Do You Make $60/hr for Programming?

azzkicker asks: "I was reading some AP articles on offshoring. It talks about the struggles of out-of-work programmers and the shifting of jobs overseas [in the US]. Part way through one article it says: 'The average programmer commands $60 an hour in the United States, six times the rate in India.' I don't disagree with the Indian rate (USD $80/day, $400/week, $20,800/year gross), but what is with the US rate (USD $480/day, $2400/week, $124,000/year gross)? I know that programmers are billed out at high rates, but most of my programmer friends in Midwest, USA (years of experience and CS degrees) don't even see $50K/year. What is the actual rate most programmers see? Do you see $60/hr? Is the US rate misleading corporations into outsourcing?" Does offshoring really save corporations that much money?

Comments

$54k

[Anonymous Coward]

I make $54k a year, plus full benefits (All medical expenses paid for my family, vision, dental, vacation, and company paid pension). This is a good job, but a far cry from $60/hour.

Re:$54k

[Anonymous Coward]

I forgot to add, this is for a programming job. I do a lot of coding and database work. I also do a little bit of networking, but not too much.

This is for a non-profit corporation owned by the city. I'm the only programmer, and I do most all of the program design, in addition to coding, testing, deploying and maintaining the software, and training the users.

Re:$54k

[Dick Faze]

You're not an hourly contractor, you're a W2 employee. When hourly figures are quoted, you have to take all of those factors into consideration - your total compensation is closer to $90,000 once you do. This is still on the low side, so I'm going to assume you live in the south, which is the only place I've seen rates this low. In the northeast, there aren't really any programming contracts below $40/hr and most are between $40/hr and $60/hr. The numbers are contracts I've seen listed through agencies, so the clients are really paying $80-$120 an hour, and what YOU get is after their cut. Independents make more like $70-$100 an hour, at least in DE, PA, NJ, NY. In the end, I think it evens out. It seems like salaries for 'real programming jobs' are around $60k-$80 a year. After you pay all of your own benefits, spend 800 hours doing sales calls (most of which result in nothing) and then do the tons of paperwork (and pay for your Tums for the dry periods) you end up with 900-1000 billable hours. So even at $100 and hour, you're not really any better off than working for Shitco. But if you need to be your own boss or really like picking your projects, its worth it.

Re:$54k

[x00101010x]

I make about 35k USD, have dental (180USD value), medical (dunno how much, but probably double dental), 1 week vacation, 1 week sick days, accrued monthly, and that's it. No 401k (though one is avail. but w/o contribution matching due to "hard" times and I can't really afford it right now anywho).

I work an average of 60 hours per week, minimum 30, sometimes 80, but 80% of the time it's between 55 and 60. We get "comp" time, no monetary compensation for overtime, but I've never seen half as much comp time as I've put in overtime, let alone time and a half (and that's based on 50hr being the overtime mark).
And in my 3.5 years with the company I've only had about 8 to 12 weeks where I wasn't turning a great profit for the company or at least making them double what it took to pay me. And I'm still using a PIII 800Mhz Dell workstation, second hand from an artist and refurbished to begin with, so it's not like they're paying much to equip me.

I also live in one of the more expensive northern suburbs of LosAngeles. My condo (which I sort'a wish I hadn't bought now) was about 180k USD and is only a 2bdr/1.75bth.

Re:$54k

[SkewlD00d]

Also, you have to pay DOUBLE social-security (which is about 14%), FICA and SDI on a 1099, in addition to submitting quarterlies and paying state and fed. Also, the non-inflation-indexed AMT is going to sneak up and tax the fuck out of the middle class. That's why the budget projections are so rosy, that there wont be a budget deficit. Of course, none of the candidates for prez talk about the AMT nor do they talk about closing the tax loopholes for the rich and tax traps for the working poor. Damn, I better charge more than $40/hr gross and suboutsource my job to India. =)

Re:$54k

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds like you need a new job or need to learn how to negotiate a better salary--or is the geek market really that bad in Cal-i-for-ni-a.

On the other hand, your not getting a raise if you only earn/save your company twice what you get paid.

Re:$54k

[cujo_1111]

I really do hope you are looking for another job right about now...

Re:$54k

[x00101010x]

that's minimum, i pull down about 3100/mo (est. a bit of the medical and dental in there), they charge 10,000/mo to 15,000/mo to the customer and we underbid the going market value.

i asked for a small raise and got turned down, and the CFO made clear it's not because i'm not worth at least that, but that there's just "not enough money" right now. there's a lot of dead weight around here though, a lot of people pulling down double what i get and putting in 1/3 the hours. oh well.

Re:$54k

[x00101010x]

ps, the small raise was 300 week, just enough to offset my wife getting laid off this coming april.

Re:$54k

[Anonymous Coward]

This is still on the low side, so I'm going to assume you live in the south, which is the only place I've seen rates this low.

Actually I'm in Long Beach, California. My $54k salary isn't a huge amount, but it is enough for us to own 3 cars, support my wife so she can stay at home with our two children, and rent a decent apartment.

Sure, we can't afford many luxurious things, but we do live a pretty comfotable lifestyle.

Re:$54k

[jalet]

Here in France, I make about 22kEuros dental+medical included, 45 days of paid vacation, 12 days more in case I need to keep my children home if they are ill, and I work 35 hours a week, maximum. Not highly paid, but not so bad after all ;-)

Re:$54k

[x00101010x]

I heard they're also really great about maternity leave.

What's the immigration policy like? I took a little french in highschool, and while I never got very good at it, I'm pretty sure I could learn to speak it fairly well if I really wanted/needed to.

Re:$54k

[jalet]

maternity leave is ten weeks for women. When the baby is born, there used to be 3 days for the man, now it's two weeks (since last year IIRC).

Immigration policy is... I don't know how to qualify this crap :

If you've got higher education, some money, and white, you're welcome. If you're brown with curly hairs and poor, you preferably must be a genius of some sort to be accepted.

Of course I exagerate a little bit, but the actual government isn't very 'soft' on immigrants, nor is an increasing part of the 'local' population, unfortunately...

Re:$54k

[JohnFluxx]

no shit - it was all over the news here in the uk about that french facist guy getting in. Even we were worried about it.

Re:$54k

[jalet]

The guy in question, Jean-Marie LePen, didn't get in at all in fact. He still doesn't have any member of his party in the parliament. However his stinky ideas please at least 20% of the population which was stupid enough to vote for this tortionnary
in the latest presidential elections.
And so the actual government now takes care of these 20% ...

Re:$54k

[jalet]

Should I say :"presumed" tortionnary

Excuse me !

Re:$54k

[JohnFluxx]

Yeah I miswrote. I went to correct it, but then ran into the problem that I have to wait 2 mins, and then forgot about it ;)

Re:$54k

[Anonymous Coward]

I make a bit under CA$70K. Health care is a given in .ca but I pay ~35% in taxes. Still, I love my job and wouldn't change for a job paying double if I'd hate it.

Re:$54k

[Anonymous Coward]

You pull down 3100 a month and you call a small raise asking for 1200 more a month?

I used to make just over $100K salary

[rthille]

until I got laid off 40 days ago. Still, add in the insurance, vacation, etc and I can easily see $60/hour.

Re:I used to make just over $100K salary

[Anonymous Coward]

I make $50K a year and honestly they don't pay me enough for all this shit I do. I do almost everything they throw at me...database stuff, analysis, and coding. It seems like they give me the hard tasks.

Next week is my annual review and I want to ask for a raise to $65K (average salary of level II engineer in my area). The company is in good shape now than it was 6 months ago so why not ask for a raise? It is a big jump from $50K...is it too big of a jump? Anyone have any tips on how to ask for a raise.

p.s. My company bills at $85 to $185 an hour for contract work and I only see $24.

Re:I used to make just over $100K salary

[mnmn]

Damn you 2 are lucky, and possibly degree holders.

I dont have a college degree.

I work at a manufacturing company of about 100 people, 8 servers including one linux, one openbsd and one sco servers. Beside the workstations, cabling, PDAs, Internet connection, antispam and Domino, I take care of the ERP system, develop reports, program apps that access the database, tune the database, train everyone even work with non-IT procedures in the company.

Of course I document everything.

And I get $12 per hour in canadian dollars. Thats 25K, but take away EI, income tax, thats below 19K. Here in Toronto any reasonable crib costs $1200 in monthly rent, but I'm living with parents and contribute 50% of my pay for rent. I get no benefits, which means when I get a toothache, theres NOTHING I can do about it.

I intend to let this contract time end, and I'll ask for $18 per hour. If they offer me any less, I'll just walk out. I can make more driving a cab or painting walls. Leaving the only IT guy who knows their ERP system inside out should hit them hard, one full days downtime can cost them $80,000. Talk about pay jumps.

So let me print again what you typed above to make it ironic:
"I make $50K a year and honestly they don't pay me enough for all this shit I do."

Re:I used to make just over $100K salary

[kootch]

You can always ask more, but expect nothing.

And always keep in mind how much the job is worth to you vs. how much you are worth the company.

