After graduating with my BSc in Computer Engineering, I took my 10 month experience as an undergraduate research assistant in Java to a local telecoms solutions provider. I looked my interviewer in the eye, and told her not to look at me as a fresh grad.

I don’t know if I got the job on that basis, but I did - so they put me on stretchers for the first few weeks, and got me hacking at a poorly written Java re-write of an equally poorly written ASP web application. I fumed at the mess, which led me to stuff like Apache Struts and n-tier architecture, MVC and all that stuff.

My boss decided then to throw me into the deep end of the pool and send me to Singapore to build a webapp on my own, with only the interface requirements provided. Fine, I thought. Let’s do it in ASP.NET (never touched it in my life).

I bought a book from Microsoft Press, sat down and implemented the first MVC app the company had ever produced without even knowing it. Plus, I never had a complaint from the client, either. So it was either really bad or really good.

Like all budding Malaysian engineers, I waited out to see if the company would reward me. I got a measly RM200 on my confirmation, and a subsequent increase of RM80 and RM100 during the yearly probation cycles. And to think that they pay the sales guys so much more than the engineers, no wonder this country is not going anywhere.

Maybe I’m wrong to think that companies should reward their pioneers. But they don’t. Most companies pay for employees to kowtow, because at the end of the day it’s the management who calls the shots. Here are some examples of kowtowism:

Overtime - a great way to show that you’re working your butt off, because the boss comes into the office at 12am too. Who cares if you’re not making real progress? Seat warming is where it counts.

Seniority - “I have 10 years of software experience and you don’t.” Get real.

Complicated code - Solve a problem fast by using tutorials and cut and paste. Easy.

Tunnel Vision - “yes I’ve fixed that problem”. But you’ve caused a few dozen more in the process.

Certifications and new programming languages - .NET exploded on the scene at the time. Anyone doing C# was worshiped at my office. I couldn’t care less.

At the end of the day, no matter how much I’ll rant, it doesn’t make a difference. Companies have already decided beforehand how much salary they will pay software engineers. There’s not a big difference in the scale vs. skill. This is what makes it so unnerving. Even more so are companies who are using software to make money.

But I regress. Software engineers need more than programming skills to survive. There’s no point in complaining otherwise.

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