The labor market for programers in the tech industry has two features (anecdotally observed) that are interesting to me:<p>1. Labor does not receive (or insist on) percent-of-value or percent-of-transaction compensation. This is in contrast to some other professional disciplines (e.g., salespeople often get paid on a percentage or commission, bankers often take a % cut, pe &#x2F; vc &#x2F; hf has 2% and 20%, real estate is on a %, lawyers may get paid on a % (&quot;contingent fees&quot;), etc.)<p>2. Initial salaries are good, but there is wage stagnation. Just-out-of-college salaries for programming are often better than virtually everything else (notably, banking and consulting); but after ten years, the opposite is relationship is reversed (considerably so). The difference between a newgrad salary and a 10-yearer salary for tech-industry programmers is often (in my anecdotal experience) less than 2x. In contrast, 5x or more is not unusual in other fields.