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Reasonable Salary for Entry Level Programmers?
An anonymous reader asks: "I will be graduating from college in May with a degree in computer science. I have begun the job search and gone on a few interviews. So far I have gotten two job offers which I am thankful for, but the salary seems low. I am not saying that I am too good to pay my dues and work my way up, but I could make more waiting tables. It is somewhat distressing that I have spent 4 years of college and years before that developing my programming skills. I am not trying to get rich, but I was hoping that the high level of skill required would account for something(no offense intended to waiters). Can anyone give me any insight about what a reasonable starting salary would be, for an entry level software engineer?"
...but it'll probably be paid in rupees.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Ill be graduating in May as well and the range Ive seen is 45k to 55k
You found a programming job in America?
This is how the real world works.. you arent worth a damned thing until you can prove yourself. That takes time and persistance.
And no, '4 years of college' doesnt prove you are worth anything. It proves you can learn, but not much more.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Approximately 3 outsourced India worker salaries per year.
The coolest voice ever.
http://www.salary.com
I go a school in the University of Wisconsin system. The average range for CS graduates who get jobs in the area is probably $40,000 - $55,000, but our program is EXTREMELY intense, so I would guess that many places are a bit less...my $0.02.
-James
It's tough to say. My first programming gig was more than a decade ago working on the campus while I was going to school... I made just over minimum wage (which, at the time, was around 4.25/hr.) However, within my first year as a professional developer I was earning well into the 60K/year range. During the dot-com boom, wages went insane--I was no longer a junior programmer by that time, but I hired and managed several. There were guys (and a couple women) on my teams fresh out of college--some hadn't even finished their degrees--that were making in excess of 100K per year. (I should note that I live in Seattle, which is a fairly high-dollar market.)
Things have toned down quite a bit--mostly as a result of the dot-crash and Indian outsourcing. I've been able to hire smart junior developers with a year or two of post-college experience for $20/hr or around 40K a year. And at that rate I am considered to be paying pretty well. Many of them left jobs where they were making as little as 35K a year. I should also mention that many hiring managers (myself included) are trepidatious about hiring people streight out of college with zero real world experience... this may limit the numbers on your first gig.
The middle of the market is pretty low right now as well--it used to be that a solid software engineer with 5-10 years of good experience made 150-200K a year, but that's no longer the case, with these folks settling in the 80K/year range.
The top of the market, however, hasn't been impacted as much. The sky is still the limit for a really good developer. The reason, of course is that smart managers know that one EXCELLENT developer can produce more per week than ten GOOD developers. (yes, really.) It's fairly easy for someone who views crafting a good algorithm in much the same way as a poet turning a phrase--who understands the nuances of data structures and algorithms AS WELL AS how to put that knowledge to work in the real world, and can work effectively on a team as the architect of a midsize-to-large project (say 150-250 thousand lines of code, not that LOC is a good measure) to make a quarter to a half million a year in total compensation. However, for every one of these there is 1000 that will never get to this level.
I suggest taking a real mental inventory of your skills and your drive--if you think you can be one of the best this is still a great industry. Otherwise it's fun and you can earn a good living, but you won't make money hand-over-fist like you did in the late 90's. My experience is that the vast majority of developers in their first 5 years or so of their career vastly over-estimate their abilities. It takes time to hone this particular craft... be patient. One way to accelerate the process is to read everything you can get your hands on, and not just language books. At the very least, pick up the Pragmatic Programmer, and you should also read Writing Solid Code, Rapid Development, Code Complete, and other great books. Reaching the top of the market in terms of salary is about more than writing code--it's about understanding the software development lifecycle, how to run a project, and how to work with people. Also, learning to understand requirements gathering will give you a leg up.
--- JRJ
jrjBlog
the difference between waiting tables and going to college is that when you go to college, your pay goes up. I started w/ the government at 38k in DC. In a year it'll be closer to 50 likely, and I'll cap out around 115-150 if I stay through my career.
I do security
and I still make no more than what someone doing 3 years of shipping and receiving would make.
Your salary is dependant on the company. Some companies don't care about emloyees and love to turn them over.
Also, if you are just starting, I wouldn't be worried. After a year they will probably bump you up to something more reasonable. You also can ask for a raise. If you ask for something you think you should be making and get rejected, look for a new position somewhere else.
First you need to go to Salary.com and look up your desired position in your area - then subtract about 30%. Then, if you don't already, you need to realize that since the market is saturated, it's not really a high level skill (obviously, since apparently a lot of people can do it). The job market, especially in IT, is terrible. You just have to take Joe jobs until you find a decent one, hoping you can work at something relevant and in your field along the way.
Yes, it's depressing. It's depressing for all of us, but as long as an Indian will do it for chicken scratch, you're SOL unless you're a phenomenal salesman or work your ASS off like the rest of us trying to be really good at something (or grow some tits).
/bitter rant
Salary Wizard.
It makes big difference... I started a few years ago at 55K, and thought it was a ton of money until I started looking for a place to live. Paying half your take home pay only to live 50yards from the railroad tracks really sucks.
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics keeps this sort of data, though possibly with some significant lag time.
Try looking at: http://www.bls.gov/bls/blswage.htm.
(Average Indian Wage) + (25% outsourcing overhead) + (25% less-likely-to-die-from-unstable-political-climate premium) + (25% understands lame jokes from upper mgmt premium)
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Seriously...anything you can get is enough. It's an employer's market right now, and they know it. What you need to look for is the experience. A year or two down the road when a better job comes along, who's going to get hired? The kid who coded for peanuts but got two years of experience, or the kid who waited tables and got zero relevant professional experience?
Only take the table-waiting job if you can accomplish more worthwhile projects on your own time, and have excellent documentation skills to prove what you did.
...
I've been programming etc for over 20 years and I could probably make more money by driving a truck; various trades such as plumbing, electrician, ...
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I was hoping that the high level of skill required would account for something
A college degree does not confer skill. Skill must be demonstrated before it can be rewarded.
.@.
Salary ranges varies greatly depending on the location of your search. Here in Southern California, entry positions seems to start around $45K. This is for web application development - the field I am most familiar with. It's probably different for other kinds of development jobs. Salaries have gone down quite a bit in the past two years.
Congratulations on graduating, and good luck!
-B
out of undergrad in CS from NYU I was offered 62K in a NYC job (Bloomberg LP). I thought this was pretty high.
After finishing my masters in robotics from CMU, I hope to be making 75-85K. We'll see, but I expect this to be about right.
Clearly spending 2 years more in school will boost my salary more than experience would have. (maybe)
Want to make more? Learn specialized skills, get a higher degree, or spend more time looking.
www.kirigin.com
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
A lot of guys I know who recently(past 2 years) graduated with degrees in CS don't do programming work, if they even have jobs.
Anyway, if you're in the US, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has pretty much every little labor detail you could want.
Here are their stats on computer programmers. Remember, entry level means you start out at the low end, so depending upon which state and which company, figure $40,000 a year.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
The first rule of job offers is that you never accept the first offer a company gives you. That amount is what they hope they can get away with paying you. If you think that they are serious about hiring you, then ask for a bit more.
... is *hard* work.
The point is, take a job that will be more enjoyable to you, either in terms of work hours or exciting projects. That will make more difference, I think, in the long run, than salary.
Good luck.
Adam
If you're starting out, I have bad news - given the decreases in salaries for people who've had 10 years experience, I hate to say this but the timing of your graduation is QUITE BAD. Offshoring fueling the latter along with the economic downturn and I don't expect things to improve much.
I have over 10+ years in tech, worked at a major software company and left for the dot bomb craze. I gave up lots of salary for equity and while the company was profitable and public, the market tanked a mere few weeks before my first vesting period. Even if it hadn't the AMT tax would have probably screwed me over anyway.
Since then I've worked some side stuff, waited tables, had the stupidity to try to sell cars and only in the last few months have things returned to what I call "normal."
Never mind that I worked on shrink wrapped products, developed a source level debugger, have had lots of experience on both Windows and UNIX. It all didn't matter to anyone.
I have to say, despite returning to a salary level that bests my previous best. I'm a changed person. Save, save, save.
IT blows. That's my 2 cents. HR people simply care about the last six months and are clueless if you are well ahead of your peers. They don't have the capacity to make this judgement.
You could tell them you architected (as an example) SSH and Kerberos have encryption patents and they might ask some stupid arse question like "Do you know JavaScript?"
Anyone starting school today... my advice is forget tech. If you feel it in your soul (like you should do it), fine, go to a tech school like DeVry, start making money and save it. Going to traditional 4 year programs for CS is an utter waste of time. Way too much change and like I said it's always about what you did in the last six months.
$175K-$200K per year with a high school diploma and %10 more for each year of education after that. Don't take anything less than $150K a year to start.
You've been offered a job and you're worried about the pay? It's better to be worried about finding a job, which is the bit you've already achieved. America (and indeed Britain) is in that all-too-familiar position where the number of CS graduates outguns the number of CS vacancies, so you can't expect to be paid too much until your name is equated with redhotness. Worse still for CS grads (at least this is how it works in the UK) is that many employers in the IT sector don't want CS grads to fill their computing positions, they want mathematics, science or even classics grads who they see as having more problem solving skills. As one employer said to me when I was starting at University (physics, before you ask) it's easier to teach a thinker to program a computer than it is to teach a computer programmer to think.
So you start at the low end of the pay scale. That's not so bad. In a few years the waiter will still be earning the same salary when you're on a bit more.
How many people graduated with you? How many other schools graduated as many, or more people at the same time? How many programming jobs do you think exist? Granted, this number is growing, but still. As an electrical engineering major, I can tell that at least half the people that graduate aren't worth having in a company. They just don't retain knowledge and apply it well. Why should a company assume you're worth more money? You're going to have to prove yourself to them. For all they know, you're the guy like my lab partner, who did no design on a major project, built none of it, and wrote 4 of a final report when I asked him to write six. Of his four pages, I totally rewrote one, made him rewrite one, and had to correct all his others. One of the mechanical engineers that I work with has a resume that would impress people at NASA and JPL, but in reality, he knows very little. Considering the number of graduates who know very little these days, I think you should be happy for a job. Besides, you ought to take one based on what you'll be doing, not so much how much money you'll make. With a CS degree, those dreams of high salaries you had going into college faded while you were there. Work your way, and be happy with it.
