Tech and Non tech Pay Partiality is something no one talks about

Engineers deserve their pay. 1 - The code that engineers write are assets of a company. The code might keep running and serving customers for years after a engineer has probably even left the company. On the other hand, the work that most non-tech folks do are not assets, but an operational expense. Companies don't derive benefit of a non-tech even beyond the same month the work is performed. The difference is the same as painting your house vs brushing your teeth. You don't paint your house everyday but you do brush your teeth. Painting here is a long lasting asset, adds to the value of the house. Brushing is necessary work but with ultimately perishable benefits. 2 - Code that engineers write provide non-linear benefits. A team of 30 in Zerodha were able to serve 3-5x more customers in the pandemic. This same scalability does not apply to non-tech majdoori. Business has scaled? Hire more heads. Not with code. Obviously above does not apply to senior managerial folks who build and architect the organisation, set the cultures, create processes. The impact of their work is long lasting and non-linear. But work of junior business non-tech folks - well, they're getting paid as much as the value they create. Low leverage, low pay. Coding is very high leverage. Before you jump on me, I worked for sales in years. Then shifted to product. Above two points are a reality whether you like it or not.

Funny how newbies in Bollywood earn crs but young techies don't. What on earth are we comparing. Bullshit

Tech is just a glorified enabler. All the high salaries you see are mostly due to funding and low interest rates. Business roles demand high salaries because they are directly linked to profits. Also, in business roles, your value increases with experience. With tech roles, you need hands on experience with each new random tech that comes into the picture. So experience is not valued after a certain point I feel. Also, I'm sure this is a very unpopular opinion - coding just isn't that hard. You put in enough effort, you can do it.

Only in tech work can impact by millions of people life.

No techies don't think everyone gets paid similar In fact parents(&society)pushes us into tech because they presumed techies earn shitloads of money...(which is somewhat true) And that's why techies chose to be in tech, and stay away from bi roles! #My_2_paisa 😐

The comments on this post are either by techies defending themselves or PMs who are also in an over glorified role. I work in enterprise tech and am very close to the developments happening in the ecosystem but internationally and in India. There’s gonna come a time when code will be commodified and actual people skills will trump keyboard ninjas. Anything which can be trained will be consumed by AI. People on the other hand are more complex and will always be decision makers. Go out into the real world and get your hands dirty in actual business, you’re gonna need it soon

It is due to simple supply demand in itself. The sheer number of people who are on the business side are >> no of people who can code, or adjacent. This small pool further inflates their value due to startups mandated to splurge capital after every raise and not having the discipline and patience to keep a fixed bar. This leads to over spending on tech vs business in the earlier stages. Moreover, business side folks have the financial understanding to keep people costs lower as they are measured by business value vs people, whereas tech is measured by velocity more than costs

I feel like techies have a very high entry price. But after a point it tapers off, unless they kill it at management. For non-tech, I think it is gradual. And so in the early years it feels very unfair for sure.

Majority of people working in tech & most of the commentors here have no clue how businesses work. They think they'll just write code & it'll magically appear in front of millions of customers creating revenue & impact, without having any marketing & growth folks. Also, I have seen the kind of product higly paid developers make when there's no/minimal PM/Designer involvement. Good luck shipping that shit to customers. I don't think the value creation by tech is any better than non-tech. Both need each other for any real business to exist, and are useless in it's absence. The only reason for pay disparity is supply-demand. In the recent few years, tech & digitalization have expanded so much across all fields, demanding a lot of work & there are just not enough skilled engineers to do that.

Non tech folks are looked almost as Second Class citizens in terms of hiring and by HR I feel. The disparity wasn't this blaring before 2019. It was there, but not this messed up. In 2020-2022 era, the demand vs. supply for techies was fucked up, and so the gap widened. I feel now, it is reducing again. But it's hard to pull down when you'll pulled it up so much. My 2 cents

I think you are wrong here! Tier 1 graduates earn in double digits. Anyone else needs 5 to 10 years experience to reach that salary or an MBA. Proof: Look at Infosys and TCS, they are SWEs for clients abroad. Product companies are the only ones who pay SWEs. Thanks

From my observations during fresher non-tech hirings, most freshers have absolutely 0 tangible skills even basic Excel skills are hard to find let alone any other tool/software. They're usually hired on the basis of how well they are able to present themselves and how confident they are. Whereas for techie freshers the skill-set they have to possess is way more to get an entry level role, especially in tangible terms. And of course the better your skill sets are the better your negotiating powers are hence the double digit packages. This is something that I've observed during college placements.

Tech can pay well to start but it gets balanced later or hit a ceiling + harder to stay employed. Opposite is true for non tech and lot of variation early on.

Cope harder.

While everyone talks of tech vs Non-tech, I think what people forget is how skewed the Non-tech space itself is. Someone who is in a strategy role vs someone in sales vs someone in a corporate function is so vastly different that it almost feels unfair to be compensated like that. I'm not talking of tech and product because they are different ball games altogether but yeah, just wanted to see how people would speak of this

How about starting from expecting "non tech" companies to pay good salaries, not too long ago someone senior ranted on LinkedIn how software development is snatching away talent from other tech fields. I Believe developing a elevator is also technical work, it's just that 15 yoe engineer at Schindler/Otis be getting paid in range with 5 yoe engineer at likes of Google Individually best bet is to pursue whatever pays most, free market will take care of rest. Why would one with aim of money from job, want to pursue career in sector which doesn't pay as expected companies won't do much, the gap exists because no one is disrupting the status quo, it was Facebook that triggered change in payscale of silicon valley, hope for some messiah brings changes to India. It's not like every software job pays higher, for example EaseMyTrip operates entirely as lala company and devs get paid similar to what mechanical folks at MG/TATA would get. Another nugget for you, in Indian textile industry when organisations like arvind mills/ trident were flourishing high level employees would get paid upto 50lpa and for business head above 1 crore, with the inflow countless smaller factors they pulled down the wages for everyone in the race to 1₹ per metre margins now lots of larger entities have pulled out of fabric manufacturing only smaller units scattered all the country over remain, where maximum pay of employe is 12lpa and sethji oversees the business. It's no one but the industry is to be blamed for, there is no value add happing in indian textiles, complete contrast from a decade back.

Non-tech has a limitation of how many people you can cater with one person, while tech doesn't. Also, demand and supply.

Agreed. Try being a non tech in a tech company. You'll cry everyday

It boils down to impact radius - others have already mentioned tech in an enabler and force multiplier and what not. AI helps make scalable decisions, a young cricketer or actor entertains thousands of people at scale, an algo trader makes thousands of trading decisions. A doctor can only help one patient at a time. An entry level business guy simply doesn't have the same impact, as they are usually just an executor and not a decision maker. The ones who make big business decisions get paid accordingly.

In my experience of moving from business to Product (tech role), techies get high salaries becoz individual contribution to business growth by building good product that too with ownership is very high as compared to same value generated by lot of people on business side. Further, in business lot of things are very operational in nature hence the effort is high but the value generated is not high. Whereas it's reverse in tech, if u have one great engineer, value generated individually can change the fortune of whole company in long term. Based on these assumptions which are somewhat true, techies are paid a lot. Even engineers are paid a lot than PMs whose KPIs are partially towards moving business metrics becoz in the end PM needs an engineer but very smart engineer doesn't need a PM.