I once fought for the same raise numbers (same exact numbers) and felt that I was worth every penny of that raise. I got the raise because the company saw my utilization rate, the quality of my deliverables, and my repoire w/ client contacts.

Do the same analysis of your own work. If you feel you are worth every penny to them and that if they got rid of you they'd be hard-pressed to find someone with your skills (and cheery smile) for the same price (or maybe even less), go for it.

It never hurts to ask. Just be prepared to hear "no".

Re:I used to make just over $100K salary

[NDPTAL85]

Doesn't Canada have free healthcare?

Re:I used to make just over $100K salary

[Mr. Shiny And New]

Yes. But not everything is covered. Dental work, for example, is not (at least, not fully covered). Many full-time employees have dental benefits, though.

Re:I used to make just over $100K salary

[molarmass192]

Be diplomatic about it, do not pound your fist on the desk and demand a raise. Make sure you get your manager on your side, point out the fact that you're doing a good job (past reviews help here), and slip in the salary level discrepancy during your review. The key is to give the impression that you deserve the raise rather than are demanding a raise. People feel good about helping people out but hate to be coerced.

The other thing is that you may be setting your expectations for a 30% raise a little high. Something in the 15-20% range is a more realistic expectation. For example, one large company I worked for had a "maximum" raise of 20% beyond which raises required CEO approval. If you feel dissatisfied with the raise they give you, you can always become a contractor yourself but don't discount the low stress levels associated with knowing that you'll get that steady (but smaller) paycheck twice a month.

Re:I used to make just over $100K salary

[ShaggyZet]

I'd say a $85-185/$24 ratio is a little off. I think anything more than 3-4/1 is excessive, unless your company provides you with huge amounts of support (ie. code frameworks built by "overhead employees" for you to use on client projects, lots of professional development or other good benefits).

Back in the good old boom days, I got a raise from 60k to 85k after a few months at a job, without even a review, just because I was doing work that was comparable to more senior people who made that much more. A good company will do that. A good manager will make that happen. Any other raise, I've had to work harder for, good companies and managers are hard to find.

Beware the company that only gives raises when you threaten to leave. It limits your future, changes the way they view you and means you'll only have to threaten to leave again next year.

I think there are magic numbers in software development salary. It can be hard to break throught the 50-60k barrier, but when you do, you rocket up to 85-90k. Then, it's hard to break through the 100k barrier without becoming management. I knew a guy that made 125k (as a salaried employee, not a contractor), but he was extremely specialized and well-known in his area.

Seems low

[whoda]

My company bills me out at ~$160/hr.

Of course, I only see ~1/5 of that as my hourly wage, they get the rest of it for overhead/insurance/profit/etc.

Re:Seems low

[Inominate]

So why don't companies hire thier own programmers, rather than pay so much to use someone elses?

Re:Seems low

[Anonymous Coward]

they do, the programmers they hire live in India.

see how this works now?

Re:Seems low

[Smidge204]

My guess would be, less overhead.

When you have an employee, there's all sors of costs above and beyond his wage. You'll be paying insurance, possibly benefits, taxes, unemployment, ect. Plus you'll probably need a physical place for him to work, which means office space (rent is typically by the square foot) and equipment (outlay costs, maintenance, etc).

When you outsource, all you get is a bill. The company you get your labor from probably operates cheaper overall (India?) and so the net cost to you is probably lower in the end.

I'm not an employer though, so that's just a guess based on other examples in industry.
=Smidge=

Re:Seems low

[bay43270]

On top of the issues you mention, companies also like contractors because they fit in a different column in the balance sheet. Full time employees are liabilities. Contractors (even if employed for years) are temporary costs that can be attributed to specific projects.

Re:Seems low

[clearcache]

Also, companies pay for specialized work in areas that they don't have a prayer of doing themselves. Sure, maybe they could pay a 1/3 hourly rate to program something in-house, but without the area-specific knowledge, they may spend more than 3 times the amount of time to create a product...and not even get it right when they're done.

Re:Seems low

[perlchild]

well many of those costs are hidden on the bill the client gets. One that's not hidden, is the IRS(at least for american companies outsourcing to India). Since outsourcing is usually company to company, it's a company expense. Canada also has per-employee training minima and other fees that start ramping up the more you grow a business in terms of people. And finally, let's not forget that the outsourcing company has a LOT more leverage against its employees. i.e. You called in sick yesterday, and because of that, we lost the client, you're fired cuz you lost us 123000$ and we can't afford you anymore! wouldn't sink as an argument the same was as: You missed one day, you're fired.
In terms of employment rights anyway.

Re:Seems low

[0x0d0a]

If you only need someone for a while, for a project, there's no point in making them a permanent employee. It's expensive to get rid of people.

Re:Seems low

[Anonymous Coward]

My company bills me out at ~$160/hr.

Until very recently, my company billed me out at $3000/day. On a "bad day" (ten hours), that's $300/hr. Suffice it to say, I didn't get nearly that much in my pocket.

Spent a lot of time on the airplane, though...

Re:Seems low

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, this is the biggest reason for contracting at my (Fortune 500) employer, according to the VPs I've spoken with about it.

Re:Seems low

[abertoll]

Well generally the way it works is that a company doesn't need a particular service forever, only for a limited amount of time so they hire out. But of course contracting costs more because a contractor can only expect to be "employed" 1/3 of the year... so they typically need to make 3x as much.

$10 / hour

[flikx]

I have a BSME. I might get a raise to $15. What a great economy.

Re:$10 / hour

[maxume]

Right there with ya. Except I don't really don't do anything much related to engineering. Give it another nine months. Like USA Today said, America(esp. the economy) loves an election year.

Re:$10 / hour

[eXtro]

Yeah, that's your fault though. Wheel, gear, lever and inclined plane. Where's the recent inventions? ;)

Re:$10 / hour

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

"Where's the recent inventions? ;)"

In my pants.

Re:$10 / hour

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider yourself lucky. I have one too and I make $8.50/hr in NYC.

Re:$10 / hour

[filtur]

I've got a B.S. in CS, and I make $0.00 an hour as an intern. I'm just glad to be doing something after spending so long looking for jobs. I second the "what a great economy" (as long as it was sarcastic)

Re:$10 / hour

[gcaseye6677]

And people wonder why companies are offering 'unpaid internships' to college grads. The simple answer is because people take them! Would you take a free TV if I gave it to you? Of course. The day people quit tricking themselves into thinking that working for free will somehow benefit them is the day that unpaid internships disappear.

Re:$10 / hour

[op00to]

Have you looked on dice.com lately? There are companies asking for 5 years experience with Windows XP and other such rediculously impossible shit. For many companies, a degree is worthless without experience. How do you get the big-time experience? Internship.

There's no way most of the kids who are interns would get the job they would with their lack of experience. Also, interning allows you to NETWORK. Maybe you might not get hired after the internship, but the manager you worked under might suggest you to a colleague.

Nice metaphor though.

rule of thumb

[voisine]

general rule of thumb up to $100k a year or so, double the salary and that's what the employee costs the company. Payroll tax, benefits, unemployment insurance, workmans comp, increased hr resources, etc... $60/hr sounds about right.

Re:rule of thumb

[whoda]

wait til OSHA gets to India, then their cost/hr will start to rise too.

Re:rule of thumb

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait till W gets to OSHA, then cost/hr will go down here. India is coming to the US, not the other way around.

Re:rule of thumb

[/dev/trash]

Yeah but was that what they were talking about or were they just using base salary?

Re:rule of thumb

[Ummagumma]

That 100% is not really true actually. The total an employee costs a company is their 'burdened rate' - generally the HR industry adds 30% of their salary to their base pay to determine this. It varies greatly by state, though, based on insurance rates, etc, and also by the benefits a company provies. More vacation = higher burdened rate, for instance.

so, $60/hr + 30% = ~$78/hr cost to the company.

Re:rule of thumb

[MikeDawg]

Yup, from my president, who will talk "shoot from the hip" and hosestly with me about things, we were talking about employees, and he says that all the companies he has worked with, that HR usually estimates around wages + 25-30%. He usually estimates the cost of employees as wages + 30-35%. I think these are realistic numbers for a professional company.

Re:rule of thumb

[shaka999]

I think the point was that the hourly salary would be less becasue of the burdened rate

60/hr * 0.7 = 42/hr

Re:rule of thumb

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure what they have to pay for unemployement insurance, but my company puts what it pays for its portion of the benefits on my check stub opposite my deductions. That plus their portion of FICA, only comes to about 16% of my salary. Is the insurance crap that high?

Re:rule of thumb

[Glonoinha]

Insurance for an employees family can run $1,000 a month. This isn't the entire story, however, behind 'fully burdened salary'.

Take all the office expenses related to people except actual salary : Building expenses, insurance, 401(k) matching, the $4.3M bonus paid to each corporate officer, the stretch limo and corporate jet expenses, etc... Get a dollar figure $burden.
Take just base salary of the company. Get a dollar figure $baseSalary.

Lets pretend that the entire company spends $100M a year on $baseSalary and another $40M a year in $burden ($28M of which was executive perks and bonuses.) The total outlay was $140M so the % to come up with the 'fully burdened salary' is +40%.