..if you're a "newbie" in the business. Ofcourse, it all depends on where you decide to work.
Now, I'm from Norway, and I can only tell you what it's like over here. And keep in mind that I don't have any education except high school.
I've been hired at various places so to speak constantly since '96, but all employers seems to offer about the same amount in salary.
In my first job, back in 1998, I earned 200,000 NOK (about $29,000) which is very low. I'm currently making 320,000 (about $46,000) which is reasonably better, but about $15,000 lower than my colleagues with an education.
As I understand it: Over here, a "freshman" may expect 300,000 (~$43,000) NOK at first, then gradually crawling up towards 400,000 (~$58,000) NOK. If you're long enough in the right business, you may even expect 500,000 NOK ++.
Hey, boss, you reading this?
www.6502asm.com - Code 6502 assembly or.. DIE!!
Check a recruiting/job search site and run one of their salary calculators. That will give you a rough estimate of the going rate in your area.
In NYC, 70K will get you about as far as 30K in some rural areas. So, salaries will tend to fluctuate depending on the local cost of living...groceries, gas, rent and insurance can be wildly more expensive in urban areas than in the sticks.
Also depends on the amount of locally available talent. Try as I might, I couldn't break into the very tough Boston IT market back in 2000. I suspect all those MIT folks might have had something to do with that. I had to settle* for the DC area, which has some fine universities, none of which are famous for their IT programs.
It also depends on whether you, like me, have a degree in some unrelated major and are trying to h4xx0r your way into a cush programming job. And it depends on exactly what "software engineer" entails...are you going to be coding missle-control microchips in assembly language, or writing HTML-based web applications?
My salaries have fallen in the 60-70k range over my brief (4-year) career. Some jobs have had more vacation, some have had better 401k plans, some have had more attractive locations, some have had nicer people, and some have had more demanding schedules.
I would say that anything over 50K is probably a reasonable starting salary, from my perspective, and assuming that you are probably going to be working someplace in a major metropolitan area and for a company of significant size and influence.
I had an offer for 32k when I graduated; I was insulted and I didn't take the job. Luckily I found a much better offer elsewhere. Don't sell yourself too short. If you have talent, tenacity, some social skills (you don't come off like a neanderthal cave-coder in interviews), and a lot of luck, you will do just fine.
Also, if you find that you are getting shut down on a lot of offers, take some time and brush up on your skills. $150 of O'Reilly books saved my career a few years ago.
Good luck!
*At the time, I thought of it as "settling." Now, I love it here.
--- Where's my car, and why are these grass stains on my pants?
It's impossible to answer this without taking into account what part of the country (and which country) you're in, what kind of metro area the company is in, what industry you're going to be working for (aerospace, education, health care, textiles, etc.) My salaries have been so far below the low end of what national surveys report, that I used to laugh/cry whenever I looked at one. I actually made more per hour delivering newspapers (an easy route in my neighborhood) than I did in my day job as a network administrator. But that's because I've been working in academia and non-profits in inexpensive parts of the Midwest. Your mileage will vary.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
1) Where are the offers, and more specifically what is the cost of living there? I would expect a job to pay around 1.5-2x as much in the Bay Area as in Tucson for the simle reason you'll need the extra money to have the same quality of life. Consider what it costs to get a house, go out to eat, etc where the job is. If it's cheap, don't expect to make as much. I mean in Tucson, you can get a 2000 square foot house for under $150k which works out to payments of under $1000/month. It's hard to impossible to get even a studio apartment in some cities for that price.
2) What will the workload be like? If this is a company that believes in supporting it's employee, a 40 hour work week, and low stress, that is a factor. Don't sell yourself short on quality of life, but realise that less work makes you less valuable and thus will pay less.
3) Benefits. Look at what the company offers you in other benefits, those all factor in too. If they pay your health insurance for you, that's something to factor in, it's not cheap. Same with other kinds of insurance. Make sure you are comparing the total amount you are compansated (as in how much they pay you and how much you'd have to pay for the benefits if they didn't) not just the amount you take home.
4) Vacation. What's their policy on that? If the company offers good amounts of off time, that's something that's nice. Also generally reduces your pay though.
5) Public or private? If you work a government job, it'll generally pay less than the private sector. The compensation is that most tend to have excellent benefits, plenty of vacation time, and little to no overtime.
So look at the area you'd be living in, what kind of buying power you'd have with your paycheck, and what they offer in additonal benefits that you'd need to purchase yourself if they didn't. Then decide if what they are offering you is reasonable.
Also consider what kind of learning experience it will be, what kind of industry connections it will give you, and what kind of advancement oppertunities you'll have. If a job pays less, but puts you in the position to advance quickly and to a high level, while learning valuable skills, it's probably worth it.
So don't sell yourself short, but don't get caught up in the dollar amount you take home.
I made 28K on my first job as Jr. Programmer.
In 1995, I was making 55K
2001, I was making $60 per hour
2002 60K per year
2004, 400 a week with unemployment.
The look on my wifes face when I told her we were going to have to move into one of her moms houses, priceless.
For everything else, there's Bahnglor express.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
while it seems like the dotcom craze is over, we are really still at the dawn of what the internet and personal computers can do... it will be decades before this tech has realized it's full potential and the arc of innovation wanes and computers/ internet become just another commodity like the cotton gin or the radio
therefore, within the span of your lifetime, there is much impact you can make on this world, personally, and of course, financially
so after you come home from your thankless soul-sucking underpaid 9-5 existence, don't forget to tinker with the very sparks of imagination which got you interested in computers in the first place
someone reading slashdot right now, either you, me, or someone else, will probably be making a contribution to mankind in the field of computer science which will forever alter humanity, and perhaps make that person fabulously rich... but that's an afterthought
your prime motivation should be happiness, not money
no six figure slary is worth self-hatred
don't give up on any of the things that got you interested in computers in the first place just because you can't seem to find your happiness in a cubicle
you will never be happy working for someone else, you will only be happy pursuing your own interests
so think of your job as something to keep your brain cells well-exercised, and something that keeps food in the refridgerator, and therefore you won't look to your salary as some end-all justification for your existence
your job will forever be little more than just a means to an ends, unless you yourself are deadset on making your life little more than what your employer decides you are worth, and that would be a sad day indeed
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
While you could make more waiting tables, as you say, you won't be gathering experince in the process. I'm a sysadmin... have been for 10+ years. It was around year 2 or 3 of experience that I was able to make a salary jump... actually, right after year 3 of experience, my salary doubled. Before being a sysadmin, I drove two trucks. Driving tow trucks paid better. But had I kept driving tow trucks and not moved to computers, I'd be making roughly 25% more now than when I started. And therw wouldn't have been a "3 year, double my salary" opportunity. Sometimes the temporary sacrafice has the long term payoff.
BTW and FYI: you're in a very competitive market right now. Many development jobs are going overseas and there are a lot of developers with a lot more experience than you have that are looking for work right now. Many have been out of work so long, they'd gladly take the meager offers you're getting. Consider yourself lucky and take an offer. If a better one comes along within 3 months, take it.
Assuming you are single, and just out of collge, and still willing to share an apartment to keep costs down, take any job offering $30k or more, AND is something you are interested in or could see a future in. In other words don't get hung up on salary alone, but consider what you want to do with your career and what you want to do. If you don't know exactly what you want to do with your skills, consider jobs that might offer a variety of opportunity. Remember, like any job, there will be pluses and minuses and you might have to reall look to see what the opportunities are.
As for the money, remember the dot com days are over, and paying your bills while getting your career going is not a bad way to start in the "real world".
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
do you have any openings*?
*A curse on the first person who replies with a link that has the letter c and x anywhere near the word goat.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
They can suck you into the 80 hour week at any salary. Likewise, many $50k plus people are adept at avoiding the 80 hour work week. You only get 45 hours of work done in an 80 hour week anyway.
I really would be looking more at the company and projects than the salary. If the company is full of people making good money, then you will likely get good raises.
Employers look for progression in your salary. Going in low and getting a good raise in the first year can really jump start a resume. Leaving without a good raise makes you look bad.
So, if it looks like a company pays well, then going in low is a wise choice.
After graduating with a B.S. in computer science and a minor in math the search for work began. I soon found a small company who needed help with their servers and offered a step ladder approach to salary.
I would start off making around 16 dollars for the first 6 months after which I would be moved to 32 dollars and hour. And within two years promised that I would be up to 45 as lead programmer and network administrator. This seemed to be reasonable as the company wanted to prove my skills. After setting up their small business servers, which has been hacked by a former employee. Correcting multiple problems with routing and storage organization, I was asked to do a network assessment. I pointed out the weakness in their network design, security, and general optimazations that could be made. My employer had me implement these ideas.
Two weeks before my pay raise to 32 an hour I was asked to do another report on the electronic service. At which time I submitted the report about the improved network security and optimizations that had been made. I was fired the next day. Another employee called me later that night and told me that the business had done this multiple times now.
My advice for college graduates is be careful what you wish for. Sometimes less pay is better than being screwed by someone. or working for an asshole.
I have since gone on to complete my masters degree in computer science, opened my own business and to say the least am doing very well.
If your that talented go do it yourself. If not take the 10 an hour and shut up.
A friend of mine finished his 4 year computer science course here at the University of New Brunswick in 2003, and after sending out resumes all summer long, finally settled on the best offer he got that didn't require him to move an unreasonable distance (for him). He landed a job at a company in Quebec City, about 6 hours away. The job he took had him building webpages, and they were paying him 8$ an hour to do it. That's canadian, remember. It was the most attractive option available to him, unless he was willing to move to Vancouver for an extra 3$ (he wasn't).
