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How Much Money do Programmers Really Make?
bigman2003 asks: "ADTmag.com recently released a list of average salaries for IT workers. Usually when I see these lists, I find out that I am grossly below the average salary. But this time I was very surprised to see that I am actually above the average! This is partly because of a recent raise, but it is also because the numbers quoted in this survey are lower than what I've seen the past from other surveys. This report quotes about $56,000 for the average application developer. I am a web developer (sure, laugh all you want) and I wanted to know specifically: How much are other web developers were making? And- How many hours a week does it take you to make it?"
How much money will a typical programmers make when the offshore/outsourcing trend levels out matures?
If you live in Iowa and are making $70k per year, it's a good job. If you live in Manhattan and you're making $70k per year, you're at the poverty line.
The only reason why publishing companies waste their time on such surveys is that people are so interested in the topic. The unfortunate thing is that the data is meaningless on a national scale. But, it sells advertising!
I'm a big tall mofo.
Keep in mind that if you're not living in one of a few areas of the country where plentiful IT jobs keep salaries high, you'll probably be making a lot less than the average. I've known plenty of senior sysadmins living in Middle America on ~50,000 USD. But it usually balances out, because the costs of living in high-salary areas are much higher.
I'm the entire IT dept. at work. I do it all. Planning, repairs, security, network maint, application support, etc. We have 85 trucks around the nation all tied in with GPS and email. I manage and support the whole damn thing.
I have 25 users and 1 server. When trying to figure out what my salary should be, they never have an entry called "dumbass who takes a job as the entire IT dept."
Does anyone have any idea what someone like that should be making?
I was hired on at my current employer in February of 2004 and in the nearly 2 years I've been with them I have not received a raise. I lowballed my expected salary to 42,000 CAD when I was hired since I had no formal education but 4 years of experience. I managed to win an award from them in my first month of employment but still nada.
I've since gone to school to get a piece of paper, while still working 1/2 time. I'm starting to feel a little underappreciated even though I'm usually given framework/system level assignments, and senior level resources come to me with questions.
Am I being unreasonable to expect a raise even though I'm in school?
I've begrudingly convinced myself to wait until I graduate next summer before asking, but I'd like to make what I think I deserve which is somewhere between $52,000 and $60,000 and I don't think they'll give me that much of a raise in one go.
Any thoughts?
P.S. I'm considered a Senior Java, Web, and PL/SQL developer.
Thanks.
What about code Gorillas, or code Bonobos? One would think they would be paid more.
I think it's only fitting that COBOL programmers get paid more - they would have to give me a hell of a raise before I would put up with programming in COBOL.
All generalizations are false, including this one. Mark Twain
By January 19, 2038, I hope to be comfortably retired. But for you younger folks programming, you may have a window of opportunity. Remember 1999? I was offered scads of money to reprogram some systems in a language I hadn't even learned yet, just so they could be assured of making it over the Y2K hump.
To break into civil service, I took a pay cut from 60K (as a senior Java/Perl guy) to 43K (and had to start doing VB6 -- UGH). However, a few years later, I'm up to 52K with amazing benefits AND a pension, and I've passed a promotion test. So shortly I'm going to get boosted up over 55K, with the potential to hit 70K within five or six years. And the jobs I'm trying for are all Java jobs, so I'll escape all this VB silliness.
If you guys try for a government job, you have to start at the bottom (the 40's) but you work your way up fast, you've got great job security, and one day, you'll have a pension.
It's worth a little sacrifice, don't you think?
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
I think the more important question here is:
Whats the best way to ask for a raise? I know a good amount of people believe they are underpaid, and a decent number actually feel they are overpaid.
That said, for those who have actually asked and recieved: What is the best way to approach your boss and ask for a raise?
The other problem is that a lot of tech workers don't exactly have set guidelines on what their job requires.
Take my job for instance:
Web CRM Developer/Maintainer (for in house use)
Low-mid level IT Support
Satellite network diagnostics and maintenance
Field work (roughly one week every two months)
Web development
My job title: Jr. Software Engineer (note the lovely "Jr.")
My pay: not enough - but how much should I make? The same as a CRM Developer/Maintainer (I wish), the same as a low level help desk employee (it'd be a raise)?
