12 ms·
Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?
What are the salaries like out there? I've decided to have 2 tiers, one for those who live in high cost of living areas (California, New York etc, anywhere it costs $2K+/mo for a 1 bed room) and for those who live in less expensive areas (Idaho/Kentucky etc).
And what do you do for your salary?
- DavidSJ 15y agoPlease clarify whether this is base pay or total compensation.
- memset 15y agoOne gentleman created a poll several months back; he had a google doc where people punched in similar kinds of information. Analytics were promised. I cannot find the link - does anyone remember this, or know what happened? Edit: here is the link. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2763932 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2763932 My best suggestion is glassdoor.com for this kind of information. And that resource is not limited to HN participants.
- JL2010 15y agoI'm still hoping he'll release that geographical data...
- dany_dev 15y agonet or gross? and what about specify state? USA is not the same as France or India
- icode 15y agoFrom the numbers people seem to put in their gross income. I would find it interestin to see how much is taken away by the goverment for different salaries and locations. In Germany, the government takes away roughly 50% of your income.
- dangrossman 15y agoIt's not that different for some situations in the US. When you add federal, state, county and township personal & business taxes for me (self-employed), it comes out to around 40% of my income... and once I spend any of it, the sales tax is 7% here.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- nknight 15y agoWhere do you get those numbers from? If you're taking the top tax bracket, don't, that tells you absolutely nothing about an individual's effective tax rate.
- dev_jim 15y agoIn NYC you will pay about 50% of your gross income if you are just barely qualify for the marginal top tax bracket. Of course these numbers mean squat for your own personal situation: Federal - ~25% effective, not marginal State - 8% Local - 4% Payroll - 13% on the first 100k or so. 2.5% on the rest. Sales Tax - 9%
- rsynnott 15y agoWhere are you getting these? They look like the marginal tax rates, which don't really tell you all that much.
- garethsprice 15y agoThis sort of poll is better conducted anonymously. I'm happy to discuss this stuff anonymously but don't want people I know Googling my name some time in the future. Also interesting to know would be how much people augment their day-job salary income with side-work (consulting or micro-businesses).
- nknight 15y agoHow is this poll not anonymous?
- garethsprice 15y agoThe poll is, but the comments aren't - OP requested information on what we do for our paycheck, which I'd be more inclined to provide if I could do so without it being related to my (real) posting name.
- bretthoerner 15y ago... make a new account?
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- voidfiles 15y agoEven in SF it doesn't always cost 2k+ for a 1 bedroom.
- SeoxyS 15y agoI'm in a 1 bedroom in SF and it's a base price of $2500 for rent. It just depends on how nice the apartment is and which neighborhood you're in.
- SeoxyS 15y agoWhy am I being downvoted for this??
- samstave 15y agoThe unit next door to me has been on the market for some time - it was upgraded to include a washer/dryer - new paint, refinished hardwood floors and replaced kitchen appliances. It is really nice, a one bedroom, parking and pets allowed: $2,600 I have a 2-bedroom and have been looking for a 3-bedroom... The rents are crazy. There was a beautiful 3-bedroom little house near me; they wanted $7200 per month with a $10,000 deposit! WTF.
- cletus 15y agoIf you think San Francisco rents are expensive I suggest you don't move to Manhattan. I live in a (true) one bedroom second-storey walkup in Chelsea, which actually has a new kitchen and bathroom (renovations made after the last tenant left to get it out of rent stabilization) and pay $2,000 a month for it. And that actually seems to be a pretty good deal. For a decent building (one with an elevator where you don't hear everything your neighbours do through the walls, ceilings and floors) in this area it gets closer to $3k+ a month and can easily get to $4k+. Still, work is a 7 minute walk away and I live in Manhattan. That's hard to beat.
- dev_jim 15y agoPlease tell me how you found a renovated walk-up 1BR in Chelsea for $2k :)
- RandallBrown 15y agoLocation is huge. I live in Michigan and make considerably less than friends that live elsewhere. My rent is also almost 1000 dollars cheaper per month.
- mvolz 15y agoDepends on where you live. I paid $1200 for a studio apt. in A2, and it can go even higher the closer to downtown you live.
- ahi 15y agoAye, I rent a 3br house in downtown Ypsi (5 miles away for non-locals) for $1000/month.
- bretthoerner 15y ago"Considerable" is unclear, it'd be easy to cover a 1k/mo spread under my definition of "considerable".
- RandallBrown 15y agoThe friends that I would say make considerably more than me could cover it easily. I have others who only make a bit more than me but cost of living is more than offsets it.
- mahyarm 15y agoSo if you get something more than a $24'0000 (($1000*12 months)/.55 after tax income) raise to account for the $1k rent difference, would you go for it?
