
I can't see how it would benefit me at all so I have zero appetite for it.
davidblacksheep@reddit (OP)
Particularly when you have a family, but even if not, then upskilling outside of work starts having trade offs for an otherwise healthy life.
If people are spending the weekends working on their side project, rather than going for a hike, or taking their kids to park, and then five years later, marriages are failing, it's just not a good thing.
thekwoka@reddit
Why wouldn't upskilling outside of work be part of a healthy life?
throwawayyyy12984@reddit
That time outside work gets REAL limited once a partner and family come along.
davidblacksheep@reddit (OP)
Because it might be coming at the expense of spending time with family, pursuing other interests, doing exercise.
Free_Afternoon_7349@reddit
That's one of the core issue - what incentive do the top developers have to join a union? It would greatly slow them down, both in terms of working on interesting things and earning potential.
Which also would push top tech companies to not want to hire unionized developers because they would be more of a headache and likely mediocre.
However, there is perhaps a place for union for developers working at non-tech companies, gov, or managing specific systems. But I struggle to think of anything concrete.
flowering_sun_star@reddit
Every time this comes up, we always get the same objections which amount to 'I've got mine, fuck everyone else'. Maybe software developers are unusually individualistic and selfish? Unionisation requires solidarity, and it ain't there.
I think that part of it is that people have been somewhat deceived by the tech boom. For a long time the power actually did lie with the workers as companies were hiring like crazy and there weren't enough of us to go round. So people's salaries boomed, and they actually started believing they were special. That hiring boom is over, and now companies are a in a phase where profits can rise double digits and they'll still want to make cuts.
And it doesn't matter how brilliant you are and how incompetent all your colleagues are (I have my doubts). If the company decides that your entire team is getting cut, your team is getting cut.
robby_arctor@reddit
There is a history of particularly privileged workers rejecting solidarity with each other, at least in the U.S.
In a way, it's a more individual version of the parochial quality of most existing trade unions generally. We've got our well paid, skilled labor shop set up for us, fuck everyone else.
ThrowRADisgruntledF@reddit
There are many already existing. Join the Tech Workers Coalition!
SatisfactionGood1307@reddit
Talk to the CWA and OPEIU. Organize your workplace. Let's go :)
It's not easy but you can start to have a convo. It'll inform you if you don't know. Just go to their websites and schedule a call with an organizer. I promise you it's worth it.
Odd-Investigator-870@reddit
One of a union s prime goals/values is to tie compensation to productive output. ie as efficiencies inevitably occur, compensation improves instead of stagnates like the default outcome.
I believe our industry does need a union, and we certainly have the pay scale to fund one. I believe it could start with a rigorous set of software engineer certification courses, as any profession needs skill barriers and a clear set of disciplines.
Job placement negotiations and contracts could be next, to make the certification distinguished and valuable. Eventually, with a control of talent supply, the union can make wins for its members.
jakofranko@reddit
Best defense for a union I’ve heard. Interesting points!
jakofranko@reddit
Those three things are very different at least in the USA…
a guild is typically something non formal within a company just to help employees with common interests (interest/engagement groups). At least in my company they are a way to have a place for all web devs to talk, all golang devs to talk, all db admins to talk etc and maybe set internal standards.
An association is typically a professional group that’s not tied to a company. No requirements to join within industries, just a way to network. Typically positive for engineers.
A union is a big old monster that is formalized and has lots and lots of professional and legal ramifications. There is 0 interest in anyone I know in being part of a union. Our skills are too in demand, jobs too high paying, training too specialized. I could be talking out of my butt here, but the benefit of unions seems to me when the power of a single worker (perhaps less specialized training or entry level etc. Easy to replace), is disproportionately less than the importance of that role to the company. E.g., it may be easy to replace a single warehouse worker, but Amazon ceases to exist if you don’t have ANY warehouse workers.
There is basically just no equivalence in software. A single engineer can make a break a team or company, or they can be completely irrelevant to the bottom line. A union will not improve (and only hurt) the former scenario, and cannot help the latter.
