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Taking a Look At High-End Programmer Salaries

Posted by timothy on from the today-let's-take-the-gold-robot dept.

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."

9 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. Ah, but by Hognoxious · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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."
    1. Re:Ah, but by chord.wav · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Same as any well-payed job.

      "Every organization rests upon a mountain of secrets" - Julian Assange

    2. Re:Ah, but by dintech · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes and No. Non-disclosure is considered a given in any job and would have been in his contract. You'd have to be out of your mind to try to steal code from a bank since there's a lot of monitoring in place to watch for it. (Disclaimer: I work for one).

      The reason he is paid so much is not because he's a programmer who keeps his mouth shut. It's because he's a programmer with experience and understanding of how high-frequency trading systems work.

      An individual's first job in banking is likely to be better paid than any other IT job. However, you have to build up a lot of domain experience before you can get paid those kind of salaries. Some developers even make the jump over to the business side to unlock bigger bonuses, but a maths PhD is usually required. For others the top money is in contracting. £500 - £1000 per day, more in short contracts. But again, you need domain experience.

    3. Re:Ah, but by NNKK · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Whether he keeps his mouth shut about how the algos work or other dodgy goings-on is irrelevant. Non-disclosure is non-disclosure.

      Not in the US. You cannot contractually forbid someone from reporting illegal activity.

  2. Financial Industry by ThomasFlip · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Financial Industry by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I periodically get contacted by recruiters for banks, because my CV mentions Haskell, and there's a massive shortage of Haskell programmers. They're offering silly salaries to people with no experience in the financial sector. Still not quite enough to convince me that I want to move to London and work on tedious soul-destroying stuff though, they'd need to add another zero onto the end for that. If I could telecommute, I'd be quite tempted - I'd pay off my mortgage in about six months.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    2. Re:Financial Industry by cptdondo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I owned a consulting company. There's a reason why you make so much. You work that much harder, and you put your entire financial future on the line every time you sign a big contract or fire an employee.

      I now work for a public utility. Regular hours, no worries, and a regular paycheck. Yes it's half of what I used to make, but I have half the hours and a quarter of the stress.

  3. Gotta be careful when. by Sir_Sri · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  4. Testing? by TheLink · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

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