- DharmaSoldat 15y agoAgreed - location is a good indicator. I make good money for my area, but cost of living is highest in the country and salaries are higher in other areas.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- pixeloution 15y agoThis sort of poll teeters on the edge of meaninglessness: you're only considering income and location. Experience and type of work matter, as does actual ability - and good luck polling on that. Company size is also a factor (actual ability seems to affect pay less as the company gets larger, in my experience).
- cletus 15y agoThis poll exemplifies the problem with all of these polls: it doesn't say what it's measuring. I would put in vastly different numbers for base salary vs base salary + bonuses + shares + other benefits. I see the same on Glassdoor on elsewhere. The bigger problem is the people volunteering such information have differing views on what to put making such information mostly useless. Also, if life has taught me nothing else, people lie about their incomes, even anonymously.
- eliben 15y agoAgree totally. For instance, I could never figure out if these American polls take pension deductions into account. Where I live, the employer pays additional ~20% on top of base salary into various pension/saving funds, but since everyone gets it, it isn't taken into consideration when comparing salaries. I always wondered if seeing a quoted $100K salary in the US - does it include these pension payments or not.
- mattdeboard 15y agoWhat's a pension payment? :)
- Timothee 15y agoMy guess is that in general no, because for programmers, typically, there isn't any pension. However, there's something called 401k which is a type of retirement account. You can contribute to it through pre-tax contribution directly from your paycheck. It's fairly common for employers to match a certain amount to what employees contribute. Some might match 100%, some 5%, some up to a certain amount, some have some vesting period, etc. So that's one thing that is worth taking into account when comparing job offers, because if you plan on contributing $15k a year to your retirement account, if a company matches 100%, that more or less means an extra $15k a year. So some people might include that if asked of their overall benefits, some might not…
- OstiaAntica 15y agoFully 12.4% of nearly every American's income is going to Social Security, which is a national pension scheme. (er...national Ponzi scheme)
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- tsunamifury 15y agoethically opposed to opening allowing fellow workers get a rough outline of what their skills might be worth?
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- erikpukinskis 15y agoI honestly don't care what your salary is, but I think there are things to gain from disclosing. For one thing, we need developers (we meaning people with unmet information needs, which is pretty much all of us) and advertising how stupidly, absurdly high the salaries are might encourage kids to jump in and give it a go. For another, I don't really think that any of us is "entitled" to this money, and we can't consense as a group about what these salaries should be--how this money would be distributed in a just world--unless we know what they are.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- peterbessman 15y agoThe problem with this is that the high-end of programming salaries is the low-end of, e.g. medical salaries. Yes, there is more to it than that, but on this axis alone, programming actually does not come out on top. Those inclined to seek "absurdly high salaries" are inclined to skip over programming.
- erikpukinskis 15y agoSo you're saying because the greediest of kids won't be tempted by programmer salaries that those salaries won't tempt anyone?
- 15y ago
- brown9-2 15y agoThere should really be a choice between areas with "high" 1br-costs-2000-a-month cost of living and Idaho/Kentucky.
- plasticbuddha 15y agoOr, you could use PayScale's data to find this out. http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Sr._Software_Engineer_%2f_Developer_%2f_Programmer/Salary/by_State http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Sr._Software_Enginee...
- kashif 15y agoNot everyone works in the US - fairly narrow minded view of the world?
- scottio 15y agoThis poll was clearly designed to canvas United States cities, even if it wasn't explicitly stated. Is that narrow-minded? I don't think so. If I happened upon a poll on a Russian tech site that mentioned Omsk and Moscow and St. Petersburg, I'd assume it was a national poll. And then I'd move on. Perhaps it's narrow-minded to assume that a poll on a U.S.-based tech site should by default be global in scope?
- DavidSJ 15y agoHe didn't say everyone does.
- learc83 15y agoCost of living varies dramatically across the globe as does currency value. To make it truly a global poll, I suppose he should have asked how units, x, of a mixed basket of local goods, b, could you buy per year worked. xb = only possible correct statement of income. You come up with b and repost the poll if you so desire.
