1.25x, let alone 1.5x for a PhD to write code seems a little high. Typically a PhD doesn't make you a better software engineer, so why pay more (other than its expected)? $1.5x for a PhD to solve hard problems your company needs solutions to and can't hand to a random new hire, on the other hand, is reasonable.
Perhaps they think they are getting hired to do the later and you are hiring them to do the former ?
Simple suggestion: Perhaps they heard that PhD's make 1.5X, and haven't yet realized that the PhD's making 1.5X are solving the hard problems, not working as code monkeys? Thus they assume that the degree simply merits 1.5X for the same work.
Possible, but I'd imagine unlikely. Why would a PhD apply for a code monkey job? Most don't do so intentionally, certainly they didn't get a PhD to become a code monkey. So if they are willingly doing so, they probably exhausted all alternative career options or think they have. In which case, while they may ask for more money, I don't think they would actually turn down the job if denied.
certainly they didn't get a PhD to become a code monkey
Well, what did they get it to become? I bet most of them don't even know. I know I contemplated a graduate degree, and if I had done it, it would have been for love of the material and love of learning, not because I knew precisely what I was going to do with it.
Well the whole problem with "knowing what you'll do with a PhD" is, if we knew how research was going to turn out, we wouldn't have to do it. A PhD is training to probe into the unknown, which means that the economic yields of research are, by definition, unknown, which means finding jobs for researchers at for-profit businesses is hard.
No, a PhD is training to become an academic. It's reasonable to assume that a PhD has lowered themselves to work in industry because they couldn't get a post-doc. Whether that's true or not it starts out the interview on a bad footing. What if a guy walked into your company and said "I couldn't get a job at Google so I thought I'd try you schmucks"?
Back in the day, so was doing an undergraduate degree. If you wanted a job in industry, that's what you did. University was for academic pursuits.
> "It's reasonable to assume that a PhD has lowered themselves to work in industry because they couldn't get a post-doc. Whether that's true or not it starts out the interview on a bad footing."
It's not reasonable to assume that at all. Last time I checked, the majority of PhDs leave academia after their degree (they don't want a post-doc - so don't even try). I do understand why non-PhDs in industry may harbour false impressions about the degree and why that can set things off on a bad footing.
> "What if a guy walked into your company and said 'I couldn't get a job at Google so I thought I'd try you schmucks'?"
This is completely independent of whether or not someone has a PhD. Undergrads can do this too.
Of course it is reasonable, or not unreasonable if you prefer. As in, a normal person would not be thought outlandish for thinking it, and particularly, it is actually perfectly normal for interviewers to think so.
It's reasonable to assume that a PhD has lowered themselves to work in industry because they couldn't get a post-doc.
Let's conduct a poll. Other than you, did anyone here who's been involved with PhD holders or grad-school and academia themselves actually think this? How many of us actual academicy types actually think it's "lowering oneself" to work in industry?
I don't. I do think that both academia and industry need to drop their utterly ridiculous notions of professional passion, because most people most of the time will never work on Their Life's Defining Passion when there are bills to pay, but industry can certainly come up with problems just as big, just as hard, and just as worthy as academia.
I'm getting mine so I have the toolkit and experience to solve a certain class of problems.
It's certainly something I could have taught myself over the years, but at the time and now it makes sense to me (i.e. sunk costs are irrelevant, only a little bit left to finish).
What a derogatory term: "code monkey"! Writing, maintaining and managing source code requires quite a bit of talent. It is not a trivial job. It is often also a very difficult job that most outsiders would be incapable of doing, not even to save themselves from drowning.
It's common industry jargon in the US, tongue-in-cheek like so much other jargon, and widely used by people to describe even their own jobs. You're ascribing a sense of malice to something that carries none.
Yes, I'm well familiar with the term. I did not mean to imply it was intended maliciously (nor that it wasn't.) I simply think that it is easy to interpret it as a devaluation of skill. This reactive feeling may just be based on my personal experience, but I also know I'm not the only one.
Here it is a literary device to succinctly contrast the highly specialized PhD to the most basic of all programming jobs. It is not intended to be derogatory; rather, simply to emphasize the contrast between the two roles/qualifications.
In general it falls into the same category as other colorful ways to reduce a role either for the purposes of humor or simplicity, such as 'keyboard warrior' or 'desk jockey'
"Typically a PhD doesn't make you a better software engineer, so why pay more (other than its expected)?"
I don't know if a PhD makes you a better writer of code, but it definitely makes you more determined, focused and unflappable person. (That's pretty much all it does, actually. Everything else is a stereotype.) These are all qualities that are worth buying in an actual engineer.
Perhaps they think they are getting hired to do the later and you are hiring them to do the former ?