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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?
It's not that easy. Where you live, standard of living costs, specialized training and abilities, years of experience, etc, all influence and alter this. Averages give you an idea, but you have to go on your abilities and what you can find. If you like your job, it often means more than an extra 5-10k per year. I think the real issue here is that people like to know how they rank compared to others, and reality is way to gray for that black & white approach.
Microsoft Sucks, F/OSS Rocks. I get mod points now right?
Aerospace engineer. Spend 80% of my time programming simulations in C++. Fresh out of college make in excess of 50,000 plus much better than average benefits.
I really wouldn't be surprised if it varies considerably. $56000 sounds high dollar to me but I live in the South where there is no money anyway...
You mean they PAY for this? I thought the only renumeration was /. mod points....
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Well, let's separate developers from code monkeys. Now, code monkeys average about $45K. Developers average about $75K. Sure, I pulled that out of my ass, but it's a big ass, what else do you want me to do with it?
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?
You could just post as an Anonymous Coward.
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.
How much you make is pretty meaningless without normalizing by cost of living. $50k in Idaho is effectively 2x as much as $50k in San Francisco.
-me
Sure, everyone knows what you mean, but in this world you can't just be competent, you have to be seen to be competent.
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.
I'm a web developer, doing fine, but I'm not really conformable divulging what I make on Slashdot.
I don't mean this as a personal slam, but that exact attitude keeps salaries low. Why NOT talk about your salary? If you don't talk about it, you can't know how you compare. And although you might not care how you compare in a rat-race sense, you damned well should care that your employer treats you "fairly"...
Me, I make just a hair over $40k. Sound low, for someone with 10 years experience? In my area, I can afford a mortgage on that. And together with my SO, as a DINK couple, we do pretty damned well combined.
TALK about your salary! Don't brag about it, that just sounds obnoxious, but chat. Make sure that neither you nor your friends have gotten royally screwed.
I will never understand people who have this phobia of discussing how much they make. If you make something truly obscene (either minimum wage or seven figures), okay, you might have a reason to shy away from the topic - But within an order of magnitude of "average", help create a basis of comparison! It only hurts us, the workers, to remain tight-lipped about it.
A salary survey is nigh useless to begin with, and this one seems to be worse than normal. "Average salary" - what's that? Median or mean? Where's the standard deviation? What does 'broad spectrum of organizations' mean? Is it geographically diverse?
Here's another hint: a survey requires people who answer surveys. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that people making on the high end do not generally go out of their way to answer salary surveys, whereas people paid average or less than average might be a bit prone to worrying about their salary and therefore filling out surveys and looking them up.
Want to make more money? Instead of asking what other people make, ask yourself:
* What can I do that other people (or most other people) can't? What makes me good? What's my strength? How can I be better?
* How much is what I'm doing worth? How can I use my skills to create a larger value for a company or client?
* How can I leverage my work to produce more?
* What have I done that has exceeded expectations, that could not have been predicted and is a boon for whoever pays me?
If you have already come up with good answers for the questions above, you're probably making way more than the average already.
Be in good financial shape. People living paycheck to paycheck hurt themselves because they end up afraid to take risks. Save up a large cushion of living expenses - while 4-6 months is a normal financial planner's estimate, make sure you can get an additional 12 month's worth by the time that 6 is up. With the 18 month cushion you can afford to try a lot of other things.
Finally, if you don't like what you're making, consider doing something else. A friend of mine is making over $20/hr plus benefits reading gas meters. If I was getting paid a lousy $50k to program, I'd have taken a job at his place and spent my day walking around outside. If you find yourself on the low rung, maybe this is just not what you're meant to be doing.
To break into civil service, I took a pay cut from 60K (as a senior Java/Perl guy) to 43K (and had to start doing VB6 -- UGH). However, a few years later, I'm up to 52K with amazing benefits AND a pension, and I've passed a promotion test. So shortly I'm going to get boosted up over 55K, with the potential to hit 70K within five or six years. And the jobs I'm trying for are all Java jobs, so I'll escape all this VB silliness.
If you guys try for a government job, you have to start at the bottom (the 40's) but you work your way up fast, you've got great job security, and one day, you'll have a pension.
