5 ms·

How much should you pay developers?

77 points by brianwillis 15y ago

andrewstuart 15y ago
Anyone who has dedicated enough time to master the lost art of modem whistling should be able to name their own salary.
bcRIPster 15y ago
Damn! I better start brushing up on my modem whistling skills! I used to whistle Hayes 300bps and AppleCat 1200bps handshakes in order to lock open lines when speed dialing. If you timed it right you could 99% of the time secure the dialup line with the real modem when the remote modem cycled the line connection.
- andrewstuart 15y ago
  Yes but can you whistle up a GIF file? If you can whistle a GIF image of yourself into a modem then I name you King Of The Universe.
  - Uchikoma 15y ago
    I only can whistle JPGs
- nitrogen 15y ago
  So it was just the initial handshake that people could whistle? I suppose one could have whistled long sequences of all zero or all one bits into FSK-using modems, if there were no start, stop, or parity bits.
littleidea 15y ago
tl;dr "We have a system for evaluating devs, and pay people more for living in NY." The article has a bunch of words, but doesn't actually say anything about how much you should pay developers. Not sure why there are upvotes.
- jquery 15y ago
  Maybe the linkbait title?
tednaleid 15y ago
Title is kind of linkbait. The article talks about how to pay equitably and transparently compared to co-workers, but doesn't actually say how _much_ you should pay. No real dollar numbers are discussed other than a range that "top-notch" C# developers are paid $30k to $200k (and with bonuses and other compensation, I think the top end is actually low on this).
- artmageddon 15y ago
  $200k is low? I just got a new job paying near $100k and thought I was hitting the high end of the scale...(C# dev, 6 years full-time exp after university in NYC). I'm fairly satisfied with the pay but I'm happy to know there's still room for growth :)
  - tednaleid 15y ago
    I'm not saying $200k is a low salary, just that the top end is higher than $200k. You're not anywhere near the top end of the scale, but it's a relatively normally distributed curve and you're probably starting to move down the downslope of the right side of it :).
Joakal 15y ago
Is a top notch C# salary $30,000 in some parts of the world? Well, frankly after reading it I still have no idea how much pay it is for someone that's all B or all AAA+++. Do they use the checklist or an algorithm? What is SE's starting salary at least?
robryan 15y ago
This all sounds good in theory, I wonder though it someone who is pretty key to what they are doing had an offer from a competitor they would stick rigidly to what they say here or would be willing to make exceptions.
- lemming 15y ago
  Right, it would require a lot of discipline in that case - I was wondering how strictly they stick to it, too. The problem is, if they've intentionally defined a totally rigid system (for good reasons, IMO) then even a slight deviation from that undermines the whole thing.
latch 15y ago
The new default Word theme got lame fast.
e1ven 15y ago
What's the algorithm? You list the factors you use to decide, but I'm confused as to how those combine. How much do you weight Modem Whistling Skills versus Blog Posts versus years of experience?
hammerdr 15y ago
Experience = Full Time Work Experience. That's the only measure that they accept (and this is a formula dammit! We cannot go against that!). This seems to me to be a complete lack of understanding about what makes a good programmer (Assumption: We pay people according to merit.). I have a friend who was in another industry for several years. She taught herself Ruby and Rails and became very, very good at doing so. It was all done as a personal project. She never was fully employed as a "Full Time Developer" until last year. At the point of her being hired last year, she could write web applications better than most seasoned programmers. Yes, yes. Anecdote does not make data. But they are proposing that they have come up with The Algorithm with How to Pay Programmers. If that was true, then they could handle this situation. Instead, they would have to come up with a 'special exception' for this particular person and compensate them correctly. If you get down to every little hole I could poke in this algorithm, you'd find out that almost everyone has a special circumstance and that throwing them into an inhuman algorithmic compensation experiment is Wrong(tm). Instead, you need people that can understand the nuances of Jim, Joe and Sally's situation and can do their best to serve their interests as well as the company's interests. I'm not saying that the status quo is great, but this 'perfect solution' is anything but.
- gaius 15y ago
  That's not unreasonable. Working as a professional programmer means a) understanding and solving other people's problems and b) operating under constraints not of your own choosing c) for 8 or more hours a day. That is relevant experience. I sometimes interview 22-year-olds who claim to have 10+ years experience...
  - slindsey 15y ago
    "I sometimes interview 22-year-olds who claim to have 10+ years experience..." I agree with your sentiment and they certainly shouldn't present themselves as having 10+ years experience. But similarly, people doing the hiring need to consider this. I'd much rather have that 22 year old with passion who's been programming since he was 12, than the 25 year old who has been programming since he learned in his junior year of university that he could make good money changing from Art History to MIS.
