There are two sides behind this story. In small, not very competitive markets, like the one in Austria, companies are not expecting the programmers they hire to

There are two sides behind this story. In small, not very competitive markets, like the one in Austria, companies are not expecting the programmers they hire to be great; not being very bad would be enough. All they will be asked to do is to support the legacy accounting system -- what's the point of hiring a ninja for that? This, combined with the typical CFO mentality ("That's all the budget I can allocate and I don't care about the position not being filled because it's the IT director who will be affected by that, not me. Frankly, I don't even think that accounting system needs rewriting. When's the lunch?") drives the offer side down. On the other side, as an "entry level programmer", are you absolutely sure you worth more than 2200 EUR? Care to prove it to a Google recruiter, speaking in your native language just across the border, in Munich? Care to prove to the free market that you can run your own business and earn more? Great. That's what we have free markets for. EDIT: Just want to add that I'm all for "pay well to hire great developers" approach, but I think this advice mostly applies to companies operating in highly competitive environments: think London startups competing with the salaries paid in the City, or startups in SV trying to lure people away from Facebook. Apart from that, your average employer don't care about what you think you worth and probably doing it for the right reason.