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Poll: Full-time software engineers in London, what's your annual salary?

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Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in London, what's your annual salary?

#391

Post by dmmalam »

shadchnev wrote: post #259

Having read all comments, I'm somewhat lost. I was hired in London in 2008 on £37K, it was my first programming job after uni, I had clean resume. Today a competent beginner with a few web projects under his belt easily gets around £45K. I'm hiring developers for my startup – http://www.makersacademy.com – and I wish I had more applicants. I'm happy to pay £350-450/day for a decent Ruby dev and or around £60K permane…

Just from what you said, the solution 'seems' very simple: Compensate more. This may mean pay, equity, or being able to work on interesting problems. From my experience there are many extremely talented programmers in London, and these guys can work anywhere they want, including starting their own company or moving to the US.

Also 'coolness' is hard to define, I see many startups think cool is having some beanbags and a pingpong table, whilst working on a standard CRUD RoR app. To most talented engineers, they would much rather be working on interesting technical challenges. This is how hedge funds get them: squeezing a few millis out of an already optimal trading engine by whatever means possible is extremely fun. Same reason game companies, F1 and GCHQ can pay peanuts.

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in London, what's your annual salary?

#392

Post by jblok »

jamesdeer wrote: post #188
yashodhan wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently way out in the boondocks (zone 8). I'm looking to move into Zone 2/3 East London (Shoreditch/Bethnal Green area) to be closer to work. There are quite a few flat shares available for £500-600 pcm, which is my budget. That leaves me with £400/month to live off, which is good enough I suppose.

I'm a start-up founder, and live in Bethnal Green. It's a lovely place to live (in London). Our office is just off of Brick Lane, and it's a short 15 minutes to work every morning :)

Bethnal Green isn't exactly a lovely place to live. It's saving grace is it's proximity to central London/Shoreditch, but there's nothing stand-out about it at all. It seems like no one respects it - every day I walk home from the station past at least 1 drunk/crackhead and rubbish all over the street.

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in London, what's your annual salary?

#393

Post by Evernoob »

nicwise wrote: post #72
tome wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a contractor you can spend a lot of time just marketing yourself, invoicing, etc. I'd imagine this is more like 50k per year in practice.

I'm calling BS on this, being a contractor. I spend around 10 mins a week invoicing. Nearly no time "marketing myself". I DO spending a bit of time saying "no, I have a contract" to recruiters tho.

I'm a contractor also, front end, and my agency invoices for me. All I do is fill out a timesheet on work time. It's literally no different than a perm role, but I get 100k instead of the 50k - 60k I'd get for the same role as a perm.

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in London, what's your annual salary?

#394

Post by lawnchair_larry »

tptacek wrote: post #275
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How employment markets work, and fairness, are not the same thing. It's not a misconception, it's a criticism. And of course in the real world, wages are not based on supply and demand. They're based on leverage and BATNA. Simply put, given two equal employees (hypothetically, if it were possible to measure this), it's not "fair" to give one $50k and one $300k. It's not about the prevailing wage, it's about the contr…

No, the argument you're making is irrational. You're a $100k/yr FTE dev. A VP above you makes $200k/yr. You believe that VP should be making $50k/yr. But your position isn't improved at all if they do. You're still making $100k/yr, and someone else is taking the $150k/yr premium. So you say, "no, I should get a share of that $150k/yr premium." Well, OK, why aren't you? What you're saying is that you're worth more tha…

There is nothing irrational about equitable pay, unless you're the check-writer trying to depress wages and pay everyone the minimum that you can get away with. This is, of course, why salaries are secret.

For what it's worth, I have made substantially more than my coworkers in almost all of my jobs (based on what I could infer from watercooler talk after being around a while), and I don't think that's fair either. I actually chewed out one of my managers once when I found out a coworker was making half of what I was.

Why wasn't he paying him more? Because he could get away with it, not because it was fair. He was a hard worker, very smart, but rather timid. Put this guy against the alpha male manager, and unless the manager wants to be charitable, that guy is not getting a dime more than the manager can bully him into taking. What's worse, the guy will probably come out thinking he got a good deal.

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in London, what's your annual salary?

#395

Post by lawnchair_larry »

tptacek wrote: post #374
ricardobeat wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company has an extra $150k to spend on everyone else, R&D or sales, or distribute as profit. I think it's a net positive (for the employee, company and/or society).

Before the VP got his pay cut, you made $100k. After the VP got his pay cut, you made $100k. Explain to me how this is a rational thing, in the economic sense of "rational", for you to care about.

> Explain to me how this is a rational thing, in the economic sense of "rational"

Ah, I think this explains the disagreement. That kind of "rational" has nothing to do with fairness, and everything to do with maximizing individual payoff. I think you've conflated the two, when they're almost completely incompatible. I knew you were a closet republican ;)

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in London, what's your annual salary?