It took me 2 years in a kitchen to work up to 8$, and that was 5 years ago. He was so embarrassed about his wage he wouldn't even tell me himself, and after 6 months on the job the company declared bankruptcy, stiffed him on his last 6 weeks of work, without giving him any kind of notice of what was happening beforehand. He still hasn't gotten paid for those 6 weeks yet, even after multiple court sessions.
I guess the point is, even though he wasn't raking in the dough, reliability in an employer should be at least as high on your priority list as a high salary. If a strong business is offering you a low wage and no one's putting up a better offer, take it. At the very least you'll get job experience until a better offer comes along, and that's something all those degree-holding waiters won't have.
I've also been trying to find starting salaries for several established companies. Where on the net can I find this information (for free)?
:-(
Does anyone know what the starting salary is at Cisco? HP (California site)? Intel? Microsoft? Sun? Consulting companies (IBM included)? I'd appreciate responses from anyone that knows... even anonymous responses!
Meanwhile, here are a few facts and figures I've gathered through some research. Can anyone confirm these numbers? Caveat lector, as these are _all_ from sources whose accuracy I cannot ascertain:
IBM pays about $55K on average, starting off. However, they have many sites, so it would vary.
HP (in Texas) pays about $50-55K starting for technical positions.
Accenture non-consulting roles start out in the mid/high 20's for technical positions, from what I've heard. On the bright side, these jobs are unlikely to be outsourced, because you can't get much cheaper than that!
I've also heard that Intel pays very well starting off. But I've been unable to get a number for them
The thing that really most matters your experience and/or your domain knowledge. If nothing else "real world" experience implies that you're generally familiar with the tools used by development teams that you wouldn't necessarily have needed while you were in college - thinks like source control, and bug/change request systems that simply weren't important for the projects a lone student (or even a team of students) would have used. These tools and habits aren't necessarily difficult, but they do come with time.
Domain knowledge about general ins & outs, terminology, best practices etc. of an industry is also something that employers look for.
Keep in mind that unless you can prove you have either of these, perspective employers are looking at paying you and receiving limited returns whilst you acquire "on the job training".
PS. ...and no employers really don't value "keeping abreast of industry trends" (reading /., the Reg, &c)
credo quia absurdum
In short, as long as the salary offer isn't an obvious attempt to screw you (look at both your offers and also ask classmates with offers from other companies and see if they're within, say, a 10% margin), you should be OK. Dive in on your first job, learn everything you can, get started on that graduate degree. In two years take a look around and see if your salary isn't up to par. Go to your manager, make a case on all the fine work you've done, and see what they can do. If you get no action by the tiem you get the graduate degree, start shopping around.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Figure out how much you know you are worth. (Be reasonable)
Divide it by 2.
Don't accept less than that.
Coding Blog
These are usually by state and/or county, but you can sometimes get these reports for the larger metro areas as well. The reports are normally free, or you just pay for postage.
This is your first stop in salary negotiations.
I've been out of school for 2 yrs, so some might disagree.....
Hold out for a job in an industry you want to be in. Pay is secondary unless you have kids and stuff - it's better to get your foot in the door somewhere that does interesting development on projects you want to work on.
If you take some job admin'ing windows boxes for the Arkansas Bureau of Indian Relations, it's easy to get pigeon-holed. Along comes a wifester, and suddenly its hard to uproot everything and take a risk with a cool startup or consulting firm.
My advice: don't worry about a few dollars, go out there and get the most interesting job you can, regardless of location. Go balls to the wall for a few years, learn your trade, and have a good time.
Interesting/hard jobs in technical fields generally pay good, but you will never be the best or make the best money unless you are excited and interested in getting out there and writing code.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
if you are in the US.
Go to your local employment dept.
They should have many programs to help you, like resume writing, interviewing techniques, how to negotiate, anf they are free.
You can also get a list of average salaries for your area, as well as have networking opportunities.
Also, decide what is important to you:
What your are programming
or
the company you work for.
Now, lets say what you want is a large company, where you will work a pretty regular scedule, 40-50 hours a week.
Call the HR dept. for the appropriet company, and ask for an Informational interview' with a manager in the appropriet dept., or with an HR person who deals with the IT staff.
When you get one, show up.
you are not interviewing for a job..directly.
Ask questions like, what skills are they loking for. what would a Jr. programmer expect to make, there turnover rate, etc.
Then send them a thank you card.
Follow up a month later.
If this doesn't get you an interview, it will at least give you information you can use to direct your career.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's not so much the raw "how much" question itself that warrants the "Ask Slashdot", but the insightful responses that follow.
With good responses, you can get information about the industry from an employer's perspective, as well as from people who have weathered some serious storms. The numerical answer of "$45,000" or "$55,000" isn't nearly as valuable as the hows and whys that come after.
My offers have been 70-80k/y for software development. I would hope a college student would get at least 50-60k.
Considering that professors can often get grad students to work for free, it looks like someone in that university is pulling strings and doing one of their friends a favor by hiring you (a HS student) for pay. Take full advantage of the opportunity.
As for the original poster talking about entry level programming jobs: "Whatever the market will bear is fair".
Jobs are like relationships. It's always easier to get a new job offer when you've already got an existing job -- even a crappy one.
If you're working at Foocorp, a hiring manager at Barcorp knows you must be worth something (or Foocorp wouldn't have hired you) - and he also knows that you must be interested in Barcorp (because you've already got a job at Foocorp, so you're interviewing for reasons that go beyond "I'm unemployed and need food").
Same thing applies in relationships -- ChickFoo obviously digs your stuff, and that makes your stuff more interesting to ChickBar. (No, I'm not gonna let myself write that as "BarChick" :)
Only a non-educated boss like you would base his whole opinion on all college graduates based on one negative experience.
College isn't just about a degree, it is about overcoming challenges. You could take a full load every semester, for 40 years, and withdraw from every course. You would still be more open minded and enlightened, even if you learned nothing, than stopping education at 18.
Cover your eyes and click this link!
for me too - I'd love $384k per year too...
I am also persuing a degree in ComputerScience. I am working on a combined Honours with Computer Science and Philosophy, but am planning on getting a Master's or PhD. I was wondering about how much does having OSS development on your resumé improve your chances? Does it count for anything in the 'real world'? Do employers look at it as 'real experience' like as if I had been been employed? Really what is it all worth? For anyone hiring what are you looking for? Would say that a Philosophy degree brings a little something more to the table (I'm taking philosohy because I enjoy it and find it more intellectually demanding than under-grad CompSci, not for monetary gain, but I do figure it should at least show that I am a flexible thinker)? How about non-CS job experience?
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
There are good jobs out there, but you really do have look for them. I'm graduating with a Masters, and I have (thank God) a $70k job waiting for me.
But, I really had to dig to find it. My background is in Machine Learning/Datamining, and my general job search wasn't yielding results. So I went back and visited many of those machine learning community websites I frequented for my research, and applied to the jobs on the job sections of those sites. That was where I started getting interviews.
Now my job was originally for a PhD, but since my Masters experience closely tracked with what they wanted, they reduced the salary a little and gave me the job as a Masters.
My advisor said that the economy is bad, but no student of his has gone without a job for more than 6 months.
I guess my point is twofold:
1) You need to learn where and how to look effectively leveraging your background and skills
2) You need to specialize and gain knowledge of one area, in this current situation, a Jack of all trades can be outsourced, but a Master of one is still hard to find.
I've had this problem in my recent recruiting adventures. What I found to be the most correct assumption is that if you are looking for a simple programming job, it won't pay much.
If you search for a job as a software engineer (which you should be prepared for given a 4 year cs degree), the starting salary should be much higher.
I've recently interviewed for two positions at the same company. The software engineering position paid signifigantly better than the programmer and one of the recruiters and I joked about the likelyhood that the programmer would eventually get outsourced.
This seems to be a pretty common thread in American companies. Programmers, in the view of corporate America, add lines of code. Software engineers add value, and are much harder to repalce and ofter make much more. Who are you going to replace? Someone who writes codes ``head-down'' all day, or someone who designs the product, meets with customers, documents and eventually programmes?
Not to be too much of a downer, but here's one for $70 a week - and you will find lower salaries than that posted on this site here
ask for a lot you have to make all your money before the job is outsourced.
On the other hand asking for a lot will likely speed up the process. (Not that you can even hope to compete)
-From someone else who's graduating in 2 weeks without a job (yet).
then "entry level programmer" is an overstatement.
An employer is either paying for immediate results or potential. Designers and architects
carry around portfolios to show prospective employers -- why not programmers?
Exactly, it's not like they are THAT hard to find...
l larssense,00.html
For instance, in Australia:
Here's an EXCELLENT resource at... gee... the most popular job search site in Australia, took me all of 5 minutes to track down:
http://careerone.com.au/resources/index/0,8526,do
If you can't be bothered to look up these things, then I don't think you deserve to know... or get paid much.
If you actually studied hard, and know your way around, you should consider working up a portfolio. Most of the traditional creative arts require a portfolio. For years people saw computer science as an engineering-like process, and assumed a degree alone meant something. Actually, nowadays, a traditional engineering degree without a masters or PhD thesis doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot either.
But I digress. The point is it is extremely hard to tell how proficient a programmer is by simply talking to them. OTOH, five minutes browsing their source code tells you exactly what they know, and how they use that knowledge. Beware though; if you didn't actually learn anything in school, that too will show through like a sore thumb - if this is the case, avoid the source code and try to get the interviewer to talk about his kids.
Pick something random, peculiar, or fun. Try to do something that exercises all the areas you feel you are proficient in. Then write a simple program - a couple thousand lines is more than enough. If you're writing OO and use UML, consider adding that to the package. Same with unit tests, flowcharts, build scripts, or whatever else are the artifacts of your development process.