Take your $50k a year salary, run it through that magic math, and your 'fully burdened salary' is $50k x 1.4 = $70k a year.

Re:rule of thumb

[sql*kitten]

$60/hr sounds about right.

I make WAY MORE than $60/hr for actual programming. Of course I don't get paid at all for sitting at my desk reading Slashdot... it all balances out :-)

Just my 2 cents.

[Neck_of_the_Woods]

I know the best programmer I have ever had the chance to work with made 112k a year. Keep in mind these are "New York City" rates, where he was paying 2200 a month in rent. 1600 a year for car insurance, and 10.50 for a mixed drink at your downtown bar. Lets not get into the fact that he was working 75+ hours a week on average either.

Down here in Florida senior programmers are lucky to see 1/2 that at best.

Big numbers make for big headlines. No one ever puts 2 and 2 together.

My friend, could program a circle around 10 of the best offshore programmers you could throw at him. The problem is, they(management) only sees dollar signs, not quality, not the fact you are here on the spot, and not the kind of job your doing....so what if 6 programmers offshore can't do his job, they like the way the numbers work and are not bright enough to understand that they are actually hurting the company.

Again, what do I know. I am just your average government worker now, but I can zap you from space!

---typed for speed, did not check spelling or grammer. In fact I did not even read over it.

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[jmt9581]

While there are managers who definitely don't know how to objectively judge quality of software vs. quantity of software, there are counter-examples to your superprogramming friend. I'm sure that while many people on Slashdot know talented supergeeks with amazing technical skills, everyone knows at least one or two dweebs with no skill at all who just got into IT because it sounded like a good career decision in the late 90's.

In my opinion, the CS/IT world is going through a much-needed purging of some talentless dweebs from the workforce. Competition with overseas workers is simply part of that. I'm not saying that outsourcing programming jobs to India is always a good thing, just that it's not always a bad thing.

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is so true.
Our CIO related a story about how one of the firm's owners asked him if they could switch to Windows Server 2003 and 'save millions' like the ad says.
So he asked him, "How much are you fucking spending a month on IT?" (The answer being next to nothing)
He then said, "That's how much I can save you."
That was the last time Win2K3 was brought up.
There's just no connection between software and costs.
It's an object lesson in billing for services is what it is.

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[gl4ss]

I'm currently attending to a course on software engineering(basic being part of a software project course basically, writing of imaginary requirements document & stuff like that) and I can't help but wonder that wouldn't outsourcing the coding be a quite stupid thing to do in the long run when living in the real world, when looking at the usual reasons why software projects might fail(fucked up specs&requirements, unrealistic schedules, bad communication.. ) and when looking at why the schedules don't hold up(or are longer than what they would be with a different team with more direct link to the client who the program is being done for). and being that failing software projects being the usual reason to lose a customer or profits for a software company.. then what's the point. you still can't usually just dump the specs into some indian code companys inbox and except them to provide a working solution for your company(that you're selling on then, and if they did what was your company doing in the first place? couldn't the client just outsource the whole process themselfs as the next step)

sure it's a different matter if you move everything(effectively move the company somewhere else) and start providing your services to somewhere else but what's the point then, why wouldn't you just create a branch there.

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[stevew]

Well - you can come mighty close to this - and you miss some significant details. If it takes your company 5 engineers to do the job, and Indian based solution can apply 15-25 engineers for a lower cost! Then there is the work ethic these people have -it's significant! I'm not bashing the American work ethic - just commenting that the Indian work ethic is also substantial.

Oh - did I mention that I'm running an India based project? It seems to be going quite well. The real issues are a matter of finding experienced people in India that can manage the local talent. Then there are issues with in-experienced teams needing everything explicitly stated for them. 5 years from now this won't likely be a problem.

So - be afraid. Be very afraid. This trend isn't going to reverse itself.

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[Johnny Mnemonic]

5 years from now this won't likely be a problem.

5 years from now, your employer may not need a domestic "outsourcing manager" either. You might try being afraid for yourself.

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[gl4ss]

why would you use 15-20 people if it's sensible to do it with 5 people near the client who is actually the one buying the product? what would that extra manpower help, when it could just needlessly complicate the projects planning? could they use some of those extra guys to enhance the communication between programmers, and to the client who has the real requirements(in their imagination) and to have better overview of the state of the project so that you can know better beforehand what will fail and when the product will be ready and if the feature goals are reachable?

I'm not american anyways, and if nothing else I'll eventually find a job working as somebody doing those requirements docs, or teaching old people how to use computers.. you can't outsource everything(well, you can, but then the economy of your country just got fucked and the money will escape the country and.. oh yeah, budget deficit as the gov tries to fix things back to normal ineffectively. well maybe if you outsource living as well it would work). I still got few years of school to go(University), with addition of the fact that there's going to be lots of jobs freed pretty soon as the big after ww2 age groups retire I'm pretty confident that I'll get by.

Besides, if you can be very easily replaced by a guy working on the other side of the globe then you're not worth much(besides, migrating to here where I live is _very_easy_ so it's not like 'importing' workers is that hard either, with cheap education to boot for them). I pretty much can understand that the guy on the other side of the globe could code the subsystem for controlling some robotic arm in some machine just as well as the guy sitting here, what I seriously doubt is his ability to communicate with the client in meetings held because there needs to be some drastic changes because it becomes apparent that something in the system needs to be changed for the system to work at all. Anyways, hopefully Indias rising economy will have their own use for their coders as well(ever wondered why there's surplus of coders there, in relatively fast growing economy that should have use for them as well? maybe the western projects pay better though, I wonder if this is causing any problems for their local industrys development).

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[sporty]

I know the best programmer I have ever had the chance to work with made 112k a year. Keep in mind these are "New York City" rates, where he was paying 2200 a month in rent. 1600 a year for car insurance, and 10.50 for a mixed drink at your downtown bar. Lets not get into the fact that he was working 75+ hours a week on average either.

Try $1000 a month, easy. Mixed drinks, easily not more than $5 if you go to real pubs. It's also common for a programmer to work between 40 and 60 hours a week depending on what he's working on. On a slow week, I can do 35 standing on my head. In the middle of a big project, I've done something like 70 'cause I was doing things "right".

If you choose to live in Battery Park City or Brooklyn Heights, yeah, $2200 is about right. And go to bars in those areas, or around union square, where things are "hip". You deserve to get ripped on a drink.

NY may be a little pricey, but at least check your figures.

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[dubl-u]

so what if 6 programmers offshore can't do his job

He's perfect for my new business plan. I call it "double offshoring".

You get a half-dozen kick-ass developers in the US. Then you hire one guy in Bangalore, a "project manager," and put him in an office with a web server and a VOIP PBX. You have him pretend to be running a team of 60 developers in Bangalore.

Then you have one of your US developers pretend to be the US liason to your Indian development team. But instead, he just relays all the client requests to the developers sitting around him. They are happy and motivated, as they are collecting the salary of 10 indian programmers, or $100 per hour, gross. You can even let them talk to the clients occasionally via that Banglore VOIP link; they just have to practice their Apu.

How could this work? Keep in mind that much of the outsourcing work is coming from Fortune 1000 companies. Their standards are already woefully low, or they'd notice that having your developers on the other side of the planet substantially hinders things. So whether they compare you with internal efforts or with outsourcing to India, there is a lot of slack to mine:

• Developers at large companies are, on average, pretty average. In fact, from what I've seen, generally below average. (Why? I think this is partly because top people don't like to put up with large-company bullshit, and partly because large companies tend to pay salaries that don't reflect how productive top people are. Also, large companies are much more reluctant to fire people than small ones, so they tend to keep idiots around.)
• Studies show that the productivity ratio between top developers and low-grade ones is at least 10:1. And my experience leads me to think it is greater: I've certainly seen projects where the low-end developers, because of how many mistakes they made, were negatively productive.
• Large companies also have huge managment overheads. I've seen places where the developers spent at least half their time complying with big-company bullshit, including meetings, reports, superfluous documentation, political nonsense, and process rituals.
• Just like the Internet boom sucked a lot of inexperienced and/or untalented workers into the US developer market, so to is the outsourcing boom doing in India. Although there are surely good outfits there, I've heard many horror stories about work outsourced to India.
• There's value to understanding the culture. A person who has lived in the US for several years will have picked up a lot of subtle information about the way we do business and live our lives. We in the US have a hard time writing software for non-western countries, and the reverse certainly applies.
• Large teams spend a lot of time on communication. Six developers can stay in sync just by being in the same room; with 60 you need all sorts of formal mechanisms to even come close to the same level of coordination.

Put this all together, and a small team of experts will kick so much ass that they'll be more productive than an entire floor of Fortune 1000 mediocre clock-punchers. That leaves plenty of financial room to give big enough discounts that people will think you must be sending the work off to India.
As an aside, a friend who works for a large company tells me that their outsourcing efforts are actually only 50% of the cost of in-house development, not 20%. That's because you still pay for US personnel (like product managers). You also make their lives much more difficult by putting the developers on the other side of the planet. And the communication barriers mean more mistakes discovered later, which means expensive rework.