It's worth a little sacrifice, don't you think?
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
I'm not a web developer, but as a general purpose code monkey for a university research position with 2 years on the job and 1-2 years previous computer work (and a BS from a good college), 40k$. It's low, but I usually like the work (good environment, low stress, crazy-flexible hours, etc), and, heck, it's employment.
Son, a woman is a lot like a refrigerator. They're six feet tall, 300 pounds... they make ice... umm...
If you quit and are begged/pleaded with to return and are offered a raise then you were being under-paid.
If you quit and leave with a pat on the back then you were being over-paid.
(... bottom line you are just a serf that will live a boring-unimportant-debt-filled life and most likely will welcome death after 30)
You are making too much.
You are responsible for the design and implementation of the entire system, and yet you allow a huge, honking unreliable single point of failure that can bring the entire operation to its knees - you. That doesn't smack of good systems design to me.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
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?
don't be harsh, everynoe nose that programers are teh worst spelars, evar. how do you thnki bugs hapen by acident LOL
I was working for a small company in southern ontario, making medium sized web applications.. and I was getting around $40K (canadian dollars!)... I am currently getting only about half of that. Yeah, the economy has gone in the crapper looking from a web developer perspective.
Meh.
Give us a call when you turn 18 :>
Am I being unreasonable to expect a raise even though I'm in school?
Whoah, leave off that 'even though I'm in school' clause. As strange as it seems, the best deal these days is to quit and get a job somewhere else. Nobody seems to give raises anymore. (At least not worthy of note.)
Want a raise or propmotion? Quit. I have never got a raise while I have worked in IT of more than a buck an hour, yet I have nearly doubled my salary twice by just getting a new job. You would think that a company would value experience, but noooooo....
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
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?
Details: :)
Company was tight-fisted financial services company;
Job was developing apps in Python, either stand-alone or in Zope; Integration with various MS apps (this was a Windows-only shop);
I was attractive because I've done 14 years of experience in all things IT and was a jack-of-all-trades;
I got paid $75K to start, and was raised to $80K when I started managing three engineers and had my title changed from 'Software Engineer 2' to 'Senior Software Engineer'. I considered myself underpaid, and at my next job started at $93K. As both jobs came after about 4-6 months of unemployment, I didn't really negotiate salary too much
I was promoted and promoted, given many salary raises above and beyond, and many bonuses for work above and beyond. While I never asked for my six-figure salary, it was nice to have cuz I didn't have to worry much about financial woes.
Then a small company merged with ours, essentially swaggered in, a (allegedly) corrupt CEO (allegedly) cooked the books, or (allegedly) ordered them cooked, we went $35B in debt, our stock went from $54 to $2 (yes, 1/27th!), and the security unraveled.
No problem, that salary would come in handy now... until some British chick came in, one week on a conference call told us all to get approval before ordering office supplies and in a month or so we would look at our financial "situation".
Two weeks later 1/5 of us did the perp walk... Lost my job, lost the chance to finish the 3 years to full pension (after 21 years with this company). And, finally finding out not many companies want to interview someone that old, or making that much money... Doesn't matter what you've done, doesn't matter how good you are, if you can't even get the interview, salaries you made are only relevant in one way. Bitter? Yeah. Get over it? Yeah, but it's not easy.
A blessing in disguise, I'm now a completely independent software developer and stand to make more than I ever did working for d'man. But a lesson learned. Don't consider your salary in and of itself. Consider the ethics and environment of the company that may screw you (my sense is there aren't many out there anymore that won't.)
> I still can not understand why the average pay of a well-seasoned applications designer is still no match to that of a recently-graduated MBA
That is the attitude of a Computer Science student or recent grad.
Look at any company. Find where the money comes into that company. See how close or far your position is to that money entering the company. That determines your salary right there.
A company doesn't mind paying salespeople (who perform well) plenty of money because it is clear what they are worth. They are bringing in the money that keeps the company alive.
MBAs are closer to the money. They are in a "profit-center" of their companies.