It has worked in my favour on job interviews, and I always appreciate when a candidate that I'm interviewing has something to show.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
So, as one who has hired (and been hired) at a number of startups and medium size companies, I have a bit on insight into the dynamics of what salaries have been doing in the valley since 1996 (when I started at Netscape). I'm not so sure how the specific analysis applies elsewhere, but the general advice applies.
:-)
Basically things got out of control between 98 and 2001 as venture capital flowed into companies that were required to grow quickly by the venture capital. All of the good talent was hired quickly, and then some of the average talent was hired. All that was left was the basic low-no skill talent.
So, there was a situation in which it became difficult to find low-average talent, and our standard economic models tell us that when demand goes up and supply stays relatively stable (it takes a little bit of time to supply new IT/Developers) that the price per unit will go up.
And that's what happened. The market tried to correct, everybody came flooding into the valley (as evidenced by Traffic Jams, zero rental inventory and huge monthly rentals) and, in order to have any chance of holding onto employees, companies started increasing salaries.
Good employees had great salaries and average employees had salaries that they would never normally be able to earn as companies scrambled to bring on staff. Salary inversions happened all of the time as an employee who started at $50K/year doing desktop support was making $20K/year less than a guy who started a year later. Most companies leveled these off, bringing up the $50K/year employee to $70K which created even more pricing pressure on employees.....
And then the Bust in 2001 when Venture capital dried up, the stock market basically collapsed. Public companies could no longer do secondaries to raise capital and Private companies, well, they grew very, very slowly if at all.
Companies laid off employees by the thousands and people fled the valley. (As evidenced by vast rental inventories, much lower traffic on 880 and 101 and a 30-40% drop in the cost of rental housing). Salaries in some cases dropped (HP/Microsoft dropped by approx 10% in the valley) and in almost every case froze for several years for existing employees.
For new employees, it was (and still is) a totally different situation - Basically for every IT job there are about 100-200 applicants. Only the good ones get hired and their salaries are at a competitive level. A solid IT Desktop Support employee at a mid-level company can expect to make 96-97 salaries in the valley ($50K-$60K). Sysadmins with 8-10 years experience are making $70-$90K. Everything has cooled off and the employer is in the drivers seat again.
The good news is that Great Engineers (IT/Software Developers) are _always_ impossible to find in the valley, good/bad/otherwise. You basically have to steal them from another company in order to hire them as they don't typically come directly out of school. Their salaries haven't dropped at all (as their companies held onto them - Great employees are always the last to be laid off) at their current salary, or they made a lateral move (equal salary) to a new company if their previous company went out of business.
What this means for you - If you love the business ignore the salary - it means nothing in the first 3-4 years of your career. Absolutely nothing. Work for free if you have to. Focus only on three things:
o The Quality of the Job - What will you be doing, will you have the resources to do it, will you be given lots of authority and opportunity to do new things.
o The Quality of the Company. Does it treat it employees ethically, Is it well financed (!!!), does it have great management, do you have highly skilled coworkers who will cross train you/develop you.
o The Quality of the Opportunity - Is this company in a hot space, are they developing a great product, are they first movers in a cool new technology that will become a standard.
Everything else will take care of itself if you are passionate, skilled and focussed. Don't worry about negotiating/looking for a great wage/etc... That will take care of itself. I promise you.
Even if you do make less than a waiter for the first 18 months or so.
- Any Day above Ground is a good Day (Michael Rich, 1997)
If a signifigant reason you trained to be a programmer was the money, you'll almost surely be a lousy programmer and you'll be unlikely to make much money.
;)
I make good money as a programmer, but I started low ($30K in late '98). Though at the time that was actually a raise, the main reason I did it was because I just loved coding, solving problems in a practical way, increasing company efficiency, etc. Because of that I got promoted pretty quickly, and hired away once people who knew me needed someone with the skills.
I'm not saying I'm great -- but I do love what I do, and that is why I'm pretty good at it. I've never met any good coders who didn't have some degree of love for the work itself.
In other words, I'd probably still be doing this if I got paid less than a waiter. Which is why I'm paid more
Cheers.
Slashdot is Libertarian you retard.
Gary Nolan is going to be this election's Nader, and he's going to hurt Bush BAAAAAD.
Hammer of Truth
I went to a State College in Mass, and the foreign students paid 3 - 4 times what domestic students paid. Plus out of state students paid double what Mass students.
I have a very small mind and must live with it.
-- E. Dijkstra
pretty much the same as an entry level EE
in the US, 50k USD
in canada, 50k canadian $ with half of your money gone to government as taxes.
yes, i'm in canada.
my blog
It's energizing core synergies.
Ask me about my vow of silence!
Stock options...
I've seen data online that said that average salary for entry level software engineer is between 47-48K.
And yes, be thankful for those interviews and job offers. I've been out for 5 months and I've only been able to get one interview. All this rushing around to job fairs, phone calls, and online job searches at all the different companies is starting to really get me down since I'm not seeing any results. The one interview I did have went well, and I think I was in contention up to the end, but I got that "letter of regret" after a long while.
Don't take for granted those job offers. Even if it's not what you thought you would make it might be better to take it until something better comes along.
"Hard work never killed anyone." -- Some Dead Guy
Given the economy and your work experience, I would highly recommend considering TRADE rather than a pay salary. First of all, you will get the ink you need on a resume but depending on the field you choose there can be plenty of perks. For example, I started working for a pornographic web site right after getting my degree from a prestigious school online. I was given a a square meal (as much love-box as I could eat) and a roof over my head (but keeping it involves more sleeping around than sleeping). Money can't buy everything ... Well .. Unless you live in vegas. But money can't buy love because love means you can kiss on the lips too. You have to trade for that, and thats where you skills as a pornographic website operator come in handy.
Yahoo's Neighborhood Profiles section, searchable by zip code, has lots of nice data if you're pricing a job.
So what you're saying is that women are like evil hiring managers?
http://www.newtechusa.com/ppi/main.asp
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
$40k is a median for coprorate IT entry level. Maybe $50k if it is heavy tech oriented company and you have good skills. That is a bit above the norm for worthless business and other liberal arts degrees and very easy to live off (but no Mercedes yet).
In DC, New York, and SF you should add on maybe $10k.
I graduated in '03 with a degree in CS, but I found a job in construction. I'm making 40K as a project manager for a non-profit housing developer. They liked my problem solving skills in the interview, and the fact that I had done work with teams and managed projects, even if they were computer projects.
Surprisingly things have gone well. Who knew?
You want what with that?
I have some fairly wealthy friends (meaning a net worth over over 1,000,000), and all of them got that way by starting out at the bottom of the rung, and then getting a second part time job doing things like, waiting tables, or this one guy even mowed lawns and cleaned gutters! The pattern went like this with almost all of them: sorry entry level job with horrible pay + a second part time job - eventually ditch the part time job inf avor of better pay and more hours at the first job, this sometimes occurred after job change on the main job - through hard work and sacrifice they moved up the ladder in their respective fields some were promoted through the chain, some went off and started their own businesses.
Lesson? If you can't find something better, be thankful for what you CAN get. If the money is not enough and it is the field you want to be in, then get a job waiting tables to supplement it (BTW, how low is this pay that waiting tables will pay more?! Geez that's sad cause I've waited tables and I made more money fixing computers and setting up networks in my spare time.) If it is what you want to do, then you do what you have to do to do what you want and make ends meet.
Derek Greene
I graduated 18 months ago, and have applied for over 100 jobs - and not ONE single interview...
Check Salary.com to get a pretty good idea based on your skillset. It doesn't hurt to check with monster/dice/computerjobs/etc but the ranges listed there are often meaningless. Salary.com is generic enough that there will be some flux in rates, but it's a good general guide. For example, in my city Programmer I (entry level programmer, fresh out of college for example) is going to make between $42K and $55K/yr. Frankly, that sounds high for someone right out of college, but in some markets that's the going rate. To put it in perspective, the median US *household* income (meaning this includes dual income families) is $42K/yr so right out of the gate you're doing better than most people.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
If your just starting your job search now, you're already way behind. The people who are making good money right out of school are the ones who worked full time during school. People wonder why they can't find a job after graduating college. You know what, there are thousands of people just like you with the same experience competing for a handful of jobs. You need to be different than the rest, and to be different that means skills and experience. If your a college freshman reading this, start looking for a job this summer, instead of drinking beer and partying. Get an internship or co-op and you'll be the one laughing at graduation time... (I speak from experience)
I am a salaried employee - typically work MORE than 40 hours a week and even wear a pager and do server upgrades at night - BUT I don't get overtime. I have a Master's Degree in Computer Science, but my employers have continually shifted my role from developer and security analyst to what basically amounts to technical support - stuff I could have done out of High School.
I make a mere 50K per year for my credentials, and I don't think it's worth the work, stress, and time involved. There is no competition for employers because jobs are so scarce, so they can pretty much get away with paying as little as they can.
If I could do it all over again, I'd pick another field or learn Hindi. The only thing that will save this industry is either unionization or some sort of engineering license to practice software development in the US.
What's worse is when employees look at your resume and say
"You're overqualified. Why do you want to work here."
My answer
"I would like to make my car payment. Where else am I going to live???
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
"entry level software engineer" is not the right title. try "entry level programmer". at the entry level, i doubt you would do any engineering of software. you will most likely be on a team of programmers with specific requirements for the programming project.
Why did I lurk so long before registering for a Slashdot account? I could have had a Slashdot ID of less than 100000.
cynics know the cost of everything and the value of nothing
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Getting a security clearance can be one of the most valuable things you can do for your career, especially if you get a Top Secret clearance. Salaries are 10%-50% higher and and the number of candidates for the jobs is far lower. Also there is absolutely no fear of being outsourced!
I've heard it was about $10k (USD) a year for programmers.
The difference is in India the salary doubles every time you get a promotion so the management types actually cost more than in the US. But the whole project is cheeper because the lower ranks are getting paid less.
