This post doesn’t apply to the Mark Zuckerberg of this world, who wrote a few lines of code, never spoke to anyone except a friend and became a billionaire. This is a post for 99% of Gen Z software engineers out there.
I’ve never had time for consistently making content out there. I created my first blog in 2016, then another in 2018, then another in 2020, each time on a new domain name.
But I didn’t publish more than 10 articles for each.
The truth is, I never took content creation seriously because of what my teacher told me: “Boy, stop making content and become a great coder.”
lol. No matter how I tried, that statement made me place less value on writing and even podcasting. I considered them low-value tasks, even if every year-end I would feel I should have written more out there. No matter what great code I write, I regret not writing the previous year.
Blogging. Podcasting. YouTube. TikToking. Substacking. I tried them, but after a few days in, I would stop.
Do you know my first Substack was in 2021? But then I stopped writing after one month.
Well, not anymore. Because I now have a different mindset about values.
You see, there are only four value ladders. The first ladder is Implementation, and it is the lowest form of value. This is you doing the thing, doing the actual work; the coding. Every software engineer who only writes code is on this first ladder — Implementation.
Software engineers are implementers.
Implementers don’t take any risk. They just do the thing they are mostly asked to fix. Plumbers, auto mechanics, coders, including hired pirates, are implementers. And they usually earn minimum wage in any market, as they are the lowest on the ladder.
But software engineers are high-value implementers; they usually earn above the median. If the annual minimum wage in a market is $100, software engineers earn between $500 and $1,000. The high-value implementers can earn 10x the minimum wage. But it rarely gets past that.
In California, the annual minimum wage is $31k to $36k; most software engineers there earn between $142k and $161k — around 5x. Top-value engineers earn $250k to $350k (~10x).
Now take the same job, implementation, in two other markets using dollar value. In London, the minimum wage is around $33,750 a year. Software engineers earn $94,500 to $121,500 — about 3x. Top engineers hit $162,000 to $202,500 (~7x). In Lagos, the minimum wage is around $540 a year. Software engineers earn $3,870 to $5,420 from local employers — 7x to 10x the minimum wage.
It hardly gets past 10x. It’s almost impossible to get paid more than $300k writing code alone. Any higher earnings are no longer just engineers but project managers, team leads, vp, and engineering managers, which leads us to the second level of value — Unification.
These are people who provide value by unifying things. They bring implementers (engineers who just code) together to get a job done. They are paid for managing others. A chief security officer earns more than the security guy at the gate. A site contractor earns more than his most skilled workman.
A software engineer who manages other software engineers is no longer just writing code. He now manages others. And takes some risks. If a project goes bad, he is to blame. He is paid not only because he can code but also because he can get others to code. A great example is an engineering manager/lead.
An engineering manager is usually paid more than the average software engineer. Their base pay is usually the average of what software engineers earn, sometimes several times over.
In California, engineering managers earn $180,000 to $270,000 on average, with top earners reaching $350,000 to $410,000. In London, they earn $189,000 to $297,000, with top earners at $337,500 to $405,000. In Lagos, engineering managers earn $11,610 to $23,225, with top earners at $30,970 to $38,710.
The big difference between an Implementation and Unification is the communication level. An implementer might not need to communicate to anyone other than her direct team lead. But the team would communicate to everyone and also to the VP.
The reason you can never be rich just writing code in a company is that you hardly communicate to anyone outside your office peers or lead. You are economically limited by your circle of audience.
I’ve seen a few guys in Lagos who used to just code before now earning as high as $100K annually. Way more than engineering managers earn in the country. In the US, you will find many “former engineers” who now earn up to $2m annually.
Well, if you look closely, it is not just a company paying them that amount. They are now podcasting, running a YouTube channel, a paid app, a startup, or selling online courses and books.
They are now communicating more. creating content and code out there for others. The third and fourth levels of value are Communication and Imagination. People who earn from communicating or their imaginations.
This is where the highest money is made in any career. When you begin to communicate and create things. No matter how small.
