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Dr. Dobb's 2012 Salary Survey
CowboyRobot writes "It's that time of year again, and Dr. Dobb's has posted the results of their survey of salaries of 3,500 developers and managers. 'While many salaries are flat, they are increasing overall, except for some heavily disfavored niches.'"
Call me stupid, but I don't get it. Software developers earn $90... per what?
The results are spread on a gazillion ad-littered pages whose content are shorter than this text field. Even the print page has ads on it and only includes the current page you're viewing. How do I mod article -1?
I tried to take the survey, but I couldn't complete it. I'm a cow meat solutions architect.
I wonder if they bothered to include everyone what the salary breakdown would look like.
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Dr. Dobb's Journal (DDJ) was a monthly journal published in the United States by CMP Technology. It covered topics aimed at computer programmers. DDJ was the first regular periodical focused on microcomputer software, rather than hardware. It later became a monthly section within the periodical InformationWeek called Dr. Dobb's Report and is now a news website published by United Business Media
Dr. Dobb's Journal of Tiny BASIC Calisthenics & Orthodontia
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How sad is it that such a great resource for us programmers way back in the day is now just a news aggregator. :(
[John]
Shit better not happen!
Those salaries are the same (if not lower) as here in Munich (DE).
And we don't have to pay for a private health insurance or a decent pension.
Keep your "dream" and "freedom" guys, I thought your salaries were far higher.
I disagree with the author's take on 'ageism' - I bet that if skill sets were taken into account, the apparent ageism would disappear.
There are two kinds of 'old fart' in this biz - ones that doggedly refuse to learn new skills, and those that actively seek out and embrace new skills but have the hindsight and experience to see them in their proper place among the existing tried-and-true solutions. Too often I see young, inexperienced developers grab on to the latest thing, declaring it the be-all and end-all of programming. I've seen it a million times - their fervor eventually gets tempered by seeing that their shiny new toy isn't perfect and has more rough edges that advertised. I went thru it in my 20's, as did everyone else, I suspect. I'm old enough now to have seen the "Thin Client! No, Thick client! No, Thin Client!" pendulum swing a few times. :-( (For those of you too young, that would be "thin=Mainframe+terminal, thick=Borland Delphi, thin=web app, thick=phone app).
The consulting company I work for respects the type II old fart and values their experience. Apparently our clients do as well, since we're in high demand.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
So staff jobs have been losing pay while managers have been gaining. Why can't we stop this trend? It's not as if managers have increased in performance over 2 years while staff workers have decreased.
Speaking as a fellow old fart, I remember being in a constant state of panic when ever a new technology came out because it meant that if I didn't somehow get on the job experience with the technology, I would be left in the dust (unemployed). And back in the 90s, if you didn't learn something new and switch jobs, you were considered unwilling to learn new things and grow - now you're considered a "job hopper".
And back in the early 90s, employers wanted the "shiny new toys" because they thought they could throw out the very expensive mainframes and go all client server - and many did.
Anyway, you have to chase all the new tech. It is a must in this industry. I wish I did it more!
Here's an example: when the whole iOS/iPhone thing was first kicked off by Apple, I poo-pooed it. "Here we go again. Another handheld failure!" The folks who latched on at the beginning - jumping on that shiny new toy - go their first and built up the experience and some of very profitable businesses now.
This time, my experience led me astray and I missed out on getting a big slice of the pie - there are just crumbs left.
Then again, I bet there are some RIM developers that are shaking their heads now and thinking, "Wait and see."
This industry is so volatile and capricious that it's impossible to know what's going to be worth while and what isn't. I mean back in the 90s, I used to laugh at the Mac developers for chasing Windmills. I used to laugh at mainframer COBOL guys but there's quite a few still making a living - a nice one at that.
I thought I was hot shit for being a UNix/client server/C/C++ programmer - then Java came.
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You are welcome on my lawn.