I saw this in a magazine article about Indian outsourcing, but I am not really sure how true it is about salaries doubling. I know that in developing countries in general the increments with promotions are a lot higher percentages than in developed countries, but the base is very low
-Jasa -- Linux - The SOURCE will be with you, ALWAYS
First off, location is everything. I am not sure what area you are in, but it is true that salaries can vary widely from region to region (and naturally country to country!)
My first job out of college in 1989 paid about $25k a year as a software engineer. That was near the bottom of the barrel for salaries in my area at that time for a software engineer, but still a respectable living (I coulda probably gotten another $5k-10k in my area for a new hire).
But it was a fabulous job! I worked a mutli-million dollar software development project from start to finish at Kennedy Space Center--invaluable experience and great fun. It may forever remain the fondest memory in my working career--working at KSC, watching shuttles launch where I was close enough to feel the air vibrate as they thundered into the sky, during the peak of the post-Challenger era. Telling all my friends I was a Rocket Scientist (TM).
I've since moved on, but I'm still a firm believer that if you don't enjoy what you are doing, no salary is enough. I'm married with kids now, and you couldn't pay me enough to work 60-70 hours a week instead of spending that time with my family.
Look for the job you're going to enjoy, something you believe in, it will add years to your life, instead of take them away!
I must have conducted a hundred interviews, and help hire two dozen programmers. Before the "dot bomb," it was not that unusual to see $55K right out of college. To my knowledge (which is a bit thin, I haven't hired _lately_), it still is in this neighborhood, if you have a C.S. or C.E. degree from a major institution with good grades.
One word of notice, though. You didn't mention _WHERE_. That's a very important missing piece, because the wages vary dramatically across the U.S. My area is San Diego. If you're willing to move, send me a resume at joekraska@san.rr.com and I will look at it.
The work is defense related, and will require a clearance. Things are very good at my company, however things in San Diego aren't so hot that the company is paying relo very often. But one never knows. We're adding staff left and right...
C//
Most of the Jobs that I have found require minimum work experience along with a degree. That level of work experience is typically 3-5 years. Please do not confuse learning to code on your own or any other such nonsense as work experience. Yes, it helps to learn on your own, but its much better to get away from the computer and get work experience, even if it's a 7 dollar an hour internship at the university.
Well, since you are already graduating, I hope you have work experience otherwise, it's going to be another 3-5 years before you can even hope of getting a job that makes those 4-5 years in school worth it.
I've got a year and a half left (till my BS) and I already have 3 years of experience in computational software development and 5 years for systems administration (mostly parallel development and design and deployment of beowulf systems). I got lucky in high school and grabbed an intership at a local manufacturer. Worked for their IT department doing piddly things, however, the entry on my resume and some dumb luck made future Jobs come to me.
I feel bad if you are getting this news too late. A friend of mine already graduated last semester and had little to no work experience. The best offer he got was an internship (internship??? the guy already graduated!) with IBM for around 12 bucks an hour to audit web code.
To answer your question: If you have no work experience, CNN claims that the average out-of-college CS degree holder will get a starting pay of around $48,000 a year. I call bullshit on that one and have a more conservative estimate of around $35,000 if you get lucky (it greatly depends on your location). At this point, you should just take what you can get and keep your eyes open for better opportunities. At this point, someone else is probably right behind you in the H.R. line, with his/her CS degree, drooling for that $10 an hour job.
If you have good work experience and have worked in a specialized field (not systems administration), the salary possibilities are endless if you know where to look. Accept nothing less than $50,000 or $60,000 if you know you're good, you have the experience to back it up, and you have sufficient funds to go a month or two without a job.
Working hard and learning are two different things. I know some students at Caltech that are working very hard, but at the same time learn very little. There are people on the other side that work only a small amount, yet they are learning a lot. Getting a degree from such a place may have some perks, like showing that you can handle stress or some work load, but if you don't know how to do the job you might be in trouble.
What each person gets out of college is going to be different. It depends not only on the college itself, but on the person and how/what they did while there. In the end, just knowing someone has a college degree does not mean too much. Some one may have just as much, if not more, skill and talent from previous work experience. This is where an interview should become important, to see what they actually retain from previous experiences.
.. and trust me on the sunscreen
learn from yesterday, plan for tomorrow, party tonight
or one out of three ain't bad
(posted anonymously to protect innocent and guilty alike)
Let me start by saying that I live in a mid size city in north carolina where the standard of living is about 1.2, meaning that on average you'll pay 120% here compared to the American mean for stuff.
I've known quite a few programmers that have switched jobs or been laid off recently. I'm also a business technology consultant with a good feeling of my client's business needs in a market threatened by IT ventures still acting like dot-commers (Some of our biggest competition in the local market are small shops doing entirely out of the box open source integration to give you an idea)
As a result of all this I have a pretty good idea what people in this area are making; when I hear what our competitor is charging for their hourly rate, I can figure out what their hourly wage is likely to be given their overhead, etc.
Right now it appears that the going rate for a wet behind the ears programmer maxes out at about $35K a year. Experience is worth a lot; 5 years will get you to about $50K.
FYI, the best Indian outsourcers are charging $25-$30 an hour. Let's say a hypothetical IT worker is making $100K a year, then in this industry you would have to charge from $135 to $175 an hour to turn a profit, if that gives a good comparison for what the Indian IT outsourcers are likely paying their people... open source shops with relatively unexperienced workers are pulling from $50 to $85 an hour.
I just graduated a few weeks ago with a CS degree from the UC system. 3.93 GPA. Been working in-industry for some 7 years holding down a few good internships. I've never worked retail or waited tables.
I had two offers straight out of school; I only interviewed at one company. The first offer came from my intern employer. 55k + 3 weeks vacation + benefits. The second offer came after an interview. Let's just say it was -well- worth leaving my internship. Both offers were with great companies that had great talent on their team. But as has been said here already, money talks. I'm in the SF bay area.
Experience is everything. I had built up my network of people resources over the past 7 years and when it came time to find a real job I tapped into just one person in the network. Employers will pay good money for talented engineers. Proving your talent isn't always easy.
Be glad you got offers.
How much do you need? Waiting tables is hard work. Greed is not good.
Get some experience and maybe you will be able to have a job for awhile. The third world has lots of folks that know how to write programs and will work hard for little money.
http://tinyurl.com/globalwarmingisascam
Oh give me a break. This is some dumbass who claims that his 4 year degree equates with a "high level of skill"..
In my experience as a 20 year coder who has hired (and fired) CS University grads - they are almost always complete wastes of time. At least the community college grads don't think they know it all.
In the law there is no overlap between theft and copyright infringement whatsoever.
Dude, don't worry about the pay. I was paid peanuts for my first programming job. I stayed for 1 1/2 years and went for another job. For my second job, my salary doubled and I stayed there for 1 year and went to another job where I again got another nice pay bump. Take the job and stick it out for 12 to 18 months and your next job your salary will go way up. Basically, you have no real world experience to the companies and they are not going to invest a lot of money in you up front. However, once you get that first 12 - 18 months under your belt, the fat salary times will begin.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
An experienced software developer has a LOT more potential than a freshly minted grad. It's this "been there done that" thing. Developers become a lot better when they spend five years on the job and go through a couple product cycles, ups, downs, deathmarches, etc. It's this "been there, done that, won't do it again" thing that they don't teach in college.
For example, I have a friend who has just finished a degree in computer science, and to his own credit is somewhat of a prodigy. He has some (small, but some) social skills, and is capable of holding jobs. Now even with all the things he has going for him he is still in a saturated working environment, where he ends up not developing software but instead fixing internet connections for less learned persons. Is this a suitable use of his skills? I would say no.
So to end this post I would say you pretty much have to take what you can get these days, and work your way up in a big way. The other option (as I have chosen to exploit) is always self employment. At least with self employment you can guarantee that if you work hard you will actually get paid more.
That really is my homepage, no kidding.
First off, I think I got a really first rate education myself and have since been working for 2 years. I think I have some talent too. I'm fairly confident when I say that in your first job or so, you are really learning more than you providing the employer - at least if you're learning enough. If the job will give you a chance to learn and improve yourself and pay rent at the same time, you're probably getting paid too much when your contribution is compared to the salary of senior developer who really knows his shit - of course there are crappy "senior" developers as well. Anyway, take what you're offered, the main goal is to learn and become better.
Just to share what I've been making.
I interned my senior year at a forture 500 IT type company. I was paid an outrageous $20/hr.
I graduated into the burst bubble and picked up with a small software shop in an expensive area that paid me 40K + a sizeable end of year bonus but lacked benifits.
I moved to a less expensive area and got a job at another small shop at 40K and a weak benifits package.
True, I'm paid better than most Americans, but frankly I salary isn't the most important thing to me. I love what I do, and I'm resigned to my wife making more money than I do in the long term. She's an actuary.
What would I expect coming out into today's market? 35-40K would be fine. When I was at the big company and looked over their pay scales I saw that I would start at 55-60K. I didn't get a job there as they were laying people off when I graduated. That really warped my views of what was reasonable. I suspect that many college students are still feeling the after shocks of that shift as well.
I put my resume up on a few internet job sites and waited. I didn't call anyone. Calls started coming in about a month later but most of them were startup consulting firms (stock market bubble hadn't burst yet). I didn't want a job like that with a wife and baby to support.
Eventually a defense company called (by accident as they misread my resume) but decided to pull me in for an interview anyway after the phone screen. The day after I got back from the interview Fedex delivered my job offer. I started at a wee bit over $24 per hour (which happened to be exactly what I asked for). I have a 40 hour week and never work overtime unless I want to.
I'm in New Jersey though which isn't exactly the cheapest of states to live in. Hopefully that gives you an idea of what to look for. Just remember to factor in the cost of living for the area when determing your asking salary. Also don't forget to consider the benefits (medical, dental, vision, 401k, pension, insurance, etc.)
As an Intelligence geek for the AF, I feel I should throw my two cents in here.