The programmers are pretty far from the money. In most companies they are in a "cost-center", ie: they are a cost that the company grudgingly pays as a cost of doing business. They would be eager to lower that cost.
At one place I worked a few years ago there were programmers who worked in the "back office" servicing the company-wide infrastructure and there were programmers who working directly for a "front office" department, ie: closer to where the money is made. I worked for a front-office department and made $120K for doing the exact same thing programmers in the back office were paid $60K to do.
Just follow the money...
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
...cuz you're making triple what I make and I live in San Francisco. A 30-year mortgage payment on a $600K house at 8% interest is what -- $4,200? Where's the other $137,000 a year going?
Breakfast served all day!
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.
...you're only worth what somebody else is willing to pay you.
I've heard the same thing from my last employer and while it's hard to disagree with such hard-nosed economic logic, I think it breaks down for a lot of IT jobs because IT jobs tend to be pretty fluid -- they often flow around the rigid HR-type job descriptions. Developers admin systems, admins doing programming, DBAs doing admin tasks AND programming, guys (like the grandparent poster) doing it all. Immersively intellectually challenging work that involves taking calls once a week about spyware and why the Intraweb is down? Or repetitive tasks, but never suffering end-luzers?
The "other job" that may pay me more may or may not include more job responsibilities, but I can almost guarandamtee you that the other job will not end up being the "same" job.
And then there's the whole question of "pay". How much are some bennies worth? How much is it worth to have a job with a ton of flexibility with start-end times vs. one with real rigid work hours? And if the former is a 60 minute gauntlet of traffic and the other is a 10 minute walk?
A boss who's a dick but makes sure to hire a lot of sharp people? A boss who's a saint but tolerates nincompoops? A closed door office vs. a low-wall cube in a farm? 8 days off you can take whenever vs. 3 weeks that requires D-Day logistics to be able to take a single day?
All of these things jumble together to make the "someone who pays more" concept so untestable that it's hard to measure.
I completely agree. It's a little-believed sociologic fact that employers want people to keep their salaries secret (regardless of reason) for the specific fact that it allows them to pay the same workers different amounts. I've never heard a single phrase applied better since I was but a wee 20-something and was told (in passing) by a manager that "Hey, you know how it is, the squeaky wheel gets the grease..."
/always/ tailored to the current employees and never hold true to everyone in a specific position.
I get so frustrated when people balk at the idea of discussing their salaries - how are the majority of people supposed to truly know their worth. One of the other posters mentioned the better companies having defnied pay levels, but these are
I'm glad someone was modded-up for airing these opinions.
-volve
Actually it does not work like that. I am in a managerial position, and whenever I am consulted about salaries, for surveys or "industry job dictionaries", I always provide figures 10-15% lower than real salaries. The reason is very simple:
;)
- people already hired, while reading such surveys, do not feel discontent about their pay level;
- people I am looking for, on the outside, would appreciate our job offers, and associated salaries, when compared to "surveys".
There is another aspect, related to "pay vs. job level" never mentioned in any survey: I have a pool of "stars" whose work I [financially] appreciate at levels incomparable to any industry "average". Those are the people who could carry out difficult project all by themselves, and/orcould intervene once, either in a critical situation, or during a tight schedule, or under highly-pressured conditions, and by the results of their work provide a fantastic ROI. Sometimes I tend to call these people "my group of uber-geeks"
All in all - surveys are like marketing or sales data: deceiving, misleading, and understated (as far as pay goes), or overstated (i.e. how much one has to know and work, to get $x)
== With enough Will Power, one could move mountains. With enough Brains, one would just leave them where they are ==
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 think the or more is what your $158K falls under...
Me? I make a whole $0 a year, $0 an hour, $0 a month. Every payday I look forward to a $0 check. Luckily, social engineering is good for other things than getting passwords.
Peace
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.
Salary amount is MOOT unless you consider STANDARDS OF LIVING where you get the job. $60,000 in DC is roughly equal to $35,000-40,000 where I was raised.
...I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me!
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
You say you don't use the services that the government provides for you, but that's bullshit. You like having a standing army to protect you? You like the fire dept? How about those really fucking cool sewer systems? I guess you don't use those. I bet you've never been to a library either. You walk on sidewalks? I bet you never use mail either, pay all your bills online huh? FDIC seems to help keep those banks in working order.
