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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 sala

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.

jcheng 13y ago
Where do you live?
mahyarm 13y ago
You are talking after tax wages are you? I really hope so. Comp Sci college grads who like programming in Seattle & the SF Bay Area with maybe a year or less of experience are making more than 100k.
potatolicious 13y ago
You've just met one. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Quite a bit above $100K too, and I don't even consider myself a guru/ninja/pirate/whatever programmer either. I'm not alone either - literally every programmer I keep in regular touch with, and literally every programmer at the shop I work at is making well into the $100s. In fact, a good friend of mine the same age as me (mid-20s) just accepted an offer in the $180s. The cost of living argument is also mostly bull. I've lived and worked in 7 different cities, ranging from cheap $300 rooms on the wrong side of the tracks to $2000+ luxury high-rises. Nowadays I live in Manhattan, and I've done the math multiple times - it costs me about $20K more per year (with fairly generous numbers) to live here than in, say, Seattle WA where I once worked. Of course, the pay difference between NYC and elsewhere is a lot higher than $20K. Even accounting for taxes, food, and everything you're still coming out well ahead.
- Glyptodon 13y ago
  The COL is bull if you're making a huge salary, sure. Then it doesn't matter where you live. But if you made $50k/year and got an offer to work somewhere for $75k/year but the cost of living was $20k more, it wouldn't make sense. I know some of the best developers in my college class have ended up getting paid 45k to 65k a year in places like Phoenix because that's what was available job wise.
  - potatolicious 13y ago
    Right, and that's my point. Moving from my baseline of Seattle to NYC is virtually guaranteed to raise your salary by far more than the $20K extra. I've done the same math from almost everywhere I've ever lived, and both SF and NYC still come out on top. The market salaries in those cities do make up for the cost of living, and then some. The whole "SF and NYC are bullshit because you end up losing money after cost of living adjustment" argument is bull, specifically because the market salaries between it and other cities in the US doesn't bear this out. > "I know some of the best developers in my college class have ended up getting paid 45k to 65k a year in places like Phoenix because that's what was available job wise." Sadly, the availability of jobs is not very highly correlated with programming ability. And I say this in a non-snarky way. The top end of the software industry is very much an exercise in pedigreed degrees, networking acumen, and fake-it-till-you-make-it. We're really not that much better than the business majors we like to make fun of.

jcheng 13y ago

Where do you live?

mahyarm 13y ago

You are talking after tax wages are you? I really hope so. Comp Sci college grads who like programming in Seattle & the SF Bay Area with maybe a year or less of experience are making more than 100k.

potatolicious 13y ago

You've just met one. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Quite a bit above $100K too, and I don't even consider myself a guru/ninja/pirate/whatever programmer either. I'm not alone either - literally every programmer I keep in regular touch with, and literally every programmer at the shop I work at is making well into the $100s. In fact, a good friend of mine the same age as me (mid-20s) just accepted an offer in the $180s. The cost of living argument is also mostly bull. I've lived and worked in 7 different cities, ranging from cheap $300 rooms on the wrong side of the tracks to $2000+ luxury high-rises. Nowadays I live in Manhattan, and I've done the math multiple times - it costs me about $20K more per year (with fairly generous numbers) to live here than in, say, Seattle WA where I once worked. Of course, the pay difference between NYC and elsewhere is a lot higher than $20K. Even accounting for taxes, food, and everything you're still coming out well ahead.

Glyptodon 13y ago
The COL is bull if you're making a huge salary, sure. Then it doesn't matter where you live. But if you made $50k/year and got an offer to work somewhere for $75k/year but the cost of living was $20k more, it wouldn't make sense. I know some of the best developers in my college class have ended up getting paid 45k to 65k a year in places like Phoenix because that's what was available job wise.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  Right, and that's my point. Moving from my baseline of Seattle to NYC is virtually guaranteed to raise your salary by far more than the $20K extra. I've done the same math from almost everywhere I've ever lived, and both SF and NYC still come out on top. The market salaries in those cities do make up for the cost of living, and then some. The whole "SF and NYC are bullshit because you end up losing money after cost of living adjustment" argument is bull, specifically because the market salaries between it and other cities in the US doesn't bear this out. > "I know some of the best developers in my college class have ended up getting paid 45k to 65k a year in places like Phoenix because that's what was available job wise." Sadly, the availability of jobs is not very highly correlated with programming ability. And I say this in a non-snarky way. The top end of the software industry is very much an exercise in pedigreed degrees, networking acumen, and fake-it-till-you-make-it. We're really not that much better than the business majors we like to make fun of.