Uchikoma 15y ago
I thought the salary matrix on the old joel on software was more insightful - it showed how the different factors summed up.
tomjen3 15y ago
Enough that they are happy to work for you. And not the way frog creek does. You architec should be paid less than the programmers since they contribute the value, no programmer should have to be promoted to a role of writing less code. Oh and I had side jobs in college. Yes, they count as years of experience, since that is a bullshit measure.
- currywurst 15y ago
  more code != more value. Lots of people can crank out thousands of lines per week, but someone should be responsible for the system to make sense as a cohesive whole - and that is usually the job of a software architect ( pretty unglamourous, I should add ;) ).
biot 15y ago
This is like GM's vision of how much you should pay for a Saturn vehicle: everyone ends up paying the same amount for the same model and options. That's a good, fair system if the amount is competetive but I wonder if others adopting this salary model don't end up like Saturn's pricing -- the biggest beneficiary of menu pricing is the company.
- lemming 15y ago
  I don't think that's true. What I think is most important about this is that it tries, at least, to be transparent and fair. In my current company I've been exposed for the first time to how salaries are chosen, and in many cases it's almost totally arbitrary, or worse. It's certainly based far less than I would like (and far less than I expected) on the person's ability to do their job. The biggest beneficiary of a system as proposed by the OP are people who are good at their jobs (not friends of the boss, better negotiators, prettier, etc).
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
atomicdog 15y ago
>Creates public artifacts >Blog posts, open source tools, books So if I worked at SO and I didn't have a blog, hence presumably scoring a 'F', they'd be having a "stern talk with me"?
- middus 15y ago
  I guess they mean that you engage in the SE communities (e.g. SO, Superuser etc.) or contribute posts to their blogs.
  - daemin 15y ago
    Well considering at StackExchange their main focus is the StackExchange set of sites, community building Q&A. If you didn't participate then you wouldn't be eating your own dog food and hence would not be as good a developer on the project. Having developers actively work in the community also helps keep them more focused on what they are building, and it means there are more people actually building the ecosystems. Having your own blogs, podcasts, and other public artefacts also helps since it would help build an audience and get the word out to more people about the SE sites. Also don't forget that SE is a startup with VC backing, therefore if the developers don't help in spreading the word the company could fold.
troels 15y ago
Interesting comment by Tim: Every employees salaries are completely public. In addition to this, employees set their own salary. This has been shown to have three effects: 1. People tend to actually value themselves lower than they might otherwise outside. 2. General happiness is higher. 3. People who are earning too much feel guilty, and either work harder or don’t raise their salaries. They’re also expected to perform at that level. If someone sets their salary 5k higher than the guy next to them who churns out the same amount of code but has 1/3rd the defects (and that were the only difference), then questions would be asked. --- http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/07/how-much-should-you-pay-developers/#comment-59962 http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/07/how-much-should-you-pa... Does anybody have some references for this?
JacobIrwin 15y ago
San Francisco, USA (from home and office-based work; split) We are looking for a lead developer that has 3-5 years of experience creating mobile/tablet applications for the following three platforms: Android (mobile), iOS (iPhone), and iOS (iPad). Knowledge of recently upgraded “versioning” requirements is essential to this position. Coding/programming experience on Android (tablet) and Blackberry is a plus (but not required). This position will be compensated for generously and the chosen candidate will have the opportunity to lead a team of developers as we continue to scale; this is a salary plus residual-commission paying position. We have a global footprint in the market of custom app development and accordingly the position may grow to encompass development of mobile & tablet apps for customers on several continents. http://www.thecreativeappco.com/ http://www.thecreativeappco.com/ For consideration, please send three (or more) examples (preferably names of apps already published in the marketplace; apps available for us to download and preview), a resume (or school/work history), and any other relevant anecdotes to: Jacob@thecreativeappco.com
- JacobIrwin 15y ago
  ^^ this is the advertisement we posted recently. Our salary range is 40-65k/year to start plus a 5-10k retainer/sign-on. Plus residuals.. plus equipment... ladada...