Fact is, your self-centered moron trying to justify your asinine statement. I own my own business, and the fact that you got owned by the IRS is proof that your an idiot. Do you know how many tax breaks there are for owning a small business? Probably not. I bet you had a sole proprietorship. Since you couldn't raise the whopping $250 to incorporate yourself, you most likely got screwed. You can write off almost everything you use daily if you have a home based business, but I bet you didn't know that either.In what way is posting on a tech forum that I don't pay income tax bad? Explain to me the exact repercussions you think that honesty is going to have?Also, I would lay $20 on the idea that "pissing off one metric shittonne worth of tech geeks" is going to have exactly zero effect on me.
That's expected coming from a person who honestly thinks they don't use any gonvernent services.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!
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!
I obviously made the most of my luck, but even with these limited skills I think my success is due to:
- superior communication and people skills
- picking simple, cheap solutions that meet requirements.
- being self-sufficient
- realizing that a ton of money can be made doing unexciting but high-accountability work.
More than anything though was just being nice to people when interacting with them. Treating people with kindness and meeting their needs goes a very long way.I realize that not everyone will see such an opportunity or even take it (my boss threatened to sue me). But if you work hard and look out for yourself you can find tremendous opportunities out there.
I saw my salary double between 1992 and 1997, and again between 1997 and 2001. Then the great tech implosion happened. My salary dropped to half in 2003, and right now I'm just coding "for free" letting the wife work as I watch the kids. Quite a rollercoaster ride, but honestly, I'm happier now than I have ever been. Here's why:
When you work in tech for someone else, you are creatively constrained. You look for creative outlets any way you can, but ultimately, someone else is in control of your destiny. You can tell yourself; hey, the creative, fun stuff I'll do in my free time! Yeah, right; your free time should be with your family and friends, not sitting in front of a computer, just like at work. Or maybe you think: my creative outlet is at work! Yeah, right...
Maybe you're the programmer; cool, someone else gets to decide the architecture. Maybe you are the architect; cool, someone else gets to decide your budget. Maybe you're the CIO, cool, someone else affects the architecture, and someone else actually build the sh*t, and if they do a sh*tty job, you're hosed. Yes, you can't do it all. You need to work on teams to tackle big things. But do you really get to decide, in any way, what those big things are? Or are you just being told to dig a ditch at a certain place, to a certain depth and width and breadth?
If you want to be truly happy, let go of the need for the material crap and focus on taking control of your own creative direction. WORK FOR LESS MONEY but take a greater stake in what you are doing. Freelance. Work on a small team. Work part time and free up time to follow your creative bliss. Or just live off the spouse for awhile. It's ok; 50 years ago it was *normal* for someone to stay at home.
Be proactive and choose who and what you rely on, keep things lean and mean, and INVENT; CREATE. Work hands-on at creating.
Remember this: in 20 years, when you look back, will you think "gosh, I'm glad I had a house with 2 more bedrooms, that extra car, those weekends at the cabin. I'm glad I had that extra TV in the bedroom, and took that trip to Florida every year!" Or will you think, "I made some cool stuff. We lived OK. I followed my dream."
If you're reading this, you're probably in tech. That means you're likely getting paid twice as much as everyone else anyways, simply because tech is still a valued commodity, no matter what the outsourcers or people stuck in dot-com-lala-land say. WORK HALF AS MUCH, and invest that extra time into an open source project that you care about... your karma will thank you.
May 2004 Metropolitan Area Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Find your city, find your occupation.
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oessrcma.htm
Applicable Occupations:
15-1021 Computer Programmers
15-1031 Computer Software Engineers, Applications
15-1032 Computer Software Engineers, Systems Software
15-1041 Computer Support Specialists
15-1051 Computer Systems Analysts
15-1061 Database Administrators
15-1071 Network and Computer Systems Administrators
15-1081 Network Systems and Data Communications Analysts
$600k mortgage, no down payment, 7% interest rate (worst case for a jumbo loan--if you have more than this you are stupid).