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[easter1916]

Ah, a project "manager" who says it "seems" to be going well. Isn't it your job to know if it is or is not? You'll be outsourced next, I'd say. Or just plain fired, since you don't "seem" to have a very good handle on the state of your project.

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[mnmn]

...My friend, could program a circle around 10 of the best offshore programmers you could throw at him...

This sounds a bit like contempt, maybe not prejudice, but contempt. Theres some serious skillset out there in that 5.8 billions, and Ive seen too many smart unemployer russian programmers here in Toronto defeated only by their lack of papers and good english.

Now offshoring development will hurt business for other reasons, cultural differences which cannot be reconciled despite the number of MBAs on both sides, thats different. Its not because programmers outside the USA are not too bright.

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[Anonymous Coward]

5 years from now this won't likely be a problem.

HAhahahahaha!

You wish! My employer has been using these fuckers for nearly a decade. We still have to explicitly state everything out for them. Business requirements change because of a meeting yesterday? Too bad. Add another week or so to the project to get the new requirements spelled out and the offshore team to understand how that's different than the original. By then another new requirement will pop up and you'll have to start all over again. Wasted time that a local team could have used to implement a solution. Hmm...not a surprise that all development got moved back in house! India now just gets the tedious stuff that makes getting a root canal attractive.

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[nathanh]

5 years from now, your employer may not need a domestic "outsourcing manager" either. You might try being afraid for yourself.

20 years from now the only computing experts in USA will be hobbyists. All the professionals will be overseas. No more mentoring. No more masters handing down their knowledge to the starry-eyed pupils. No more in-house talent. You'll have outsourced it all.

Then the prices will go up.

It's a simple fact about outsourcing. It's a short-term win and a long-term loss. This is true for any field, including blue-collar workers. I've come to realise that there is just as much unspoken handed-down knowledge in those fields as in any other.

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[Neck_of_the_Woods]

Sure, you could shop around for a drink.

1000 a month for what? Where? Could I stick you stick a 4 people in that place? He has kids and a wife.

5 bucks for a crown and coke? Hell I can't hardly find a crown and coke in Florida for 5 dollars.

You must be living in a 700sq box, drinking sparkling water called beer.

Not trying to rag ya, but I don't want to live that way and I am sure he does not either.

Find me a 1500sq apartment in south of the GWB for 1000 buck that I don't have to worry about someone cutting my arm off to get to my watch and I will stand corrected.

Lived there for 3 years. Although this does not make me and expert, I do know a little more that the visiting tourist. Yea I got a 7.50 crown and coke now and then, but I have never had one for 5 bucks.

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[Neck_of_the_Woods]

yea little over the top.

My problem is with not knowing what your getting.

That is pretty much it, plenty of very smart people everywhere. You just don't know what you getting when you outsource like you do when you have them in house.

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy shit, that's a cool idea. FIGHT THE POWER!!

HEhe.

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[Frizzle Fry]

1000 a month for what?

Agreed. My mom and my ex-girlfriend both live in new york and both are paying more than this. The former lives in a decent apartment but is in brooklyn pretty far from the city. The latter is in manhattan, but it's a very small studio and is only so cheap because it's student housing (columbia law) that they provide cheaper than the market rate. And she's up by columbia, which isn't the greatest area.

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[ari_j]

...the CS/IT world is going through a much-needed purging of some talentless dweebs from the workforce.

The problem is that it leaves many of the extremely talented hackers out of the work force, as well. I am an extremely talented programmer, and yet I have had little to no luck finding a "real" job since May, 2003, when I received a CS degree summa cum laude, blah blah blah. It's a damn good thing I earned enough scholarship money to receive excess checks instead of loan statements. I've been programming for over 12 years, and I don't mean Visual Basic. I mean I won science fairs for artificial intelligence code I wrote in C back in 9th grade, won programming competitions throughout college, was begged to go to CS graduate school by the entire CS department at my college, and was known as "one of the geniuses" while there. My Honors thesis project does general-purpose heterogeneous distributed programming better than all the stuff you see being proposed in the past several months. Additionally, I am balanced, unlike a lot of geeks, and have good people and networking skills. And yet, I'm working 70 hours a week doing IT for a bank and earn an average of $10/hour. I'm applying to law school right now (I got bored when I couldn't find a job and took the LSAT in October, and the 5% of people who did better than I did on it probably didn't have to go to the bathroom throughout the first half of the test. :P) because of this.

As I see it, the problem is that all those incompetent motherfuckers who got hired with music degrees and whatnot for $50k back in 1998-99 to pretend to write code are now unemployed with 2 years of "experience". I have 12 years of real experience, but due to not being paid for enough of it, nobody gives a shit. And nobody cares about the "experience" I am getting working IT at the bank, either. I'm lumped into the same bunch with everyone else who has 5 years of experience: "incompetent motherfucker who got into this because it was high pay for no work". It's not racial profiling, but it sure inspires me to premeditate a lot of hate crimes.

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[ari_j]

Plain text means plain text, dammit. That should read "...everyone else who has < 5 years of experience:".

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[jmt9581]

I actually thought about this as I posted, some people are bound to get burned by this. The only way around it that I can see is by differentiating yourself from the pack by doing one of a two things:

• Know someone on the inside of a company who will hire you
• Develop a unique skillset in a computer-related field, such as bioinformatics
• Work your ass off looking for jobs, for example I've seen a lot of full-time positions scroll by on jobs.perl.org.

Anyways, good luck in law school. :)

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[abertoll]

Nice post.

But something most people are taking for granted is that "offshore programmers aren't as good as programming as US programmers" which simply isn't true. I'm not sure if we have an edge at all, but even if we do, it's just an edge. And considering all those people here in the US who think that their VB 1 class is all they need to start writing DBMS, I think other countries may have us beat on average.

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[ari_j]

I differentiate myself from the pack by being better than the rest of those no-talent hacks (hi guys, wave to the camera!)... ;-D But seriously, it's not that simple. Developing a unique skillset in a way that will get you jobs means either A) working in that field for 5 years (see 'bootstrap') or 2) going back to school.

Since school of any note is going to put me into debt, I am unwilling to take any risks about it - it's an investment, and if I can make it pay off I'll do it, otherwise I won't. That's why I refused to get a M.S. Not only is it a horrible disease, but it's also a waste of time and money.

To those who are still trucking - things will eventually get better, and the job market will be skill-based rather than experience-based. It's just that nobody is willing to take that 'risk' right now. Chin up, hone your skills, and make money at what you can. I'm just not as patient as you are. :)

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. If people are bad enough managers, they'll never see any problems because nobody trusts them to fix them, so they'll never be brought up...

I worked like that once and it didst sucketh most greatly.

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[sporty]

You must be living in a 700sq box, drinking sparkling water called beer.

Not trying to rag ya, but I don't want to live that way and I am sure he does not either.

Wow, that was hypocritical. "I'm not going to say you're wrong but.. " No, I don't live in a box and I certainly don't need 1k feet+ to live in by myself. I'm not doing gymnastics or anything outlandish. Unless you are a middle american who expects to have 2000feet plus and expects to drive everywhere in their large american suv with 2 acres of land to call home. It's a lot of work to keep up on a large living space.

Lived there for 3 years. Although this does not make me and expert...

Fine, you aren't an expert.

1000 a month for what? Where? Could I stick you stick a 4 people in that place? He has kids and a wife.

For 1000-1200, easily get a 2 bedroom until you buy a house. I'm not sure why you'd raise your kids in an appartment in the first place.

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[sporty]

Unless you live at the tip of coney island or in mil basin, you have NOTHING to complain about. It's a 40 minute trip in on mass transit. I pay $70 a month to sit down and go anywhere in the city (brooklyn, queens, bronx and staten island are part of the city).

Oddly enough, 2 people out of the whole is NOT an example of the full set.

I took a sample from nytimes.com realestate. I found at least 6 appartments, two of them two bedrooms, for $1000 rent, searching in one area of brooklyn that is not even considered dangerous (I live in it). I found 3 pages of listings searching all of brooklyn, with a bunch of 3 bedrooms.

Re:Just my 2 cents.

[planetmn]

Since school of any note is going to put me into debt, I am unwilling to take any risks about it - it's an investment

Those who are successful in life generally take risks. They are calculated risks, but risks none the less. Besides the fact that most people I know who are in graduate school aren't paying for it. Either they are part time (like myself) with their employer paying, or are full-time and have a scholarship/teaching assistanship/research assistanship that pays for it. And if all the CS profs wanted you to continue in grad school, they would have made sure that money wasn't the reason you said no. A professor of mine once said "If you are paying for grad school, you're doing something wrong." In some fields it's (mostly) true, while in others it's completely false.

Also, it's one thing to say you have skills and another to demonstrate them. I have very good people skills, and proof of it in my past. Volunteer somewhere, work on a radio station, something to prove that you are a good communicator (I think that might be spelled right). When I was in a hiring position, it was for a job that was 100% communication oriented where you are always interacting with people. Every resume and application I saw said "Good Communicator." I'd interview the applicants and find out that about 80% couldn't talk without a script. Not saying you are one of these people, just that you should find a way to prove your the perfect match for the job.

