What is strange about paying for tools that improve productivity? Unless you consider your own time worthless you should always be open to spending more to gain more.
What is strange about paying for tools that improve productivity? Unless you consider your own time worthless you should always be open to spending more to gain more.
No stock backed company will be paying developers more regardless of much more productive these tools make us. You'll be lucky if they pay for the proper Claude Max plan themselves considering most wouldn't even spring for IntelliJ.
I wasn't thinking about this from the perspective of an IC in a company, more from the perspective of self employment or side projects. But its not any different for a larger business: An IC should not pay for their own tools, but an engineering manager who won't is a fool.
Are the jobs out there actually paying people more?
Your own time is worthless if you’re not spending it doing something that makes more money. You don’t make more money increasing your productivity for work when you’re expected to work the same number of hours.
I've spent a fair amount of time contracting -- this issue is even more relevant here. While I wasn't spending very much on AI tools, what I did spent was worth every penny... for the company I was supporting :).
Fortunately, there was enough work to be done so productivity increases didn't decrease my billable hours. Even if it did, I still would have done it. If it helps me help others, then it's good for my reputation. Thats hard to put a price on, but absolutely worth what I paid in this case.