77 points by brianwillis 15y ago

Anyone who has dedicated enough time to master the lost art of modem whistling should be able to name their own salary.

Damn! I better start brushing up on my modem whistling skills! I used to whistle Hayes 300bps and AppleCat 1200bps handshakes in order to lock open lines when speed dialing. If you timed it right you could 99% of the time secure the dialup line with the real modem when the remote modem cycled the line connection.

andrewstuart 15y ago
Yes but can you whistle up a GIF file? If you can whistle a GIF image of yourself into a modem then I name you King Of The Universe.
- Uchikoma 15y ago
  I only can whistle JPGs
nitrogen 15y ago
So it was just the initial handshake that people could whistle? I suppose one could have whistled long sequences of all zero or all one bits into FSK-using modems, if there were no start, stop, or parity bits.

littleidea 15y ago

tl;dr "We have a system for evaluating devs, and pay people more for living in NY." The article has a bunch of words, but doesn't actually say anything about how much you should pay developers. Not sure why there are upvotes.

jquery 15y ago
Maybe the linkbait title?

tednaleid 15y ago

Title is kind of linkbait. The article talks about how to pay equitably and transparently compared to co-workers, but doesn't actually say how _much_ you should pay. No real dollar numbers are discussed other than a range that "top-notch" C# developers are paid $30k to $200k (and with bonuses and other compensation, I think the top end is actually low on this).

artmageddon 15y ago
$200k is low? I just got a new job paying near $100k and thought I was hitting the high end of the scale...(C# dev, 6 years full-time exp after university in NYC). I'm fairly satisfied with the pay but I'm happy to know there's still room for growth :)
- tednaleid 15y ago
  I'm not saying $200k is a low salary, just that the top end is higher than $200k. You're not anywhere near the top end of the scale, but it's a relatively normally distributed curve and you're probably starting to move down the downslope of the right side of it :).

Joakal 15y ago

Is a top notch C# salary $30,000 in some parts of the world? Well, frankly after reading it I still have no idea how much pay it is for someone that's all B or all AAA+++. Do they use the checklist or an algorithm? What is SE's starting salary at least?

robryan 15y ago

This all sounds good in theory, I wonder though it someone who is pretty key to what they are doing had an offer from a competitor they would stick rigidly to what they say here or would be willing to make exceptions.

lemming 15y ago
Right, it would require a lot of discipline in that case - I was wondering how strictly they stick to it, too. The problem is, if they've intentionally defined a totally rigid system (for good reasons, IMO) then even a slight deviation from that undermines the whole thing.

latch 15y ago

The new default Word theme got lame fast.

e1ven 15y ago

What's the algorithm? You list the factors you use to decide, but I'm confused as to how those combine. How much do you weight Modem Whistling Skills versus Blog Posts versus years of experience?

hammerdr 15y ago

Experience = Full Time Work Experience. That's the only measure that they accept (and this is a formula dammit! We cannot go against that!). This seems to me to be a complete lack of understanding about what makes a good programmer (Assumption: We pay people according to merit.). I have a friend who was in another industry for several years. She taught herself Ruby and Rails and became very, very good at doing so. It was all done as a personal project. She never was fully employed as a "Full Time Developer" until last year. At the point of her being hired last year, she could write web applications better than most seasoned programmers. Yes, yes. Anecdote does not make data. But they are proposing that they have come up with The Algorithm with How to Pay Programmers. If that was true, then they could handle this situation. Instead, they would have to come up with a 'special exception' for this particular person and compensate them correctly. If you get down to every little hole I could poke in this algorithm, you'd find out that almost everyone has a special circumstance and that throwing them into an inhuman algorithmic compensation experiment is Wrong(tm). Instead, you need people that can understand the nuances of Jim, Joe and Sally's situation and can do their best to serve their interests as well as the company's interests. I'm not saying that the status quo is great, but this 'perfect solution' is anything but.

gaius 15y ago
That's not unreasonable. Working as a professional programmer means a) understanding and solving other people's problems and b) operating under constraints not of your own choosing c) for 8 or more hours a day. That is relevant experience. I sometimes interview 22-year-olds who claim to have 10+ years experience...
- slindsey 15y ago
  "I sometimes interview 22-year-olds who claim to have 10+ years experience..." I agree with your sentiment and they certainly shouldn't present themselves as having 10+ years experience. But similarly, people doing the hiring need to consider this. I'd much rather have that 22 year old with passion who's been programming since he was 12, than the 25 year old who has been programming since he learned in his junior year of university that he could make good money changing from Art History to MIS.

