InfoWorld 2004 Salary Survey Results

tverbeek writes "InfoWorld has released the results of their Salary Survey for 2004 [pdf], and in the intro they declare that there's less bad news and more optimism, as IT budgets and salaries in particular are starting to creep back up. So now we get to witness the curious phenomenon of Lake Anti-Wobegone, as all the techies we hear from complain that their salaries are still below 'average'."

Comments

Listing?

[Mz6]

Is there a listing of the companies that they talked to? This way I can make my map of where to grab their job applications from.

Jobserve

[mirko]

A good European observatory is Jobserve where I have been able to consider the falling then re-growing number of job offer during the last 3 years.

Cry me a river

[91degrees]

It's no surprise. When I was at college, it seemed half the people in my class wanted to get into IT just to earn lots of money. They saw how much a programmer could make. None of them had a love of the subject. They all became web monkeys.

Then there were suddenly a lot of people with computer skills.

Surprise surprise, the salaries went down. It's all about supply and demand.

Meanwhile, those of us with a love of the subject have the actual deeper understanding of computers that allow us to command a decent salary.

Re:Cry me a river

[Timesprout]

While I agree with the Pragmatic Programmers and believe you should care about your craft I think you are simplifying things somewhat here.

Taking a job because you think you can make a living from it is not a bad thing. Millions of people earn a living doing things they dont particularly care for, that a large part of the reason its called work and not playtime or doing what I enjoy time. If you dont like it you can change career. Development is a job, not a divine calling.

There were suddenly lots of people with computer skills available because the technology sector took a major dive, not because Jonny and Mary took Comp Sci 101. Obviously then it becomes an employers market and they are going to pay the minimum possible so lower salaries. Outsourcing also help drive salaries down by allowing empoyers to offer take it or leave it terms. Gotta expect that in a free market given the preceding conditions.

I know several guys who make good money and dont give a crap about coding, they just happen to be quite talented and adopt a professional attitude. I find dealing with them quite easy because they tend to focus on getting the job done properly rather than arguing over ultimately irrelevant minutae as many, shall I say some more 'loving' developers do. Its more about ability than love.

Re:Cry me a river

[scrod98]

True story:

Actually saw two girls change their major from Computer Science after the first test in calculus. They switched to a major that had no math: Drama.

I'll bet mom and dad were proud.

Re:Cry me a river

[stinkyfingers]

There were two Computer Science girls that graduated when I did.

Didn't know them, but I think I spotted at least one of them in a movie storming Gondor.

put on your slashdotting helmet, gentlemen

[HungWeiLo]

A 3.4MB PDF file? On Slashdot? Do you not like them or something?

Re:put on your slashdotting helmet, gentlemen

[krails]

Seriously... especially when we have an HTML version of the survey HERE. =)

Kevin Railsback
IT Manager
InfoWorld Media Group, Inc.

Re:put on your slashdotting helmet, gentlemen

[danharan]

Funny you should mention the HTML version. That guy Steve Fox you apparently work for had this to say in the first paragraph of the article:

I feel confident in predicting that our seventh annual compensation survey will be the most widely read, frequently downloaded, and broadly circulated article we'll publish all year. There's no voodoo involved in making such a prediction; according to our Web stats, the survey is the overwhelming traffic winner, year after year. After all, how much money you and your peers make -- and by extension, what you can hope to make in the future -- is a subject that never fails to fascinate.

Since you're on /., did you explain to him what 43k of html *100k readers does to your servers? Or that 3.4M*100k is more than you can shake a stick at? Can we safely assume he's a PHB, and didn't quite understand or care? I mean... the guy _knew_ there would be hordes of visitors- maybe he tuned out after that?

Dilbert

[Anonymous Coward]

Somewhat relevant is today's dilbert

Back in my day

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in my day, we didn't get raises. We got dirt. And we liked it. Dirt allowed us to build dirt houses, dirt garages, and make dirt pies. We could even get the horses to run on dirt. The damn hard thing was getting those gosh derned horseless carriages to run on dirt. They aaaalways gave us problems.

So you young ones should be glad you get money. Cause you never know when they'll pay in dirt again!

Who is complaining?

[Ignignot]

all the techies we hear from complain that their salaries are still below 'average'. First off, who is going to complain because they are making too much? Sometimes the minority is much more vocal than the majority *cough* christian fundamentalists *cough*. It is human nature to complain.