Good luck in trying to find a job. I know how bad this economy is, I graduated less than 2 years ago with a BS in EE, and was lucky enough to find a job in my field. It was a lot of work, but it paid off.

-dave

MOD PARENT UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

mmmhm.

Billing rate

[duffbeer703]

Larger companies and government agencies pay IBM or Accenture or whomever $120+/hr for even basic IT staffers.

The programmers may be making $20-45/hr, depending on the city, but the customer still pays $$$.

The Indians bill low and pay their people low.

Re:Billing rate

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont know anybody from Accenture who is billed at 120, try closer to 200+ per hour. Pre Sep 11th crash I billed 4,000 per day, now I'm working through a sleazy company who's taking more than half and still making 51 per hour plus full benefits.

Re:Billing rate

[Anonymous Coward]

In college, I interned at a big tech company that hired H1-B's. They were paid hourly. One highly qualified H1-B asked me how much I got paid per hour, and I was astonished to find out he was making only $1 more per hour than me.

This H1-B guy was all brains. The company clearly got a very _nice_ bargain.

Re:Billing rate

[Anonymous Coward]

That's where the Dilbert 'intern' came from.

Tricky Question

[jmt9581]

Some people are naturally going to say that this a low number because their employer bills them out at such-and-such price. Others are going to say that this is high because they sure as hell don't make six figures as a programmer. In college as a grad student I would make anywhere from $50-$100 an hour, but consulting work is always billed at a higher rate than a salaried worker.

$60/hr salary or bill rate?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet bill rate. If you can estimate an employee's pay at 2,000hrs * hourly = 120k of the author's estimate, you can deduct the first 25% for the cost of health insurance. There's $120k.

I know staffing agencies look to pay people 60% of their wage, estimate 20% for benefits and the meager 40% left to pay their sales staff, office staff, directors, and take a profit.

I would say that is the average bill rate of people that work for my staffing agency and have college degrees. I know of some that make 120k+ with and without degrees. But, they are usually project managers, not coders.

Re:$60/hr salary or bill rate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Has running a staffing agency been any more rewarding than being a techie?

Loaded rates

[barries]

Don't forget that it costs a significant amount of money to seek, hire, train, and provide benefits (medical!) for people. Usually a $60 or $80/hr rate is a loaded rate that covers the full cost of an employee. In some cases this also pays for offsite space, utilities, equipement.

It can also reflect the quality of talent--a well run consultancy may also try to identify and retain people with higher levels talent so you'll get higher bang for your buck as opposed to a warm bodies in chairs type permatemp agency.

- Barrie

Benefits?

[Atzanteol]

I believe that $60/hr is including the cost of benefits, 401k matching, Soc. Sec., etc. Not just the salary.

Data Sources

[zonx lebaam]

Its important to keep an eye on recent salary figures for any profession, but many /.ers probably have extra interest in programmer salaries Every 6 months or so, I search the internet for tech salary estimates, but have never been overwhelmed by how much [good] data is out there. Some of the surveys ask you to fill out your own data before they send numbers (which is fair enough). Many don't seem to have the numbers broken out into useful categories. A lot of the IT salary information that *is* out there is for web design, sysadmins, project management etc., but still don't focus on actual coding subcategories.

Does anyone out there have URLs of really good tech salary data? That focuses on actual programming? (don't just say "search google ...")

$60k in NYC is not much money!

[bluethundr]

I make $54k a year, plus full benefits (All medical expenses paid for my family, vision, dental, vacation, and company paid pension). This is a good job, but a far cry from $60/hour.

Pretty amazing. I work in tech support, which is a MUCH lower competency line of work than programming and I make just a bit over $60 a year, $72 with full dental/medical. Of course that is in New York City, where $60k a year is *NOT* considered a wad of cash!

My girlfriend makes $150k a year as corporate trainer, and (since she owns her own company) only works on average 2-3 days per week. And she has friends in her line of work who actually have the temerity to ask her "How can you work for so little income?". So, naturally, she thinks my paycheck is peanuts. I actually had a therapist tell me one time "Of course you have trouble making ends meet! You hardly make any money!" (naturally, I fired her not long after that conversation!)

I program for enjoyment and because I like to learn. But even though it seems like a far more intellectually stimulating line of work, I don't think I'll ever persue it as a career. ESPECIALLY if it would mean having to take a cut in salary!

Re:$60k in NYC is not much money!

[GigsVT]

Corporate trainer eh?

Does she throw them treats when they properly use buzzwords, and sniff the ass of their superiors?

Re:$60k in NYC is not much money!

[madcow_ucsb]

Hmmm I make $60 as a firmware engineer in Silicon Valley. Never feels like enough after my rent checks, but not bad for a first job out of college....

Re:$60k in NYC is not much money!

[n-baxley]

I actually had a therapist tell me one time "Of course you have trouble making ends meet! You hardly make any money!"

What she should have said was. "Of course you have trouble making ends meet! You employ a therapist!"

Re:$60k in NYC is not much money!

[SewersOfRivendell]

Keep in mind that In the midwest, $54k is a lot of money. Their cost of living is much, much lower, so it goes farther. On either coast, you'll make serious bucks (and you'll spend most of it on a decent home!). Keep in mind also that $60k is a decent just-out-of-college salary on either coast.

Re:$60k in NYC is not much money!

[Anonymous Coward]

I make just a bit over $60 .. My girlfriend makes $150k a year as corporate trainer, and (since she owns her own company) only works on average 2-3 days per week.

I am insanely jealous. I'm a programmer who was - until I got laid off yesterday - making $54k a year in a job that I thought I loved. And then my girlfriend walked out (gee, thanks).

Can I be you please? Although truthfully you probably wouldn't want to - life is kind of shit right now. But I'll take any suggestions that you might have.

Re:$60k in NYC is not much money!

[mcdade]

So .. corporate trainer?? is that the new code word for 'escort' in NYC??

Seriouly.. if they made that much money, how is it that there isn't a billion and one "techschools" teaching people to be "corporate trainers"?? i don't see late nite earn your degree in legal assistant, nurse, GED, A/C Repair, Computer programming... including the 'corporate trainer'. That's how a friend of mine classifies that computer tech work is in the dumper when you see ads for those sorts of schools.. be a computer programmer in 12 week!! ya.. right.

And lastly .. how do I or my SO become a corporate trainer? your GF's firm hiring?? i'll send my girlfriend down there, she will work for $120K.. honest!

-b

Re:$60k in NYC is not much money!

[Transcendent]

My girlfriend makes $150k a year as corporate trainer, and (since she owns her own company) only works on average 2-3 days per week. And she has friends in her line of work who actually have the temerity to ask her "How can you work for so little income?".

And she should feel horrible. She's in a stupid, anyone-with-a-peanut-could-do-it job getting grosely overpaid...

I blame people like her for the shitty economy.

Re:$60k in NYC is not much money!

[Anonymous Coward]

So .. corporate trainer?? is that the new code word for 'escort' in NYC??

You're an ass. No newsflash there, since that's something you (and everyone around you) already knows. Immature to boot.

You're also probably jelous of my girlfriend getting $2,000 a day to teach people at companies like Pfizer, CS First Boston, Merck, IBM and Astra Zenica how *not* to behave like 5 year olds. It's apparently not as easy as you might think! People in high power corporations can usually be pretty immature.

At any rate, I don't blame you for being jelous. I'm am too! I'd love to get that kind of money for what I do and I feel that I work much harder than she does.

But if you're serious about getting into her line of work, you can start by getting a PhD in Psychology, then working as a VP for a large bank for about 7 or 8 years before striking out on your own.

I knew I had a winner when she chatted me up on the subway because I was standing in front of her on the 6 train reading this book. A beautiful well spoken girl who can hang with me in a conversation about artificial intelligence? I don't blame you for wanting to be me!

Re:$60k in NYC is not much money!

[Anonymous Coward]

> And she should feel horrible. She's in a stupid, anyone-with-a-peanut-could-do-it job getting grosely overpaid...

Can't you read? She owns her own company. If you think she's overpaid and that anybody can do it, why don't you start your own company and outcompete her with better rates?

Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions

[npsimons]

Q: Do You Make $60/hr for Programming?

A: No. Next question.

Seriously, though, I don't make anywhere near $60/hour (and never have). Of course, I've only been out of school three years and I currently work for the government. But my last job with a startup didn't pay much more than my current one.

Re:Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions

[ptomblin]

Q: Do You Make $60/hr for Programming?

A: Yes. Next question?

Ok, this job is special - my previous job paid $80K, but I also got a $15K signing bonus and a $15K Christmas bonus.

But then again, I'm 45 years old and I've been doing this longer than most Slashdot readers have been alive.

Upper Midwest salary here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting AC because I'd like to *keep* it.

AS degree only, 15 years experience, Unix/Windows, App & OS development experience currently working in financial software. Gross of $112,000/year. Granted, I'm the lead programmer (and *far* from an average programmer IMNSHO) but still in a Programmer/Analyst-type position.