:)
If you do want to be an intel geek, go officer. They have a pretty awesome responsibility, and plus- you're an officer! (Better pay, more of an opportunity to actually use your critical thinking and analysis skills) The AF Specialty Code (AFSC) for that is 14N (that'll come in handy when talking to a recruiter)
If you want to be enlisted (perish the thought with a college degree!!), here's a brief description of the fields:
1N0 - Briefers. These guys have to know a ton, and do some fairly cool planning stuff.
1N1 - Imagery (what's that blob mean??)
1N2 - Morse-Code... I don't reccommend this job, as it's being phased out, and just lost it's entire signing bonus
1N3 - Linguist - learn to speak Arabic, Chineese, or a plethora of other ("enemy") languages
1N4 - Intel Analyist... I'm not really sure what these guys do, but I'm told it's important!
1N5 - "Electronic Signals Explotation Operative"... This is what I do- basically the study/explotation of RADAR systems
1N6 - "Systems Security".... like reading peoples' email and then ratting them out for violating security proceedures?? That's what these people do!
In short, About.com is a great resource to use when thinking about joining the military... There's a lot of "minor" things recruiters leave out, so be sure to do your homework first!
Furthermore, when you're waiting for a clearance, expect to wait a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG time. Especially if it's a Top Secret one. Some bases will let you work with an Interim (temporary) clearance, and some won't... If the base you end up at is in the latter category, expect to be waiting over a year, doing nothing related to your job.
-Jokerghost
I advise that you look strongly at contract-to-hire type work, or just straight contract work, if you're good. If you were better than your peers in school, are more into what you do, etc, then this will likely pay off. Talent, skill, and ability pay. So take a contract job to make yourself low-risk for your employer, and you'll likely find yourself being reeled in as a permanent. Negotiate up.
If you're not good, say under the 75th percentile in skill, this will not work well, and it will be best at the 90th+. But if you're good, think about this.
"// you're new here, aren't you? drj"
--Half-Life SDK, doors.cpp, line 745
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
2. Get and keep a security clearance. Don't let it lapse. Don't do drugs or, God forbid, marry a non-U.S. citizen. Always pretend that you agree with everything George says and repeat after me: "Hanging is too good for anyone from France".
Whoops... my wife is a citizen of a country whose official religion is Islam (Malaysia), we travelled together around India a few months ago, my brother married a French citizen last year, and my little sister's in France RIGHT NOW.
I'm staying away from drugs, though -- think I might still get clearance?
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
Unfortunately, the days of graduating from college and walking into an upper 5/lower 6 figure salary are long gone. Coupled with the growing trend towards overseas outsourcing to take advantage of lower labor rates and the glut of experienced developers on the market, you're coming out of school with a lot of competition for an increasingly small number of positions. If you have two offers, not interviews, but offers then you should really consider yourself lucky. Take the best one and work there for a year or two so that your resume will reflect that somebody thought you were skilled enough to hire you and keep you. From that point, continue building your experience and you'll see your salary go up.
I actually had the old HR guy at my current employer tell me to check out Salary.com when I was transferring to a new area. It was very helpful in figuring out what I should be making with my position.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
...when you get disclaimers and financial advice in one post!
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. -- Rich Cook.
All I really know, is that the people who show up with a degree in English, and want to code, rarely work out.
If you don't mind the advice, I think the problem may lie in how you interview. It's hard to do a good interview for a programing job, especially for those of us who still consider ourselves coders, but the preperations will pay off.
I ask the usual character questions -- do you like Star Trek? Could Superman beat up Darth Vader? Do you think it's ok to put mustard on a Roast Beef sandwich? And so on. (kidding of course).
I also do a whiteboard test of language neutral tasks. Using an OO language the interviewee and I make up on the spot (syntax only of course) we build a program that can, given a list of all the flights in the US, tell you the fastest way to get from point A to point B, at any given time. If they actualy understand the math, that's even better, but I'll settle for us making progress towards a solution, and seeing their designs. I also do a Meta-language example, where we, on the whiteboard , build a Turing machine (though I don't call it that during the interview, we just talk about rules for our machine) that will be able to recognize certain things. I also will frequently run Robocode and then looking at the API with the interviewee, ask about the robot they would make.
I agree that this sort of stuff does give the CS grad an advantage -- they've probably had discrete math, and ougta understand nodes, edges and the pumping lemma. But I think that these concepts are generic enough that a person with no "formal" training can still arrive at good answers. I also think though that this reveals the CS students who can parrot what they heard but didn't "understand." I find these sort of thngs very valuable in revealing CS majors who can talk the talk, but can't code their way out of a wet paper bag. I'm not saying I've never hired a dud, but I can say (knok on wood) so far I've avoided the "negative work" employee, who is so bad it takes another developer to fix everything this 1st guy broke. As for the entry level positions, and salary, I wrote some thoughts about essential skills. If you have the skills I describe, you should take the job, and start working -- you'll get promoted quickly. And none of that has to do with a degree -- it's attitude.
in fact, like backov, I'm wary of too much education --if you have a BS and an MS in CS I'm wary of you. I'll want to know why you didn't go work right away with a BS. If you have a BS in CS, I'm gonna want to know what programs you made for yourself, for pleasure, and not for school. You should have a simple website somewhere too. PLEASE have a web site somewhere. If you don't have your resume available from your home page, along with a few other docs, you won't do well in this field. And if you're just out of college, you should have a student web page right? Finally, you probably know if you're a star or not. If you are indeed a star, take the job if it's cool, and don't worry about the money. Learn from the greybeards around, and realize that you're gonna fly the coop soon enough anyway. Most developers get their best raises by constantly switching jobs. If you're not a star, friggin RECOGNIZE that, and embrace your roll as a "behind th
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
Two points:
1. The waiter has practically no career path to follow. The higher base pay you perceive is partial compensation for this fact. A waiter's salary will not quadruple over the coming decade. They will not become the chef, nor will he likely get to manage the restaurant.
2. My current role includes interviewing developers and making hiring recommendations. Our finding is always that a CompSci degree does not qualify you for a software engineering job. Although some of our developers have a CompSci background, none of them use it in day-to-day work. The mindset and skillset of a software engineer is quite different.
Sometime around the end of June, when my first performance review was due, a memo went out. The bonus plan was becoming an annual payout at the fiscal year-end, instead of quarterly, and it was going to be half cash, half stock options. Much grumbling, but in the economy of late 2001, having a job was better than not having one.
Then right after September 11 (October 2, in fact), a bunch of us got laid off. The bonus-payout issue was raised. We were told (this is priceless) that a memo had gone out the day before, but our team hadn't gotten it because our project manager had forgotten to distribute it to us. The alleged memo said that effective with the last quarter (the first one where the deferred-bonus plan was in effect), all bonus payout was to be annual, at the end of the fiscal year, but now it would be all stock options.
Essentially what they did was, in stages and retroactive to the previous two quarters, convert a quarterly cash bonus retroactively to an annual stock-option award. That didn't sit well with me, and with the "keeping my job" incentive removed, I decided to see what my options were.
To make a long story short, the Virginia Department of Labor & Industry agreed with my interpretation, that since no employee signed any paperwork acknowledging the change in the bonus plan, the original offer letter's terms should stand. That I know of I'm the only person who fought them on this, but they didn't make me sign a confidentiality agreement so I made sure my co-workers knew. By the last day of December 2001 I had in my hand a check for 10% of my salary (6 months' worth of bonus) minus my relocation expenses. I probably could have quibbled over the meaning of "leave" versus "involuntarily terminated without cause", but by then I needed the money rather badly.
Get all the terms of your employment up front, in writing, and keep that paperwork safe!
-- Old Man Kensey
The company and the work should be 90% of your decision, salary 10%. You are an unproven "commodity" if you like the work you're being hired to do and the company is solid financially and in how it treats its employees take the job. Eventually, your demonstrated performance will drive your salary. - Interesting and challenging work makes you happy. - A good company treats you fairly. - Good performance is the best job security. Good luck jamej
You can't have my break. I'm keeping it so I'll have something to fall back on when dealing with illiterates. All the poster was saying was that his chosen profession requires a somewhat higher degree of knowledge and sophistication than waiting tables at the local Cracker Barrel.
In my experience as a CS undergrad, people who harp on their "twenty years of coding" and go out of their way to denigrate formal education are the sort who get insecure around people who actually know what an algorithm is.
But let's put our respective insecurities aside for a moment. You don't know anything about this guy, except you know he's dismayed that entry level coders are being offered $8-10/hr for their services. I'm dismayed too. That's about the amount I earned both as a construction worker and as a telemarketer.
I'm not sure what your deal is about community college graduates. I did my time at the community college before transferring to the University. The classes were cheaper, the instruction was comparable, and both scenes offered students ranging from very smart to very un-smart. I certainly wouldn't reject an entry level applicant on the basis of having come from the wrong school. But I do see a couple of differences between the two:
1) There are classes and degrees at a university that a community college simply don't have the ability to provide. My community college offered nothing beyond an A.S.
2) There's no actual research going on at most community colleges, hence no opportunities for students to participate in said research.
So is it the chance to participate in research that turns the CS University grads into "complete wastes of time?" Or is it the extra two years studying compilers, operating systems, algorithms and data structures, graphics, numerical analysis, and AI that saps them of their potential?*
If you would be so kind as to go beyond the inflammatory one-liners, and describe your dealings with the products of modern education in some degree of detail, I'm sure your perspective would be quite helpful to us young'uns. You know, things like, "What sort of tasks did you ask these new employees to perform?" "What sort of knowledge did you assume they already possessed?" "What sort of personality conflicts emerged, and why?" "Was their code any good?" "Was the problem that they didn't learn what they were taught in school, or that the material being taught isn't suited to the realities of software production?"
Somehow, I expect another one-liner instead. But I can always hope.