I do web development for an institution in Eastern Canada. Pay is about $25K per year in American dollars, which is pretty typical for this region (and for the record I have a graduate degree in CS). And I'm certainly not complaining -- there are literally millions of people in developing nations (say India..) that are willing and able to do the work for a whole lot less when it comes right down to it. Anyone with a job should be thankful. If you're gettingly like $50K+ American to do this job, you should be down-right ecstatic.
I'm a Configuration Manager which means no one really knows what I do, but I'm paid well for it.
One company was paying me more than $350K per year. Of course, I was a W2 contractor which meant I didn't get any stock options, but that somehow didn't seem to upset me all that much.
The company went bankrupt after nine months mainly because they were so clueless (hint: They were paying me $350K). I was suppose to convert them from Visual SourceSafe to ClearCase and ClearQuest, but I was suppose to do this without a dedicated server and without interfering with the developers.
I couldn't do any training either because the developers didn't have time for that type of stuff and I couldn't do anything that might slow down their development like transferring the source archive to ClearCase and rewriting their build scripts.
To give you an idea how strange things were, there were less than 20 employees out of maybe 50 total employees who used the network for development (6 developers, 2 QA testers, and eight data modelers). I was suppose to put our source archive on a Solaris box, but have the developers access ClearCase via Windows.
Well, no problem as long as both the Unix and Window boxes use the same user names. That meant no spaces in user names and user names of eight letters or less. Our Windows logins were firstname-space-lastname. I asked our SysAdmin if we could convert everyone over to the shorter logins (or at least the users who would use ClearCase), and he answered it was impossible because of Corporate Policy.
I sat in a row of about nine cubicles, which was empty except for me. I use to bring my bicycle inside and put it in the cubicle next to me, but I was told that this was again against Corporate Policy because my bike would get in the way of the people sitting in that row of cubes.
It was a crazy place, and I hated working there, but when someone wants to pay you $350K, what do you do?
I'm a new grad. I graduated last year.
I work in the Vancouver area, BC
I'm working with a startup, they have limited cash.
I do software and hardware programming.
Makin $33,600 CDN or $28200 US...
is this normal for new grads working in a startup?
I'm afraid that *heaven forbid* defense spending is drastically cut and I'm overpaid, I'll be the first to go. Fortunately for me I bust my ass and provide a lot of value to the company I work for. I know for sure that if things were downsized, there are several more people in line ahead of me who would be cut.
I pay all three of my software developers $80k/year or just above. We are in a low-cost-of-living town, too. If I paid them less we'd be in trouble, productivity-wise. I want them to worry about work; Not worry about meeting their fiscal obligations, etc.
Either it's the kind of programming you're doing or because you haven't looked for a new job in the past few years.
The only time I've ever got more than a 2% raise is the twice I've switched jobs. Once because my contract was up and the second time for location (from Toronto to Hamilton... closer to home). I highly recommend looking for a new job so at least you can what your market value is. Since you're not desperate to change jobs you can look closer to home if your commute sucks like mine did. Get monster.com's resume writing service to do a resume (they're really good) and don't just rely on online job ads. Newspaper classifieds are still better.
I would suspect that you'll be offered around $55,000 and you can probably talk them up a bit more.
My email address is in my profile. Feel free to contact me. I found a new job in January so my job searching experience is fairly recent.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
I'm American so when I first got here I got a job teaching English. After 8 months of kids trying to stick their fingers up my ass (it's called "kancho") I decided to get back into design/lite programming/project management. Before I left the US in 2004 I was probably make about $50k/year living in the upper midwest. Pretty good dosh for the area and I was probably working an everage of 2-3 weeks a month.
So getting back to Tokyo, having pretty rough Japanese skills made it tough to find a job, but I finally found my current gig. Basically I'm the technology guy. My title is Director of Internet Development and project management. Sweet huh? Basically I'm making a dynamic catalogue site using PHP and Flash as well as setting up a server and internal network.