- veyron 15y agoWhat is the point is this? Sorry for asking, but you are either curious about how much everyone else is making or trying to value yourself in the market. If you are curious about how much everyone else is making, stop. Just stop. It won't make you feel good. You will feel shitty because I would imagine the HN crowd will show better numbers than america as a whole, or even just your city. To illustrate my point, if you asked me to write this poll, I would add 250K, 500K, 1M tiers here (as there are plenty of people who are making salaries in those ranges) If you are asking because you want a sense of whether or not you are properly being valued in the market, you have to do two things: try to find another job, and try to ask for a raise. Simple as that. You don't know the skillsets of people who show higher or lower salary figures. Lastly, salary doesnt help if you dont consider bonus potential and hours work. I'm thinking specifically of finance, where bonuses in most groups dwarf base salary (and in some fields, the per-hour rate looks pitiful, but that's because it demands >100 hrs per week)
- gst 15y agoThere are enormous differences in the productivity of programmers. Even in the area of "good programmers" really good people can be multiple times faster than others. (Also "better" than others, but that's not directly measurable). So I think it's perfectly reasonable if the salaries of people are assigned directly according to their capabilities. Why should a programmer that is twice as fast as his peers only get 10% or 20% more? Actually that's one of the reasons why I've moved to the Bay Area. In my home countries things as seniority are the main factors in regard to the salary. In the Bay Area it's exactly the opposite - and that's much more motivating for me.
- veyron 15y ago"Why should a programmer that is twice as fast as his peers only get 10% or 20% more?" <-- Amdahl's law applies here. It really depends on the industry. Take finance. Having a programmer who can spit out code ten tiems as fast as his compatriots doesn't result in a ten-fold improvement of returns. There's some economic benefit (because there is real value to having better programmers) but don't expect it to be proportional to skill in an industry for which the software isn't the final product/service (or where other aspects, like legal, really drive the business)
- adnam 15y agoThese salary polls are getting very tiresome.
- pkapner 15y agoThere's too much whining on this thread. It's clearly limited to the US. Are there other places on the planet? Sure. Go get your own poll. As for total comp, assume it's what's listed as your gross pay on your tax return. There you go, easy. Is it restricted to HN folk? Yes. Do they make more than others? Probably. Does it matter? No.
- wlievens 15y agoYou need to be a lot more specifc. Before or after taxes? Count benefits? Bonuses? Deferred payment? Freelance or employer? ...
- ThaddeusQuay2 15y agoHow much do I make? Sometimes, I simply can't put a price on what I do. Two years ago, I was kidnapped by monkeys, who appeared to be in a trance. They took me to the top of the Swayambhunath Buddhist complex, in Kathmandu. I was told that this was the Monkey Temple. As a monk translated the wishes of the holy monkeys, I discovered that I was required to rewrite the OS of their ancient computer, which had failed to reboot, back in 1839. Since then, they had searched the world for a programmer competent to handle the situation. They were about to give up, as they stumbled onto me, and realized that I was the reincarnation of ChiChu Gomptar, the lead programmer for the CS monkey gang, which had served their monkey king, the creator of this computer. I was flummoxed by its design, as it was made of smooth stones, uniform beads, colored sand, and wooden levers inlaid with gold. I told them that I couldn't remember anything from my past life. They gave me something to smoke, saying that it would connect me, through the eternal ether, to my previous memories. It did, and after 25 days of extreme programming, of which I recall no details, I had completed the monumental task. I stood up, and ceremoniously dropped the special IPL bead onto the machine, which then awoke from its 170-year slumber with a mighty roar. The holy monkeys were pleased. They handed over a small golden box, with mysterious carvings. It seemed empty, and I was told not to open it unless my circumstances had become truly dire. I thanked them, both for the box, and for the tremendous experience. Unfortunately, I was not able to sell them continued maintenance for their new OS, but that was mostly due to their language not having the word "maintenance". Anyway, I have those memories, and this box to use when things go really bad, plus the always-present hope of future adventure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swayambhunath http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swayambhunath http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_Program_Load http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_Program_Load
- dnewcome 15y agoThis made my morning. You should write a gonzo-style programming epic. It reminds me that some of what we do might as well be magic to the people that hire us and unlike in past cultures where we'd be anointed as medicine men and revered as holy, we're given gilt boxes by monkeys.
- ThaddeusQuay2 15y ago
- biotech 15y agoI just graphed the data: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/839/unledwte.png/ http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/839/unledwte.png/
- Inufu 15y agoThank you very much - I don't understand why HN doesn't have at least a bar graph by default.
- veyron 15y agoWhy wouldnt you use a barchart?
- biotech 15y agohttp://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/708/unledpyj.png/ http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/708/unledpyj.png/
- rcfox 15y agoThanks for the effort, but I don't think this kind of plot is appropriate to the type of data. A bar chart would be more useful.