* This is actually a pretty good summary of my degree program. I feel fortunate, because it appears to be one of the better ones.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
I am an Electronics Engineer working for a small company in Bangalore ( yeah...INDIA). The job involves designing circuits, testing , coding for controllers etc. After two and half years I get paid about 14,000 rupees per month ( about $311.11). The current situation in bangalore for a starting tech job in an MNC is about 20,000 Rs/month ($444.44). My skillsets are pretty good I can get into an MNC where I will get paid about 30,000 Rs. why I am sticking with this job?? I pretty much enjoy it, most of my friends are into big companies (Indian & MNC), and i get to know that money is good but not much of a job satisfaction. well with the kinda salary I am getting now, though can't lead a luxrious life, but am happy with what ever I am able to. The reason I am sticking with this job is it offers tremendous growth. I have developed lots of new skillsets in a variety of fields. To be realistic.. I will not stick with this job for long. My point is, If you are a fresh graduate, look for a job that gives you a chance for a good growth in your field of interest and develops varied skillsets. For a few years you can work for a low pay. This can act as a insurance for your future. I forgot to mention my salary dues are over 6 months now.
I am in the same boat. So here is my situation. I hope to be getting a call on Monday about a web programmer position that I want really bad. It will most likely start out at $27K. I live in the Mid-Ohio Valley so living on that is not a problem. The way I see it, in the current times, if you have a job in your field of interest and are learning things and expanding your knowledge, you are in good shape. Good luck!
Pay off your house. If it's allowed in your state, homestead it.
You forget that once the house is paid off, you'll have more to invest. Plus, when tough times hit(they will) you won't have to worry about loosing your house. If neccessary, you can get a night job to pay taxes. Double your payment, we're talking about 7 years.
So instead of getting 3% total for thirty years(10% gain,minus the 7% spent on mortgage) you get 10% starting 7 years from now. Much better 30 years down the road.
Now some people will suggest you can write off the interest, for those people I remind them:
1) the percentage only comes off your gross, you do not get all the interest back.
2) You will save more throughout the year without a house payment, then you will by getting a larger return at the end of the year.
Also, buy the most expensive house you can afford, buy the cheapest car you can get away with.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Did you also add up all of your deductions that the recent college graduate doesn't have?
My taxes were right at 35% payroll only at my last W-4 job. Why? I had no deductions, credits or write-offs.
The government publishes the tax tables every year. Fact.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
I think you're missing the point: You won't be waiting tables!
I graduated in 2000 with a degree in computer science.
I've been waiting tables ever since.
If you enjoy working with software and computers, you should take that into consideration.
If you enjoy serving people and taking orders, well then, I think you know which career you should choose.
-Steve
Working hard and learning are two different things.
Right, but they're not mutually exclusive. Often, they go hand-in-hand.
I know some students at Caltech that are working very hard, but at the same time learn very little.
So what are you trying to say with this statement? That Caltech doesn't teach students anything?
I knew plenty of students at my school who didn't learn much or do much work. They failed out of the program.
In the end, just knowing someone has a college degree does not mean too much.
Sure it does. It means plenty. It's absolutely stupid to think it doesn't.
I just amazed. Would you suggest we just say "fuck it" and leave all our education off our resumes?
"Sure you have a doctorate in radar engineering, but you only have two years work experience. I'm going to hire this guy who's been doing stereo installs for Best Buy for the last five years to design my multi-million radar system."
Sure a degree isn't everything but it fucking matters. That's my point.
The post I was replying to said the "in the real world" degrees are meaningless. That's a crock of shit, plain and simple.
Work experience is important, but so is education. Sure you can find examples of people with degrees who don't know what the hell they're doing, but you can find people with twenty years of work experience in a particular field who are also blatantly incompetent. Does this means we should dispense with resumes altogether?
Of course not.
They are a valid, useful method for looking at a person's accomplishments. A degree is one of those accomplisments.
The logic I'm seeing from you and the original post I was replying to would allow someone to say that pretty much ANY accomplisment is meaningless.
Life is too short to proofread.
I graduated with a double major in both computer science and mathematics last june.
My Major GPA was 4.0
Total gpa was 3.96
I have YET to get a job offer for a computer programming position. Any position. Even database work.
I am qualified.
I cant find work. I am even willing to move anywhere. In this time, take what you can wherever you can and hope some better times come along.
I've worked for the past 8 months as the tech for a bank, having graduated nearly a year ago with a degree in Computer Science and every damn honor my college was allowed to bestow on me. I have written many many thousands of lines of code for 'fun', although I haven't kept track so it could just as well be millions. I started at $33k and got a raise to $36k after 6 months. With the hours I end up working, though, that averages out to about $12/hour.
But the sun is shining through - I am currently tendering more than one offer in the $45/hour range, and the contract is short enough that I can still get more education starting in the fall if the sun isn't still shining.
Moral of the story: Take what you can get. You need a paycheck so you can get situated and out of the college lifestyle. Eventually, a real opportunity will knock.
Pride is my #1 goal, if it'll pay the bills. Currently, I work to pay my tuition. I find web work comperable to washing dishes at a nice restaurant. Sounds great, but thats often about it. Sure, I get an exciting project once and a while, but I've written enough webscripts that I've made macros for the job just to make it interesting.
In the past, I worked the same job for 50k a year. I had a helluvalot less to worry about in life, and by god, I was happy. It ended only up being a paid vacation; I dicked off the money and moved back home to get a degree. Now I work freelance.
...the going rate for a programmer with a Master's Degree and two years of working experience (typically in some game start-up) is around US$2,400 per year.
;-)
Of course, in Chengdu you can get a pretty good box lunch for $0.50, and some companies will provide housing (dorm-style)
I have a friend there who is hiring. If you are interested, I will pass your resume on to him. But I should warn you that there is a lot of competition.
Moving ahead, your most important decision could be "Do I prefer Indian food or Chinese food?"
my advise to the original poster - consider the offers you did get and take the best one. then, continue casually looking for a new job. every time you move from one job to another is an opportunity to improve your position and/or salary. obviously, don't quit every two weeks, but don't feel that you're making a lifetime comittment. especially at the beginning of your career - that is a good time to make moves.
.com boom where fresh grads get huge salaries is gone. i'm personally fine with it because less people will go into IT purely for the money. Those of us left, who actually like the work, will have jobs available to us.
despite all the doom and gloom here on slashdot, i have found that there is still a demand, and it is still easily possible for a quality developer to make a good living. however, the days of the
I have had the misfortune to work with people who went into software development just for the money. It sucks to work with those who don't care. Those are the ones who are now suffering the most because they never did quality work and were overpaid. Our current economic situation is a blessing in disguise for people serious about IT. Things will even out, though. It is still a valuable skilled trade.
TODO: come up with a clever sig
With the current job market in the US, suck it up and take whatever they'll give you.
I started at $12 an hour and supplement my "job" with side consulting at $50-$75 / hour (depending on how well I know the client).
Programmers are the production line workers of the 21 Century. It's not programmers that are needed but software engineers and the two terms are not synonyms. Software engineers analyse the problem, create designs and document them, create models (e.g. UML), use patterns, define APIs, integrate existing software components and the like. Once you've done all that properly the rest is just a mechanical process that any reasonably competant individual should be able to undertake. You need some management skills, design skill and a good general knowledge of technologies and software engineering concepts.
The company I work for has outsourced some of it's programming requirement. This has indirectly sorted the software engineers from the programmers in house. For a typical project we now carry out requirements analysis, an iterative design approach resulting in a detailed model and documentation and often framework code. The then whole thing goes to our outsources so they can do the boring bit, filling in the blanks.
(from Deconstructing Harry)
[TMB]
My first proper IT job paid 13'000 GBP a year. For that I was a part of a three man team maintaining 8 Servers + 70 users. I was the DBA and rewrote all internal systems for the Y2k Bug. Personally I wouldn't complain, from this point on you gain commercial experience. Which is worth twice the time you spent at Uni.
Yes the Euro is high compared to what it used to be. But that is no reason, in itself, that it will not go higher.
America has a huge trade decifit. This makes the dollar drop in value. However, China has pretty much financed the reckless American economic policy by buying American Dollar. If China had not done this the dollar would be a lot less worth.
The reason China buys American Dollar is that they do not want a too low dollar, as this makes it hard to sell Chinese goods in America.
If China has a change of policy and stops buying Dollar, the Dollar will soon be a lot less worth.
On the other hand, there is a lot of talk about America raising there interest rate. This will lead to a higher Dollar, as American bonds becomes more attractive to foreign investors.
Which way will it go? I do not know. But just because Euro is high compared to what it used to be, is no reason that it will not go even higher. Especially, if the current economic policy of America is continued.
4 years ago you listened to your counsellers, the same people who were telling everybody that IT was the future, the same as they have been saying for the last 6 years or so.
Your in a buyers market now, the employer has a few years worth of grads to choose from now.
I would have to say one thing not to forget is that Cost of living varies. A $20.00/hour job in WI isn't to bad at all. Considering that a 4 bedroom house is between 100k to 200k. It really depends on where you are living.
It was crummy money but I tripled it in less than 5 years in the early 80's.
The bottom line is that money is less important than experience. If you get pigeon-holed writing some dead language like QuickJob or StruBASIC for better money, you don't win. Take less money to get the experience that will pay off in a few years. You want to use in-demand languages in in-demand application areas. Screw the money. Having fun is more important than fun.
I remember being at the beach and calling my bigshot CPA buddies at their office all weekend to rag on them. Or my ex who was pounding RPG code in a mill somewhere. Their response was always "Yeah but I'll be a VP when I am 40" which got them "Yeah but you'll still be OLD just like me".
Take the hot job with the hot skillset and have fun.
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
For anyone interested in what the rates are like, for both permanent and freelance, in most parts of the UK, you can have a look at Jobstats, which slices and dices all the data it can find on the job web sites.