I read about a software engineer in Australia who was learning to code, then created a website called Sitepoint to help other people learn to code. He became a dollar millionaire.
I read a paper that said a rich programmer is no longer a “programmer.”
Funny, but to some degree, true.
Gergely Orosz, author of Pragmatic Engineer and millionaire software engineer, is a famous podcaster and runs one of the largest Substack newsletters.
Taylor Otwell of Laravel went from earning an average salary to driving a Lamborghini after building Laravel, the most used open source web framework. He is no longer a “programmer”; he is a creator and innovator.
The CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, used to be a project manager. A key difference between a project manager who unifies others to get a project done and a CEO is that the company thrives or dies by the CEO’s imagination and communication. The more innovative he is, the more successful Google becomes.
Coding won’t make you rich. Communicating your code and the value of it in a new way that increases your circle of influence and surface area of luck will. Coding is now a productized labour; all we need is to burn energy (Claude tokens).
How good are your ideas? Unless you are Elon Musk, a master of attention who never made it by coding alone. Or you are Zuckerberg, who created a social network at 19, at the right time and place, but never created anything else successful since then.
But you are not, and 99% of coding ideas today will be dead on GitHub in two weeks. But if you can turn the flip and entertain or educate from your coding ideas, you will see how lucrative that is.
I was discussing this with a friend, and he said, “But how about footballers? They just kick the ball. They are implementing the game.” Well, I said, they are not just kicking the ball; each kick is a communication because people watch them. The reason why they are paid more is that they are communicating more than the average software engineer. Whatever is not communicating to people is not economically viable. Entertainment is a form of communication, and it requires a lot of imagination to thrive.
Football began to thrive richly when players started having a lot of speaking engagements before, during, and after games. A comment Lamine Yamal made after a game against Real Madrid will have more engagement than the match highlights. That is why Adidas paid him $34m.
But you don’t want to start a career with communication and creativity as your main source of income. No. It’s hard and takes time. You won’t make money the first few years creating a coding channel, building a new AI app, or publishing courses. You are better off starting with implementation as your main source of income, a job that pays you to code today. The reason is that there is no lower bound as to how much a communicator can make. They can make $0 or $100m. It is the reason why you used to be richer than your friend who started a YouTube channel 6 years ago rather than getting a job, but you are still earning from job to job today while your friend is a millionaire teaching people how to code online and yet never worked for a serious company.
But you would’ve been better off both at the beginning and now if you had also taken your communication and creativity beyond the circuit board of your company. But you didn’t see any real value communicating out there and not being paid monthly. The high-earning communicators don’t earn monthly; they earn big.
It is also the reason why your friend has been building products without a job for more than 8 years now, but he is still broke. Because when you earn from your creativity, it takes time; and you can earn as little as zero and as much as a million.
You don’t want to be friend B, but you also don’t want to be friend A at the start of your career. You want to start as an implementer and get paid to code, while creating content out there beyond where you work.
In any career, including software, if you ever want to earn big, the most important skill you can develop is communication. From implementation to imagination, the highest earners in each ladder are the ones who communicate better.
A founder who communicates more and improves will raise more money and build more successful products than the one who hardly communicates.
You are not improving in your communication if you are always communicating to the same people. Increase follows attention and vice versa.
This is why I have decided to take writing and podcasting consistently going forward. I now consider communication a much more valuable activity than writing code. It is now my most important job.
I admonish you to do the same. Take your communication seriously. Start an X blog, a podcast, a YouTube channel, a Substack, or even a physical meetup and communicate with people.
If you are going to do this, here is my ultimate advice on how to build an audience: find a schedule you can live with, and stick to it for a year. Probably several years. Whether it’s YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, or Substack, find a schedule and stick with it. The more frequent the schedule, the better. Don’t outsource.
It won’t be easy. But you have to start from where you are right now.
If you found this content valuable and you know someone who might need it, kindly share with a friend.
Thank you for subscribing to my podcast here on Substack or on Spotify.