- biotech 15y agoI can't edit the post, so here's an update (bar by popular demand): http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/854/unledlauv.png/ http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/854/unledlauv.png/
- fab13n 15y agoThe shortcomings of this poll have been outlined by others. You might be interested by this: * as a high score / pissing contest result. Then whatever the figure, you'll never be satisfied: either you don't mak enough, then you'll feel terrible; or you're making more than your reference group, but then you'll soon change the reference group you're comparing yourself to, and you'll go back to step one until you find yourself feeling terrible. * as a genuine measure of your well-being, presumably to estimate the appropriateness of changing jobs. Then you probably underestimate non-monetary factors. First, you probably have fun working: that's worth a couple hundreds K$ IMO. Then, the ways money goes out matter at least as much as money coming in: I make a bit more than 50K€ in Europe, which is below the American average for my skills; but I don't have a student loan to repay, I won't have to pay for my kids' education either, I have world-class "socialist healthcare", I can get a nice house for about 250-300K, there's little criminality to be afraid of, I'd need to kill then rape my boss' kids to get fired, I work about 210 days a year... What kind of conclusions do you expect to draw from this poll?
- fab13n 15y agoThe shortcomings of this poll have been outlined by others. You might be interested by this: * as a high score / pissing contest result. Then whatever the figure, you'll never be satisfied: either you don't mak enough, then you'll feel terrible; or you're making more than your reference group, but then you'll soon change the reference group you're comparing yourself to, and you'll go back to step one until you find yourself feeling terrible. * as a genuine measure of your well-being, presumably to estimate the appropriateness of changing jobs. Then you probably underestimate non-monetary factors. First, you probably have fun working: that's worth a couple hundreds K$ IMO. Then, the ways money goes out matter at least as much as money coming in: I make a bit more than 50K€ in Europe, which is below the American average for my skills; but I don't have a student loan to repay, I won't have to pay for my kids' education either, I have world-class "socialist healthcare", I can get a nice house for about 250-300K, there's little criminality to be afraid of, I'd need to kill then rape my boss' kids to get fired, I work about 210 days a year... What kind of conclusions do you expect to draw from this poll?
- shaharsol 15y agoA side note: It took me 6 years of entrepreneurship to be able to pay myself the same salary I was making as an employee programmer.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- eco 15y agoWhy not (for future polls) just have everyone lookup and subtract the cost of living from their gross salary?
- mrchess 15y agoOP should look at this thread. Relevant and very interesting about CS/EE salaries. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3141716 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3141716
- latchkey 15y ago184 people are underpaid and living in poverty.
- lakeeffect 15y agoIs the low, high - some sort of sampling method to measure peoples likelihood to estimate on the high side?
- onomojo 15y agoRails and everything in between
- sexrobot 15y ago40k :(
- rabidsnail 15y agoYou don't need to ask. The government has already done the polling. http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ocs/compub.htm#CA http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ocs/compub.htm#CA Look for "Software Engineer - Applications"
- goodweeds 15y agoIt would be fun to maps this data against geographic regions and index that against cost of living.. Except those of us in the bay area would discover that while we make $120k-$150k, our houses cost 4-6x what it costs for those who make $80-$120k in the midwest. Then we would all cry.
- winsbe01 15y agoi wouldn't say it's as low as country living, but it's not quite 2k/mo for a 1 bedroom
- tsuyoshi 15y agoYou must live in a low cost area, because you're overestimating the rent in high cost areas. I live in New York City (Manhattan, even) and believe me, you can get a one bedroom for less than $2000 a month (in Manhattan, even!). And certainly you can't put the entire state of California into the "expensive" category.
- jrmurad 15y ago> you can get a one bedroom for less than $2000 a month (in Manhattan, even!) Some might think you're including Harlem, Washington Heights, etc. I pay <$1600 for a 1BR in Murray Hill (midtown).
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- sliverstorm 15y agoThis kind of poll would be more useful if you made it bi or trivariate. Years experience is an important tie-in, and highest level of education could reveal interesting trends.
- mirzmaster 15y agoHmm, Toronto doesn't belong in the low tier alongside Idaho and Kentucky, but I don't think it costs $2k+ for a one bed either. We need a mid-tier on this poll. :)
- DiabloD3 15y agoI see only a slight problem with this poll. There is no option for exactly $0. This is the only truly appropriate option for me, less than $50k still implies I make >$0.
- skeptical 15y agoI will assume everyone is too proud to comment that those thresholds are ridiculously high. I work in and I interact with people from different european countries. I'm sorry if I sound like a party pooper, but I would say over 75% of the developers I know make less than 50k€. Many, me included, make much less tan that. I don't know what all you guys do, but I've had a few average developers jobs and the numbers are much smaller than those pointed on this thread. And I wouldn't say I'm particularly low-payed.
- olragon 15y ago~$5k/year Vietnamese programmer with 3 years experience, living and working in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam. Not bad, huh?
- hristiank 15y agoI don't want to highjack this post but after reading through all the comments here I decided to create a new poll with more information. Check it out : http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3157719 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3157719
- kerricson 15y agoPoland
- IanV 15y agoIs there a UK version of this?