Idk, I’m just speaking from an American perspective. I work at a fortune 100 company and know engineers across the industry…nobody wants unions lol. But I’m in several guilds at my work!
kayakyakr@reddit
I think that software development is too varied an industry to be served by a general trade union except in the case of having a government lobbying arm, which I'd put $10 towards. The main drive of that group would be to protect the domestic workforce through legislative efforts.
There are too many of us doing too many different things for a trade union to work. It's not like, say, architecture, which has to obey physics and has a limited number of ways one can build a building.
Otoh, certain businesses and industries could benefit from smaller, focused unions. Games industry just launched a much needed union. Very curious to see how that one goes.
thekwoka@reddit
How do you get such a thing to work when there are 1 million people willing to do the work anyway for less?
davidblacksheep@reddit (OP)
How does the SAG get it to work?
0x11110110@reddit
Movies without SAG actors don’t sell. But no one cares who the engineers behind the McDonald’s app are
davidblacksheep@reddit (OP)
Right. The reason that the SAG works, is because all the big name actors are members of it. And if a company wants to hire one SAG actor, all of their actors must be SAG.
Why are all the big name actors part of the SAG?
Well for one, they wouldn't be able to be hired if they weren't members of it. It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation.
But I think for two, established actors recognise that the dynamic that /u/thekwoka mentioned, there are a lot of people willing to do the job, and without the guild, the production companies would be in a position to play everyone off each other.
thekwoka@reddit
Yup, they have important figureheads that matter that aren't replaceable, AND they have existed long enough that they could get those rules locked in with a critical mass.
thekwoka@reddit
Well, for a lot of it, the fact the person needs to physically be there makes it a lot tougher.
But primarily, the fact it's old enough to have critical mass and control of all the important aspects.
And once they have that, the rules become difficult to circumvent.
0x11110110@reddit
Even with how things are right now the material conditions of tech workers is too good to convince folks to unionize. But with rapid advancements in AI the reality is that at some point in the near future we will find ourselves in a do or die situation where collective bargaining might the only thing in our toolbox to keep us from losing our jobs, and at that point it would probably be too late
thekwoka@reddit
But there's also the issue that the most that will be automated away will be the ones the better devs hope would leave in the first place.
0x11110110@reddit
I do not understand why everyone in this thread is so fixated on unions potentially protecting the low performers. So what? Join them in their ranks. Working for a living fucking sucks. If you really have passion in this craft then you can start a neat side project with all the free time the union is providing for you.
Besides, with the rate of automation that we’ll be seeing soon its only a matter of time before you will be considered a low performer
thekwoka@reddit
But I already have neat side projects from my free time?
I think most high performers are already getting all the benefits unions claim they'd be able to provide.
And then explain why we should be holding back progress like that?
Odd-Investigator-870@reddit
You haven't experienced agile, simply put. I rose to my lead level by being a notable tech lead, and I lean into agile (eXtreme Programming) to empower teams with decision making and autonomy. Assigning Jira Cards to individuals is the antithesis of agile values.
liquidpele@reddit
This kind of shit is always brought up by juniors who haven't had to run a team that included people who - if I killed them it would be an improvement in efficiency for the team.
wrex1816@reddit
Only if the union was for actual experienced engineers and there was strict criteria on qualifications and ability. The bar must be high.
We've let too many under-qualified charlatans into our industry due to the "anyone can code" thing making everyone think a 3 week Bootcamp was a shortcut to a high paying job. No it wasn't, and now they're being found out when companies aren't just hiring everyone. It's .mainly those folks who are complaining.They don't need a union, they need to go back to college to get qualified.
I don't see myself in a union with those people. A union fighting for standards and practices in the industry and protection the actually qualified software engineers, maybe.
But I'm sick of people posting about this for good boy points. Either start one or don't. I've worked unions jobs when I was younger, so did my Dad all his life. The idea that "all unions are good, no union is bad" is fucking stupid and I wouldn't trust anyone who thinks that to run a union. Having a bad or powerless union is worse than having no union at all. A good union is great.
A software engineering union needs a clear mission statement to protect the industry and sadly software engineers can't even define the direction of our industry. The bar has been lowered for entry so low in recent times.
