lol
Are you an underpaid developer?
101–110 of 119 posts
Re: Are you an underpaid developer?
#102Earlier 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…
$150/mo for insurance for a family is super low unless your company has really good benefits. If you're working at a startup, you're more likely to be putting in $800/mo on top of the employer's contribution.
Re: Are you an underpaid developer?
#103There'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?
When I said outlier, I actually meant the type of work I do. From the discussions here, most people don't do enterprise software development and especially non-web development. I'm pretty sure there are developers that make a lot more than I do but yes, I agree that I do make a lot of it and am grateful for that.
I also agree with you on the whole culture around not discussing your salary. I've worked in other countries and it's a normal question a friend/colleague would ask.
Re: Are you an underpaid developer?
#104A 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.
Your chances are around 1:50? 1:10 if you really pick companies well (in that case you should just invest in the stock market).
Each hit will net you around 1 million in 4 years. Average it out, and you are looking at 1 million in 40 years.
You can make far more bonus money at a good software corp...
Re: Are you an underpaid developer?
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're making $100k in say, San Francisco, about half your paycheck is gone to federal, state, and local taxes, social security, retirement plan, etc. Say you're left with $4200/mo. Take a look at house prices and rents there. There goes half of that. Now half of what's left on food. Now you need transportation, clothes, a phone, insurance, etc. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty good life. And you can definitely s…
I make significantly less than $100k in San Francisco and net significantly more than $4200 a month. I don't have a retirement plan, but I doubt that would be enough to cover the difference.
IF you make less than 100k in SF, you are doing something really wrong...
Re: Are you an underpaid developer?
#106I'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.
That's interesting. Do you have any pointers on how to do something like that?
Re: Are you an underpaid developer?
#107It's just human nature to want more, but look at the big picture. Are you happy with what you do? In the end that matters most. Chasing a higher $$ only leads to frustration, you'll never be happy cuz someone else is being paid more.
My salary is lower than many cited here, but I live in Northern MN, work from home (or where ever I want), get great benefits, work on projects that really matter to me. I see my family much more than the average worker bee out there. I get to work with new technologies and have a lot of autonomy and responsibility. Life is good, too good sometimes.
Re: Are you an underpaid developer?
#108SV here as well, independent contractor. 190k a year, ~6 years of experience, was making ~120k 3 years ago, ~40k a year 4 years ago. Contracts are remote, so I could leave but choose not to for various reasons. Starting a product and services company soon for developers (the customers) based on the schleps I've encountered. Just need to wrap up the current contract...
I'm in a similar situation to yours with similar numbers now. Just curious, what technology are you using? I'm on Rails, outside the valley, but my clients are inside. Ironically enough, 2 years ago I was working for $500/week, and working twice as hard as I am now
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Re: Are you an underpaid developer?
#109I'm in southern Ontario. My experience: A few years mostly doing development on a LAMP stack and admin stuff on Linux/Windows systems along with some iOS dev thrown in there. Salaried at $50k from my day job and doing some part-time work.I've yet to met anyone who has made over $70k/year here doing this kind of work. (at least, they won't say how much they've earned)
I will agree with supersaiyan , you are doing something wrong. I live in same area and except junior developers I don't know anybody making 50k/year as developer. Change job.
Re: Are you an underpaid developer?
#110Earlier 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…
$150/mo for insurance for a family is super low unless your company has really good benefits. If you're working at a startup, you're more likely to be putting in $800/mo on top of the employer's contribution.
I'd edit it if I could, good catch!