SAGE 2004-2005 Salary Survey Announced

Nalez writes "The ever-popular SAGE Salary Survey is ready to go and available to all computer administrators. Everyone who participates will get a copy of the results. The survey takes 17-20 minutes to complete. SAGE members can access the 2003 results and you can read all about previous SAGE surveys."

Comments

Are These Things Useful?

[DanielMarkham]

I read these every year but I wonder how useful they are. I've never heard of anybody going to their boss with survey results to ask for a raise, and I can't imagine getting your pay cut because others are making more. Perhaps the benefit is in planning for new hires? Telling people you pay better than market rates?
As a consultant, I don't use these to set my rates, and the information is usually historical rather than predictive -- what I'd like to know is what's going to be paying more next year, not last year. But I'm sure there are other uses. Makes for great gossip if nothing else.

Speak Up About Poor Software Quality!

Re:Are These Things Useful?

[bytemap]

When I was a director of engineering, I noted they had the opposite effect. I knew I had to pay more to keep the REALLY GOOD people I had (this was leading up to 2001, granted), but the board of directors kept telling me that their salary surveys said we were already paying too much. Salary surveys don't tell the whole story. Talent counts for a LOT. And my staff was worth more than "standard."

Wait to they see this!

[Anonymous Crowbar]

I imagine the survey will look a lot different next year if things keep going the way they are. The article below talks about a company out in California looking for a programmer at $15/hour.

http://news.com.com/2061-10788_3-5770608.html?
ta g=ubind.bld

June 30, 2005 3:26 PM PDT
Coding for $15 an hour?
Could a computer coding job paying just $15 per hour signal something's wrong with the tech world?

That relatively measly amount is what's promised in an ad for a "ASP.NET Programmer" on the America's Job Bank site. The job, which calls for "at least 1 year's experience either in school, at work, or a combination of the two," is being offered by employment services company AppleOne, according to the ad.

Re:Wait to they see this!

[AutopsyReport]

the whole outlook of the industry is really horrible for people fresh out of college.

Normally I would agree with a statement like this, but my personal experiences have led me to believe differently, at least for now.

I'm 21, haven't finished my BSc (going into my 4th year), my programming skills are on average, but I'm great with people and building solid customer rapport. I do some contracting/consulting on the side of school. I'm far from the technical side of programming, and sometime it amazes me I'm still doing this. My first job was $30hr CDN. Now I'm pulling $40hr USD (roughly $50hr CDN) working for companies in the US.

So when people get on here or elsewhere and moan about low wages and poor job prospects, I often think they should be evaluating what skills they don't have, such as good relationship building, and working from there.

The money is out there. You don't have to be a programming genius to find it, and I'm living proof of this. All it takes is an average mind to earn yourself an above-average wage.

Let's make this international

[Duke Machesne]

...and find out how much the average pay really is... I'm guessing somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 a day.

Then everyone in the states making $15/hour could start to feel real fortunate when they fire up their microwave on another bowl of ramen.

Result of Linux: 16 years UNIX experience, $36k/yr

[AHumbleOpinion]

16 year UNIX and Programmers will work for $36k/yr. Thats just sick.

Why is everyone so surprised? Isn't this one of the expected outcomes of PC-based FOSS software like FreeBSD and Linux? I'm not saying this was a goal, just an anticipated side effect, the downside outweighed by the upside. When a particular field of knowledge and experience becomes commoditized the price that the knowledge and experience commands drops.

In the early to mid 90s many people honestly believed that Unix was on the way out, that it was destined to become a niche. Few people invested much time in learning Unix, we used it in school and when the staff polled the CS majors about how the program could be improved a very popular request was classes on Windows programming. Thankfully the staff said that the university teaches concepts not the flavor-of-the-day OS, go learn to program Windows outside of class.

So those people with Unix experience were rare and able to command high salaries. Now enter FreeBSD and Linux. Many CS student I knew didn't really care about the GPL or the politics, all they cared about was that they could do their Unix based homework assignments on their PC at home and not have to wait for machines in the lab or dial-in through a damn modem. A handful got into FreeBSD and Linux. Between the former and later groups Unix knowledge and experiece became widely available. If my company needs a website I don't have to go out and buy an expensive Sun box and hire expensive people with Sun experience. I can go out and get decent PC hardware and use FreeBSD or Linux and hire a far less expensive person to setup and maintain them. Sure the Sun hardware is more robust but for many businesses it doesn't really matter.

I saw similar things at school. The university stopped buying Suns and purchased PCs and installed Linux. The vast majority of students and profs only needed a general purpose Unix desktop. The handful that had some very specialized need could get a Sun.

This is all the rational expected outcome of FOSS software like FreeBSD and Linux. FOSS not only frees the users but it also frees the corporations, they are no longer "held hostage" by what Unix admins and programmers once jokingly labeled themselves: the "high priests".