Mea culpa. I did not read my own second paragraph. I meant to (and remembered writing) a point to the effect that the carrier does exert control, and that discretion or lack of concern is *certainly* part of their final product. That is implied (but not explicitly stated) in my original comment where I note that I will leave and no longer patronize a site with popups or any ad that makes noise unprompted.

And of course, as I *do* state in the second paragraph, some scammers will get annoying ads that violate the site's rules or are criminal in intent now and then, even with a genuine effort on the part of the carrier. Thus the occasional prominent note similar to "Sorry about the autoplay video ads; I'm working to eliminate them with my ad service." So long as it is handled promptly and in good faith, I have no problem, any more than a health hazard being handled at a restaurant in a prompt and safe manner is fine.

I'm fairly certain you're just restating the point I made in the second paragraph which you did not quote (or seem to read).

While my initial point of puzzlement is why you would ever click on an ad, the core issue you're bringing up seems flawed: I'm not quite sure why the product is the responsibility of the carrier. A newspaper isn't responsible for the food in a restaurant that advertises in them, nor is PBS responsible for what the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation does -- even though they namecheck them as sponsors quite often. The telephone company and postal service carry scams without intent to do so, but Verizon is not generally seen as culpable for the mess a computer can get in when "Microsoft called" somebody in the house to walk them through "free support."

You are of course correct in that carriers do bear an onus to reasonably and in good faith remove scams when they are brought to them. There's always a struggle there, and there will likely always be, as the scammers are adept at countering such effort.

In all seriousness, I do not use ad blockers, and I have the "disable advertising" off, although it is offered to me. I view my use of a web site and their ads the same way as walking into a restaurant and paying for the meal. They are putting content into a rectangle, and if I like the content, I will return. Some smaller groups provide free food or community supported food (heck, I do that on Wednesday game nights at my home), and some smaller sites provide free content. But in general, it's part of the assumption. If the cost is too high (too many ads, or even one that makes any kind of noise), I don't go back.

I do, however, block the hell out of popups. The agreement is a page of content. You don't get further access to my desktop unless and until I agree.

I hate to say it, but not only are your figures are quite off, you have fallen into the specific trap of misguided thinking that both I and the comment I was responding to was making.

The level of technology reflected in a design is determined by the date the thing was *built*, not when it finally failed. Going to the comment I was replying to, you have just implied that an antique Studebaker that crashed this year represents the cars of 2015, and thus all current cars are unsafe as they lack air bags, seat belts, and crumple zones (in the last few years of the company they added the new innovation of the roll bar to the Studebaker Avanti, but most lacked even that).

The Hindenberg was built 79 years ago and crashed 78 years ago. It was built with technology of 79 years ago, not the technology of the following year when it crashed. There's a five year wonkiness in there involving bankruptcy and Nazi funding, but I went with the date of completion rather than the laying of the keel to match the other figure.

Chernobyl's reactors were designed, built and then the first came online in 1977. As they were all designed at the same time and built in a short period of a few years, they presumably all reflected the technology of that year, 37 years ago. When the disaster happened, they were not the technology of 1986, any more than that hypothetical crashed Studebaker reflects this year's car safety standards, even if you do safety retrofitting: that gets you seatbelts, but not some really fundamental things like crumple zones, roll bars and countless other basic improvements made to personal vehicle technology.

Which, if you'll read the comment I was responding to, was *exactly* the point being made, the one I was echoing, and the trap of thinking you fell into when reading my comment. That does indicate how pernicious an issue it is.

I know that *I* refuse to fly -- I've seen the footage of the Hindenberg. I know how dangerous flying is, and I would assume that absolutely no progress has been made in the last 79 years.

Similarly, in the last 37 years since Chernobyl, I can't imagine that anybody has had any ideas. It's not like nuclear engineering or flight are new fields that would have major advances.

I look forward to your reply when you get this message in the next few weeks, and hope to have your response in the next couple months!

While I started in Redmond, I no longer live there. The tech job market where I live now is incomparably less developed than Seattle.

