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A note on programmer salaries

stephaniehurlburt.com

21–30 of 230 posts

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#21
post #6
post #3

Taking advice from the article to share about salary: I have 2.5 years of software development experience but no formal education. I am paid 65k/yr but as a remote contractor, so I pay my own taxes and healthcare, which effectively makes my salary about 57k/yr. I'm considering looking for a new position. What is a reasonable salary to ask for? Edit: I live in California and prefer to continue working remotely

Impossible to answer without context. Location? Specialization?

Thanks for asking. I live in southern California and do backend development, usually with Node and Go.

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#22

I mean, it's pretty simple, but it took a long time to internalize: If you don't have anyone else making you an offer, then you're worth that amount. In this case, you were worth $42k and $56k respectively. If you'd shopped around, you'd have been worth more. But you didn't, so you weren't. That's not a bad thing, either. Security is nice, and interviews are a pain. But it really is that simple. If you don't like you…

>If you'd shopped around, you'd have been worth more. But you didn't, so you weren't.

Isn't that circular logic? By that logic, nothing can ever be undervalued, because its fair value is defined by how much it's sold for.

If you want to go all supply-and-demand, an employee's value is still not what they request, it's what it would cost to replace them, on average

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#23
post #3

Taking advice from the article to share about salary: I have 2.5 years of software development experience but no formal education. I am paid 65k/yr but as a remote contractor, so I pay my own taxes and healthcare, which effectively makes my salary about 57k/yr. I'm considering looking for a new position. What is a reasonable salary to ask for? Edit: I live in California and prefer to continue working remotely

I have the same experience. How do u swing a job like that/market yourself?

Well, there are a lot of remote job resources to find a company open to that. Specifically I found the position from the Hacker News Who's Hiring. I guess I did well enough with my intro letter and coding challenge to them for them to schedule an interview.

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#24
It seems like these kinds of salaries only really exist for full time employees in the US. As a software architect (engineer team size ~100) in the UK I was only making £65k. I could have shopped around and got more, much more if I went to London but still nothing like I read about in the US.

I ended up leaving full time employment for contracting/consulting.

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#25

I mean, it's pretty simple, but it took a long time to internalize: If you don't have anyone else making you an offer, then you're worth that amount. In this case, you were worth $42k and $56k respectively. If you'd shopped around, you'd have been worth more. But you didn't, so you weren't. That's not a bad thing, either. Security is nice, and interviews are a pain. But it really is that simple. If you don't like you…

While this is a simplistic view that might help you feel good about taking advantage of someone, it is ridiculously easily abused. And, quite frankly, scares me if I think about it for too long.

I don't want a society where there are people left behind simply because they did not make a job out of making more money. Nor do I want a society where services performed by folks leads to a massive wealth imbalance in workforces that don't have people specifically tasked with keeping this from happening. Especially with how anti union/similar setup current cultures are.

And to be clear, I realize that that ship has somewhat sailed. Nobody was specifically tasked with making sure women/minorities were paid fairly. As a result, we have an obvious problem. One where the incentives have aligned such that many companies do not have an incentive to fix it. (There has to be a term for the occurrence where virtue signaling is high, but actual virtue is punished. Anyone know it?)

That is, you are absolutely right in many senses. But I worry that as long as not all companies are paying more fair wages, than there is little incentive to be the one company paying fair wages. (There are incentives to pay above normal pay, but that can still be below fair. See again current women's pay gap.)

So, can you reduce it down to folks are ultimately paid what they are worth. And if they simply shopped themselves around they could get more, but they didn't so they have accepted their low worth, so they are, ipso facto, worth less. Great. I just think we have plenty of evidence that shows that doesn't actually work.

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#26
post #3

Taking advice from the article to share about salary: I have 2.5 years of software development experience but no formal education. I am paid 65k/yr but as a remote contractor, so I pay my own taxes and healthcare, which effectively makes my salary about 57k/yr. I'm considering looking for a new position. What is a reasonable salary to ask for? Edit: I live in California and prefer to continue working remotely

Out of school, my salary history went $67k for 6 months -> $82k for 7 month -> $90k for 18 months -> $110k (present). East coast of US. I took more than 6 months off between each job, so I've had a cumulative two years' vacation since graduation. Recommended. And if someone doesn't offer you the salary you want, say thank you but no thank you. As for convincing people, just be sure to have side projects and be sure y…

Thanks for sharing!

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#27
Short story: I started out very hard on myself and pushed myself 24/7 to be the best I can be. My first job was $65k/yr, raised to $75k/yr at the end of the first year. I had a strong suspicion I was worth more, but I took a strategic approach to finding out. A year later I took an offer at $140k/yr. A year and a half later I accepted $195k/yr ($165k base + $30k bonus). In my current state I'm stuck somewhere between wondering when this will end and yet knowing very concretely the tremendous amount of value I create at organizations (not just in engineering proper, but also team development, leadership, best practices, biz/ops, etc.). I'm optimistic I'll be able to keep this upward trajectory going, it just may not continue to be in the form of salary.

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#28
This is how things are the world over.

I once worked for a company which was happy to support a grad student in the US, but would not pay me a similar RA/tuition salary here. This, even if I had better results to show in a shorter period.

Equity is alien, and generally connections/networking commands more salary than skills/knowledge. Really sad TBH.

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#29
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An increase in the number of people attracted to programming jobs does not necessarily move the supply curve of people who are good at programming.

I have a friend who suggests the opposite of the grandparent's assertion. Since every new line of code represents technical debt that must be serviced, each new programmer generates a maintenance burden sufficient to occupy the time of 2 more programmers.

This assumes companies value servicing tech debt.

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#30

I mean, it's pretty simple, but it took a long time to internalize: If you don't have anyone else making you an offer, then you're worth that amount. In this case, you were worth $42k and $56k respectively. If you'd shopped around, you'd have been worth more. But you didn't, so you weren't. That's not a bad thing, either. Security is nice, and interviews are a pain. But it really is that simple. If you don't like you…

>If you'd shopped around, you'd have been worth more. But you didn't, so you weren't. Isn't that circular logic? By that logic, nothing can ever be undervalued, because its fair value is defined by how much it's sold for. If you want to go all supply-and-demand, an employee's value is still not what they request, it's what it would cost to replace them, on average

You are correct - to the company he's worth the amount it would take to replace him.

Plenty of people can negotiate to get closer to that so negotiating a raise isn't pointless - but lateral moves are often easier.

Although you can be more valuable in a different company - for eg. if your current company isn't good at utilizing your specializations.

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