4 ms·

I really think it's location, location, location, not necessarily whether or not the software is the product. I've worked for consulting companies, product com

I really think it's location, location, location, not necessarily whether or not the software is the product. I've worked for consulting companies, product companies, and right now I work for a sort-of back-office organization. The best I've been able to do, despite several years of experience, good references, inside connections, a graduate degree, and being pretty (I think, anyway) personable is...75k. And I don't know anyone doing much better unless they moved to SV or NYC. My long-term plan is to see if somehow I can find the time to find a side-project or contribute to something open source, so my ability is out there and highly visible to anyone considering me, but that is going to be very difficult for where I am now. I'd love to make low six figures, it seems difficult to believe even in SV there are new grads making 150k, and it's frustrating to me because I know I perform at the level of people making that much money. EDIT: In case anyone was curious, new grads hired for development in my area of the US get paid from about 35-45k.

NoGravitas 10y ago
Your experience is consistent with mine.
deleted 10y ago
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randomemployee 10y ago
Slight counter, I'm working remotely (I live in small town in the Philadelphia suburbs) for a company with the US office outside of Boston, making 135k right now.
- Amezarak 10y ago
  Congratulations - that's my dream. :) Any tips on what to look for? I've interviewed with a few remote teams and they weren't able to give me anything close to that.
  - morgante 10y ago
    Target companies who are based in SF/NYC and are otherwise bought into the "expensive engineer" mindset (good signals: using modern tech, top-tier VC funding, etc.). Or just go the consulting route and earn even more.
Bahamut 10y ago
I hit $85k in DC in under a year of experience without a CS degree (MS in math though). Many places in the country it is easy to hit six figures, and $200k is not out of the realms of possibility outside of the Bay Area or NYC either.
ryuker16 10y ago
IDK, I'm calling horse on that. I'm a self taught developer who have roughly 1 year exp. and moved to Tennessee(40th poorest state in the union, ultra low cost of living) for a software gig last year. I'm black, 30 year old male, and have a resume with more job/career hopping than a con-artist. I'm not really that great at programming(got fired after 6 months!).....first offer(I took it) was low ball....at 55k!! Next job I took over paid me and offered $92k with zero negotiation to lower it: All within one year. I've worked prior tech jobs offering $25k-40k and they were usually some unholy mash up of lite programming and I.T. help desk/system admin roles. From talking to companies, the non-sexy locations have to pay up the ass and fly in talent for open source. The .Net guys around me make bank too. If you have several years of programming experience and can only get $75k, I wonder if you program in VB or some obscure academic language....I usually have to argue with recruiters to lower their pay requests per hour...in the south.
- Amezarak 10y ago
  I mostly have done enterprisey stuff, webdev and desktop, so C#, Python, Java, C++, Javascript, and then a long tail of other stuff. Really good at SQL. No IT stuff. I can't explain the .NET world, but I think what could hurt me with open-source type companies is my lack of a Github. Nothing I've done for work has been public, my personal projects are nothing I'd be willing to share and, quite simply, the very last thing I want to do when I get home at the end of a ten-hour day is program, especially when I have many, many other things that need to be done - around the house, with the family, etc. Like I said, my plan is to somehow find the time and contribute, so there's something out there, but it's going to be rough and take a while. But if that's what I've gotta do, that's what I've gotta do. Overall, I think the biggest factor is my unwillingness to move. I do live in a very poor state. I am very confident that if I went elsewhere I could make a lot more. There are maybe a dozen and a half employers here. Generally the rule seems to be the commercial companies pay nothing, and the government contractors pay by what you can negotiate plus years of seniority. Maybe I should go the recruiter route - I never have. That's one reason I posted, to see what other experiences are. Thank you.

NoGravitas 10y ago

Your experience is consistent with mine.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

randomemployee 10y ago

Slight counter, I'm working remotely (I live in small town in the Philadelphia suburbs) for a company with the US office outside of Boston, making 135k right now.

Amezarak 10y ago
Congratulations - that's my dream. :) Any tips on what to look for? I've interviewed with a few remote teams and they weren't able to give me anything close to that.
- morgante 10y ago
  Target companies who are based in SF/NYC and are otherwise bought into the "expensive engineer" mindset (good signals: using modern tech, top-tier VC funding, etc.). Or just go the consulting route and earn even more.

Bahamut 10y ago

I hit $85k in DC in under a year of experience without a CS degree (MS in math though). Many places in the country it is easy to hit six figures, and $200k is not out of the realms of possibility outside of the Bay Area or NYC either.

ryuker16 10y ago

IDK, I'm calling horse on that. I'm a self taught developer who have roughly 1 year exp. and moved to Tennessee(40th poorest state in the union, ultra low cost of living) for a software gig last year. I'm black, 30 year old male, and have a resume with more job/career hopping than a con-artist. I'm not really that great at programming(got fired after 6 months!).....first offer(I took it) was low ball....at 55k!! Next job I took over paid me and offered $92k with zero negotiation to lower it: All within one year. I've worked prior tech jobs offering $25k-40k and they were usually some unholy mash up of lite programming and I.T. help desk/system admin roles. From talking to companies, the non-sexy locations have to pay up the ass and fly in talent for open source. The .Net guys around me make bank too. If you have several years of programming experience and can only get $75k, I wonder if you program in VB or some obscure academic language....I usually have to argue with recruiters to lower their pay requests per hour...in the south.

Amezarak 10y ago
I mostly have done enterprisey stuff, webdev and desktop, so C#, Python, Java, C++, Javascript, and then a long tail of other stuff. Really good at SQL. No IT stuff. I can't explain the .NET world, but I think what could hurt me with open-source type companies is my lack of a Github. Nothing I've done for work has been public, my personal projects are nothing I'd be willing to share and, quite simply, the very last thing I want to do when I get home at the end of a ten-hour day is program, especially when I have many, many other things that need to be done - around the house, with the family, etc. Like I said, my plan is to somehow find the time and contribute, so there's something out there, but it's going to be rough and take a while. But if that's what I've gotta do, that's what I've gotta do. Overall, I think the biggest factor is my unwillingness to move. I do live in a very poor state. I am very confident that if I went elsewhere I could make a lot more. There are maybe a dozen and a half employers here. Generally the rule seems to be the commercial companies pay nothing, and the government contractors pay by what you can negotiate plus years of seniority. Maybe I should go the recruiter route - I never have. That's one reason I posted, to see what other experiences are. Thank you.