Who would believe in penguins,unless he had seen them? Conor O Brien - Across Three Oceans
While this may stray a bit from the topic at hand, it may (indirectly) help you to understand some salary-related issues. You mentioned you have a computer science degree, and yet you are inquiring about the starting salary for a software engineer. This is your first problem -- you aren't a software engineer! You aren't even an engineer. In a world where everyone is trying to get something for nothing, it's high time people started realizing that the title of "engineer" belongs to an individual who actually has an engineering degree (and nowadays, that's not even enough -- you must take a battery of certification tests as well). This practice of adding the word "engineer" to job titles (such as waste management engineer) is tired and really inappropriate. Perhaps if you ask for the starting salary for computer scientists you might get somewhere.
43.5k a year (as a programmer with a political science degree) and my friend (a computer science degree holder) started at 47.9k. We both had internships with different companies during the last two years of college, and were hired by those companies after graduation. Keep in mind, this was in summer 2000.
You are forgetting about the 7.65% you pay directly out of your payroll, plus numerous other smaller taxes that aren't "EIT" but have the same effect, such as state unemployment insurance etc.
I just started a job with a state agency doing web dev (Java and Coldfusion) $43K + benefits + job security. Oh, and a general pay increase in July.
Government jobs rule.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
The biggest advantage you have of owning a place free and clear is that banks will bend over backwards to loan you money against that property. With a house you own outright, you can invest in other properties with the flexibility of buying those properties for cash. (Remember, you're using cash from a mortgage on your first house.)
This is a best of both worlds scenario, because now you're carrying one loan, but own two houses. AND since the investment property isn't carrying the loan (its against your residence) you don't get screwed for the "investor's premium" of 1.5-2% that lenders normally charge for mortgages on "investment property." Plus you're in a better position to negotiate when buying, since your offer contains no financing contingencies and consists of 100% cash.
Who did what now?
Negotiate your ass off to get as high in the range as possible. Many grads don't want to be rude so they don't press companies on their offers. A common attitude of students is "Oh well, I might be coming in at 45K instead of 50K but after I start working, the company will see how valuable I am and bump me up to where I belong."
A word of advice: They won't.
What I've seen is that everyone gets the same raise +/- a couple of percentage points so the spread between the people who were hired low and the people who were hired high just keeps growing. The difference between developer A hired in at $45000 and developer B hired in at $55000 might be $10000 at the start but, assuming they each get a 5% raise each year, that gap grows to $13000 by year 5. The lower your starting salary, the larger the amount you will be underpaid the whole time you work for that company.
When violence rules the world outside / And the headlines make me want to cry / It's not the time to just keep quiet
A friend of mine is that I went to college with before I dropped out of school is still looking for a starting IT job. Why would someone who finished their 4 year Comp Science degree from an accredited university be looking for a job? He has the skills to do the job, but I know from experience that his social skills are rather lacking. These days it takes not only the knowledge, but it takes being bold and outgoing as well. The best he has done is working for the number 1 retailer as a cashier. I left school after two years and with my background landed a job at a Fortune 50 retailer.
Starting salary is negotiable. Part of getting what you want is the attitude you have. You can't just go into an interview and let them have 100% of the control with things. You have to be assertive and confident. If they start talking figures to you, or ask you how much you want, there is an appropriate answer. "I am negotiable, send me an offer and we will discuss it." Larger companies will make you an offer and if you don't like the offer, counter offer. If it's extremely low, then your chances of getting a decent amount out of them is slim.
I have worked in smaller startup companies before. The job security and pay is usually less. If you are interested in a larger company, they may start you out paying less than some nitch startups, but the experience can be extremely valuable. I have heard many times at my company that a resume didn't stand out as much because the person has never had any experience with a larger corporation.
One other thing to keep in mind is that you should always be upfront and honest when dealing with companies. I have sat through other peoples interviews with my team and some of the stories I have are rather entertaining. I still don't see how someone could associate IPC coding with sending database information from a VAX/VMS system, but I digress... Just make sure that you tell then the truth when they ask questions. If they ask you "Do you know how to use IPC coding?", then unless you can tell them about shared memory and messaging queues, or at least what IPC stands for, then say "I am not sure." You will find larger companies will more likely ask you some in-depth technical questions while interviewing. These days, I am a little weary of companies that don't.
root 10956 5164 0 Oct 22 - 0:23 sendmail: rejecting connections: load average: 70 (isn't sendmail just too kind)
"Also, buy the most expensive house you can afford"
This is the most common advice I hear given to first time home buyers and it is among the worst financial advice to receive. DO NOT buy the most expensive house you can afford.
I know a lot of people who followed this advice and ended up house poor because their financial circumstances changed and yet they're still locked into an investment that's not liquid.
Most of these people found themselves screwed because they bought as big as house as they could afford and then suddenly realized that when they wanted to have children their house payment was holding them hostage: one of you want to stay home with the kids? sorry, got the mortage to pay.
Also due to the dip in the economy many of these people found themselves without a job. Whoops. Again, their high house payments meant they ability to respond financially (say by taking a lower paying job for a while) was compromised because they couldn't or didn't want to sell their house and at the same time they couldn't afford to take a job that wouldn't allow them to make payments!
When you're looking for a house location is more important than the current price or the square footage. Ideally you should be looking for a house in the lower range of a nice neighborhood; some place where you're not going to find a gas station or a fast food joint across from your back yard some morning.
As for the folks claiming the only advantage in having a house is the tax deduction, don't forget that:
1) You're not paying rent
2) Your house may appreciate in value as well.
Jared
...especially because of the proliferation of fair employment bills and the like. Canada actually tried to implement a Universal Classification System across ALL government position in the entire frickin' country.
Of course, after $1 billion or so, it failed. But in the meantime they did standardize a hell of a lot of salaries. You can negotiate what level you start at based on your experience, and occasionly get a double increment if you have a good year, but otherwise the increments are standardized.
With so many people out of work and here you are complaining about getting 2 job offers right out of school that won't pay "enough"? I wonder what the offers were for. Out of college I wasn't being paid much at all.
I just wanted to say that if I had Mod Points, I'd mod that Underrated. But for a different reason.
:P. I am amazed by it as a science, enthralled with the study of complexity in general. And I am enormously satisfied by solving problems the *right* way; this is how I imagine most other programmers feel about their jobs, but I've met a few for whom this is very much not the case.
"Not to say at all that $20/hr would be bad, just by comparison. I'm actually quite happy with my wage."
Myself -- I'm making, quite literally, $10 per hour -- and coding at a very high level, database-to-business objects-to-presentation level, and am even occasionally (read: when I have the time) asked to write and create visual content for the end-user documentation. I only have a 2-year AS degree, from a small technical college. (I got it when I was 18, but it's still just an A.S.)
I'm surprisingly happy with this job, despite the fact that when I work long enough hours, my actual hourly wage has gotten as low as $7.50. I think that the reason for it is two-fold:
1) I live in an area with a fairly low cost of living, in semi-rural Minnesota. More importantly, I have a lot of friends and family in the area -- and it's not that easy of an area to find a job in!
2) Because I am such a good value, I am afforded a lot more freedom in the way that I do my job, and in how I get to solve problems. This is a must, particularly when you occasionally have to work with procedural programmers (who are your superiors) that still feel that OOP (or functional programming, yadda yadda -- no elitism) is not "real work".
And I should probably add to that list a third reason:
3) I love programming. I respect programming as a real engineering profession, not as something that you can just *do*. Even with visual development tools
When these sort of things work out in your favor, and you aren't tied down, and the work that you're doing is actually more satisfying the harder you work on it -- then as far as I'm concerned, you've got it made. Regardless of what you're making per hour.
Then go ahead .. wait tables .. in 5 years, you will still be waiting tables .. with the same salary or slightly better .. in 10 years you might actually get a $10k increase and be promoted to work at the bar. 15 more years and you might become the restaurant manager were you get to rub shoulders with the elite regulars. Then you actually might afford to buy your own house.
Why does the younger generation think that they should be worshipped because of their CS degrees? No offense to the OP, but CS graduates now are a dime a dozen. In India, a dime could even get you a few dozens. Just be thankful that you have a job. Once you work for a couple of years, you'll be able to better judge what your next move should be. And, if you want my advice, work hard, and try to distinguish yourself at work. Look for something useful, and do it well, better than anybody else. Be proactive and do more than you're asked to. I can't be more specific as it really depends on what kind of job you'll be doing. But, keep this in mind, and you will reap the benefits later.
As a side note, I once tried to calculate how much my barber makes a year. I was living in Montreal then, and making in the mid $80K CDN. The barber charged $20 per cut excluding tips, worked alone, and his place was always full. On a bad day, he would cut 20 heads at least, which gave him $400/day. He worked 6 days a week, which means 313 days a year. 313 * 400 = $125.2K/year minimum! I can only imagine what my wife's hair stylist (who charges > $35 for a normal cut) makes. The down-side is that it's a pretty boring job, from my point of view at least.
As one of the two programmers at a small firm in a small college town, we recently had to go through the same questions in our most recent hiring process (for two more programnmers). Our concerns when hiring someone fresh out of college, is that everytime we have done that (4 total programmers) not a single one was actually prepared for programming in a business environment. They just had no grasp on anything but the theoretical. The biggest problem with a shcool education for programming is that in school, your code almost never has to be maintianed, especially for a years. This is a reality that really effects how good the produced code is. We live in a fairly small city (Gaineville, FL) and pay starting programmers 9-12$ an hr depending on how quickly we can think they can make a difference in the work flow. I also know that we give raises as soon as we feel you deserve it. I know this is less than most people waiting tables make in gainesville. However, I hated wating tables and I love programming so it was well worth the trade for me. Also I work a relatively stable schedule and they work when they are told. If your in a small town dont expect too much. Remeber cost of living is low for a reason. Also I wouldnt expect your education to make very much of a difference in starting salery. I know that I dont trust a starting guy to work on anything worth while for at least 2 months. I might get surprised one day, but mostly your college is nice background that means nothing to me. If it ends up your better than I thought you will get what you deserve, but dont think because you have an education you paid alot for that you are a good programmer and therefore deserve as lots of money. At least in our environment you need to show us what you got before you get good money.