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Taking a Look At High-End Programmer Salaries
msmoriarty writes "Our reporter decided to try to document the high end of programmer salaries (at least in the US). It seems that $300,000 to $400,000 and up is not unheard of in the financial industry, but the highest salary we could document was apx. $1.2 million, earned by Sergey Aleynikov, who was later convicted of stealing proprietary source code from a previous employer, Goldman Sachs."
But programming was a minor part of Aleynikov's job.
His primary duty was keeping his mouth shut.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
From my understanding, programmers making 300 - 400 thousand in the financial industry are typically quantitative analysts or financial engineers with masters degrees or Phds in these fields. Their primary duties are things like modeling complicated financial scenarios or finding statistical anomalies to exploit in high frequency trading. Yes they code their strategies but I don't know if I'd put them in the same category as your typical programmer.
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
I know a few guys who a decade ago were in the million a year range, and are now in the 250-300k.
If you're working with people databases, financials, or just on a product that happens to do crazy awesome (minecraft) you can make a pile of money. But expect 100-200k range if you're really good these days it seems like.
That's not to say you can't make money in direct offshoots of programming, for example becoming a producer on a project, where you may touch some programming still but are now more managerial, or design.
Their coffee suchs.
He only stole the source code because he wasn't being paid enough.
I have actually been thinking about pursuing a career in quantitative math. I have been looking at a MSc program from a local university. I have been a Software Engineer for the past 15 years and I just don't see myself make much progress when it comes to salary. If I want to make big bucks it looks like Quantitative Math is the way to go. Does anyone in the community have any advice? Have you done such a move yourself?
It seems that $300,000 to $400,000 and up is not unheard of in the financial industry
I've "heard of" people completing a couple week certification course getting a $75000/yr job in IT because they now have an A+ cert and there are huge shortages of personnel. Of course I "heard of" that exclusively in TV and radio commercials by for-profit schools charging outrageous fees. The reality of it is the typical BS degree holder can hope for and possibly even get a $8/hr helpdesk job; The cream of the crop will do better, but then again, they always do. Such is to be expected toward the end of the educational-industrial complex bubble. How reliable are the reports of $400K/yr cobol coders and $75K/yr A+ cert password resetters and what kind of numbers are we talking about? I can totally see a CEO's son getting a really special deal, but thats just an anecdote compared to the other 300 million citizens and non-citizens here.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The article doesn't differentiate between base salary and "extras", such as bonuses, stock options, and other forms of compensations. Stock option grants can easily amount to a yearly base compensation in large Silicon Valley shops. And bonuses at Goldman Sachs is even more.
Maybe some have been paid to forget ethics. Here is a list of science ethics papers: http://www.files.chem.vt.edu/chem-ed/ethics/vinny/ethxbibl.html
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Yes, finance gigs pay higher but there are LOTS of buts.
First, there is so much legacy code and systems that your skill set might end-up lagging behind the market by 10 years. So if you ever want to escape the frigid NYC winters and move to California then you'll find your skill set obsolete. And realistically you need to work in NYC to make money in finance.
Second, the big money only occasionally sweeps by your star. The trends in the market come and go. So the $400k Russian coder at GS might only make that for a few years. Then he's back to $100k year. This was probably part of the reason he moved to a new venture.
Third, for the long term gigs require specialized knowledge of finance or markets which can be mind numbingly dull for top engineers. It is soulless work only for the black-hearted. Lucky if you get to work on interesting algorithms. Most work is in excruciatingly painful market data or regulatory related work.
Fourth, some the personality types which are considered splendid in tech are unwanted in finance (think Richard Stallman, James Gosling or other folks you might meet at a science fiction convention). They don't appreciate the odd ball creative genius or the pedantic sorts.
Did I mentioned that the winters in NYC are freaking FREEZING!? If you have the choice, take the $100k you can make in SF or LA. California has a much better quality of life than the NYC rat race.
So there you have it. There are big corporations out there making millions of dollars on the backs of computer algorithms, and some of them are willing to pay at least $1.2 million per year to programmers who can code them better than anyone else.
There is no evidence in the article to support this conclusion. It would be just as easy to conclude, "... to programmers who can sell themselves better than anyone else." Of course, the data to support the conclusion probably doesn't exist, because according to Capers Jones in the 3rd edition of Applied Software Measurement, "a majority of software organizations have few measurements of any kind." The majority in this case is ~80%.
I believe it. I've got friends working as programmers for financial companies. Their salaries aren't in the $300k - $400k range but they're all earning $150k and above. But they easily earn double what someone would earn doing roughly the same thing in any industry. And the nature of the work isn't anything particularly sophisticated. But then that's the nature of the financial industry. Even secretaries earn fairly outrageous salaries. Those companies earn so much money that they can afford to be generous. And from what I've seen, with the occasional exception of course, job security is generally quite good.
Anyone who lives in a region with a lot of finance, and doing work that they might need, would be a fool not to seek employment at one of these companies. At least if your motivation is to earn a healthy income and have some job security.
Sergey Aleynikov, who was later convicted of stealing proprietary source code from a previous employer, Goldman Sachs
Ah, the software that a GS lawyer claimed could be used by others to manipulate the market? But isn't the GS's job?