All of the numbers in this article are very believable.

I have a BS degree from the University of Nebraska. And not the prestigious Raikes school, but the normal old pre-Raikes degree program.

After a summer internship, I got an offer from McDonnel Douglas for 48k.

My offer from Microsoft was more like the 60k figure. I took that one, because it didn't involve living in St. Louis.

The year: 2000

So, 60k to start right out of college was a going rate for top-tier companies... fifteen years ago.

Some companies paid much more, and sometimes that was a company decision, and sometimes it was a reality of where the position was located. For instance, before I had even finished my degree, I was recruited for a position with a 99k starting salary. That firm, however, was in NYC. When you adjust for NYC cost of living, it's not such an eye-popping number.

Subsequent to these numbers from 15 years ago, I have been involved in lots of hiring at Microsoft in the years I've been here.

Starting salaries have adjusted upward significantly since I was hired.

If you can score an engineering position with a top software/services company like Microsoft, you will be paid exceptionally well. For someone fresh out of college, there is just an obscene amount of money on the table.

Different companies target different spots in the industry pay curve. Microsoft by no means targets the top of the salary scale, but neither do we target the bottom. At times, Microsoft has been seen as, to put it mildly, "pretty uncool". At times, there has been lots of startup money and equity available for top quality grads to go after.

In those time periods, Microsoft has to offer more money to continue to attract new talent.

If you want to work at a company where lots of people want to work (e.g. a games company, or SpaceX), those organizations don't have to compete as much with offer packages, since their brands have a high intrinsic draw.

While I don't know what a Netflix offer package is like, Netflix states that their policy is to pay very high wages - the wage they'd be willing to pay to keep someone excellent who wanted to leave.

Finally, it's important to consider the type of organization you're looking at joining. Do they do software/IT, or is that a cost of doing business for them? If a company is in the business of selling shoes, but has an unavoidable need for software engineers, they're going to treat software engineers as a cost of doing business.

If a company is in the business of building software, they're going to think differently about compensation and retention.

Finally, companies that aren't well established players in the software space can have difficulty making big offer packages. At times in my career, I've been frustrated and have looked elsewhere, and the smaller, less profitable companies I've spoken with are offering tens of thousands lower than what I was already making.... making the friction of leaving financially tremendous.

(my personal financial plan is to expect a 50% paycut when something happens to my MSFT employment)

In summary, I have no problem believing the numbers. Top quality CS people at top quality organizations are paid outrageously well.

However, I get that lots of people are expressing disbelief. Let's talk about why that may be. The survey data could be skewed by multiple factors:
- the locale of the person responding
- the self-selection bias of the person responding (e.g. are people happy with their comp more likely to fill out a survey?)
- the kind of organization the survey respondants work for...

If you surveyed internal apps developers at regional insurance offices, in the Midwest, you would get a different picture from a survey of facebook engineers...

Have you ever been to Redmond?

The whole town exists because of Microsoft money.

Software Engineering is the economic driver of all of King County WA.

The Pac NW needs Microsoft. Not the other way around.

I cannot deny that much of what you've said about the mob is true. I didn't mean to say that the mob never did anything well, never provided benefits to neighborhoods or people, etc.

Everyone understands that the mob can "Get things done". And, what's ironic is that, IIRC, you and I have very different ideas about government, but we apparently agree that in some situations, the mob is more effective and occasionally preferable to local government.

That said, I think you are papering over the intimidation, violence, and property destruction done by the mob.

(I'm not papering over the intimidation, violence, and property destruction done by governments, fwiw)

Have you ever lived anywhere where there was a significant mob presence?

I haven't, and for good reason.

Your plan is a really great plan if you assume that the mob has absolutely no penetration whatsoever into the local police department.

I don't know why you'd assume such a stupid thing, though.

So here is how your suggestion really goes.

You walk into the local PD. On your way there, some kid recognized your face. He has instructions that say that if he sees a guy who looks like you walking into the police station, he calls a number and gets a bonus.