Re:Who is complaining?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes the minority is much more vocal than the majority *cough* christian fundamentalists *cough*.

Can I play too?

*cough* NYT *cough*
*cough* WaPo *cough*
*cough* LAT *cough*
*cough* Ted Kennedy *cough*
*cough* Nancy Pelosi *cough*
*cough* environmentalist nutcases *cough*
*cough* Palestinians *cough*
*cough* abu ghraid rabble rousers *cough*
*cough* democrats, liberals *cough*
*cough* slashdot reactionary CBBTRTFA (Can't Be Bothered To...) idiots *cough*

This is fun, I could do this all day!

(Score:-5, Conservative)

Page 9

[Mz6]

Ok.. I am not sure what to think by the graphs, but is it a good thing or bad thing that the majority of the IT Budget pie, as asked to managers, is "I don't know"? On a lighter note, it did drop 3% points from 03 to 04.

This is why my company is changing their scale..

[dogas]

..because it looks too much like the scale that salary.com uses.

Right now, I'm a "software engineer III" according to my company and salary.com. But according to salary.com, I'm making $20k less than the median salary. My company's solution? Change their scale. Now there's like 8 levels and it doesn't match up at all. Maybe they're hoping that the mass exodus will stop?

Google Cache

[me98411]

Link to Google cache of the Salary Survey file.

Wondering....salaries of outsourcees?

[FerretFrottage]

How come we never see salary surveys of salary surveyors? Do they not want us to know how little or how much they make? Maybe they are making 6+ figures and just don't want us to know about it so they have they don't have any competition.

Anyway...no big surprise that IT related salaries slide a bunch the past few years. Supply and demand. There are a bunch of IT workers looking for jobs and it has been a "buyers" market, not like in the late 90's.

What I wonder is how do salary trends here [US] compare to those jobs that have been outsourced? Did the outsourcees salary increase/decrease/stay flat? Just wondering if there is any connection between the two.

More power to you.

[MisanthropicProgram]

I started out loving the IT field. Gradually, it was ripped out of me by the typical working conditions: rediculous deadlines, long hours, managers who didn't have a clue, being called in the middle of the night, etc ....
It wasn't until the late 90's that I thought that I was being paid almost enough to deal with that horseshit. I know there's a few of you folks out there that thought we were overpaid. I guess that's where the system works. I felt I was underpaid - so I left. You feel you're being paid adaquately - so you stay. I honestly hope that enough people like me leave to give you guys a decent salary again. Because even if pay goes back up to the year 2000 level, I'm still not coming back.

Re:More power to you.

[tha_mink]

I started out loving the IT field. Gradually, it was ripped out of me by the typical working conditions: rediculous deadlines, long hours, managers who didn't have a clue, being called in the middle of the night, etc .... It wasn't until the late 90's that I thought that I was being paid almost enough to deal with that horseshit. I know there's a few of you folks out there that thought we were overpaid. I guess that's where the system works. I felt I was underpaid - so I left. You feel you're being paid adaquately - so you stay. I honestly hope that enough people like me leave to give you guys a decent salary again. Because even if pay goes back up to the year 2000 level, I'm still not coming back.

I came into the field when I got tired of digging ditches and sweating my balls off for a living at $10/hr shortly after high school. Talk about being underpaid...I'll take rediculous deadlines and long (air conditioned) hours, and clueless managers in the IT field over the same conditions (sans air conditioning) working in a shitass labor job EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK. Working conditions can be shitty in any field. I don't expect to make millions in the IT field but it's better that digging a fucking hole for shizel.

Re:More power to you.

[Alan Hicks]

I came into the field when I got tired of digging ditches and sweating my balls off for a living at $10/hr shortly after high school.

Dead on! Myself, I'm a network engineer and a hog farmer. I can't testify first-hand to what conditions were like in the late 90s for programmers, because at that time I was cutting all the pine trees off our property for pulp wood (everyone around us was getting pine beetles, so I figured if I was gonna loose the trees I might as well make some money off it). I think I averaged about $8 an hour for my work, after you count expenses for my saw, my truck, my trailor, my tractor, etc.