How much do I make? About the equivalent of $30,000 US. Basically I'm going into the local convient store at the end of the month with a bag full of 1¥ coins to buy some food. It sucks ass. This is pretty standard for my age, 28, in Japan though. It's assumed that since everyone lives with their parents they don't need to make as much money when they're younger. I got an interview next Monday though, so now that I can speak Japanese I expect to make a better salary.
Tea and kung-fu. Life is good. Rising Phoenix
I work for the government. Specifically, I work as a lead programmer writing Perl code for the federal courts case management software. I work in Washington, DC, and I have 13 years of professional experience. I make $117K, which is high compared to some of my coworkers, but not as high as a few. I think I'm worth it.
Some of the lowest paid people in my office are the consultants. Oh, the government pays a ton for them, but the consulting company keeps more than half of it. The consulting company has an exclusive contract with us. It's a complete scam, as former executives get lucrative salaries from this consulting company after they leave the government, and thus current executives want to keep the cash cow milking. Or maybe it's true with all consulting companies, but it's still frustrating to see one of our best programmers make $50K when we pay over $100K for him.
Competence is irrelevant in corporate America. You just have to seem to be sucking up. (via)
I'm pulling in $50/hr and doing about 45-50 hours a week. I've got a degree in Comp. Sci. and have 10+ years of corporate experience. I'm a contractor for a firm who's billing me at $75/hr, but that ratio is about to change. More's coming my way.
My success is coming from the fact that I can make the organizations I go into better able to be successful software shops. I went in as a senior general developer type. In the last year I've done very little real develoment. Instead, I've invented a new software document management system for the client. I've helped them figure out why they can't get software out the door, and why what they do get released is failing. Now I'm helping them kick off a multi-year re-architecture project for their entier hiring system. It's NOT because I'm a genius Java developer. I'm not. It's because I've found the principles behind software value. Simple, structured, flexible.
If you want to make money in this business, learn to do MORE than program and bitch about poor requirements. Learn how to make your organization better. Yes, they can indeed find good programmers for less money. So make yourself more valuable than Joe Programmer. Learn how to be responsible to your organization. Learn what it takes to make long-term value in your software, not the latest whiz-bang that's going to flip the next pore sod's wig when he has to figure it out. Learn how to deliver faster code that's more solid and easy to understand. And then learn how to teach others to do it. If you can do that, there will be a line outside your cubicle of people wanting you to work for them.
If you can't do that, either your days or numbered or you're setting your earningsceiling is pretty low. You're a commodity, and not a popular one.
- Sig this!
Heh, I wish. I've been writing code for hire since I was a teen in the early 80's. Now I'm ashamed to admit I am salaried at $40K / yr. in the midwest. My wife doesn't work and we scrape by living in a below-average section of town. I write everything from embedded control stuff to PC apps to DO-178 level D code (stuff that flies). My life just sucks. Everyone tells me I'm a fool. They'd be right, but I'm afraid to change jobs. If something screws up I'm about a week away from not eating. Advice: finish college. I didn't.
I won't tell you where to send your resume, but I'll give some hints on what to put on it.
Put on it how you've helped your organization develop software that's valuable for the long term. Tell that hiring manager how you structured the app to be responsive to change and adaptable to expanding/changing technology sectors. Tell him how you've helped the business people create a business process model and engineered your software around that model so that they can be clear when they talk about changes and you'll know what the impact ot the system is going to be. Tell him how you've architected your software in terms of simple, consistent components, so that when a change request comes in you can give me a list of components to be changed or added and have a real idea of the cost of that change, not a shot in the dark that's going to blow the budget because you missed half the work.
Programmers, those guys who sit and complain about requirements, bang out something at the last minute that hamstrings them for the next round, and prop themselves up for saving the day when in reality they've missed the bigger mark altogether, are in generall getting what they're worth.
Responsible software developers, those who know what is important to their organizations future and know how to make their software reflect that, are getting much more, and are in much bigger demand.
- Sig this!
Yeah, I was working for a company making $45/hr/salaried. The customer was paying $150/hr for my time, and 80 hours per week at that.
The company laid me and off, (and 100's of my closest friends), in all their wisdom.
The customer was pissed... they were left high and dry. The customer hired me directly for $100/hour, doubled my salary, saved $50/hour. Original company screwed themselves. All because their PROFIT was only $380M instead of of the projected $420M!!