MorallyDeplorable@reddit
At my place I feel absolutely no need for a union. My coworkers are solid, I've only got one manager that's sometimes a pain in the ass (gives vague unworkable tickets he constantly follows up on) and I raised my grievances with him with upper management and I think he was told to not file tickets like that anymore.
We only have a couple people who have been on my team under 3 years, none within the last year. I've been here for 8 and there's I think 4 people who have been here longer than me
jepperepper@reddit
there are actually really good motivations for unionizing documented on reddit in r/managers
here's one:
Without going into too much detail, we have a load-bearing employee who, by most accounts, is a dick where many people at varying levels of the organization doesn’t like but is unable to let go due to the risk associated to him being a single-point-of failure.
What are some effective and measured methods you’ve seen work?
Please note, this employee absolutely refuses any degree of management as he only marches to the beat of his own drums.
==========
So although this is framed in the context of "this guy's being a dick", what it's really saying is "if an employee tries to control his job, we will figure out how to fire him"
this is why you unionize, so the power to take away your income rests in the hands of you and your fellow employees, not in the hands of one dictator.
Past-Listen1446@reddit
Do they really need a union? They make so much money already.
jkingsbery@reddit
No interest. If my company unionized, I would leave almost immediately.
I was previously part of a company where most software engineers were part of a union. There were still layoffs. It was also the most bureaucratic company I've worked for. If you're worried about minutiae of Jira tickets, just wait for someone to figure a formula that ties the number of tickets to some union-negotiated rule. The idea that unions will solve all our problems is just not rooted in reality.
If you read anything from any of the Agile Manifesto signers, what you describe as taking place "before your time" is exactly what Agile is - or at least what it's supposed to be. Agile usually includes the concepts of self-organizing teams, everyone can contribute user stories, and teams aren't just assigned a work load, they self-commit to what they consider a reasonable work load. I've worked on plenty of teams where we do something pretty close to that. It usually happens when there are fewer rules. Unions usually come with more rules.
Your phrasing seems to imply this is an accident, and not inherent to the economics of producing software. For the most important projects, companies really do want the best talent and are willing to pay for it. These projects have outsized financial consequences (for success or failure), so there are incentives for companies to try to retain top engineers.
I could go on, but the idea of unionizing software engineers just really doesn't make sense.
robby_arctor@reddit
This criticism is interesting. Some people don't want a union because they don't want to protect incompetent devs, which they believe the industry is rife with. You don't want a union because it's not necessary - the labor market is already a meritocracy.
I don't think both of these criticisms can be true at once.
thekwoka@reddit
Yeah, a lot of work that unions are good for is work that can be easily quantified.
With software, what do you do? Tickets? Lines of code? There isn't really a metric of quality or work.
jepperepper@reddit
I think a worldwide union of all workers would be ideal, but in the meantime programmers are just snobby enough to think they're too smart for a union so the way to go is probably an association. Not IEEE or the ACM because those are organized by corporations, but a workers association, rank and file. You could start it grassroots and there are existing movements - programming co-ops and such. Or you could do it like Mondragon, form a worker cooperative of programmers. You'd have to build an environment that supported it and it would take a while.
However, forming a union is no small task - when the industrial workers did it, it required many to suffer, up to and including death. Don't know many software developers willing to die for their craft. I'd join an association though.
Potential4752@reddit
Zero.
IceRhymers@reddit
I would like one, but I think most developers are to individualist/selfish to want to try. I was at a workers coop building software for 6 years, and being able to vote on company policy was nice. This way we were able to get the best retirement plan in our entire state, 10% matching for all employees.
EkoChamberKryptonite@reddit
Promotions are almost always political. It isn't true that software (like most other industries) is a strict meritocracy.
IceRhymers@reddit
I would like one, but I think most developers are to individualist/selfish to want to try. I was at a workers coop building software for 6 years, and being able to vote on company policy was nice. This way we were able to get the best retirement plan in our entire state, 10% matching for all employees.
No_Interaction_5206@reddit
Yeah I used to not think so, then my management left, then the next management left, I just kept chugging away like always, worked harder even because we were understand and the work was super compelling, got two average reviews in a row pulling close to 60 hours a week for those two years, leaving vacation on the table each year, had one week I was supposed to go on vacation and spent 70 hours in 4 days the last night from our hotel room to get some last minute changes they wanted in. That’s when I learned it only wasn’t political for me before because I happened to have good managers advocating for me. When I got a young supervisor with no political power I could work myself to the grave and it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference.
