Eh, I think these fuckers would refuse to pay severance and I also happen to know they're going to be completely fucked in 6 months or so without a few things I know -- and will charge exorbitant amounts to fix when the time comes.

Well, in software a good engineer can easily be worth 10 okay ones, and a great engineer can be worth 10 good ones.. And a bad engineer in a critical spot can be worth -1000 and cause you problems you literally can't fix down the road

It's the people who can't find anyone to hang out with them unless they're getting paid.

That's certainly plausible.. I think it's even more dumb though -- they're doing it because Salesforce, Amazon, Google, etc. are doing it. CEOs don't really think for themselves.

You were getting shitty pay then. Unemployment usually tops out at $600/week and comes with tons of time wasting/condescending/degrading hoops you have to jump through.

Funny thing about that.. One of my projects literally saved them over $20 million. Of course the managers took credit, and then management changed guards 3 times since so my current manager doesn't even realize that the entire business depends on the thing I wrote and that nobody else understands despite the documentation and attempts I made to pass on the info.

The previous managers realized the importance of this and counted themselves lucky that I just wanted to collect my paycheck and be left alone. The current batch are in for a surprise the next time requirements change. It'll be a 20 minute job for me, but weeks or months for someone who doesn't know how to use the tools I built.

Oh I'm sure they are, but they got more than their money's worth out of my 10 hours a week than they ever will out of anyone who complies with this mandate. Hours worked /= productivity.

I'm salary. If I get 40 hours work done in 10, those other 30 belong to me.

Normally this is true, but in this case they already tried paying some very expensive consultants a fortune to replace my stuff with something more "standard".. And they failed both to meet all the functional requirements and to get it to meet the performance requirements on the things they actually managed to do.

Not saying there's nobody who could do it, just that nobody there even knows the right questions to ask.

Probably not, but it was part of the CEO's late night drunken rant so it goes in the memo.

Sure they will. But they'll be out a few million dollars when they fuck this up.

Lets put it another way: there are tasks that can be accomplished either through brute force, or by utilizing math and CS to build special purpose tools and accomplish the same goals in a fraction of the time and effort. The person who builds and utilizes those tools is at a distinct advantage, in the way that a python programmer can accomplish a task much quicker than someone who only uses C, or a C programmer vs an assembly programmer.

Now suppose you run into a use case where there are no off-the-shelf tools. Most mediocre programmers will try to kludge together the closest-fitting tools they can find. Good programmers will build an application and repeat the pattern as needed, maintaining each along the way. Great programmers will see the pattern quickly and build tools to automate the entire process. And, of course, bad programmers will try to brute force it.

On a team where everyone is doing roughly the same work, the difference between programmers will be fairly small, but one expert engineer against a team of mediocre engineers will come out ahead every time.

No problem. It's what I told every boss so far for the last 4 years, and until now nobody's had a problem with it.

Oh, they have no need to cut. They're making more than they ever have. Not to give too much away, but they're in a parasitic business sector that profits off human misery -- of which there is no shortage right now.

I'll quit, but let my boss know I'll contract if the price is right. I've been there a long time and my boss thinks I don't do anything because I know how to automate shit and write code that doesn't break. They're in for a rude awakening in 6 months when requirements change and they discover the work I do isn't something you can hand off to an 8 week boot camp grad.

I'm not contracting though, I'm salary. I get paid for what I know and what I do, not how long it takes me to get it done.

Instead of thinking about hourly rates, think having a lawyer on retainer. Hopefully you don't need them much, but if you do need them and they're not there, you're fucked.

They actually are making quite a bit, though I'm guessing they're a bit frustrated that they increased bureaucracy 1000% in the last 2 years and don't understand why projects now take so long.

Manager claims its a company-wide requirement handed down from on high. She's a terrible manager though and I wouldn't put it past her to try to pull some shit. That said, this is going to make her job suck, so I'm not sure the incentive is there to do so.

Note that this is a company that regularly does illegal shit and has a team of lawyers and accountants to decide when following the law is profitable and when it isn't. So likely it's an empty threat but they calculated they could make this threat without any accountability.

In my case, they have changes required regularly and it isn't something you can really hire for by listing skills on a job advertisement.. If the money is right, I don't mind converting this to an above-board contracting arrangement. I know for a fact it would be very expensive for them to replace my work.