Monthly expenses?
$4000 loan
$200 home owners insurance
$750 property tax (1.5% of $600k / 12)
$350 PMI (got 20% down? some loans let you out of this, usually at the cost of interest rate)
$250 Electric/Gas
$40 Water/Sewer
------
$5590
Only the interest paid against a mortgage is tax deductible (which in the beginning of a mortgage will be most of the payment, figure around $42k the first year). 2004 Income tax rates list $146,751 - $319,100 as 33% for single filers, $178,651 - $319,100 as 33% for joint.
$190k - $42k = $148k, or 33% income tax rate (assuming single), so:
$190k / 12 = 15800
15800 - 33% = 10586
10586 - $1000 = 9586 (estimating $1k for other federal taxes)
9586 - 5590 = 3996
$4k to spare every month after taking care of house and taxes? You should be doing fine.
I guess I'm in a lucky situation. My dot-com went dot-bomb, but the Fotune 500 company that bought us out rolled us in with our existing salaries and still follow the corporate salary raise percentage, plus annual stock options. After seeing what my fellow I.T. people are making, I guess I shouldn't complain. And I only work 40 hours a week, plus only a couple of hours 1 or 2 weekends a month. I'm on call, but if I work in the middle of the night, I get to leave early. :-)
From what I hear from people who've accepted jobs as software engineers at EA here in Vancouver,
You had me at EA. Seriously, EA does that everywhere.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
I got "laid-off" (canned) in July of 2004 from my $45K job for a ad agency in Milwaukee where I worked as a web developer. I spent a couple months looking for work for another company before I hung out my shingle and started working for myself. Before I got paid about $20/hour, now I charge $80/hour and snap up the clients my former employer turns away because "they don't have the budget" that can afford their $120-160/hour.
I should hit $100k this year, and I only have to work about 3hours a day to make it work. I spend tons of time with my son, wife, and get to do all the home improvement projects I want. Take it from me, break the chains and go work for yourself. Getting "laid-off" was the best promotion I ever got.
-Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
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'm an experienced Java developer in a large US IT corporation. I'm a team lead for a group of developers that produce large, complex web applicaitons. I get paid an excellent salary (105k/yr), have great benefits, and 5 weeks vacation a year. I work from home, and no one cares what my schedule is. Just make it to required phone conferences, deliver high quality work on time, and keep ahead of the curve technically. However, the job is extremely stressful and it requires an average of 60 hours per week. Plus, turning out the next big enterprise app just doesn't interest me too much anymore. I'd be willing to take a big pay cut for a lot less stress, a big reduction in hours, and something I find compelling to work on. I'm saving my pennies, and I'll be making the leap to something else in a year that will pay a lot less, but be a lot more fulfilling and leave me with more time for life outside of work.
Ok economics boy, as I understand it the purpose of an efficient market is to drive the cost of goods down. As my labour is the product we happen to be discussing, why would I want to co-operate in creating an efficient market?
How we know is more important than what we know.
I'm a fresh software engineer and I get $36,000.
:P
This might sound too little, but I pay NO taxes what so ever, and I don't have concerns for medical insurance (it's free). Of course, I live in Kuwait and the system is vastly different from the US, but salary isn't just a number, it depends on the expenses you have to pay for a good style of living.
Since most services are subsidized here, $36,000 is probably equal to $80,000 is some midwestern states.
One more thing, I can never lose my job
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.
"Building this taboo around salaries is a nice psychological means of keeping wages as low as possible."
Exactly. Why should a company pay any more than you're willing to accept? They know that most tech types don't counter-offer. Women in particular seem to think it's rude, but I've noticed techs in general seem not to want to mess with it.
Several years ago a female friend of mine (Masters degree in CS) was excited about an offer she got from a Fortune 500 company. I told her she should counter-offer. She hedged, she paused, she said it would feel uncomfortable. But I made her promise. A few days later she called me over, thrilled to report that they had accepted and she'd be making several thousand more than the original offer. In her mind it was like the Magic Money Fairy had just made an appearance, but it's just common business sense.