I might leave, but the pay is pretty good, vacation is unmatched, and the works pretty interesting. We’ll see …
johanneswelsch@reddit
I am against it, because besides government, it's just another parasite attaching themselves to a finite amount of funds that a company has. Everyone loses.
It's like insurance, where insurance people also have to eat and have roof over their heads and pay taxes, so what people pay of insurance they will never get back. So those who buy insurance always lose more money than they win. It's the same with unions. MORE RAKE IS BETTER is a reality sadly.
Also, being on some waiting list for a union and then busting your ass off to "maybe" move up within it is extremely unattractive to me.
And no, unions won't help you keep your job, it didn't help the manufacturing sector.
Accomplished_End_138@reddit
We are starting to organize at chase right now. All thanks to RTO
phendrenad2@reddit
Nobody here has seen the writing on the wall? Okay. I have. We're at the end of ZIRP. We're at the end of Moore's Law. We're at the end of blitzscaling. All the low-hanging fruit has been thoroughly exploited, mortgaged to the hilt, and exploited again. Nobody is hiring 10 or 50 or 10,000 low-cost bootcamp developers and making something of substance. People who can actually make things without hand-holding from their SCRUM master are worth their weight in GOLD and you will all look back at this time and kick yourself for not taking advantage of it earlier. But it's okay, history moves with or without you. Tech unions are absolutely inevitable and you're welcome aboard when you see the light.
Wonderful_Device312@reddit
How are you going to convince software developers in India earning $1/hour to stand in solidarity with developers in the US earning $100/hour to protect the US workers job and stop further outsourcing?
Labour unions traditionally work because the workers in an area establish a monopoly over their particular trade. Apprenticeship, certification, physical presence etc are all things that help. Software development has almost no barrier to entry, no physical presence requirement, no certification requirements, no apprenticeship, nothing.
TheyUsedToCallMeJack@reddit
A union doesn't need to necessarily be worldwide. You can have a US union and another in India, other countries already have unions.
darksparkone@reddit
That's not what a union does. Instead it will press government to add more bureaucracy in order to make outsourcing harder and more expensive.
Wonderful_Device312@reddit
And it applies that pressure through collective action.
Convincing the American government and tech industry to accept even a cent less profit without any bargaining power is about as impossible as anything gets. You'd get laughed out of the room.
luvsads@reddit
That's why you'd need initial legislation or restriction on things like outsourcing or hiring H1Bs. You get that in place, drum up collective action, and back them into a corner where you have the leverage. Once the union is established, it's just a matter of continuing to lobby for maintaining that leverage and increasing it where we can.
Ozymandias0023@reddit
Thank you. In order for any kind of pressure to be put on employers, the picket line would have to hold, and that's simply not going to happen when the employer can just ring up a contracting agency in Bangladesh and have scans who probably don't even know about the strike working tomorrow
fabriziotm@reddit
Anyone against unions is seriously brainwashed. They think they’ll always be in a position where they can decide their futures, when in reality they were just lucky to get there. AI won’t replace people, that’s just obvious. How would companies would be able to profit if they all have the same costs to make the same product? The profit margin comes from making people do the work for minimal salaries. SWE is not there yet, but will be. Then everyone will be begging to join a union. Just remember, if you’re well paid, if you get good job conditions, that’s because you’re making a lot more money to the shareholders than you’re getting yourself. The moment this changes, you’re done.
flatjarbinks@reddit
Usually tech companies are not just SWEs, there are a bunch of people working in marketing, sales, content or even on the field (technicians, drivers, warehouse workers etc) It makes totally sense to have unions per company especially in big companies where people are getting underpaid or underrepresented.
Unions can hold back payment reductions, massive layoffs and offshoring labor.
sunny_tomato_farm@reddit
I’m US based so heck no. Salaries and benefits are phenomenal.
ZunoJ@reddit
Same in europe
JonDowd762@reddit
They are not the same in Europe. In Europe you can make a perfectly decent living which is great. In the US you range from decent living to out-earning doctors to plain rich.