I'm also a born and raised hog farmer. Hearing some one bitch that he'll only make $35,000 this year as a programmer just strikes me as whining. What babies! If you want to talk about a market that's hit rock bottom, it's farming. These days, when I take a #1 hog to sale, I'm lucky to get $70 for it. It costs me just under $100 to raise one! This of course isn't sustainable. The few hogs I raise now are for personal consumption. The farrowing barn is empty.

Sometimes I wonder just how big a whimp these people are. They bitch and moan about poor working conditions in a cubicle that is both air conditioned, and quiet, all while other people in the world are slaving in the hot Georgia sun all day, digging ditches, cutting trees, raising cattle, paving roads, roofing houses, etc. Give me a break.

Re:More power to you.

[div_2n]

Alternatively, I could argue that I hate being inside all day and wish I could be out enjoying the sun or even working in it and not sitting here messing my back up for years to come, increasing my chances of hemmoroids, heart disease, eye problems, carpal tunnel, hypertension and all the other crap that comes along with sitting for hours at a time with internal pressure mounting, unhappy customers, bitching managers and such.

Just because the environment is different doesn't mean it is better or worse. Remember, the grass is always greener.

I remember a manager of mine once said, "While working at a big company that was building a new facility, we programmers looked out and saw a big ass crane and said to each other 'wow, how neat would it be to be out there operating that big toy' while the crane operators were saying 'wow, how nice would it be to sitting at one of those air conditioned desks all day.'"

Re:More power to you.

[Alan Hicks]

Alternatively, I could argue that I hate being inside all day and wish I could be out enjoying the sun or even working in it and not sitting here messing my back up for years to come [etc]

While I agree with you on your carpal tunnel, heart desease, and eye problems, how exactly does sitting in a chair all day hurt your back more than doing physical labor 7 days a week?

As some one who's done both and still does, I can honestly say that white collar work is not nearly as demanding as blue collar once you weigh in the pros and cons of both. Honestly, when was the last time you heard of anyone ever dying on the job while coding from the working conditions? When was the last time you or a co-worker was hospitalized from an injury suffered on the job?

Point is, every job has its ups and downs; you have to find one thatyou personally enjoy. But white collar jobs tend to have more ups and fewer downs than blue collar. You'll have a damn hard time convincing me otherwise.

Re:More power to you.

[Chibi]

Sometimes I wonder just how big a whimp these people are. They bitch and moan about poor working conditions in a cubicle that is both air conditioned, and quiet, all while other people in the world are slaving in the hot Georgia sun all day, digging ditches, cutting trees, raising cattle, paving roads, roofing houses, etc. Give me a break.

It's all relative. My dad owns several small retail stores, and he wants me to help out more, since some day, he'll leave them to me. I have a full-time, fairly demanding job in IT (which is why I post on ./). Working at my dad's stores, I can appreciate my cushy IT job more.

The problem arises when you compare our positions to the positions of others. Let's take the boss for example. I've been on plenty of projects with ridiculous deadlines. I've literally worked 15-hour days and weekends in order for a project to hit a deadline. In hindsight, I'm not really sure why. But the biggest insult is when the boss leaves the office and says with a smile on his face, "don't work too hard!"

On another project (at a different company), we had a client that basically lied to us on when they needed an application finished by. We were already looking at a doomed project, and it got worse when suddenly we had 2 fewer months to finish it. Leave it to the almighty sales guy to start trying to blame the developers on this one. He even went so far as to try to volunteer people's personal time for the project, while he went on ski trips.

Those are the times I feel I'm being underpaid. :) So, there are definitely people who work harder than us IT folks, but there are also people who are in cushier positions than us. I think I saw someone post this on Slashdot a couple of years ago: "At the very best, your job will suck sometimes."

Re:More power to you.

[killmenow]

Okay, I'll add my two cents on this...

First, I make decent money. This I am not bitching about. I just did a check on the "How rich am I?" calculator (don't have the link handy) and according to its data, I make way more money than most people in the world. I realize how fortunate I am to have as much as I do.

Second, people are people and inherently valuable. They deserve to be treated as such. Is it worth it to be paid well if it drives you into an early grave? Perhaps it's better to work two less stressful jobs than one highly stressful job where you are expected to work 80+ hours per week. But isn't this all up to the individual to decide? We should all live our lives how we each personally see fit. I hear tell of a job in Alaska fishing for crabs or some such that pays over $200,000/yr but has one of the highest death rates of any job there is. On each trip out (supposedly) at least one member of the crew dies. You're on a boat for six months in the worst hell-on-earth conditions there are. But then you get a six month vacation and make a crapload of money. Anybody who wants that job can take it. I'll sit on my ass and develop thrombosis, thank you very much.