That works out to 52 * 40 = 2080 hours/year, 112K/2080 = $53.84/hour. And this is my gross, not counting benefits (410k match, health, etc..) which would jack the cost to my company much higher.

Overhead

[Mr. Darl McBride]

The average programmer salary is a bit less than that, but the overhead of keeping an employee is usually about 1.5x their salary.

Consider the amount of hardware, office space, insurance, matching social security, etc and you start to see the programmer's cost rise.

Wow!

[k4_pacific]

You mean I can get paid to program?!

Re:Wow!

[chaoticset]

No.

half that

[Anonymous Coward]

My day job (application developer, er... job title just got changed today to software engineer) is $50K and I got two contract jobs coming up at $30 an hour.
Ugh.

Billing rate != Pay rate

[Hungus]

When I taught IT I was regularly billed out at $300 an hour, but only made $20 dollars an hour. As a consultant these days (when I can find contracts) I get billed out between $75 - $150 an hour, making usually 1/3 to 1/4th of that. None of that includes taxes such as self employment tax. Overall I typically net 45-55% of my pay. Maybe I should move to India ... While it is possible to apply for a visa I have never found an IT professional who was successful in getting one, though I know many who have tried.

billing rates, not salaries

[Kevin Stevens]

im pretty damn sure these are billing rates. My company did some outsourcing and I happened to see their rates, and they were about $15/hr. I as an intern, at this same company was billed out for about $50/hr (note: at .com boom height). When I later joined on as a full timer, my position was billed around $75/hr (I personally was on a contract project so hours didnt really apply). I read somewhere this week that the average programmer in india makes about $8/hr. The company I am at now, which pays close to top dollar for talent, in the most expensive place to live on the east coast, has an average salary of ~100k . So no, this is not unreasonable. And yeah, my "multiples" were quite high. $12/hr (no benefits as an intern and ~40 as a full timer.
Of course, the real comparison should be "in-house" vs. offshoring, which is the most common model. Offshore companies are not really competing directly w/ big american firms, and are right now content w/ being hired by other big firms.
But also, you have to realize that your company pays all kinds of taxes on you also. Your "costs" dont end with your salary. And not with your benefits either. People pay you (payroll department), those people cost money. You most likely have some type of secretarial access, direct or not, and they cost money too. Computers, email accounts, vpn access, cubicles, these are all costs associated with you. They add up. Outsourced and offshored people are a much more nicely packaged cost. But adding up these costs could very easily bring these figures to the 120k/year cost.

Jebus, $400 a week is AWESOME

[eggstasy]

I was earning less than $400 a month back in 2001...
You people should start outsourcing to Portugal. Looks like we're even cheaper than the Indians!

Re:Jebus, $400 a week is AWESOME

[easter1916]

Move to Ireland, my Portugese friend, or the UK -- you will make much more and it's cheap to commute to Portugal each weekend.

It depends.

[Anonymous Coward]

At Sun, I know guys who are the actual lead developers writing the code for the largest of the Sun projects and they are easily making about $120k/yr - which comes to nearly $60/hr. However, in the same company I also know other people who are programmers, but they are not the lead programmers on the biggest projects. They may even just be the guys who write patches and do debugging and they make more like $48/hr (tops) or $100k/yr.

Then there are the guys who don't actually do much coding at all. They just reverse engineer the stuff and provide technical support and analyze the code to decipher where bugs are happening and provide minor suggestions for fixing the code. Those guys make more like $35/hr or somewhere around $70,000/yr.

I work for $30-$100/hr, avg around $40

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a freelance Unix consultant, I used to consider my rates low, not any more though.

I wouldn't have a problem charging $60/hr for certain jobs depending on how quickly it needs to get done.

I've cleaned up after many an offshore programmer (but some are pretty damn good).

Contractors do...

[Arkham]

I've been going through resumes this week and all the programmers are billing at $66-$70/hour. The rule of thumb is you have to pay $7/hour or 10% (whichever is more) to your contracting company (MDI, Matrix, etc) for paperwork and such.

So, yes, contract programmers are making that much. Permanent employees are not.

$60/hr is cheap as shit

[msuzio]

Back when I did the consulting thing, we billed out at $100-$125/hour easily. Our most junior programmer would have been $75/hour, and I don't think we even went that low... and this was 3+ years ago, in a small firm, working mostly word-of-mouth contracts (there were 10 of us total).

Now, how much of that did *I* see? A lot less than $100 an hour, that's for sure :-). But I do think that our consultants were well worth the money -- we typically got things done in less overall time and with much higher quality and reusability than the in-house work I saw from our clients who had both in-house and consultant-developed applications. So I hardly think we were scamming them.

This same firm out-sourced their Y2K work to India at around that same time. Last I checked, the work was not done on time, and was not of a high quality. :-)

Sounds right, for a senior level position

[wowbagger]

I make about US$40/hr direct pay - add vacation time, 401K contributions, medical, and I "see" about US$60/hr. Then I wave bye-bye to about $20/hr at least as Uncle Sugar takes his cut.

Given that I live in the relatively cheap Midwest rather than on the coasts, I do pretty well.

However - I have been doing this for over 16 years. I've been with my current company 13 years. I am one of the lead software architects here. I do everything from signal processing to OS design to systems to UI to test, and I do it damn well.

Sure, if you are fresh out of school, fuggetaboutit. Pay your dues, know your stuff, and be somebody your company can count upon to get the job done and you MAY be able to rise to my level.

Well damn.

[/dev/trash]

When I had a full time job I made 28k a year. Now that I have some part time work, I get around 8 bucks an hour. So I call bullshit on this article.

I make that

[Anonymous Coward]

I get $110K/year, plus stock options and maybe a special bonus. That's based on a M.S. in C.S. and five years of experience. (This is in a major US city for a huge technology company.)

Why do I get that much?

Because I do highly-technical low-level embeded coding.

There are tons of programmers out there who are competing for jobs, but there are far fewer that are looking to deal with really complex systems. A C and Assembly programmer will find a much better job than a Java or even C++ programmer. A Perl programmer will be unemployed with all the web designers wondering where the next bubble will form.

Do I deserve my paycheck? Probably not. The sallaries are still heavily influenced by what it took to get people to work back when we were hired. Why don't they fire me and hire someone new? Not only can't they find enough good people for my group, but they can't afford the months that it would take a new person to get up to speed on our code.

Re:I make that

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you hiring?

What is the real point?

[iamjim]

Is the move off-shore to decrease development spending? Where will the "money that is saved" go? Will this saved money offset the cost of some of the outrageuosly priced software packages out there? Or will it go to the 'powers that be'? Has anyone been involved in a situation like this?

no I don't

[slothman32]

Right now I don't have a job so no I don't get $60 an hour. When I did it was closer to $15. If I got a job it would be entry level and much less than $60. The few programmers, relatively, might get that much but that many out of jobs don't.

Very interesting

[$exyNerdie]

This may seem like offtopic but this article is a very interesting read. Please read the link to NY Times article that's in the first para as well. Well here's the article (read it in full if you will)

Who really benefits from outsourcing

Another thing which most of us miss out when looking at cheaper cost of programmers in foreign lands is the currency exchange rate. Those programmers are actually very very expensive compared to other labor (look at their national per capita income) in their locale. It is their currency exchange rate that makes them look cheap when we look in dollar terms. Now if you were to become president and say hey, 1 US dollar is equal to 1 Indian rupee from now on, there will be zero outsourcing. Okay, the last sentence was hypothetical but China does have artificially pegged currency exchange rate...

Re:Very interesting

[0x0d0a]

Okay, that doesn't make any sense. Exchange rates are irrelevant for this. If you did peg the rupee to the dollar, there'd be a sudden and highly disruptive shift in wages in India, and proportional wages would still remain the same -- a programmer would earn a lot, and a maid a little. And the dollar value would be about the same.

Re:Very interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

If you did peg the rupee to the dollar, there'd be a sudden and highly disruptive shift in wages in India, and proportional wages would still remain the same -- a programmer would earn a lot, and a maid a little.

Actually, this would mean that most workers in US and India would still be making the same (in the locales) but all US-India trade that is built on the basis of huge differential in exchange rate would end (to the benefit of US). They will still have to buy Boeing Jets (because they don't make any and we will still get the same dollar price for the Boeings or Intel chips but they will have to produce something of value that we want). Of course people in those industries will be affected that are mainly making money from exchange rate differential...

But this is all against free trade and free currency rates and I am sure won't work because if it did, someone would have already done something....

$60 an hour

[crmartin]

Yeah, that's what I bill for regular programming, on contract, 1099. Assuming 2000 hr/year that $120K gross; figure that you pay about 30 percent of that for benefits and 8 percent for the employer's share of FICA, and we get something like $72K. Makes sense.

During consulting

[$exyNerdie]

When I was an IT consultant, my rate was $65 an hour. But that was 2 years ago..... Now I don't do consulting anymore. Got sick of travel....

Midwest right here...