#396

Post by tptacek »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #394
tptacek wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the argument you're making is irrational. You're a $100k/yr FTE dev. A VP above you makes $200k/yr. You believe that VP should be making $50k/yr. But your position isn't improved at all if they do. You're still making $100k/yr, and someone else is taking the $150k/yr premium. So you say, "no, I should get a share of that $150k/yr premium." Well, OK, why aren't you? What you're saying is that you're worth more tha…

There is nothing irrational about equitable pay, unless you're the check-writer trying to depress wages and pay everyone the minimum that you can get away with. This is, of course, why salaries are secret. For what it's worth, I have made substantially more than my coworkers in almost all of my jobs (based on what I could infer from watercooler talk after being around a while), and I don't think that's fair either. I…

I don't think you addressed my point. How are you better off if a 200k/yr VP is replaced with a 50k/yr VP, and whatever benefit you get from that transition, why should it depend on what some other person makes? If you did work worth 150k/yr, you should be making 150k/yr regardless.

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in London, what's your annual salary?

#397

Post by tptacek »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #395
tptacek wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before the VP got his pay cut, you made $100k. After the VP got his pay cut, you made $100k. Explain to me how this is a rational thing, in the economic sense of "rational", for you to care about.

> Explain to me how this is a rational thing, in the economic sense of "rational" Ah, I think this explains the disagreement. That kind of "rational" has nothing to do with fairness, and everything to do with maximizing individual payoff. I think you've conflated the two, when they're almost completely incompatible. I knew you were a closet republican ;)

What definition of "rational" are you working from?

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in London, what's your annual salary?

#398

Post by ricardobeat »

tptacek wrote: post #374
ricardobeat wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company has an extra $150k to spend on everyone else, R&D or sales, or distribute as profit. I think it's a net positive (for the employee, company and/or society).

Before the VP got his pay cut, you made $100k. After the VP got his pay cut, you made $100k. Explain to me how this is a rational thing, in the economic sense of "rational", for you to care about.

Wanting your employer/society to perform better is pretty rational in my book, and could result in personal economic gains in the future. I think you are working with a very narrow definition of "rational" here (earning more money right now).

Here is an analogy: the business has $150k to spend. Would you rather have it spent on a pair of paintings for the meeting room, or in company-wide renovations? I think it's rational to choose the latter, though it doesn't immediately affect your bottom line.

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in London, what's your annual salary?

#399

Post by gaius »

tptacek wrote: post #388
gaius wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply that in a free market, the market would clear and sellers (talent) would reach an equilibrium with buyers (employers). That cannot happen because the buyers - for ingrained, cultural reasons of reinforcing a class hierarchy - refuse to play. So the most senior engineer in an organization, no matter how much value he creates, can never be paid more than a middle or in some cases junior manager incase he gets "i…

Oh, oh oh oh. You're talking about the UK (of course). I'm sorry, I misunderstood. Is the UK class system still that bad? (I'd heard horror stories but assumed they were at least somewhat overblown).

Imagine Downton Abbey with beige carpets and fluorescent lighting and that's most British companies today. Except it's not blue-blooded aristos running the show, it's old boys, school ties, golf buddies, MBAs. Contrary to popular belief the old boys network isn't actually sexist: it discriminates equally against male non-members too.

Same in out politics too actually. Might not be Lord-this or Lady-that running the show, but they all graduated in PPE from Oxford...

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in London, what's your annual salary?

#400

Post by infinity0 »

tptacek wrote: post #397
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Explain to me how this is a rational thing, in the economic sense of "rational" Ah, I think this explains the disagreement. That kind of "rational" has nothing to do with fairness, and everything to do with maximizing individual payoff. I think you've conflated the two, when they're almost completely incompatible. I knew you were a closet republican ;)

What definition of "rational" are you working from?

Maximizing individual payoff is not necessarily contradictory to more intuitive notions of "fairness". One ignored variable is the timescale you're maximizing over. If your company spends money on other things than exec pay, you (and others) are very likely to do better in the long run, in ways that are not mathematically (or computationally) quantifiable, at least by existing theories (or resources). But just because something is not quantifiable does not mean that considering it is "irrational". Rather the opposite, you are using what computational resources you have personally (emotions and intuition) to judge this, rather than ignoring it completely.

This is why I get supremely annoyed at claims that a specific non-mathematical argument is "irrational".

(Examples of non-computable things: company spends resources on R&D and makes more long-term profit; company spends resources on higher pay for everyone else and boosts morale; reputation of company increases and you attract a wider pool of potential employees; etc.)

In more mathematical terms, greedy optimisation algorithms in the name of short-term "rationality" most often lead you to a local, not global, maximum.

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