I headhunt high end developers for banks, and the salaries are really not that bad, even at entry level.
But having been a developer myself (C++, OS/2, Windows etc), the thing that's wrong with developer careers is that they are nearly all
dead ends. There is a widespread perception that IT types don't have management skills, compunded by the fact that few firms actually train poeple in any meaningful way.
But I have to say the killer is IT people. It's easy to complain about society, and how arts graduates are in positions of reponsiblity beyond their competence, but I see a huge absence of assertiveness from IT people. I see blokes who will argue loudly and passionately and at length, about the real or imagined defects of Java, say "Oh" when they find out that someone else is going to be promoted.
IT people are too loyal, and it is used against us. That's not to say every conversation need to be of the form "I get 20% more money or I walk", but you need to make it clear what your expcectations are. You are an important an expensive bit of the firm, (usually) they do not want to see you go.
You need to ask confrontational questions, like when you can expect to be on the next level, raise etc. You need to be in the loop, and if you are not, pin people down. Not complain, simply engage them, so that it is less effort to keep you up to speed than leave you out.
Many IT people do this, once. The trick is to persist.
If you see other IT types being treated badly, take your manager aside and say that makes you wonder about the strength of your own position, and say that you've not felt very appreciated.
The discipline should be easy for programmers. Most firms are like buggy data structures with bits of code shoved in them. The first thing to realise fromn this model is that "should" as in the moral imperative is not a valid operator in this domain.
A company has no more morals than Excel, and it won't calculate your salary to a higher number because you did "good", but only upon it's inputs and set of bugs.
We live by manipulating systems, yet we have been conned into not using our abilities upon the fleshware systems that affect our lives vastly morw than O/Ses.
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I headhunt high end developers for banks, and the salaries are really not that bad, even at entry level. But having been a developer myself (C++, OS/2, Windows etc), the thing that's wrong with developer careers is that they are nearly all dead ends. There is a widespread perception that IT types don't have management skills, compunded by the fact that few firms actually train poeple in any meaningful way. But I have to say the killer is IT people. It's easy to complain about society, and how arts graduates are in positions of reponsiblity beyond their competence, but I see a huge absence of assertiveness from IT people. I see blokes who will argue loudly and passionately and at length, about the real or imagined defects of Java, say "Oh" when they find out that someone else is going to be promoted. IT people are too loyal, and it is used against us. That's not to say every conversation need to be of the form "I get 20% more money or I walk", but you need to make it clear what your expcectations are. You are an important an expensive bit of the firm, (usually) they do not want to see you go. You need to ask confrontational questions, like when you can expect to be on the next level, raise etc. You need to be in the loop, and if you are not, pin people down. Not complain, simply engage them, so that it is less effort to keep you up to speed than leave you out. Many IT people do this, once. The trick is to persist. If you see other IT types being treated badly, take your manager aside and say that makes you wonder about the strength of your own position, and say that you've not felt very appreciated. The discipline should be easy for programmers. Most firms are like buggy data structures with bits of code shoved in them. The first thing to realise fromn this model is that "should" as in the moral imperative is not a valid operator in this domain. A company has no more morals than Excel, and it won't calculate your salary to a higher number because you did "good", but only upon it's inputs and set of bugs. We live by manipulating systems, yet we have been conned into not using our abilities upon the fleshware systems that affect our lives vastly morw than O/Ses.