[alan_dershowitz]

and I don't make no 60 dollars an hour. I don't even make 50K...I'm assuming that the article meant 60 dollars on paper, not the total cost, or they would have been more specific.

Interestingly, we have a whole bunch of contractors, they are all foreign nationals and they are making way more than I do. If they want cheap labor, maybe my company should hire more people in house and try to exercise some restraint in taking on new projects we aren't staffed for.

I think cost is not the whole issue really, as much as it is to exercise greater control over their staffing. if you compare overpriced contracting to offshore outsourcing, outsourcing probably does come up cheaper every time. it probably wouldn't be so big if companies didn't rely on contract workers, but I suspect that contracting is here to stay. If I'm right, I'm a little annoyed that they are lumping comtract labor costs with my lower wages as an excuse to outsource more jobs overseas. why don't they fire the contractors?

This is all postulation.

Where does everyone get this 1.5 times salary?

[BoomerSooner]

Do you run your own business or are you just guessing.

I pay 100% benefits for my employees and SS matching, and workman's comp (not to mention my companies liability, etc insurance). It doesn't run anywhere near 50%. It is around 10% per employee.

Re:Where does everyone get this 1.5 times salary?

[Mr. Darl McBride]

You left off the price of office space, equipment, recruiting, et cetera.

Re:Where does everyone get this 1.5 times salary?

[BoomerSooner]

Those are fixed costs, regardless of employees I've got to have a redundant T-1 with a co-located server incase of failure. That and the rent on my facility (I am building my own in the next year) is 95% of my costs. A $600 computer from dell and a $1500 desk with a $700 chair one time is not a lot of money per employee.

Yes, I do, thank you.

[aminorex]

When I'm on contract, I'll take 75-85/hr, but
for a long-term gig on W-2, I settle for
45-60. I live in rural Minnesota and I've
never sat in a cubicle. Cubicles are fatal
to your AGI.

Re:Yes, I do, thank you.

[Anonymous Coward]

AGI? Ass Grabbing Indecency?

No.

[Anonymous Coward]

$35/hour. I've got 20 years experience and am one of the best developers working here. Oh, and I'm a consult -- that's what I get paid, not what the company pays for my time.

good rule of thumb

[tobes]

Multiply the hourly rate by 1000 and you'll have ~your salary. $60 an hour would only equate to around $60,000 per year. Remember, you only run between 45-60% utilization.

Re:good rule of thumb

[mcoletti]

Actually, the heuristic is "multiply by 2000", which is very easy to do. I just multiply hourly rate by two and then by 1,000.

To be more accurate, you'd multiply the hourly rate by 2080.

So, $60/hour ~= $120K/year, not $60K/year. or $124,800/year if you use the more accurate 2080.

YOU'RE FIRED

[Anonymous Coward]

You fucking slacker. That'll teach you to post while your supposed to be working.

-- Donald Trump

My numbers

[barzok]

For 2002 (only using that because the calculation was easy), I made $27/hour gross. My employer bills my time at $68/hour, so the estimates of "you cost the company twice your salary" are low in my case. But, I'm salaried, and the $27/hour is based on the gross pay divided by the number of hours I logged.

This as one of those buzzword-compliant web developers for a medium-size company. At the same time, the company was going to other firms for the design work and some applications because they didn't believe in their own employees (whom had never been given an opportunity to prove themselves)and got (IMO) crappy products, at $120-$200 per hour.

$110 ...

[Anonymous Coward]

is what my company bills for my time... i'm an intern too

Benefits in India

[rueger]

A number of people have pointed to the cost of non-salary benefits like health insurance. For comparison, here is what Cognizant, an off-shore IT outsourcing company lists as benefits packages for American and Indian employees. There is a notable difference.

Here's what GE Global Research offers in benefit packages to American , Indian and Chinese employees. Again, you can see that there are significant savings in benefit costs.

Salaries.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lead developer, DBA, network admin, system analyst, "figure it out guy": $75k
2nd senior programmer: $47k
3rd senior programmer: $60k
4th senior programmer: $50k
Senior Network Admin: $55k
2nd Junior Admin: $45k
3rd Junior Admin: $42k
4th Junior Admin: $38k

Contrast:
Common Data Entry: $28k
Data Verifier: $35k
Office Manager: $75k
Regional Manager: $100k
Executive: $115k to $140k (they GET bonuses, sometimes in the way of $250k a quarter)

That's gross salary, not net. We have a decent 401k that averages to a 7% match. Health benefits blow and for a wife and kid it'll cost you nearly $7,000.00 a year, not to mention the $3,000.00 deductible if you actually USE it. Bonuses were supposed to be "regular" and "forthcoming" but that was bullshit as well. Other than that we don't have benefits and we're severely understaffed.

If you want to bitch about me posting anonymously get real. Any topic discussing salary should have every post made anonymously.

Here's a great article on 2003 billing rates

[foniksonik]

http://www.talenteconomymag.com/include/article2.p hp?articleID=132

Read the article for context but here's the quick quote.

"The worst-paid jobs are Webmaster, tech writer and support engineer, whose billing rates ranged in the low $30s per hour. That's not surprising, given the increasingly simple tools available to design and maintain Websites, and the weak demand for writers and general engineering support.

The best-paid jobs were database developers and administrators. Depending on experience they could command hourly rates from $50 at entry level to $93 for upper managers, which equates to an annual salary of anywhere from $105,000 to $195,000."

$65

[Anonymous Coward]

$65/hour here. Company bills me out at $150/hour.

$55/hour

[Mr. Slippery]

The highest hourly rate I've had for a steady job was $55/hour. I've made much more for a short-term consulting gig, and I'm making much less now, but trading for flexibility, telecommuting, and lower stress.

That was for a W2 contract position (that means I'm an hourly employee of Company X, but as a practical matter I work for Company Y, which sends a lot of money to Company X, which sends a much smaller amount of money to me), for a pretty good C/C++/Unix geek with a Master's degree and over a decade's experience, in the relatively well-paying Baltimore/DC area. During the boom I could probably have gotten $60/hour or more if I wanted to spend a lot of time commuting from Baltimore to Northern Virginia.

As an average, though? Not unless they're talking about the cost to the employer rather than the actual salary of the programmer.

Faulty Comparisons

[Anonymous Coward]

For statistical purposes, I will confess to a salary of $60k per year, plus benefits.

That's somewhat misleading though. As other people have pointed out, where you work is almost as crucial as how much you're taking home.

I grew up in Los Angeles. The average three bedroom house goes for about $500,000 now. Car insurance, fire insurance, property taxes, general quality of life issues, are also comparatively high. I barely can afford to live there.

In contrast, I recently moved to Las Vegas. Prices are going up rapidly so consider this dated information, but the same house costs about $185,000, and other amenities are similarly cheap. Admittingly, gas, clothes, food, mass produced commercial goods are about the same as in Los Angeles, but still, an extra $600 a month is nothing to sneeze at.

Think about it - with an extra $1,200 every two months, you can afford to buy a really nice desktop computer on top of everything else you normally buy. As is, the average household salary in Las Vegas - both parents working, mind you - is only about $22k a year.

I don't mean to rub it in, but it is really important to point out it's possible to make $35k a year in some parts of the country and struggle, and $35k a year in other parts of the country and be... well, not rich but certainly comfortable.

So "average salary" figures are essentially meaningless. The real problem is that companies have a tendency to take use that nationwide trend when determining what your salary should be, not what would make you comfortable in your area. So some people get screwed.

I suppose you really can't blame them though - after all, keeping your finger on the cost of living in your city probably costs the HR department a lot more than using the average salary as a measuring stick.

bah? $60. bah! bah!

[Valar]

$9.50 an hour and all of the ice I can eat.

Of course, as an indentured servant for the University of Texas, so it is to be expected...

$94k/year in St. Louis

[Anonymous Coward]

Or ~$45/hour for a 2080 hour workyear. Was making $115k/year three years ago... but I am certainly not complaining. In fact, I am delighted to have a job. This is for tech./app. architect role, 50% coding, rest design, requirements gathering, meetings, schmoozing, etc.

I get about $126/hr to program.

[MarkusQ]

I just did the math. I get paid about $126/hr to program, $53/hr for managing my staff, $11/hr for humouring my boss (see, I did mention you!), $2/hr for listening to users explain how they think a computer works, and I have to pay the company $5/hr for reading /. at work. These numbers are estimates, but the total works out to within a few pennies.

Hmmm. Maybe I should use these figures to re-prioritize my work day...

Naaaa...

-- MarkusQ (chaneling Wally)

High score so far

[Anonymous Coward]

$115K / yr, plus full benefits doing UNIX systems engineering for a company you've heard of. To be honest, I'm always afraid that my employer will decide I'm not worth it and, rather than giving me a chance at a pay cut, cut me lose. But I've hung on to this job for 4.5 yrs now through some *very* tough times, so hopefully I'll be able to keep on hanging on.

If not, I guess I'll just have to farm. :)

Try $12K a year in Mexico

[aWalrus]

That's a typical wage for a fully qualified software developer over here. Of course, life is cheaper, but we're still pretty much screwed.

Re:Try $12K a year in Mexico

[revividus]

Ouch.

