Ask HN: Why are developers paid so much more than system administrators?

  • My general feeling is that front end developers are paid less than DevOps (which is what we call sysadmins these days, after all the 'pasting stuff from a Word doc into Solaris' people became managers at banks and the people who could actually automate shit took over). DevOps and back end engineers are paid about the same.

    Frontend: 300-400ish GBP/day in London

    Backend / DevOps: 600 GBP/day in London

    Weird thing is, when I did backend the first time round, I had no idea of event loops and async (asides frm some theoretical knowledge since nginx uses them). I found frontend FAR more complex as a result.