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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?"
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'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?
Sure, everyone knows what you mean, but in this world you can't just be competent, you have to be seen to be competent.
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.
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)
outsourcing in costa rica:
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well people do not really have their programming needds done here
but as a sysadmin (windows) you can make $1500 a month
as unix/networking/firewalls I made around $2500 3 years ago
i dunno about programming in general at companies, I did some smaller programming things (mostly php + SQL) on a $50/hour basis (that makes it 8*50*20*12 = $96.000) but I gues sitting in a cube and sometimes coding some crap for someone fro a few days is a different story
besides in costa rica you can make a comfortable living on $1500 a month - including a maid so you do not sink in your own filth (I guess danger of IT workers's homes - at least sysadmins I know )
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'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
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
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I think developer jobs in the US have been riding a huge bubble for a long time, and will need to fall drastically to compete with overseas programmers. Supply and demand and all that.
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Only to the extent that a country is limited to the field of computing. If wages fall drastically in one field, workers simply shift into another field. Who is going to work for 30K/yr as a computer scientist when they can make 100K as a ________ (fill in the blank with your own 2nd job preference: biologist, real estate agent, small business owner, beach bum, etc)?
Based on my own personal experiences, I would say that market demand is strong and supply is low. The outsourcing hysteria has already driven computer science enrollment into the dirt. Even schools like MIT and CIT have reported a 40+% drop in CS students. My own school went from 1200 to 800 CS students last year. Appx 90% of whom were undergrads and US citizens (which matters because the defense companies are literally tripping over each other trying to hire CS grads who can obtain a clearance).
I haven't heard the enrollment numbers for this semester yet, but I know that at least 10 additional classes were cancelled due to low enrollment.
And how would I characterize the job market in the area (S CA)? Actually, I would say that it is pretty healthy. Healthiest that I've seen since 2001.
- I was at Unix users group meeting the other night and five people had job announcements.
- One of our competitors has been offering 10K and 15K signing bonuses to our employees.
- We can't fill two entry level positions!
- A recruiter called me out of the blue two weeks ago.
The demand is there - it will be until we are no longer dependent on humans designing and implementing programs, doing research, administering systems, etc.
Given the drastically reduced supply of computer science graduates, the always depressingly low number of US MS and PHD students in CS (personally, I blame sports and MTV), and the healthy demand for GOOD computer scientists, I would say that wages in computer science related jobs are probably going to increase substantially over the next decade.
Also, if there is any bubble around, it is called 'outsourcing', which has been a very hit and miss ordeal for many companies. Everyone knows that companies are reluctant to report a security breach. They're just as reluctant to report an outsourcing failure, if not more so. How do you make the following sound nice... 'Well, first, we laid off 100 people to try and save 500k a year. Then the outsourcing company stole 200k from us. Finally, a disgruntled former employee put most of our source code on the internet. Now we're 2 years behind our competition, who was 2 years behind us last year, and all of our GOOD former employees have already found jobs with other companies.'