You mean I'm not talking about not talking about that?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Here, in Italy, the medium salary for a senior developer is about 20.000€/y, or about 28KUS$/y (net amount on payroll), that's very sad.
i work in silicon valley and remember back in the early 90's when looking at gigs working in IT or programming for wall street firms.... computer operators where getting 60K, sys admins 100K... I'm talking 1993 here. I met a financial programmer out here that had left at 260K a year gig. just to give an idea of how much more that was than silicon valley at the same time, a mid-level engineer was making 60K. there was a premium being paid not just for specialized talent, but for very high pressure gigs, and not to mention cost of living. the numbers talked about 300K-400k should not be surprising to anyone. people at the top of their game and especially when very high in demand, short supply are paid very well.
Damn I'm underpaid! ;-)
I won't discuss my pay but I will state that having a willingness to put in more than forty hours a week has significantly boosted my bottom line. When the time of reviews/pay/etc come up I am usually up there on the minds of those higher up simply because I am involved across the board and always "seem" to be available. Yeah, I get an odd week that can break sixty hours but I generally set my schedule and do what needs to be done. No one I know in my networking group (you know, friends who do similar work and such) can report similar situations. Yeah there are places where it might not be rewarded, but I have to ask, why are you still there?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
It is a programming job with creation of money making algorithmic strategy that are the main role he had at Goldman. Can not be compared to other programming roles.
http://www.QuantRec.com
But you're not one of them. And you probably won't ever be. Especially in an environment where ads say "No unemployed applicants will be considered."
I'm a programmer-turned-entrepreneur. I don't get a salary per se but the "little side project" I started as CS major in college turned into a "small business" netting around a million/year for me.
It reminds me of a story I once heard about Andrew Carnegie... One nice Sunday afternoon, he went for a walk in Central Park. He met one of his accountants who he knew well. They talked for a while and then the accountant said.
"You know, Mr. Carnegie, I am richer than you are."
Mr Carnegie replied "That's preposterous! You make a few thousand and I make millions."
The accountant replied. "Yes, that's true, but I have enough!"
Its the most popular field for people not attending grad school. The attractions are high salary, technical work and staying in the northeast.
Personally I think that $/h is more important than $/y. I earn around $75k per year working 40 hours per week. If I could make $112.5k per year working 60 hours per week (same hourly wage) I wouldn't take it. I enjoy work but I value my free time more.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
If you have a BS you have no business getting an A+.
Yeah. But then you would say that, wouldn't you? You are one. Of *them*.
If your bosses know the right people you don't need testing.
They just cancel the transactions if you screw up:
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/07/markets/explaining_wall_street_turmoil/
Or prosecute the humans who beat your algo:
http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/security/3244186/norwegian-traders-convicted-for-outsmarting-us-stock-broker-algorithm/
Technical know-who trumps technical know-how.
Thanks for showing me how underpaid I am.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The code works by natural selection. If it executes a buy&sell sequence that amounts to a profit, it is allowed to continue it's rule execution on additional trades. A code monitor manage the rules that are in play. If something is performing poorly (losing money on repetitive trades or stuck holding an asset for an extended amount of time), its assets are dumped back to the market and it's pulled out of the mix.
In high frequency trading, you can also run your code in a simulator mode that will track 'what-if' purchase and sales, but you won't know for certain how the market (i.e. other high-frequency trading entities) will respond until you run your code live.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
A good programmer can't aspire for big bucks (>$200k) as a salaried coder.
You'll have to mix entrepreneurial skills to your coding ones.
Examples are:
Build your own market playing blackbox and risk your dollars.
If a business approaches you with a terrificly good idea, code for less and ask a percentage of the company or a partnership.
Build your own idea/product.
Bottom line, no risk = no money
I'm a finance guy in Silicon Valley and have seen approximately 1500 salaries at tech companies. I have seen precisely one programmer making 400k. He was responsible for the primary patent of a $400 million company. Average for a really top tier programmer is 160-190k plus generous bonus and stock options. But I have to admit I haven't seen google or facebook salaries.
Sure they'll pay 10-15% higher than your open job of the same position, but just be prepared if you need to go into a hostile zone (which will add an extra 10% of hazard pay). And it's a life long obligation to keep the IP developed under wraps--it's the law... and more worse if you need to sign an NDA with the gov't (been there done that). One good thing is the people are pretty easy to work with, though it can be a high stress environment.
The Dual ladder scheme (invented back in the 50s? at somewhere like Bell Labs) has been thoroughly discredited. See papers from Sloan School at MIT, for instance. (see Epstein, 1986; or Allen and Katz, 1985, 1990, and 1992)
The reality is that you may get some status perquisites on the individual contributor side (wood furniture, bigger office), but on the management side, not only is the compensation greater, but there is significant potential for bonus compensation, generally tied to the performance of your underlings in some way. And, numerous studies have found that if you jump from manager to individual contributor side of the ladder, generally, you can't jump back.
There's also a perception (sometimes based in reality) that the technical side of the ladder becomes a place to "park" managers for whom there is no room in the org chart, but who need to be promoted. This of course, depreciates the value of the technical side, since notionally, it's technical merit (as opposed to management acumen) that runs you up that side of the latter.
For what it's worth, "triple ladders" have been proposed as a hybrid.
I work on a Fixed Income Trading floor as a C++ developer and I make 900$ per day as a 1099. I also work 10 hours a day - in 7:30, out 5:30 every day.
You can't just be a "programmer" and do what I do, a lot of my work is dealing with traders and managers who change their minds on what they want almost every day. It makes extreme programming look like a joke...
As for the +200k salaries, you have to know how to optimize a linux kernel so that its TCP stack is sub-millisecond in terms of latency. You also have to understand the products that are being traded, and you have to have people-skills, something which very few programmers have....
And yes, those jobs do exist - they follow all basic laws of economics, you know, supply and demand