Uchikoma 15y ago

I thought the salary matrix on the old joel on software was more insightful - it showed how the different factors summed up.

tomjen3 15y ago

Enough that they are happy to work for you. And not the way frog creek does. You architec should be paid less than the programmers since they contribute the value, no programmer should have to be promoted to a role of writing less code. Oh and I had side jobs in college. Yes, they count as years of experience, since that is a bullshit measure.

currywurst 15y ago
more code != more value. Lots of people can crank out thousands of lines per week, but someone should be responsible for the system to make sense as a cohesive whole - and that is usually the job of a software architect ( pretty unglamourous, I should add ;) ).

biot 15y ago

This is like GM's vision of how much you should pay for a Saturn vehicle: everyone ends up paying the same amount for the same model and options. That's a good, fair system if the amount is competetive but I wonder if others adopting this salary model don't end up like Saturn's pricing -- the biggest beneficiary of menu pricing is the company.

lemming 15y ago
I don't think that's true. What I think is most important about this is that it tries, at least, to be transparent and fair. In my current company I've been exposed for the first time to how salaries are chosen, and in many cases it's almost totally arbitrary, or worse. It's certainly based far less than I would like (and far less than I expected) on the person's ability to do their job. The biggest beneficiary of a system as proposed by the OP are people who are good at their jobs (not friends of the boss, better negotiators, prettier, etc).

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

atomicdog 15y ago

>Creates public artifacts >Blog posts, open source tools, books So if I worked at SO and I didn't have a blog, hence presumably scoring a 'F', they'd be having a "stern talk with me"?

middus 15y ago
I guess they mean that you engage in the SE communities (e.g. SO, Superuser etc.) or contribute posts to their blogs.
- daemin 15y ago
  Well considering at StackExchange their main focus is the StackExchange set of sites, community building Q&A. If you didn't participate then you wouldn't be eating your own dog food and hence would not be as good a developer on the project. Having developers actively work in the community also helps keep them more focused on what they are building, and it means there are more people actually building the ecosystems. Having your own blogs, podcasts, and other public artefacts also helps since it would help build an audience and get the word out to more people about the SE sites. Also don't forget that SE is a startup with VC backing, therefore if the developers don't help in spreading the word the company could fold.

troels 15y ago

Interesting comment by Tim: Every employees salaries are completely public. In addition to this, employees set their own salary. This has been shown to have three effects: 1. People tend to actually value themselves lower than they might otherwise outside. 2. General happiness is higher. 3. People who are earning too much feel guilty, and either work harder or don’t raise their salaries. They’re also expected to perform at that level. If someone sets their salary 5k higher than the guy next to them who churns out the same amount of code but has 1/3rd the defects (and that were the only difference), then questions would be asked. --- http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/07/how-much-should-you-pay-developers/#comment-59962 http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/07/how-much-should-you-pa... Does anybody have some references for this?

JacobIrwin 15y ago

San Francisco, USA (from home and office-based work; split) We are looking for a lead developer that has 3-5 years of experience creating mobile/tablet applications for the following three platforms: Android (mobile), iOS (iPhone), and iOS (iPad). Knowledge of recently upgraded “versioning” requirements is essential to this position. Coding/programming experience on Android (tablet) and Blackberry is a plus (but not required). This position will be compensated for generously and the chosen candidate will have the opportunity to lead a team of developers as we continue to scale; this is a salary plus residual-commission paying position. We have a global footprint in the market of custom app development and accordingly the position may grow to encompass development of mobile & tablet apps for customers on several continents. http://www.thecreativeappco.com/ http://www.thecreativeappco.com/ For consideration, please send three (or more) examples (preferably names of apps already published in the marketplace; apps available for us to download and preview), a resume (or school/work history), and any other relevant anecdotes to: Jacob@thecreativeappco.com

JacobIrwin 15y ago
^^ this is the advertisement we posted recently. Our salary range is 40-65k/year to start plus a 5-10k retainer/sign-on. Plus residuals.. plus equipment... ladada...