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Are you an underpaid developer?

blog.goodsense.io

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Re: Are you an underpaid developer?

#81

Post by sherm8n »

coolsunglasses wrote: post #75
ashray wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just trying to understand but what does that 190k look like post tax in the valley?

I generally do my finances month to month, soooo: $16,000 per month $11,500 left after federal and social. ~$10,000 left after California takes its pound of flesh $1100 for rent (I am frugal and live with a roommate), utilities, cellphone $170/month for health insurance, $25 a month for motorcycle insurance Rounding monthly spending up to $2k. Roughly $8000 left over at the end of each month, meaning I stack up about…

Thanks for sharing that. Just curious, how hard do you have to work for that $16K?

Re: Are you an underpaid developer?

#82

Post by coolsunglasses »

sherm8n wrote: post #81
coolsunglasses wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally do my finances month to month, soooo: $16,000 per month $11,500 left after federal and social. ~$10,000 left after California takes its pound of flesh $1100 for rent (I am frugal and live with a roommate), utilities, cellphone $170/month for health insurance, $25 a month for motorcycle insurance Rounding monthly spending up to $2k. Roughly $8000 left over at the end of each month, meaning I stack up about…

Thanks for sharing that. Just curious, how hard do you have to work for that $16K?

In my experience, the pay was independent of how difficult the work was. The hardest job I ever had (technically) was the lowest paying one.

However, the stress has consistently gone up with any increase in pay and/or responsibility. Being a startup CTO (which I was before going back to contracting) was a total barrel of monkeys for example.

By the grace of exercise, diet, sleep, and vitamin D supplements do I keep my sanity intact.

Edit: I just noticed you're one of the Goodsense people. Could you elucidate your question a bit better so I can answer more completely? Do you want to email me instead?

Re: Are you an underpaid developer?

#83

Post by kaeawc »

niggler wrote: post #9

There is no such thing as an underpaid developer. The key skill is in recognizing your value as measured by the market. And to find that out, you need to test the waters. If you aren't testing the waters, you aren't underpaid (because you've restricted your scope to just the current firm, and are getting the only market price available) This is a real problem in finance, where a lot of people think they are worth mor…

If overvaluing is not only possible, but a problem in some industries, how is undervaluing not possible? By your statements I can overvalue myself but cannot undervalue myself for the same reason of not knowing my actual market value. I'm not trying to be nit picky, but I just don't understand.

It seems to me both are possible and become serious problems in all employee/employer relationships for a variety of reasons.

Re: Are you an underpaid developer?

#85

Post by ashray »

coolsunglasses wrote: post #75
ashray wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just trying to understand but what does that 190k look like post tax in the valley?

I generally do my finances month to month, soooo: $16,000 per month $11,500 left after federal and social. ~$10,000 left after California takes its pound of flesh $1100 for rent (I am frugal and live with a roommate), utilities, cellphone $170/month for health insurance, $25 a month for motorcycle insurance Rounding monthly spending up to $2k. Roughly $8000 left over at the end of each month, meaning I stack up about…

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I always wondered what tax was along with cost of living because to me Silicon Valley salaries look ridiculous! But I can see how being in the valley can be important for many companies and therefore the higher cost per employee is also justified. Of course, I'm sure there's also a good talent pool making it more worth it.

So I guess a good ballpark would be that most people in the valley would pay ~35% taxes in total. Then, the cost of living but I'm sure the quality of life is also pretty great :)

Re: Are you an underpaid developer?

#86

Post by coolsunglasses »

ashray wrote: post #85
coolsunglasses wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally do my finances month to month, soooo: $16,000 per month $11,500 left after federal and social. ~$10,000 left after California takes its pound of flesh $1100 for rent (I am frugal and live with a roommate), utilities, cellphone $170/month for health insurance, $25 a month for motorcycle insurance Rounding monthly spending up to $2k. Roughly $8000 left over at the end of each month, meaning I stack up about…

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I always wondered what tax was along with cost of living because to me Silicon Valley salaries look ridiculous! But I can see how being in the valley can be important for many companies and therefore the higher cost per employee is also justified. Of course, I'm sure there's also a good talent pool making it more worth it. So I guess a good ballpark would be that most people in th…

It's a trade off. It's only worth it me to be out here because I'm a founder. I think being here as a consultant could potentially be advantageous but it hasn't factored into anything non-entrepreneurial/job related.

Also I did the detailed break-down because I hate it when people drop vague numbers without any background detail. Drives me nuts. I know people are curious as to what the cost of living is like in SV, so I figured I'd hammer it out.

My goal is to found something consistently profitable and move back out to the country so I can go back to shooting and tooling around on dirt bikes.

Re: Are you an underpaid developer?

#87

Post by sherm8n »

coolsunglasses wrote: post #82
sherm8n wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing that. Just curious, how hard do you have to work for that $16K?

In my experience, the pay was independent of how difficult the work was. The hardest job I ever had (technically) was the lowest paying one. However, the stress has consistently gone up with any increase in pay and/or responsibility. Being a startup CTO (which I was before going back to contracting) was a total barrel of monkeys for example. By the grace of exercise, diet, sleep, and vitamin D supplements do I keep m…

Your answer was perfect. I would be interested in learning more about how you manage to sustain your sanity. Where can I email you? Or you can just use my contact form - http://blog.goodsense.io/contact

Re: Are you an underpaid developer?

#88

Post by coolsunglasses »

sherm8n wrote: post #87
coolsunglasses wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, the pay was independent of how difficult the work was. The hardest job I ever had (technically) was the lowest paying one. However, the stress has consistently gone up with any increase in pay and/or responsibility. Being a startup CTO (which I was before going back to contracting) was a total barrel of monkeys for example. By the grace of exercise, diet, sleep, and vitamin D supplements do I keep m…

Your answer was perfect. I would be interested in learning more about how you manage to sustain your sanity. Where can I email you? Or you can just use my contact form - http://blog.goodsense.io/contact

I sent my info in with a mention of who I am.

Re: Are you an underpaid developer?

#89

Post by zerr »

cpeterso wrote: post #25
hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #20

I'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/

But I guess you adjust compensations according to the remote place, right?

So someone in East Europe can't hope for e.g. Texas level salaries? (Not to speak about Silicon Valley)

And by adjusting, I mean not by living costs, but according to average salaries in some particular place. This is worth mentioning, because there are places where people are used to low wages, but living costs are on par or even more expensive compared to US. Especially true for East Europe...

Re: Are you an underpaid developer?

#90

Post by ptr »

argimenes wrote: post #33
dabent wrote: post #5

Salaried positions do include benefits packages, and in the US, the health insurance can be expensive or impossible for certain people to get. That said, if you know of one of those $124 freelance jobs in LA...

Who needs health insurance when the government -- with a triple-A credit rating -- provides free public healthcare? Hmm, wrong country ...

Maybe I'm being a bit "captain obvious" here, but, it wasn't free; you paid for it with your taxes.
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