Despite having so many categories, "Software Engineers" and "Software Developers" seem to be the bucket that catches all the people making a living creating software, but belong the category of "software skills are necessary but sufficient". In almost all branches of science, the "numerical simulation" has become very very important. We are graduating some 100,000 Masters in engineering and may be 25000 Ph Ds in engineering and a majority of them write code. Some very well, some very poorly but their programming skills is secondary to their knowledge of physics, chemistry and math. They all are likely to be paid way above this reported mean and clubbing them with "software kills alone are enough" group distorts the data.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Dr. Dobbs still exists?
I'm not "ignorant of the cost", the difference is that costs are SHARED among everybody. That's what the welfare system is for. What about the healthcare for the unemployed in the US? Do they stand in line like beggars in front of some charity organization?
And look at the yield of German Bunds, it's lower than the yield of US Treasuries. So what's the house of cards that's collapsing?
The useful information lies in the summary at the bottom of each page.
"Software engineers, however, saw an almost 3% increase â" slightly higher than inflation." "project leaders, and analysts all enjoyed raises that outpaced inflation" "the southern states and the mountain time zone saw the biggest percentage increases in salary" "Additional bonuses were inversely proportional to the size of the group"
In other words, MOST positions are NOT keeping up with inflation, and bonuses are given out to only a few people (no way to track who deserves them.) But we knew that already, because the CEOs get most of the bonus money.
Salary survey reveals: We're still fucked
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Are you reading the same charts that I am? I see a breakdown that says 19% of staff are 35 or younger. Leaving 81% to be 36 and older. Same chart says 49% of staff is 45 and older. Now I'm _old_ (50). And I know math has changed a few times since I was dodging the T-Rex's on the way to school, so could you explain to me using simple terms from your new math how "the field drops off quite a bit in the 40s". Unless you meant the 1940s?
Dr. Dobbs' analysis, too - staff+management percentage drops off significantly after age 55. Really? D'uh!!!!!
Oh, and by the way, you're embedded systems guy is your only actual 'code slinger'. The rest of you are bells and whistles ...
Sometimes reading fiction can make ones day go a little smoother.
What about the healthcare for the unemployed in the US? Do they stand in line like beggars in front of some charity organization?
No, they go to the hospital, just as they have done since long before the whole Universal Healthcare proposition.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Still quite underpaid, still desperately hoping working for my current startup will pay off eventually, even though they haven't shown the least likelihood of extending any equity or options my way whatsoever (and I'm employee #5). I often wonder if I'm a fool for staying, but I just bought a house and I don't want to be seen as a job hopper the next time I go for interviews, so I'm sticking it out for at least two years. Is this a good plan?
I was probably employee #5 or 6 at one point, but now that a few people have left, I am probably #2 or #3. Maybe I can see your desk from mine. If you're reading this, wave your hand up in the air.
In fact, since this company just purchased a project that was originally started two companies back, I am in fact, the longest tenured person still on this project, by a factor of about 2.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
And then any assets they do have are taken as they are forced into bankruptcy, and then the government is left footing the bill. Because the government is insuring these visits there is a layer of socialized medicine happening, except that the hospitals and governments then fight over how much money should be paid and so on.
The thing is, if you're poor in the US, or old, you get medicare or medicaid which are both, on the scale of things decent enough. It's the people who are not quite poor and not quite old, or not fully employed or that have to rely on an insurance company actually paying that are screwed. It's a weird system.
The regional chart is meaningless! It doesn't even TRY to take cost of living into consideration. I was living better on the $75k in the "South Central" region than on the $90k I moved to the "Northeast" 5 years ago.
And in case anyone is wondering, according to the article, you're in one of those 'disfavored niches' if you're older than 45 or so or happen to be a woman.
When someone says, "Any fool can see
What's the difference between a Software Developer and a Software Engineer?
A software developer will be primarily concerned with writing code from the given requirements. A software engineer is concerned with the entire process of producing high quality code, how that code fits into the business, how the requirements are established, how bugs are tracked over time, ensuring code reviews are effective, that testing coverage is appropriate without costing too much, how projects are managed, creating and using metrics, and of course writing high quality code.
