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If there really were a problem wages would be increasing drastically, my Alma Mater's CS department would be spamming its graduates with employment opportunitie

If there really were a problem wages would be increasing drastically, my Alma Mater's CS department would be spamming its graduates with employment opportunities, and there'd be loads of non-Java, non-.Net job ads in places besides the SF Bay Area, New York, and other 'startup hubs,' but there aren't. Your stats are a farce. I've never met a programmer/software developer in my life who makes more than 100k if they aren't essentially management. Median US salary for a software developer is $69,564. The 90% percentile is 100k. Please come back to planet Earth. Likewise, in places where wages are higher it appears to be mostly about cost of living. The last time I calculated it out making 50k in the armpit of nowhere USA turned out pretty close overall to making 75 or 80k in SF or NY with taxes, commute time, and cost of living factored in. update: I'd meant to reply to a specific comment. Oops. I'll also caveat that different sources seem to use software developer to mean different things. I'd consider a web developer a software developer, but they supposedly get paid on average significantly less, probably because it draws in a lot of self-described people who do websites but don't really program.

Ovid 13y ago
Recently, my wife and I started a company and she's handling the international IT recruiting side (I do consulting/training) and for years I've written a blog about how to be an expat. I'm actually a freelance software engineer with a background in economics. This leads to me to having an extreme amount of knowledge about this topic and while the article had a few issues, it's mostly spot on. There is a significant shortage of developers and ardit23 explained, with rapid growth of young companies fighting to hire developers but not able to pay Google-sized salaries, the vast majority of the job salaries are constrained by limited budgets of entrepreneurs. Until this industry stabilizes, it's going to be hard to get accurate price signals. And despite your contention, I know of plenty of devs who make >100K. I speak at conferences all over Europe and the US and I meet these people face-to-face all the time. Just because you don't know them doesn't mean they don't exist. That being said, part of the reason I know roughly what they make is because they work for big names like Google, or they are in-demand freelancers (we can charge buckets of money in the right situation). Hell, I know one guy who made €30K for a week of training! (search for top-notch training, note the cost per student, multiply that by a decent class size and five days. You don't turn that trick very often, but when you do, it's a lot of money). And $75 to $80k in New York? No way in hell I'd take pay that low to work there.
- Glyptodon 13y ago
  Oh, I believe developers who get paid that exist. But they're the exceptions who happen to all meet each other because they get sent to conferences and are team leaders or primary devs on large open source projects and such. If they were the rule the average salary would be 100k but it isn't, and all the 100k + devs you supposedly know aren't enough to move it. I wouldn't take 80k to work in New York either, hence why so many startups whine about not being able to find 'talent.' The 'shortage' is mostly a symptom of companies only wanting to hire these celebrity developers who already make a lot of money (and Stanford grads). Likewise, the hoops you have to jump through in job interviews would be shrinking if people were really desperate to hire, but instead they're growing. Have a giant github. Do two 4 hour technical interviews. Only apply after solving 2 to 5 programming problems. Etc.
hcho 13y ago
The advertised rate for contractors with modern skills in London is around £350 per day. That's your starting point. If you are good at negotiation, and find your jobs via your network(i.e. people vouch for your work), you can easily make double that. If you work in finance you look at 4 digits per day. For the sake of example, let's say you make £500 per day. At 220 days per annum, that's £110 000. I know at least 10 people making more than that.

Ovid 13y ago

Recently, my wife and I started a company and she's handling the international IT recruiting side (I do consulting/training) and for years I've written a blog about how to be an expat. I'm actually a freelance software engineer with a background in economics. This leads to me to having an extreme amount of knowledge about this topic and while the article had a few issues, it's mostly spot on. There is a significant shortage of developers and ardit23 explained, with rapid growth of young companies fighting to hire developers but not able to pay Google-sized salaries, the vast majority of the job salaries are constrained by limited budgets of entrepreneurs. Until this industry stabilizes, it's going to be hard to get accurate price signals. And despite your contention, I know of plenty of devs who make >100K. I speak at conferences all over Europe and the US and I meet these people face-to-face all the time. Just because you don't know them doesn't mean they don't exist. That being said, part of the reason I know roughly what they make is because they work for big names like Google, or they are in-demand freelancers (we can charge buckets of money in the right situation). Hell, I know one guy who made €30K for a week of training! (search for top-notch training, note the cost per student, multiply that by a decent class size and five days. You don't turn that trick very often, but when you do, it's a lot of money). And $75 to $80k in New York? No way in hell I'd take pay that low to work there.

Glyptodon 13y ago
Oh, I believe developers who get paid that exist. But they're the exceptions who happen to all meet each other because they get sent to conferences and are team leaders or primary devs on large open source projects and such. If they were the rule the average salary would be 100k but it isn't, and all the 100k + devs you supposedly know aren't enough to move it. I wouldn't take 80k to work in New York either, hence why so many startups whine about not being able to find 'talent.' The 'shortage' is mostly a symptom of companies only wanting to hire these celebrity developers who already make a lot of money (and Stanford grads). Likewise, the hoops you have to jump through in job interviews would be shrinking if people were really desperate to hire, but instead they're growing. Have a giant github. Do two 4 hour technical interviews. Only apply after solving 2 to 5 programming problems. Etc.

hcho 13y ago

The advertised rate for contractors with modern skills in London is around £350 per day. That's your starting point. If you are good at negotiation, and find your jobs via your network(i.e. people vouch for your work), you can easily make double that. If you work in finance you look at 4 digits per day. For the sake of example, let's say you make £500 per day. At 220 days per annum, that's £110 000. I know at least 10 people making more than that.