Third, about the plight of farmers: WAAA!!! Poor freaking farmers! I'm so sick of hearing about the poow widdle fawma. Fuck 'em. And before you get up in arms, my grandfather was a farmer all his life until he died in his late eighties two years ago. And guess what: he did well at it. All his freaking life. Do you want to know why? Because HE WAS GOOD AT IT. He knew how to raise hogs or steer or chickens or corn or tobacco or whatever and make money at it. He knew how to cover his ASS in case there might be A DROUGHT or FLOOD one year.

Why is it every time there's a freaking flood or drought there's a freaking lobbyist in Congress getting a bill passed to BAIL OUT THE POOR WIDDLE FARMERS??? Why? I know why. Because Agribusiness is big freaking business with a powerful political arm. So the poor little farmer isn't necessary any more. Big commercial farming is running the show. There are too many family farmers in America. WE overproduce food anyway. Those farmers should take a hint from people like you and learn a new freaking skill.

Next time there's an IT crisis ("Oh, no! We've outsourced all our IT infrastructure to China & India now we have a million IT workers out of work!") let's see how many freaking bills make it through Congress to bail us out. ZERO.

I'm fine with making whatever my wages will get me in a competitive market. I'm sick of farmers bitching about the horrible financial situation they're in when there are more subsidies for farming than you can pack in an eighteen-wheeler.

Fourth, some people like slaving in the hot sun digging ditches or roofing houses. I know two people personally who basically said, "Fuck this" and quit their IT jobs and do something different. One paints houses for a living now. Less wages but he's freaking WAY happier. The other does his own deck/patio/landscaping business. Again, he makes less wages, works harder physically, but LOVES his work. And he gets to go home and be with his family when he wants regardless of anybody's arbitrary deadlines. So saying we're bitching when other people have it worse because of what job they do is subjective. People tend to work at the job they like or can put up with because it pays well enough. Period. I get sick of this comparison because so many manual laborers in my family wouldn't take my job even for the money I make because they HATE computers and technology in general, they are OUTDOOR types, and prefer the feeling they get after a day of hard physical labor over the feeling they get after staring at a 17" monitor for 12 hours. I'd hate to have their jobs because I hate the outdoors. It's too freaking hot, too muggy, and full of WAY too many insects. But the fact is, they deserve better than they get and I probably do too.

Which lead me to this: if

Or... you can go to Iraq and make $500-$1000/day

[Anonymous Coward]

tax free, last I heard. And they'll add the label "Contractor" or "Consultant" for free.

Companies?

[NeoFunk]

This survey really means nothing to me unless I can at least see a list of the companies that they surveyed. Pay is different in different areas of the country, and for good reason.

Anecdotally, the results look quite high to me. Maybe they surveyed companies where the cost of living is really high (silicon valley, etc.) I'm from the midwest, so I don't really expect to see numbers like this around here, and I don't.

Make that Anti-(Lake Wobegon)

[flicken]

This is a reference to the mythical Lake Wobegone of Garisson Keillor, where "all the children are above average". In this case, all people think their salaries are *below* average, thus making it the opposite--or an Anti-(Lake Wobegone).

See this study on the Lake Wobegone effect (pdf).

The lottery?

[e1618978]

Can you be a little more useful in your references please? There is no way that we are going to be able to do a google search on "The Lottery" and figure out what the heck you are talking about. Also, I find your "chinese guy" reference a little offensive. Not only that, but in my experience the people (chinese or not) who work 80 hours per week all the time are not particularly more productive than the 40-50 hour people - and they don't get higher salaries as far as I can see. I think that we have an unusual spread of salaries now, because anyone who made it through the massive layoffs still has the "boom time/stop the hiring raids from competitors" salary, which is 2x the salary of everybody else. At least it is like that in telecom.

Re:Lake Anti-Wobegone

[tgeerts]

Lake Wobegone is where everything is above average.

Things *have* been good...

[SilentChris]

...at least for me. I managed to get over a 20% increase in January through a salary adjustment. How? I worked my ass off. Smartly.

I did the normal IT stuff, but I also introduced new (free) tech, held training classes for staff, and generally took honest interest in my job (something I don't always see in the 19-year old wire contractors we sometimes hire).