See the SWEBOK for a good description of software engineering.
John
You're an idiot for comparing "Feasible" with "Free", he's saying- It's a birth right, you're saying if you work yourself to death doing odd work during the years of your life you're supposed to spend studying to become more intelligent and an eventual net gain to your family and country you might just get one.
Studying doesn't make you more intelligent, it makes you more educated. This is fundamental attribution error often seen in highly educated people who like to believe themselves more intelligent for it.
You tell me which one's better- yes yours works, but it doesn't even compare. So don't compare them. People always bring up your point when the free things other countries provide are mentioned, and it's just stupid.
I agree that education up to a certain level should be considered a birthright, but you quickly hit a point of diminishing returns when you attempt to educate everyone to the same level. Some people are in fact not educable -- this is the major legitimate complaint about the "No Child Left Behind" policies of recent decades. Not everyone is capable of having differential calculus crammed between their ears.
You also hit that point when you start educating people in fields which were self-selected based on their expectation of income. Does the U.S. seriously need more lawyers per capita than all other countries (25% higher than Brazil, the next most lawyer-heavy country)? Probably not. Does it need deeply unhappy brain surgeons who are only in it because of the money? That's probably counter-productive as well.
Frankly, we don't need the number of people we have in order to maintain society at the current level, and we will likely need to come to terms with finding some way of giving them money not to steal our stuff at the point we realize cable television is no longer cutting it.
So... was it worth it? Tenure alone does not pay the bills, after all.
So far, no. I mean, I still get paid enough to put food on the table and pay most of my bills. I used to be able to pay all my bills, but inflation happened and salary increases didn't, so now I realistically make about 40% less than I did when I started. But, they keep promising and I am gullible enough to believe them.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Benefiting the citizenry is not the same thing as benefiting society, and the point of services provided by society needs to be to benefit the society, not the individual. If it benefits the citizenry as well, that's a nice side effect, but it should not be the primary underlying goal.
Setting the price point at or lower than the necessary price point to achieve the societal benefit is all that's necessary. In the case of higher education, this is achievable at a non-zero price point. And yes, this means that some people will be economically disadvantaged by that decision.
I would argue that it's possible to be a member of an economic underclass and get a scholarship for your higher education. I know many existence proofs. So the corollary to that is that setting a non-zero price point only economically disadvantage those who are already intellectually disadvantaged to the point of not being able to obtain said scholarship.
Again, we get a net benefit to society: the people who can afford the economic admission get it, and the people who can't afford that admission, but who can instead afford the intellectual admission instead, both get their higher education.
While it could be argued that the net benefit to society would be higher if it were a pure intellectual meritocracy as to who received the education, until you hit the net benefit cut-off point, the ability of institutions to float scholarships on the backs of less intellectually gifted people with money to spare is very similar to achieving the same ends through taxation. This method, however, avoids the negative reaction you would get by taxing the parents of less capable economically advantaged students, and then not letting them into the club while using that money to pay for the economically disadvantaged geniuses.
What's the difference between a Software Developer and a Software Engineer?
A software developer will be primarily concerned with writing code from the given requirements. A software engineer is concerned with the entire process of producing high quality code, how that code fits into the business, how the requirements are established, how bugs are tracked over time, ensuring code reviews are effective, that testing coverage is appropriate without costing too much, how projects are managed, creating and using metrics, and of course writing high quality code.
Hmmm... I've always thought of it more as:
Of course, the titles are pretty flexible depending on your workplace.
By the above definitions, I fall somewhere between Software Developer and Software Engineer. My actual title is "Software Development Supervisor", which also entails a little management, but thankfully not much and I still spend around 75% of my time coding (or studying code/testing/etc).
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Yes it is. agree with you. I am going to make a survey report on it.. http://www.surveyreport.com/ See this my upcoming online survey project/task. Salary survey is a new theme for me. I will do something for it on my site.