Earn More as a Software Engineer
Tags: mindset, softwareengineering, career, success
Published: 2020-02-24 18:44:42

---
title: Earn More as a Software Engineer
published: true
description: 
tags: mindset, software-engineering, career, success
cover_image : https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/t579jaljlq6ew8af4c8j.jpg
---

Before we begin, let me give you a brief background. The reason I work is to make money. The reason I work as a software engineer is that I like programming and logical challenges.

Businesses, disrupted by innovations in the IT field, are increasingly adopting software to help them improve their services. As more and more businesses are looking for software to address their general or unique needs, the demand for software increases. To produce software, we need engineers who know software systems. That is you and me. This creates a good demand for us.

On the other hand, we have our challenges. The world of technology is moving fast. There are new technologies developed, new programming languages coming out and new techniques being discovered. So we need to be fairly up-to-date and open to change. And most of all, we should be able to understand some cryptic forms of writing (called code) so we can get computers to do our bidding. Because of these characteristics, not everyone can or wants to be in this field. That is the other contributor to the growth of the demand for us.

In my opinion, programming or software development is one of the easiest fields to get in today. Anyone with a computer (they are quite cheap these days) and access to the Internet (again, a very cheap service) can learn to code within a very short time at cost of next to nothing. You can even build software without writing a single line of code. There is that much of free tutorials and guides to get you into the game. However, sometimes we come to face the most impossible of hardships. Since most of these are in our heads, you must be insanely passionate about what you do to survive in this field.

It is a common belief that Software Engineers are paid better than their peers working in other fields. But, we know better. We know that we are not paid enough for the work we do. We tend to work long hours and jump over many impossible hurdles to meet deadlines. We tend to consume a lot of pizza and caffeine to compensate for it. We tend to work sleepless nights and sacrifice our holidays when there are production bugs or deployment failures.

Are there ways for us to earn more so we don't feel underpaid?

Through-out my life as a Software Engineer, I have seen only one way to achieve this: 

> ### Increase your value to your employer. ###

I know that it is easy to say this, but hard to do. Before going into the "How", let me tell you the "Why". Why we should do this and why it is always a win for us (and the employer).

Our value to the employer can increase only if we are helping them conduct more business. More business means more revenue and more profit - out of which we get paid. So, we get a bigger cut.

One can argue that their employer is different, they will only try to keep it for themselves. That could be a blessing in disguise. If you are given a choice of keeping a valuable employee and earning a bigger profit in the long run or making a quick buck off a high performing employee, which one would you choose? That is exactly my point.

Nevertheless, I could be wrong and there could be extreme cases where the employer wants to make a quick buck (before they close down business). Even in such a case, all is not lost. Remember what I mentioned about the demand earlier. If we are good enough, ten more potential employers are keeping an eye on us.

Let's come back to the "How". I can show you two ways. These are not the only ways, but these are so simple and quite easy to try out (let me reiterate; if we are passionate).

One way is to develop our skills. This translates to measurable things to our employer like increased throughput, increased quality of work and innovative solutions to the challenges. The exact way to implement is dependent on our preferences, strengths, and environments we work in. Further, there is enough free material online on how to develop our skills. Therefore, discussing this topic is beyond the scope of this article.

Another way is to get some other employees fired so that we can earn their share. I know this is unethical, inconceivable, unfair and inhuman. But bare with me for a moment as this is the crux of this article and the integral part of the subtle message that I am trying to communicate.

By no means we should get our co-workers fired. No one in their right mind would do this. I completely agree. Think. What if we can do something so that our employer doesn't need as many new employees to handle the new business coming in? More profit for them, a bigger cut for us. They will gladly pay us more and have fewer HR overhead and fewer issues.

_Do I have your attention now? Good._

Again, there are various strategies and tactics to implement this. But, I'd like to end this article with a question and leave further discussions about strategies for a future date.

_What can we do as Software Engineers to get a few people fired?_