When you come home, something is different. Either your family is already dead, or, there's a note that makes it clear that your family is vulnerable and that you've fucked up - but there is still a chance to not get your family killed. Who knows what the knob is set at for the "first contact" - but there's a clear indication that you don't want to continue talking to the police.

Now, if someone inside that building is actually connected - and usually, somebody is - maybe they're the person who interviewed you. Maybe they're the person who looks at the signin/signout sheet at the station. Maybe they are somebody who files paperwork or types things up for other people.

Zillions of little people are needed to make the machine of government operate, and the mob targets precisely those people to be their eyes and ears. It uses combinations of carrots and sticks to keep them cooperating with mob goals, without letting them get too familiar with what those goals are or who is executing them.

Point is, if the mob has any power in your city, that includes eyes and ears within, or effectively within, the police department.

Part of the mob's effectiveness is that it destroys trust in the normal functioning institutinos of society. You never know for sure who is and isn't. It effectively isolate frightened individuals from the facets of society that might help or protect them. It always makes it seem like it's 1 person against the entire mob - it paints that same picture to lots of separate people.

I doubt there's a company in the land that would recruit an unknown, straight off the street, give them a salaried post and let them work 100% from home.

This is false. A very good friend of mine works exclusively out of his house as a developer. Many of the developers at his company are work-from home types and have always been work-from home employees.

Additionally, there are software jobs that are true work from home positions and are advertised as such. I've had recruiters start to approach me about such jobs.

Finally, I've had a 15 year career at Microsoft. In the last 6 months, I've been given the flexibility to WFH as much as I like to. I'm currently at home for the summer.

When I asked earlier in my career, the answer was no. I'm slightly more valuable than I was then, but, the nature of my team and my work has changed such that a WFH role is more plausible than it once was.

I know a handful of other Microsoft employees who are full time WFH and who have no Microsoft office anywhere. I still have an office and I use it about 50% during the school year.

As far as how you get this arrangement

1) if you're a high value contributor with the right kind of manager on the right kind of team, even in an organization that doesn't really do remote work, you can basically play the card that says, "I am moving. I would like to keep working here, for you, and I understand what that will do to my long term career velocity here, but, whether you keep me or not, I am moving"

Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. If you get a new team or a new manager, you can be let go. "The deal can be altered", so to speak. Of course, the deal can (and is) altered anyway, even for office people. So, it's a matter of priorities and risk tolerance.

2) There are a few organizations that are explicitly pro WFH. If you're prioritizing WFH ahead of other things, look at doing something that isn't your ideal role and not at your ideal salary, but gives you the WFH goodness that you desire. Ideally, you pick an organization that has the sorts of roles (and money) that you'd ideally want, and you grow into that role within that organization.

3) When LinkedIn emails you and says "Bob from Google wants to talk to you", email Bob back and say, "Bob, I would love to chat with you, but I am only considering WFH arrangements. Please let your hiring managers know that there is good, affordable talent available to them, but who are unwilling to relocate."

I do this with every big name brand that contacts me via Linked In. I usually tend to tailor the message to something about how the business in question heavily relies on open source (and I name the pertinent technologies) and how those were developed via distributed engineering mechanisms, proving that such approaches can build world class software.

I hope people like me can create enough data points that eventually more traditional shops hear the "I won't relocate for you" argument often enough that they start entertaining people who demand remote work.

Anyway, my employer gets way more output out of me when I am at home than when I am in the office. I have a nice laptop, and everything is in source control or cloud fileshares, so I can move back and forth between office and home office easily.

My kids understand that when I am working, they don't come into the basement. I go upstairs and take breaks and hangout with my family, or take advantage of the nice weather. If I don't have scheduled meetings, I can shift weekend/evening tasks (like yardwork) to mid afternoon, when the bugs aren't as bad and the sun is shining. Email and code will be there during peak mosquito hours or when the weather is bad.

I live on an isolated 14 acre farm that is about 25 minutes from my employer's office building. Commuting isn't bad at all, but if I don't have to, why bother?