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Want good programmers? Then pay them.

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Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#51

Post by Jabbles »

pavlov wrote: post #31
pmjordan wrote: post #13

Some context/perspective on the Austrian employment situation: * Salaries are typically quoted per month, but there is a bonus of 2 months's salary paid per year, so yearly gross is 14 x monthly. The bonus is taxed at a lower marginal rate (6%, no social security contribution, IIRC, vs 37.5% lowest marginal rate). * There is no fixed minimum wage in Austria. Instead, there is a collective bargaining system, which set…

Salaries are typically quoted per month, but there is a bonus of 2 months's salary paid per year, so yearly gross is 14 x monthly. Interesting. During the recent Euro crisis, when journalists discovered that some workers and officials in Greece enjoy a similar "extended year" of extra salary months, there was wide uproar across Europe about how the corrupted Greeks are being overpaid in ridiculous ways. In the EU it'…

I think the anger was from Greeks "paying themselves" more than they can afford, and getting into astonishing amounts of debt.

If you can afford to pay 14 months a year it's simply equivalent to an increase in your monthly salary with 12 months, which no one would have a problem with.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#52

Post by TamDenholm »

2200EUR a month is around £21.5k a year, which while in London is not enough to live on where i live (Edinburgh) is on the lower end of a normal wage range (£20k-£25k) for a PHP Developer here.

This is specifically the reason I work in London for 4-6 months of the year as a contractor and do my own thing the rest of the time.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#53

Post by accountoftheday »

seclorum wrote: post #10
mhofer wrote: post #3

I am a Vienna-based programmer and am looking at job adverts regularly. I fully agree with what you have written, sometimes I feel they mus be joking. There is no appreciation for hackers and what they are worth. Take this advert for example: http://derstandard.at/anzeiger/derjob/d/155533/c-senior-soft... 5 years experience in C++ and only 2,500 EUR gross? Seriously?

I'm in Vienna and work for a local startup in the mobile application development scene .. and yeah. Pay-rates are definitely not what they should be, here in Austria. I think it has a lot to do with the "Kollektiv-vertrag" prices being set too low by the government itself ..

one way to think of it: with your average salary you are propping up all the people not as good as you who still get the same salary. if you cannot feel good about this you then move away from your socialist country. I did.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#54

Post by gaius »

LinXitoW wrote: post #34

German dev here. Here, you hear companies complain about qualified laborer scarcity("Fachkräftemangel") and the politicians eat it up. It's not true though; it's just that the companies have totally wrong ideas of what they can demand/offer. There are a lot of unpaid internships, entry-level pay with senior-level experience jobs and a lot of the companies file much more job offers than they actually need, just so the…

Quite; allowing for inflation, developer salaries have been flat since 2001. There is not a shortage of developers, and that is provable.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#55

Post by kitsune_ »

pavlov wrote: post #7

Wake up, people: Are you serious? You want highly specialized people with actual skills, and expect them to be OK with that comparable low payment? If the same person sits down and starts creating his own software, he will probably earn much more one year later by himself already. Probably not. Most programmers don't have any idea what software sells and how to sell it.

I seriously doubt that. It's not like most programmers live in a bubble and never have contact with other people.

As a programmer you usually accumulate detailed domain knowledge in a variety of industries. You often end up knowing more about the core business of a company than their individual stakeholders and employees. Programming requires specifications, and often, an IT project forces companies to identify and formulate business processes for the first time. Often this leads to the realization that existing processes are simply broken.

On top of that, you get a feel for how companies work. As an example: internal politics, warring departments battling each other. You see good and bad examples of leadership and management.

In meetings with clients I often feel more like a management consultant than a programmer.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#57

Post by pmjordan »

zeemonkee wrote: post #47
pmjordan wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear: collective bargaining normally only sets minimum conditions. You're free to negotiate for more, the employer just might not go with it. And I know what you mean about foreign clients: the majority of my contracting revenue has been from clients in more progressive countries. Part of it is also that Austria is a small country (though higher population than Finland), so of course there are more potential g…

I don't know about Austria, here it's a case of "well, this is the industry standard, why do you deserve more? - oh you're a foreigner? Just be grateful we even give you a job" (even if you speak Finnish). So, most employers don't go with it ;-) I'm quite happy with foreign clients as they pay better and the work tends to be more interesting - the only killer is the different timezones.

Yes, there is also a strong bias against employing non-natives (or at least non-Germanics) in Austria, orthogonal to the other issues, which was quite shocking after living the previous years of my adult life in the UK, which has a much more liberal culture. This bigotry is much less of an issue (I'd almost say a non-issue) in actual technology companies though. It's telling that the proportion of immigrants among the self employed is much higher than the total proportion of immigrants (though that effect is seen in many countries, and I don't know if it's much higher in Austria).

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#58

Post by dagw »

benjaminwootton wrote: post #28

Sometimes small and medium businesses simply don't have the money to pay the big bucks that we think we are worth. I've worked with a number of companies turning over in the low £millions, and it's very rare that the founder is taking lots of money off the table whilst low balling the staff on salaries. These businesses simply don't have the margins and the runways to let salaries get out of hand. As most of the econ…

can can only sensibly offer a salary of 75% of the market rate

I'd happily consider working for 75% of market rate, if I could work a 60% week. Add to that the ability to work remotely and things can start to look really enticing. If on the other hand you expect someone to work 100%, plus unpaid over time, plus be in the office every morning by 8 am, plus being on call, plus an absolute minimum of vacation days, and still only want to pay them 75%, then hiring will be almost impossible.

If you really can only afford 75% of market rate, you can probably still get good people if you're willing to be flexible on all the other non-salary aspects of the job.

Re: Want good programmers? Then pay them.

#59

Post by kamaal »

Well this looks like the story of nearly developer community no matter which part of the world you are in. Lets face it 'monthly salaries' suck.

Programmers are a unique lot, Well last few weeks I've been pulled up for work on weekends. Almost 18 hour schedules a day. And what do I get in return? Not even a thank you. Its presumed to be a part of my job. Any other profession and unions would be up in arms about bonuses and pay for extra time. But not here, not in our profession. We don't have any work hours, we don't have holidays and vacation, we don't have a concept of over time pay. What we get in return are stupid certificates, mementos and some bravos(as though somebody cares about them).

Compensations in the software world are a huge rip off. There is no co relation between the work and pay that we get.

And please don't tell me about start up's. If you are lucky by any means to end up with good amount of stock, and an another round of luck if the start up is successful then you are OK. But most of us fail ingloriously, spend best years of lives burning through crazy hours, without vacations for peanuts in return. The Start up lottery is what it is, its a lottery.

Over the years my net learning's are:

1. Corporate/Company loyalty is JackCrap.

2. Work only as much as your paid, use rest of your time for personal projects and other ways of making money.

3. Save money, and invest for your early retirement. Never having to depend on employment to make a living post 40's.

4. Make people pay, never do anything for free. Cash counts.

5. Your biggest asset is time. Use your time well to make money, and invest it over large periods of time to make more of it.

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