The reality of working in tech: We're not hired to write code (2023)

I wonder if the fact that we're not hired to write code, is also the reason we're not paid as much as some other roles. This is my big frustration: that senior programmers (in NL at least) are not paid as much as managers, POs, various kinds of architects, and even scrum masters.

A couple of years ago, I was freelancing for a company where I wrote a lot of excellent code. They had a bunch of data they wanted to do something with, but weren't entirely sure what or how, so I did that for them. Connected, visualized it, made it fast, and they loved it. And so did I. It was fun work, I talked to a lot of people about what they wanted and needed, and delivered that.

My freelance period ended, but I wasn't ready to leave this project yet, so I became an employee, but that turned out to be a massive step back in terms of income. Despite the fact that I worked closely with lots of stakeholders and solved complex problems for them, their internal rules didn't allow them to pay me as more than a code monkey. I felt all the non-code work I did wasn't being appreciated. Nor the code work.

I left, they ruined the application (it's apparently slow as molasses now), and now I'm about to go back. I guess I've made peace with the fact that they don't pay programmers as much as I think they should. (It's not actually bad pay, just not as much as non-programmers get.) But mostly, it was a fun project that taught me a lot, and I want more of that.

This is the general culture in Europe. Techies do not get promoted and do not even have a possibility to grow to management. Everything is run by humanities people and we do not even have the right words to describe this situation, although some voiced their concerns for many years, see e.g. The Two Cultures [1] from 1959.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures

European societies are extremely class based which is brutally visible in UK, France, Netherlands, even Germany. INSEAD and other MBAs see techies as washing machine repairmen.

Netherland is actually extremely egalitarian. Managers are often just one of the team, you address everybody informally, we're all equals, etc. Except in pay. And especially in larger organizations. Managers and people on track to management are seen as the shit. Programmers are paid fairly well compared to the average job, but even if you're single-handedly pulling an important project, you're never going to make the same as people who push numbers, papers and money.