ZunoJ@reddit
I can charge up to 250€ per hour. On average I make 30k per month. That's definitely out-earning doctors in Germany
JonDowd762@reddit
That’s great, but your numbers are far from normal and I wouldn’t consider freelancing the same as a salary to begin with.
There are many thousands of engineers in the 200k-500k range in the US which is incredibly rare in EU.
Visual-Blackberry874@reddit
Not interested.
Super-Blackberry19@reddit
I mean I have 2+ years of savings I can live on right now if I don't get this low-ball verbal offer and no new jobs come my way. If someone has it established I'll support if my life is going to ruins anyway
nemec@reddit
Bless your heart. No. In the olden days a "Solutions Architect" would hand you a design and tell you to spend the next 9 months implementing it. Then you would spend 3 weeks handholding the QA team giving them step-by-step instructions with screenshots of how to test the thing because they have no idea what they're doing. After that, you get to release everything on Friday evening so you have time to work through the weekend in case something breaks.
michaelsoft__binbows@reddit
I am not sure... but... the way things are going with AI, the whole collective bargaining angle is in shambles.
heubergen1@reddit
I would consider joining a union if it means I have more influence into the business decision of IT but I think this is unrealistic. Why should a Union be able to prevent SAP being introduced?
From the normal perspective (salary, workers rights) I don't need a union, I can handle that myself thank you.
cuntsalt@reddit
I got as far as talking to some organizers previously, which is further than most people get, I presume? My organization is small. I'd put out feelers and had two devs certainly for it, one started talking about unions positively of his own volition out of nowhere, plus a couple unknowns.
The organizer I spoke with said that project managers would also have to be on board as they are also workers, and would count for membership/voting numbers. My current environment is one where PMs and devs are pretty much adversarial, and management is deferential to the PMs. So it likely wouldn't pass a vote.
madprgmr@reddit
Iirc, there are a few existing unions software folks could join in the US. I believe that even a handful of workers in a given company organizing can help improve things, but large-scale improvements tend to require larger quantities of people being unionized.
quantum-fitness@reddit
Waterfall being better for devs is a dream. Imagine being on call and in repair mode for weeks every time the release train is going. No thanks.
The problem with agile is that it takes skills as well as actual buyin from business. Having both is rare.
The problem isnt agile, its people doing dark agile. I work in a team where we get pretty close to actual agile processes. It great, we are effective and with minimal meetings.
Even then its a constant battle to uphold because of team members who just doesnt care. I also doubt any of the other teams are very close to anything but just doing random rituald, even though they have experienced project owners.
Medical-Ask7149@reddit
None of you can stomach it. I always bring up unions but no one can ever think of threatening not working for a few weeks to a couple months. To set it up would require some pain on our end before anything happens and nobody is willing to do it.
Goodie__@reddit
Is this not what backlog grooming is for? Taking a chunky idea (users can do X) and breaking it down into stories (how about on page A user's can enter B which results in C, which satisfies X)?
Goodie__@reddit
I like the idea of a guild tbh. I'm not sure how you'd manage entry though. Typically in the past you'd have to say... submit a master work to be accepted, something that demonstrated mastery.
But software development, is more than just building a solid large app. It's the back and forth over requirements about the right way to build an app.
I guess you'd need some sort of interview proces? Along with maybe some open source contribution and or a app of your own? Hmmm
randbytes@reddit
Unions already exists in tech in some form like gate keeping. Unions are not efficient and leads to corruption and in fact you won't have any freedom of switching companies. unions are worse than unchecked capitalism. You cannot get a job without some dumdum's approval. But It is actually good if you want only local hires and exclude all outsiders like immigrants and offshoring.
budulai89@reddit
Did you lose your job?
TheOnceAndFutureDoug@reddit
Agile is not the issue, dude. All of these systems are to solve one problem: People are really bad at planning and sticking to it. Waterfall is fine but it requires you to answer a lot of questions up front. Agile is fine but it requires you to respect the timeline. A hybrid of all processes works but it requires people to not get shitty the second things don't work out.