This January I basically presented myself as a needed member of the team, explained my salary adjustment request (using an Infoworld-like survey) and got my boss to back it up to management (not hard, because we treat each other well). There's methods to increase your chances of getting a good pay raise.

Re:Things *have* been good...

[gosand]

This January I basically presented myself as a needed member of the team, explained my salary adjustment request (using an Infoworld-like survey) and got my boss to back it up to management (not hard, because we treat each other well). There's methods to increase your chances of getting a good pay raise.

Congrats on your 20% increase. I worked my ass off this year too, and received an annual review of "exceeds expectations". You know what my raise was? The same as everyone else's: 0%. Even the fuckstick who takes 2 hour lunches, disappears for hours at a time during the day, and doesn't get his shit done at all, let alone on time. I am not sure if we are making the same amount, but we are at the same grade level.

This is for a very large company, where the CEO made $9 mil in salary ALONE last year, and whose total compensation was over $50 mil. Every salaried employee in the company gets no raise this year, and we don't have a bonus program. And we were told that we were "lucky to have jobs" and that "there are no other jobs out there". I have already started looking, and really hope that the market opens up a little so I can get the F out of here. While those things are technically true, it is not how you keep your employees happy. I don't need to hear that when the CEO almost made more in millions than I made in thousands. And since the company policy is that they cannot give any recommendations if used as a reference (they can only verify that I was employed here) then you can be sure that I am going to lay it on the line when I leave, and they aren't going to get one second more than 2 weeks notice. (if that) For some reason, the bad economy can be used as an excuse by employers to fuck the employees.

Garrison Keiller wasn't a math major

[TrentL]

If he was, he'd know that it's completely possible for most people at Lake Wobegone to be above (or below) average.

Consider an exam taken by 4 people. 3 people score a 10. 1 person scores a 2. That makes an average of 8 (10 + 10 + 10 + 2 = 32. 32/4 = 8). Most of the people scored above average.

This is why Mean and Median are useful concepts.

Re:Garrison Keiller wasn't a math major

[Rob Riggs]

it's completely possible for most people at Lake Wobegone to be above (or below) average.

Garrison does not claim that most of the people to be above average. In Lake Wobegon, all of the children are above average. Oh, and if you didn't know, Lake Wobegon is fiction.

This is why artistic license is a useful concept.

Ugh...

[FortKnox]

People complain because the averages are scewed. The cost of living on the west coast vs the midwest. There are 100X more IT people on the west coast, where the cost is MUCH higher. If I'm close to the average (living in the midwest), I know I'm making a good deal of money for my area.

Those graphs should include cost of living and a calculator for getting "your area's" average salary.

Independent Contractors?

[bhmit1]

From everything I've been seeing lately, work is increasing, but much more for the independent contractors than for the large companies. With everyone trying to save a buck, these people are likely on the leading edge of any up-tick. After a co-worker was laid off and spent too long looking for another job, he went independent and is booked solid for the next several months, and makes his salary after just over half a year of projects. Granted, you can't be the typical office leach in this position, and you spend a lot longer doing your taxes.

RTFA; averages deceive

[fizbin]

I wonder how people are saying that this survey shows wages for IT workers increasing. It doesn't - in fact, it shows exactly the opposite.

I can see how you might believe this if you read only this paragraph:

The downward slide of salaries reported in InfoWorld Compensation Surveys in mid-2002 and mid-2003 ended in this year's survey. The average salary reported this year was $83,651, down an insignificant 0.8 percent from the $84,312 reported in mid-2003 and down 4.3 percent from $87,385 in mid-2002.

But go ahead and read the next two paragraphs:

Interestingly, the survey also uncovered a growing gap between upper management and those on the lower rungs of IT. Senior IT managers' wages reported this year averaged $117,185, up more than 6 percent from $110,458 reported in last year's survey.

By contrast, middle management wages dropped to $80,467 in this year's poll, down more than 4 percent from $84,075 reported last year. IT staff received an average salary of $66,547, a 7 percent decline from $71,493 in the same period last year.

So the message is this: if you're not upper management - that is, if you're not part of the system that sets the salaries - the people who are part of upper management will continue to screw you. It's not going to get better on its own.

The salary of middle management and IT staff went down. It's just that the salaries of upper management went up by enough to raise the average.