I just graphed the data: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/839/unledwte.png/
Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?
71–80 of 166 posts
Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?
#72I just graphed the data: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/839/unledwte.png/
Thank you very much - I don't understand why HN doesn't have at least a bar graph by default.
Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
The unit next door to me has been on the market for some time - it was upgraded to include a washer/dryer - new paint, refinished hardwood floors and replaced kitchen appliances. It is really nice, a one bedroom, parking and pets allowed: $2,600 I have a 2-bedroom and have been looking for a 3-bedroom... The rents are crazy. There was a beautiful 3-bedroom little house near me; they wanted $7200 per month with a $10,…
If you think San Francisco rents are expensive I suggest you don't move to Manhattan. I live in a (true) one bedroom second-storey walkup in Chelsea, which actually has a new kitchen and bathroom (renovations made after the last tenant left to get it out of rent stabilization) and pay $2,000 a month for it. And that actually seems to be a pretty good deal. For a decent building (one with an elevator where you don't h…
"Still, work is a 7 minute walk away and I live in Manhattan. That's hard to beat."
For you obviously. Some people don't want to live in a big city, or especially some place like Manhattan. It is all in the eye of the beholder.
I live in the mountains in Colorado, work from home (20 second commute) and pay less per month for my mortgage. So for me THATS hard to beat.
Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?
#74Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?
#75This poll exemplifies the problem with all of these polls: it doesn't say what it's measuring. I would put in vastly different numbers for base salary vs base salary + bonuses + shares + other benefits. I see the same on Glassdoor on elsewhere. The bigger problem is the people volunteering such information have differing views on what to put making such information mostly useless. Also, if life has taught me nothing…
Agree totally. For instance, I could never figure out if these American polls take pension deductions into account. Where I live, the employer pays additional ~20% on top of base salary into various pension/saving funds, but since everyone gets it, it isn't taken into consideration when comparing salaries. I always wondered if seeing a quoted $100K salary in the US - does it include these pension payments or not.
Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?
#76This poll exemplifies the problem with all of these polls: it doesn't say what it's measuring. I would put in vastly different numbers for base salary vs base salary + bonuses + shares + other benefits. I see the same on Glassdoor on elsewhere. The bigger problem is the people volunteering such information have differing views on what to put making such information mostly useless. Also, if life has taught me nothing…
Agree totally. For instance, I could never figure out if these American polls take pension deductions into account. Where I live, the employer pays additional ~20% on top of base salary into various pension/saving funds, but since everyone gets it, it isn't taken into consideration when comparing salaries. I always wondered if seeing a quoted $100K salary in the US - does it include these pension payments or not.
What's a pension payment? :)
Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?
#77Not everyone works in the US - fairly narrow minded view of the world?
Cost of living varies dramatically across the globe as does currency value.
To make it truly a global poll, I suppose he should have asked how units, x, of a mixed basket of local goods, b, could you buy per year worked. xb = only possible correct statement of income.
You come up with b and repost the poll if you so desire.
Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
These numbers are meaningless outside the US. And I don't just mean taxes. Cost of living, housing, healthcare, insurances, transportation, social security, all of these things are so vastly different outside the US. It's pointless to compare US salaries to those in France or India.
It's even different inside the US. For example, my company currently pays all health care costs for me (in addition to the salary). But as I understand with many other (small?) companies you have to pay for the insurance yourself.
The correlation between company size and amount of insurance premium paid by the company isn't very strong in my experience, at least for tech companies. The smallest percentage I paid was at the smallest company, actually.
It's got more to do with the attitude of management, but oddly, even the companies that pay all or almost all of the premiums don't seem to discuss that.
Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?
#79Not everyone works in the US - fairly narrow minded view of the world?
This poll was clearly designed to canvas United States cities, even if it wasn't explicitly stated. Is that narrow-minded? I don't think so. If I happened upon a poll on a Russian tech site that mentioned Omsk and Moscow and St. Petersburg, I'd assume it was a national poll. And then I'd move on. Perhaps it's narrow-minded to assume that a poll on a U.S.-based tech site should by default be global in scope?
Audience defines the scope of the site, not the country where it is hosted.
Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Why should a programmer that is twice as fast as his peers only get 10% or 20% more?" It really depends on the industry. Take finance. Having a programmer who can spit out code ten tiems as fast as his compatriots doesn't result in a ten-fold improvement of returns. There's some economic benefit (because there is real value to having better programmers) but don't expect it to be proportional to skill in an industry…
"Having a programmer who can spit out code ten times as fast as his compatriots doesn't result in a ten-fold improvement of returns." Or maybe it does. A programmer using a better algo might save CPU cycles, storage needed, time to complete, or may even do something which would be plainly impossible for an average programmer. So, in the real world, a programmer who is better by 10% actually yields far more than 10 fo…
Salary is unfortunately not (jut) about how good you are, and not even how much money you really make for the company, but how much your managers THINK they need to pay you (minimally) to keep you, while still making it all profitable. So it's much more complicated than just making good code or being efficient, it's just not that linear... like with any other job, it's also about your personality, connections, who's your manager and does he appreciate your work properly, what company you work for, what field of work, etc.