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A note on programmer salaries

stephaniehurlburt.com

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Re: A note on programmer salaries

#201

Post by mstade »

Swinx43 wrote: post #185
zerr wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking more about Ilford, Barking, Wembley, etc...

Sorry but those are definitely not what counts as nice areas in London. I also doubt you would find something for £600 in some of those areas today.

I too doubted this, but I suppose it is possible, though the pickings are slim at best:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/map.html?locatio...

Also note a lot of these would be likely £600+ since this doesn't show additional fees (estate agent, taxes etc.)

Now, this may seem like an abundance of results – but a number of these listings are actually house shares, parking lots, garages etc. Maybe you'd be ok with sharing a house (I wouldn't) but I'm sure we can all agree living in parking space is out of the question.

So maybe it's doable, but I think it'd be really hard work trying to find a place that's not kept together with shoe string and duct tape, while being in a decent area with a decent commute.

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#202

Post by shmerl »

ingenuous2 wrote: post #188
shmerl wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you recognize, that the statement that everyone is always paid fairly is false. Thinking otherwise borders on some kind of serious ethical blindness.

Where did they make that statement? All I'm hearing GP say is if the only way to know your worth to the market is to test it. There is no other way to measure what your employment is worth.

It was phrased that way above, read carefully. If all they meant was "if you aren't paid fairly, leave and find a better place", that's OK, but that's not how it was phrased (which was quite improper).

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#203

Post by tengbretson »

taeric wrote: post #182
chrisco255 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No different than shopping for a car and buying the first one you see. You HAVE to shop around for your career. Holy crap, it's the biggest investment of your life. If you don't care, it's nobody's job to care for you, and it shouldn't be. ALWAYS shop around or don't complain when you find out you're being paid below market.

My main problem with this is it is victim blaming, at large. And again, leads to situations such as women and minority pay being significantly lower for no good reason. At an individual level, it is good actionable advice. At a societal level, it really is just victim blaming. And it is hard to day where the line is between those views.

Failure to self-educate, negotiate or maximize your leverage does not in any way make someone a victim.

What sick thought crept its way into our collective consciousness that has made us glorify being a victim above all else. We have been fooled into holding up literally the opposite of success as the highest virtue.

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#205

Post by dang »

johnvonneumann wrote: post #98
dang wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've banned this account for personal attack, ideological boilerplate, and breaking the guideline against calling names in arguments. The parent comment wasn't substantive but that doesn't mean you can break the site rules like this.

Who did you ban? The first response or second one?

When I say "this account" it means the one I'm directly replying to.

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#206

Post by maccard »

ingenuous2 wrote: post #189
maccard wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this sentiment posted before and it's pretty much untrue. At 120k/year, even spending 4K/month on rent, your leftover pay is still more than my gross salary. I know SF is expensive, but if you can't have a nice QOL on a the leftovers of a 120k salary, your location isn't the problem.

$120k in SF probably amounts to take home just under $6k/mo. $4k goes to rent, so you have $2k for everything else. That's not a great QOL. For comparison, I ran the Mexico City / SF cost of living on Numbeo[0]. $38k in Mexico City would need to be $140k in SF for comparable quality of life. (side note -- this COL calculator is super neat! anyone have any evidence of the accuracy?) [0] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-…

$2k/month is what many people I know take home after tax and before rent.

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#207

Post by needlessly2 »

purple-again wrote: post #50
komali2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can build and deploy a webapp from zero to nothing you could make 120k usd in San Francisco, cause that's what bootcamp grads are doing and pretty much the only thing they bring to the table is webapp skills. Visa and etc might make it harder for you, but if it were me I'd start browsing for remote positions at San Francisco companies.

$120k is San Fran could easily be a worse quality of life than $40k in Central America (too broad to say for certain).

>$120k is San Fran could easily be a worse quality of life than $40k in Central America (too broad to say for certain).

this is the dumbest thing i've heard today. Stop exaggerating.

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#208

Post by kahnpro »

zerr wrote: post #135
kayoone wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes Berlin, i make close to 70k which is decent here for senior devs without management responsibility i guess and that amounts to ~3300 after taxes, health insurance etc. I could save more by getting a private health insurance, but that has its downsides too. The main reason why this works is that Berlin is still really cheap compared to London but even compared to Hamburg or Munich. Rents are getting up though, sti…

The bad thing in Berlin is that 60-70K is really a ceiling, if you want to stay in non-managerial engineering, and that amount is not something unrealistic for engineers living in cheaper parts of the world working remotely, so there is not much incentive to move to Berlin. Btw, why do you find London much expensive? I mean, you can rent (or mortgage) a decent apartment in the nice district for ~600 GBP per month. An…

You're crazy if you think you can find an apartment for that price in London...

For £600 you can get a small room in a flatshare. Maybe a tiny studio or nice room really far from the centre. But a decent apartment in a nice district? Double that number and start from there... more realistic is 3x or 4x.

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#209

Post by taeric »

tengbretson wrote: post #203
taeric wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main problem with this is it is victim blaming, at large. And again, leads to situations such as women and minority pay being significantly lower for no good reason. At an individual level, it is good actionable advice. At a societal level, it really is just victim blaming. And it is hard to day where the line is between those views.

Failure to self-educate, negotiate or maximize your leverage does not in any way make someone a victim. What sick thought crept its way into our collective consciousness that has made us glorify being a victim above all else. We have been fooled into holding up literally the opposite of success as the highest virtue.

I haven't glorified being a victim. Quite the contrary. I just refuse to glorify anything the exploits and relies on someone being a victim.

That is, my question is what sick thought made it acceptable to take repression and holding down of full segments of a population under the guise of them individually not standing up for themselves acceptable?

Seriously, the evidence is quite clear that this attitude is complete nonsense and only works for people that have certain advantages already. I get that you feel you have worked hard for your position. So have I. I also get that I was additionally lucky that I was able to reap the rewards of my hard work. Many aren't. And to be ok with that is a truly disgusting collective consciousness problem.

Re: A note on programmer salaries

#210

Post by fumigator »

dang wrote: post #205
johnvonneumann wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who did you ban? The first response or second one?

When I say "this account" it means the one I'm directly replying to.

> When I say "this account" it means the one I'm directly replying to.

I'm confused too :(

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