That stinks.

Completely off-topic, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to make a dead-tree copy of overcaffeinated to date and sell that. Unfortunately, that's quite a bit of investment up front, so maybe that's not too practical.

Just a thought.

Re:Try $12K a year in Mexico

[AtariDatacenter]

Stinks? My company is looking at replacing American IT workers with those from Mexico, Canada, and Brazil!

This is the cost rate.

[scott_davey]

I think you'll find that $60 p/h is the cost rate of your job, not the sell rate and not the hourly rate you get paid.

Running a company costs money. They have to rent the building, buy the computers, feed the fish, and all this costs money. Companies amortise these indirect costs across their productive employers to calculate a cost-rate.

Our cost rate where I work is around AU$105 p/h (~US$80). I get paid a fraction of this :-(

The argument to outsource works sometimes because the other guy's sell-rate is less than your cost-rate.

Extrapolating my salary increases...

[jgardn]

If salary grows exponentially, I'll be making $400,000/yr in 2010.

I don't doubt that there are a lot of programmers out there raking in over $100,000, even in my area. They are certainly worth it.

$50k/year

[Anonymous Coward]

holy shit, I made more than $50,000 at RadioShack this past year. What's up with programmers?

More than that!

[rayamor]

Thanks to a typo I make $.600 dollars an hour ...oh, wait

USD$80 a day India?! You gotta be fuckin' kidding

[francium de neobie]

That'd be more appropriate for the monthly or weekly salary! Even programmers here in China don't get that much! Some newer guys here can't even afford an SCO Linux license (USD$699) from a month's work! AND I AM NOT KIDDING OR TROLLING, DON'T MOD THIS FUNNY OR TROLL! IT IS REAL!

Wake up folks, for the sake of fact, your programmers' salaries in the US are WAY higher than where your company is outsourcing to. I'm not saying if these companies' decision are right or not. But if you still think these US companies are outsourcing to someone working at USD$80 a day, then either someone is cheating your boss or you're cheating yourself.

$150/hour...

[samdu]

I'm not a programmer, I'm a Tech Consultant, but I ask for and get $150/hour. I consider programmers' jobs to be much more difficult than mine. I'm kind of surprised that the programmers here are making so much less than I would have expected.

Re:$150/hour...

[Anonymous Coward]

$90/hour for long term (1 yr +) programming and and team lead engagement. Time and a half for overtime

Not even the badass makes $60 an hour

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a company in Denver.. it's just about the ideal job. Small (and tight) development team, telecommuting 4 out of every 5 days, a great product to work on.. and not even the architect makes $60 an hour (he makes $57 an hour).. I don't even come close to that, as I make $36 an hour. Tho, ironically enough, our company is also debating outsourcing mindless tasks out to India.. tis a sad world.

$68k a year...

[Anonymous Coward]

...plus full benefits(401k, pension, medical, dental, vision, free life insurance). That's working for a defense contractor in suburban St. Paul, MN. I've been out of school 5 years with a BSCS.

Pay in Iowa

[Anonymous Coward]

I get $92,000 in Iowa doing Java web applicatoin programming. Plus 5 weeks vacation. But I think I'm luckier than most.

not just programmers anymore...

[dbabfd]

I'm sure sorry to hear all you programmers making more money than I am...I'm an Oracle DBA in Dallas. Been doing it for 4 years, only making $52k plus benifits. Apparently that's too much money for the major telco firm I work for cause they are offshoring every techie position...I don't know about the rest of you, but after the unpaid overtime I put in, I make, maybe, $19/hour.

OT: Free?

[JamesOfTheDesert]

Doesn't Canada have free healthcare?

Free? No. It's just paid for by other people.

you guys are rich

[kubed]

i work two part time programming jobs as a student and get paid 9 dollars an hour. i manage to pay my rent and eat. I sometimes go to the dollar movies and dollar drink nights. ah well, at least i get laid.

$35/hr for C++ contract in Portland, OR

[Anonymous Coward]

A year ago it was $40/hr for similar work. The year before that it was about $60/hr. Maybe their numbers are just out of date. ...still $35/hr programming beats $8/hr pouring lattes at Starbucks.

Re:$35/hr for C++ contract in Portland, OR

[Colonel Panic]

A year ago it was $40/hr for similar work. The year before that it was about $60/hr. Maybe their numbers are just out of date. ...still $35/hr programming beats $8/hr pouring lattes at Starbucks.

That's what I'm seeing here too... $35/hr for C++ contract work. No benefits. Who would've believed it 3 or 4 years ago?

Hey, who moved my paneer?

Re:Contractors do... Some Permanent Employees are

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a permanent employee, a programmer/project manager, and I'm taking home $50/hr before taxes.

I'm certainly costing the company more than $60/hr.

My contact with Indian outsourcing

[QuantumG]

> Dear Sir,
>
> I am currently seeking a full time programmer to perform general
> maintenance and feature enhancements on my C++ code base. The software is
> an open source decompiler that is used by our engineers for the recovery
> of lost source code. The entire code base is over 216 thousand lines of
> code and over 6 years old. I am hoping to hire this full time developer
> towards the end of the first quarter of 2004. This would be a long term
> appointment, hopefully with the addition of a new programmer each year for
> the next 5 years. If your company is interested, please forward me
> details of your rates and availability.

We would definately be interested in assisting you.

We charge 1850 USD per man - month of development.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Z. M. Karbhari
Managing Director - CygNET Systems Pvt. Ltd
URL : www.cygnetsoft.com
Email : karbhari@cygnetsoft.com
Voice : +91-20-6134980, +91-20-6129357, +91-20-6125365 Fax : +91-20-6129357

30/hr for internship

[Anonymous Coward]

I just did an internship for a very large company and as a sophmore i received $30/hour.

I would expect that to increase as my education progresses.

Re:30/hr for internship

[Anonymous Coward]

I just did an internship for a very large company and as a sophmore i received $30/hour.

Lemme guess, you're a shapely, attractive female that agreed to come to work in a mini-skirt and fish net stockings.

I would expect that to increase as my education progresses.

Till you hit about 30, then they'll find a younger one.

Re:30/hr for internship

[Colonel Panic]

I just did an internship for a very large company and as a sophmore i received $30/hour.

I find this difficult to believe since they could find experienced people willing to work for very close to that. What kind of company and what kind of degree are you working on?

I would expect that to increase as my education progresses.

Don't borrow money based on that assumption.

Thanks

[abertoll]

And I'm not being sarcastic--it helps to know I'm not alone. I know what you're going through, and I've been struggling for 3 years now with a similar problem. After 3 years, I've gotten up to 35k per year! Wow! And I'm still not even programming. I'm doing server administration for a small company. But at least it's something.

All I can say is if you really love it, then don't quit. I know I can't promise anything, but I'm sure you'll get what you deserve eventually.

Re:Thanks

[ari_j]

Cheers to that. I hope never to quit what I love, but I will be one hell of a kickass technology lawyer when I get out. :)

Bonus!

[abertoll]

I guess for employers that means they can cut costs on health benefits too! Great!

Useless figure by itself

[Linus Sixpack]

Contractor 60/hr cheap
no benefits, few obligations, instant downsizing, no training costs, no retraining costs.

Expectation that all time is applied and on target.

Employee 60/hr
Might not include benifits
doesn't include burden of office, management, training and retraining.

The biggest expense in all this is the opportunity cost which is small for the contractor since s\he is only there if there is an opportunity.

The employee, unless they are hired specifically for the task (like a contractor), is an ongoing expense to the business. If his/her hours are profitable re-assigning them is a loss. If they are not profitable this task must make them so. This need to find something for someone to do often colours jobs.

Length and success of the task are bigger issues than hourly rate. Mistakes even at 8/hr are expensive.

ls

Just my 2 cents.-change due.

[Anonymous Coward]

"In my opinion, the CS/IT world is going through a much-needed purging of some talentless dweebs from the workforce. "

In my opinion, the [ ] world is going through a much-needed purging of some talentless dweebs from the workforce.

1-Farming
2-Steelmilling
3-Auto manufacturing
4-Cashier
5-Burger flipper.
6-Biochemistry

Gee! It's nice to know that people have such a clear vision of what's REALLY WRONG and are willing to speak out.

Maybe what should have been said:
10 PRINT "Job safety calculator";
20 PRINT "Are you competing with me for jobs?";
30 INPUT jobs$;
40 IF jobs$="YES" THEN PRINT "GET THE HELL OUT! You talentless hack.":GOTO 20
50 PRINT "Thanks for not competing with me. I'm talented BTW"
60 GOTO 20

Actually, YOU are the ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see... your girlfriend has a PhD and worked at for Chase for "7 or 8 years" at least. That means she's north of 30 and THAT means she's been fucked and chucked by hundreds of men before. So enjoy tasting my jizz in your used up skanky girlfriend. She's only with you because no alpha male would date the withered broad and thus she chose the loser tech support geek. You're right, 60k in NYC is nothing because I spend that much on my 2nd house.

0wned?

Dash Riprock,
Doesn't settle on 30+ year old skanks