What is this "K"? The prefix for thousand is "k" and if asking about money it would be nice to specify the currency.
It's careless, but the currency is almost certainly USD.
Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?
71–80 of 245 posts
Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?
#72If you look at how salaries are distributed across the US public, the 60k - 100k category is way too large while 151k-200k should probably be just one range and not two. As someone who hires programmers, I am much more interested in how many people make between 60-70, 70-85, and 85-100.
The buckets might have a Valley bias. It seems the only programmers at SV companies that make less than 100k these days are interns.
And founders
Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Haha: "Housing is 581% more expensive in San Francisco." And I live in the Northeast! I mean, I guess they would need to pay me a lot more, because I literally could not spend 6x my current rent, because that would be all of my income.
Too many people confuse SF with the Bay Area. SF is just one city in a much larger populated region. You don't need to live in SF proper even to work there. And housing is cheaper outside of the City than in it (generally).
It's just a pain to bart/caltrain/drive every day.
Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?
#74Front-end dev, Just below 60, I got the feeling taht even for back-end salary are much lower in Canada
Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?
#75Again, this doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense without location data. I'm voting with my salary adjusted to San Francisco levels by using the following adjustment tool: http://www.bestplaces.net/col/ I'd recommend that people do the same so we can remove a substantial source of noise from this poll and actually get a meaningful distribution.
Why? How are honest values more "noisy" than faked ones? I mean if it turns out that more programmers work in places that have San Francisco salaries, then those values will dominate anyway. If people in other smaller cities with lower salaries artificially inflate theres for the survey, they survey will present a skewed result. If they enter the correct values, then whatever information can be extracted from it will also be more accurate.
I recommend people don't enter "adjusted" information in.
Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?
#76Again, this doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense without location data. I'm voting with my salary adjusted to San Francisco levels by using the following adjustment tool: http://www.bestplaces.net/col/ I'd recommend that people do the same so we can remove a substantial source of noise from this poll and actually get a meaningful distribution.
That calculator is making a very common and yet very fundamental error: It assumes that cost of living adjustments should apply linearly across a salary range.
It costs more to live in San Francisco that it does to live in Detroit. However, that additional cost is largely static: You'll pay a lot more for housing, you'll probably pay noticeably more for food, and you may pay somewhat more for clothing and other items. You won't pay more for a car (if you have one), you won't pay more for the items you buy from Amazon, and you won't pay more for your Netflix subscription.
If you earn $30,000/year, the difference in cost of living between San Francisco and Detroit will be dramatic. You may not be able to afford a place to live in San Francisco at all on that salary.
If you earn $300,000/year, the difference will be almost negligible, since your living expenses will be a trivial portion of your income. (The one kicker will be housing--you'll probably need to settle for a smaller living space.)
It doesn't make any sense to apply a cost of living adjustment as a strict multiplier, which that calculator does. It claims that someone making $30,000 in Detroit will need an $80,000 salary in San Francisco to be equivalent, while someone making $300,000 will need $800,000.
That's clearly ludicrous. It does not cost an additional $500,000 annually to live in San Francisco.
Determining equivalent cost of living is a complex question, and will always be imprecise. There are things that simply can't be converted--on my current salary, I could afford to buy a house with a hundred acres of surrounding woodland near my home town. There is no amount of money in the world that will buy that in San Francisco. Equally, there are many things available in San Francisco and its environs that can't be had for love or money in my home town.
Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?
#77This has got me thinking. I would literally pay someone to figuratively sit down with me, go through what I've done/can do etc and then based off their experiences tell me what I could be getting. Of course, it won't be too accurate and location makes a big difference but perhaps an enlightened recruiter type with a bit of experience in a couple of parts of the world could give a ballpark figure, say X in SV, Y in NY…
Just apply for jobs, and negotiate, and you will get a feel for what you are worth.
Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?
#78I don't quite understand the factors involved in making salaries in SV so high compared to other locations, and I'm not having much success just googling.
Could someone please briefly explain them to me or point me towards some useful resources so I can alleviate some of my ignorance in this area?
Edit: I'm aware of the higher cost of living, but I'm thinking that's probably not the only significant factor.
Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?
#79Are we talking dollars paid or adding up all the benefits?
Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?
#80I don't quite understand the factors involved in making salaries in SV so high compared to other locations, and I'm not having much success just googling. Could someone please briefly explain them to me or point me towards some useful resources so I can alleviate some of my ignorance in this area? Edit: I'm aware of the higher cost of living, but I'm thinking that's probably not the only significant factor.
Demand is astronomical, plus many funded startups have an inflated idea of how much and how quickly they will be able to make money, thus they overpay relative to the real value a programmer could bring.