Position, making money for the company, etc. stood for nothing.
I know you're trying to be funny, but you're completely wrong.
Learning to spell correctly is not the same as always spell checking, and as such, will NOT result in anyone getting a raise.
It will never be the sole result of a decision to fire, or a decision to get a raise, at least, not in the IT profession.
You're right, there is a sort of taboo on discussing salary, even with the employer. I know its business and such, but I feel almost rude for asking about money in such a climate. In the few jobs I've had as a fairly young person (25), pay was never negotiated, simply offered as part of the job. No argument or discussion about it, take it or not.
Raises in a corporate environment outside of promotions and the merit increases that usually come with that are nil, except for small increases that everyone gets across the board. How can you ask for a raise when everyone gets a raise at the same time every year? What makes you so damn special?
Building this taboo around salaries is a nice psychological means of keeping wages as low as possible.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
I think it is funny when people say, yes, I may live in an uncultured shithole, but that makes the poverty level wages I earn so much better!
It will never be the sole result of a decision to fire, or a decision to get a raise, at least, not in the IT profession.
I've found the best way to get a raise is to switch jobs or get a promotion, both of which have required written english skills.
Also to get ahead you have to be recognisable from the crowd. If you correct your bosses work privately, and can do it in a helpful manner, over time you may be asked to proofread stuff, and then you may actually be asked to write technical briefs for customers. Nobody likes to look foolish in front of a crowd, so if you can protect your boss from looking foolish by warning them in advance, you are valuable to them. This makes you visibly competent to your boss, and gives you a value over others at your level, which is useful at raise/promotion time.
Your other options if you have english skills are to ignore mistakes your boss makes, or mock them for them. If you don't have adequate English skills you do not even have those options. And then maybe you wouldn't know the opportunities having and expressing English skills brings you.
Of course having said that...
It will never be the sole result of a decision to fire, or a decision to get a raise, at least, not in the IT profession.
I have no basis to disagree with you. But only because you do not seem to know the difference between the sole cause of an action and the sole result of an action. I don't know anyone who has been either fired or received a raise and responded by getting better English skills.
Germany in general is a mess. We've got 5 million unemployed, an advanced federal election coming up because of that and no relief in sight. The politicians just don't 'get it' and population is generally fed up of it.
I choose to go freelance two years ago. As, amongst other things, a web developer, with a thourough focus on OSS. Which is a growing market and closing in on critical mass here in germany. Everybody (and I mean everybody ) and his brother is using Typo3, people consider Linux as an alternative and demand for OSS consulting is growing. My partners are in with pharmaceutical corporations - which, naturally, have licences to print money. I'm building myself a reputation and even have a small business contract with a small agency in Florida im doing CRM for.
I'm flying under the radar, earning barely over minimum wage, making any comparion with those popular 'yellow press' salary lists utterly pointless. But I have liberties fulltime jobbers can only dream of and don't have to fuss around with superiours who don't take me for granted. I've learned to trust no one but myself (learned the hard way) and feel fairly safe even though I've currently got zero finacial backup and the german federal pension will be a joke when I'm old.
IT is growing with 5% aprox. and OSS is growing a little faster. I can bill aprox. 60$ an hour and have 2-3 hours a day that I can bill. It just covers my expenses. The upside being that I can spend a notable portion of my time at my favourite lounge sipping Latte and studying O'Reillys. In a nice indian summer these days. Oh, and, btw, how was your work day, my fellow slashdotter? *wide grin*
The downside being the tax Uber-paperwork, which is beyond insane in Germany.
Bottom line: I don't earn very much, but I'm surviving on my own. Which means I can't complain. If I keep on track and gain in efficiency (my main focus at the time) I might even have a small company with a handfull of employees some day. Who knows...
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
In the 1980s, when really super awesome elite cool rad computer programming hacking phreaking script kiddies thought they were being eTapped by the FBI on their IRC chat, to get past their filtering software, and since they were too stupid to know about encryption, they'd instead replace letters that looked like numbers. You could call it steganograpomilunami-something.