The issue is, and always has been, management. Bad leadership takes what will always be small problems and makes them 100 times worse.
Yes we need a union. Have for years.
dorkyitguy@reddit
We should absolutely have a union
anor_wondo@reddit
Negative. Places that fire low performers are usually less depressing. Unions are more useful for gig work like movies and games
davidblacksheep@reddit (OP)
So this is interesting.
Atlassian is quite infamously experiencing a culture shift at the moment. They hired a bunch of ex-meta executives, who have implemented a stack-ranking and PIP the bottom 10% strategy. You can read the Glassdoor reviews for the drama.
Now, it could be that yeah, low performers are going to be unhappy about this, but for the people that remain, it's actually a good place. I don't know.
thekwoka@reddit
You can look at countries where it's illegal to fire people without cause and what it results in.
Places like Korea that have extremely low productivity.
ManicStreetPreach@reddit
If you're reading this post and living in the UK
https://utaw.tech/
https://prospect.org.uk/tech-workers/
https://www.unitetheunion.org/what-we-do/unite-in-your-sector/graphical-paper-media-information-technology/graphical-paper-media-information-technology-sector/digital-tech-sector
However, I think OP is more interested in a professional standards body than a union.
hammertime84@reddit
Extremely high. There's really no other way to fight negative things like RTO and there aren't major drawbacks.
People will try to argue that it'll keep low performers around or force seniority-based pay but you can negotiate whatever terms you want for your chapter at your company. E.g. "100% telework and no company spyware" could be the entire agreement if you wanted.
If you want to start one, contact CodeCWA. They are most applicable for general software.
amayle1@reddit
Thoroughly uninterested. There are so many sub par developers that can’t do anything without having the documentation of tools read to them by other developers. I’m perfectly fine negotiating for myself.
dogline@reddit
This was written about 25 years ago by Steve McConnell, during the dotcom boom, and still hasn’t made any traction. I’m sure it’s been written about earlier than that too. “After the Gold Rush” https://a.co/d/6EGhQiQ
Complete-Equipment90@reddit
Companies would simply hire non-union members. It’s not going to happen
davidblacksheep@reddit (OP)
Remember that the original post didn't ask just about unions. There's also guilds and associations.
Complete-Equipment90@reddit
Original post, aside from what you posted? Or are you trying to tell engage further discussion by using other words for union?
nickchecking@reddit
For the second point, isn't that true of every industry? It's a trade-off, to protect everyone you protect the weak, and of course you want to find a balance where employees have more power without propping up bad actors, but the alternative is what we have right now, where the employers have all the power. It's up to us if we like it or not.
For your third point, if agile is done right, software developers have tons of power. I find that we have much more power now than before. Many stories come from the top down, but we can write whatever stories we want too, and we definitely have say in refining, which is a huge part of deciding how things get done.
kabekew@reddit
This has been talked about for 30 years at least but has never happened for some reason. And do you really want your salary and raises to be determined by national union negotiations that know nothing about where you work or what you do, where you can perform much better than your coworkers but you will only make the same as the guy who does nothing all day?
sosodank@reddit
No interest
patoezequiel@reddit
Zero. I've seen what unions can do in the industry in my country, and it's nothing I want to see replicated anywhere.
davidblacksheep@reddit (OP)
What country is that?
patoezequiel@reddit
Argentina
davidblacksheep@reddit (OP)
Are you referring to this?
https://leglobal.law/2023/08/22/argentina-acknowledgement-of-greater-power-to-the-its-union/
Thanks for pointing that out, it's good to know of existing examples.
patoezequiel@reddit
Not really, but even with that it only serves to make getting jobs harder and to boost incompetents that can't be fired.
_ncko@reddit
I'm against it.
namonite@reddit
Literally never going to happen 😂😂😂
GoonOfAllGoons@reddit
Oh, it's this week's "try to unionize software developers" post.
Tarc_Axiiom@reddit
Nah, not a chance, not interested.
The industries are hyper-massively inflated. Your union will accomplish nothing and carry no collective bargaining power at all.
Given the lack of collective bargaining, what would I paying dues for?
There are a lot of other issues I'd take up with the idea, but none of them matter in the shadow of those two.