A lot of startup give great stock options to their employees as well.. Salary is not only thing you look at, if you want salary go work for Google and waste your life doing one thing over and over again.
Are you an underpaid developer?
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Re: Are you an underpaid developer?
#22There's a lot more to a total comp package than just straight salary. I'm probably an outlier on HN as a .Net dev in finance in NYC. I was making ~250k as a freelancer but went perm. I now make ~200-220k after bonus but I now have a gold-plated health plan, 5 weeks vacation, a retirement plan and a training budget. It isn't always about straight up cash.
It's not about cash, but you sure do make a lot of it. I don't think this is necessarily an outlier. It's just that other developers don't know it's possible.
The problem with the US work culture vs somewhere like Europe is that talking about your salary is so taboo. And it shouldn't be. What's wrong with compensating people who are comparable in skills and execution fairly?
Re: Are you an underpaid developer?
#23A lot of startup give great stock options to their employees as well.. Salary is not only thing you look at, if you want salary go work for Google and waste your life doing one thing over and over again.
What one thing is that?
Writecodeeatgourmetfoodsellstock?
Re: Are you an underpaid developer?
#24Re: Are you an underpaid developer?
#25I'm depressed looking at those figures now. I'm not in the US, but still... As a developer who works both on backend and frontend, let alone sysadmin work, I'm not making 1/3 of that. I should look into working with US contractors.
Mozilla hires remote developers from all over the world. Working remotely is "business as usual", not the exception, for most teams. Plus, Mozilla has offices in about a dozen cities in (I think) 9 countries.
Re: Are you an underpaid developer?
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
How did you make a big jump from 115K to 185K? congrats!
2 job changes, I did not plan this actually... Also, I specialized, no longer a generalist. Edit: the green card helped!
Now that's interesting, the specialization gave you a salary boost then? I always thought that after some point (team leaders / project leaders) a CS generalist would be more valuable.
Edit: Wow, very insightful responses, thanks yekko, svachalek, josh
Re: Are you an underpaid developer?
#27Posting this on a throwaway account, but I would like some feedback. I'm currently making $60k in Boston as a front-end developer with just over a year of working experience. I've wondered for a while whether I'm underpaid, but I am getting a lot of experience, so I figure it evens out. I mostly wonder what I should ask for when I start my next job after I pass the hallowed "two years experience" mark, and whether I should ask for a raise now.
Re: Are you an underpaid developer?
#28I have no idea what those freelancer hourly rates translate to after taxes, benefits, etc.
Figure what you'd be taxed at that salary and add 10-15%. Freelancing also comes with some tricky challenges of maintaining consistent work. There's either too much or not enough at any given time. And if you have multiple jobs going at once, finding time for vacation becomes almost impossible (try lining up a good time to take a break from 3 different projects on 3 different schedules).
In short, more money from freelancing isn't the simple thing it looks like from this article.
Re: Are you an underpaid developer?
#29I'm depressed looking at those figures now. I'm not in the US, but still... As a developer who works both on backend and frontend, let alone sysadmin work, I'm not making 1/3 of that. I should look into working with US contractors.
Mozilla hires remote developers from all over the world. Working remotely is "business as usual", not the exception, for most teams. Plus, Mozilla has offices in about a dozen cities in (I think) 9 countries. http://careers.mozilla.org/en-US/
Thanks Chris, I'll look into this opportunity.
Re: Are you an underpaid developer?
#30I'm depressed looking at those figures now. I'm not in the US, but still... As a developer who works both on backend and frontend, let alone sysadmin work, I'm not making 1/3 of that. I should look into working with US contractors.
Setup a business entity in the US. Work from your country. No need for a visa.