If you write enough though, you'll realise that stream of concious is the opposite grazism - or, as you'll also realize, "the comma people". Man, I'm so awesome. I would add explanations, but I'm too busy fapping to my ingeniousity.
the sun is god
In Bulgaria:
A beginner programmer takes about $350 per month.
An average programmer (2 years of work exp) takes about $750-$875 per month.
A senior developer takes $1060 - $1500 per month.
A project manager takes about $1930 per month.
That is cache, not the officially declared salary, which is usually lower to 'save' some costs for the companies.
These salaries are usually given by outsourcing western companies, German and American mainly. Bulgarian companies pay similar or lower salaries, depending on how well they manage to attract clients.
And we are happy with this, as the average salary in the country is lower than that of a beginner programmer. The good thing is, the TOC of living in Sofia is just a small fraction of that of living in, say, Norway or something.
Now, we all hope one day the salaries will reach their western counterparts... but the opposite could happen.
90% of the time, the robot autopilot can do a better job (smoother flare and touchdown; closer to the center of the runway etc) landing the plane than a human can.
The last 10%, the unexpected cross/head winds, the emergencies, obstacles on the runway, mechanical problems with the plane... then having the best means the difference between walking away vs being carried off on a stretcher.
There's no way to know, in advance, which flights are going to be absolutely routine and boring and which ones will have cause for excitement. Hence, two pilots on every plane.
If you count your 'official' wage, based on 1-year of work before taxes -- then I would say that the numbers are slightly low.
If you take into account how often people in the tech industry get laid off, spend a couple months in transition getting unemployment before their new jobs -- then maybe the numbers more correctly line up.
http://www.google.com/profiles/malachid
The problem I've seen with graduates of DeVry and all of the other schools like DeVry (ITT, ICS, etc.) is that they don't teach any computer science.
You've said that you understand a lot of the theory behind computer science. My experience with DeVry grads is that that would be a first. You also say that DeVry teaches how to apply analysis/design/programming skills to buisnesses. Sorry again. I've never seen analysis or design from any of these schools. They all want to start coding on day one of the project.
I once asked someone from one of these schools about what he had learned in regards to analysis and design. He told me that in his course they had one day for analysis, design, business etiquette and basic business skills (running meeting, writing memos). One day? How thick are your written specs before you start coding? How many meetings do you hold with your users before you even start designing?
Finally, if you really know CS theory, a quick quiz. What is the order of this algorithm:
for (int i=0;i<n;i++)
for (int j=0;j<i;j++)
printf("Hello World\n");
a. n
b. n log n
c. n^2
This whole thing has sounded pretty harsh, but I've dealt with a lot of people over the past years who got into programming because it seemed like a good gig where they could make a lot of money fast but had no real interest in building good software. Nobody ever told them there was a lot more to programming than what they learned in school. Even with the best business skills in the world, your code either works or it doesn't. If an engineer has great business skills but his bridges constantly fall down, they don't call him a great engineer. The same goes for software.
Why doesn't Slashdot ever get slashdotted?
After the dot com bomb, I lost my cushy job (html, php, mysql) with catered lunches and had to work at a book store for a while.
Eventualy, I got myself in at a mortgage company in orange county, ca. Officialy, I'm "the IT guy" but I'm also developing a web based software (PHP - MySql) which they use (but I have the rights to it). For this they pay me just $36K. I know I could probably get a straight programming job elsewhere for more $ (after years, not since the dot com boom, I am getting calls for job offers).
But, I stay, because my boss is flexible with my hours. I can take wednesday mornings off with my new baby, leave early whenever I need to, etc.
And I can work on my web based software which I am leasing to other mortgage companies (so far, this is netting me another $9k/yr, and that's just one client leasing monthly).
There's something to be said for making less $ but getting flexibility to work on other things. With any luck, in a year, I will be making 10x what I make now..
PS. anybody with some knowledge of the mortgage business and who is a good salesman, in the orange county ca area who wants to make a monthly residual on a software lease, feel free to contact me. We need salesmen and trainers for our software. Or if you are a mortgage company, check out our lead management software. Shameless plug! http://www.imlts.com/
-- Senior Software Engineer, Attorney appearance services, locallawyerapp.com.
Counting unemployment which equals employment in this business, you should expect only $40,000.