I just switched jobs - the new company made me a reasonable offer, but I thought I was worth more. So I made a counter-offer in good faith. The result? An extra $2.5K/yr plus a $3K signing bonus. Money that I never would have seen if I hadn't asked! The job I just left? Same deal, asked for a few thousand more than offered originally. They accepted.
You have to sell them on yourself, and then you have to deliver. Plus you need a set of marketable skills (I do C++/networking/GUI/DB in niche markets). With that in place, I think a counter-offer shows them that you've got some self-respect and ambition. If they don't budge, it's not like their original offer goes away. And in the rare instance they withdraw it, you really didn't want to work there in the first place. Trust me. Assuming you made a reasonable counter-offer, otherwise you come off sounding like a tool. Know your target company, know your perceived value to them.
Switching jobs every 3-5 years is key as well (with some exceptions). At least 3 years shows that you stick around to get things done, and your salary will grow much faster with each jump between companies than by staying on and hoping for those COLA + 1% raises.
The company I'm going back to? Several years have passed, I've expanded my skills, and I'll be making about 40% more than when I left. There's no way I could have gotten 40% in raises in the same time period had I stuck around. But I left with a good reputation and came back in with solid interviews, good reputation and personal references from my latest employer.
Tend that career garden well. Any broken chain of good references/reputation can cost you jobs and tens of thousands of dollars in unrealized salary boosts. Never burn bridges. Let me say that again - NEVER burn bridges.
I'll get off my soapbox now and get back in my rocking chair by the back porch. :-)
I expect you're about ready to make a go at the Matterhorn by now, eh?
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
Ever flown on a plane? Ever wonder who paid for that pilot to be trained? Because it was probably tax money...
Social engineering? Is that what you guys are calling living in your parents basement now days?
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.
what P J O'Rourke said about Germans, that they are just like Americans only they speak better English.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Here is the ad:
http://denver.craigslist.org/eng/89900924.html
Don't everybody apply at once.
and most likely will welcome death after 30
"Every takeoff and landing, when the plane banked too much to 1 side, I prayed for a crash. That moment cures my insomnia with narcolepsy when we might die helpless and packed human tobacco in the fuselage. [...] Life insurance pays off triple if you die on a business trip. I prayed for wind shear effect. I prayed for pelicans sucked into the turbines and loose bolts and ice on the wings. On takeoff, as the plane pushed down the runway and the flaps tilted up, with our seats in their full upright position and our tray tables stowed and all personal carry-on baggage in the overhead compartment, as the end of the runway ran up to meet us with our smoking materials extinguished, I prayed for a crash"
the sun is god
The only time I have got a real raise in sallery is when I have changed jobs.
Most of the jobs I have had have not allowed me to develop my skills, and have them recognised by the company with more cash. The job position is still "Developer", or "Programmer", and has a fairly fixes sallery for that postition.
As I developed my skill set I had to go to another comnany and join as an "Architect", or "Systems Programmer", each time getting a nice raise.
Some companies will allow you to progress quickly, stay with hands-on fun stuff, and get rewarded for it. Some just want 5 "Programmers", and if you leave, they get another. If they give you the extra 5k you diserve, the other 4 guys will start bitching, why would they want to do that?
End of the day, it's supply and demand, if you want to make more money, build up your skill set, talk to your boss, if you dont get what you want, get another job.
The worst thing you can do is sit on your butt reading slashdot, complaining, getting demotivated, and not focussing on developing your skill set.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
Same thing with airline pilots (aka glorified bus drivers)..
When it comes to landing time, I want the best glorified bus driver there is in the cockpit.
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
you missed off this:
#!/usr/bin/env perl
Where can you look to get a list of standardized job titles and descriptions? I don't know whether I'm a senior programmer, a junior systems architect, or just "guy in dark room with computer". I tried a (cursory) search at the ACM's web site, but didn't turn anything up.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
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.
While I agree with your main premise, I think it requires further clarification. The reason the MBAs make more is because they are typically in administration. Administrators will always make more because they make the decisions (opposed to doing the work). What salary to pay someone is just another decision.
Counting unemployment which equals employment in this business, you should expect only $40,000.