Comments on: Software Developer Salaries

By: tws

tws — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 16:02:54 +0000

you are being ripped off. 65k is what an entry level guy usually makes out of college. All of this web stuff just doesn’t pay well.

By: David

David — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 01:12:45 +0000

Hi,

I live in Canada and I’ve been coding for 5 years now :

Java, JSF, PL/SQL, C#, MC++, Perl, AJAX, Javascript, ADF and other frameworks.

I make 65K/year + benefits.

fyi…

By: tws

tws — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 05:59:51 +0000

If you’re worried about making a ton of money you shouldn’t be writing code. I started making much better money when I realized I could tell a group of developers what to do, take credit for their work and get a nice bonus. Sounds harsh but it is exactly what your Project Manager/Team Lead is doing to you…just being honest here. With salary and bonus and overtime (yes I actually get overtime) I will earn double what the best UI developer makes in this little survey.

So if you are writing code for big bucks, quit it, if you’re writing code because it’s fun and interesting then by all means keep at it (because it really is fun to create something from nothing).

So how to make big bucks writing code? It can be done! Find something that

#1: can’t be outsourced (security, defense, etc…)
#2: get a security clearance (if you can stomach govt. contracting)
#3: niche (usually) legacy that isn’t going away but nobody wants to do it anymore…or the people who are doing it are going to retire soon
#4: be a contractor…this is especially good if your spouse/partner has good benefits

I pay contractors on my team between 65 and 75 an hour as W2 employees (no benefits). The team does C/C++ (and a little Java). I can usually get them Overtime approved as well…so a senior guy on my team makes 200k a year with Overtime (not bad). And yes, each of the 4 items above do apply to my team. So there you have it, you can make big bucks writing code regardless of what your little table says!

By: mason

mason — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 23:11:22 +0000

I think there’s a systematic bias in these figures. I hypothesize that postings for jobs with higher salaries will be more likely to list a salary figure.

By: paul

paul — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 06:10:52 +0000

These sorts of stats can be sort of interesting, but like most stats that are quite misleading if you don’t carefully look at how they were gathered. For one thing the vast majority of jobs postings do not include salary info. Unless we have some other information to support the claim that jobs that post the salary generally pay the same as those that don’t then these stats don’t really tell us much.

The other factor that has not been mentioned (at least not directly) in the comments is that the programming language has very little to do with the salary is a person is paid. As the salary increases, this becomes more important. Good programmers have a variety of skills that don’t involve the act of programming in a specific language. Things like communication, abstract thinking, problem solving.

Personally, I see these stats as little more than a very rough approximation. I don’t think they are useful in any specific situation.

By: seanyp

seanyp — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 22:09:00 +0000

This is great news, I’m coding .NET and SQL Server and my salary in my country (Jamaica) is 11+K. While I agree that a lot of ‘.Net developers’ these days may not be able to handle lower end coding, the question is; What lower end coding is there to be handled in today’s market of Distributed Computing? While I do not decry the technologies inherent in LAMP based systems, a lot of business intensive applications depend on .NET because of (1.) It’s proven track-record and (2.) These languages are to a large extent, accepted because they are mostly improvements on pre-existing technologies. It all comes back full circle on the market and what is required.

By: graf

graf — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 19:02:16 +0000

.NET is an overpriced snap together module system… very few ‘.net developers’ can handle lower end coding… BTW, see the ASP exploit that effects ALL ASP sessions? This is why opensource is the future. Why pay a 20k license for SQL server setup, pay $ for each module implementation you want to use, pay $ for a guy to botch up code using bloated visual studio GUI. I’m currently porting sites as fast as i can to LAMP, saving my clients money & making my pockets fat. newbz

By: xavier

xavier — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 11:55:54 +0000

Pure crap

By: Mahsan

Mahsan — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 07:55:43 +0000

Great I write CC++C# code and only get $4.7K per year in my country.

By: hanks

hanks — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 02:41:52 +0000

I’m in China,I get 10K salary per year,you are in a right country!