A note on programmer salaries • Hacker News Board

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#61

Post by devdad » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 6:12 AM UTC

> "That feeling that I am actually the one making this work, and I'm also perfectly capable of talking with people and selling it"

The last part of this sentence is what is important. I'm a decent programmer, having built a few apps both for web and phones. My colleague is a better programmer. We're getting tons of work (by me selling) and outsourcing lots of it to other programmers we know, because they can't sell. Selling is hard, building trust is harder and doing so continuously is even harder.

My point, although a bit drawn out, is: It doesn't matter how great you are as a developer if you can't sell. Running a business is another kind of hard than dealing with race conditions. You can probably learn how to do both.

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#62

Post by purple-again » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 6:16 AM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #57

nardi wrote: post #19

The mansplaining in this thread is off the scale

Can you elaborate?

She/he/it/they can't reliably determine the gender of most of these posters. While statistically sure 80% are male there's a non 0% chance that the fates have aligned and only women happened to have clicked on and commented on this story so far.

It's an annoying SJW tactic of trying to shut down any criticism of a position a women has tried to take. Never mind that most of us probably didn't even notice the article was written by a women because that's not something we care about or look for (I had to go back and check after seeing this comment).

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#63

Post by curun1r » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 6:19 AM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #51

curun1r wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be unconventional advice, but with your level of experience, I say don't try to maximize compensation right now. Instead, look to find the best experience possible so you can have the best narrative possible when you've got 5-7 years experience. At your level, my guess is you'd top out at around $90k/yr if you bargained hard. Senior and Staff engineers can easily make twice that, especially when you find a s…

Curious why you think a 2 year software developer would top out at 90 in California. That's the lowest I've seen a bootcamp grad (no university computer science) get as their first engineering job.

He said he wanted to stay remote. If he was willing to come to the Valley or SF or even Silicon Beach, he could get more.

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#64

Post by purple-again » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 6:20 AM UTC

jacalata wrote: post #40

purple-again wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your value to society is the value of your work which in everyone else's context is your value. No one cares if your apartment is clean which is why no one pays you to clean your apartment.

Ah, so Steve jobs was worth $1/year.

Sigh. In what version of the world do you believe Steve Jobs ever went a year of making $1? Even if his tax return showed income of $1 for that year (it never did) the net worth of his assets increased significantly during the year and the value of that would be captured eventually.

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#65

Post by Consultant32452 » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 6:22 AM UTC

jacalata wrote: post #40

purple-again wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your value to society is the value of your work which in everyone else's context is your value. No one cares if your apartment is clean which is why no one pays you to clean your apartment.

Ah, so Steve jobs was worth $1/year.

$1 CEO salaries are just to let them avoid paying FICA (Medicare/Medicaid). Don't be fooled by this marketing tactic which is really just a tax dodge.

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#66

Post by fumigator » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 6:27 AM UTC

nardi wrote: post #19

The mansplaining in this thread is off the scale

"The mansplaining in this thread is off the scale"

OK, I assume you're of what used to known as the female gender and as such disqualified to comment on any male related issues. I shall be keeping an eye on you from now on. By any chance would the opposite of 'mansplaining' be bitchsplaining, I wonder :)

mansplaining:: a term of abuse used in the lunatic fringe of third-wave feminism to shut down discourse.

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#67

Post by meric » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 6:31 AM UTC

taeric wrote: post #25

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #2

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 workf…

virtue signaling is high, but actual virtue is punished

Hypocrisy?

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#68

Post by otto_ortega » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 6:32 AM UTC

purple-again wrote: post #47

otto_ortega wrote: post #32

Any advise on how to get a wage on the ranges mentioned on the article (or in the comments) while living OUTSIDE the USA? I live in Central America, but work for a Seattle based startup as a remote contractor and make $32K. Whenever I read about "common" salaries for programmers in the US an internal conflict unleashes on me. On one side what I make is on the middle-high range when compared to the local market, but i…

Is your cost of living even remotely comparable to those programmers living in the US? Keep in mind those big salaries tend to be in the highest cost of living areas of the US. Seniors (5-7 years) in say Raleigh are probably $70k to $100k. Also remembered that you might only have the opportunity to work that job presicely because you are in a low cost of living area and can be offered a low wage while delivering acce…

I completely understand that my cost of living is widely different, however given the level of globalization we have, and seeing how our very own profession enables money flowing freely from pole to pole makes the concept of someone earning 4 times more by producing similar or equal value hard to understand.

And I also understand that a big part of the reason why I was offered that position was because of the savings the company was going to get by hiring me, although it was not the only reason because I landed the job after completing a freelance gig which results were judged to be "great"

I'm not complaining about my salary just trying to figure out ways to pursue personal growth.

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#69

Post by curun1r » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 6:32 AM UTC

otto_ortega wrote: post #58

curun1r wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be unconventional advice, but with your level of experience, I say don't try to maximize compensation right now. Instead, look to find the best experience possible so you can have the best narrative possible when you've got 5-7 years experience. At your level, my guess is you'd top out at around $90k/yr if you bargained hard. Senior and Staff engineers can easily make twice that, especially when you find a s…

> people who have 15 years on paper but when you dig into it, it's the same one year of experience 15 times over. How do you differentiate "great years of experience" from that by looking at a CV?

The 15 years you see on paper. The 1 year 15 times you see during the interview. Almost no candidate comes in with a fabricated version of constant learning throughout their career. Many will try to fabricate or embellish the end state--what they know at the time the interview--but if you dig into when they learned what, almost no one is good enough at improvising on the spot so it becomes obvious when someone has had periods of stagnation.

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#70

Post by seedle12 » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 6:34 AM UTC

I'm an Android dev w/ Angular 2 and web app dev skills in . the UK.. I'm not even remotely scratching the surface of what engineers are being paid in the US. I'm making the transition to contracting.. working 12 - 14 hours permanently for peanuts is ridiculous.