

Ask HN: Am I underpaid? - recursion

I&#x27;m a third year degree student at Dundee University, currently working part time as a web developer near Edinburgh in Scotland. It&#x27;s full stack work with me writing PHP, SQL, HTML5&#x2F;CSS&#x2F;JS, including the use of tools like Git, Bower, Node, SASS etc. I am being paid £7 an hour. On the face of it does this seem like a low wage for the work I do?
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dennybritz
Yes, you are underpaid. Should you try to negotiate you salary or find a
similar job that pays more? Yes. Should you quit? No. Even if you get paid
nothing, the experience you gain and the fact that you can put something onto
your resume/portfolio is hugely valuable.

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hanniabu
I second this

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logn
In my opinion (of a Midwest USA programmer with no sense of the market
rates/conditions or customs in your area) you are not underpaid. Your employer
sees you like an intern.

People who frequent this site will say you are underpaid because they don't
place much additional value in experience/education and forget that most
people can rent a full house for less than half the price of a bad studio
apartment in Silicon Valley.

Could you negotiate to be paid more? Yes. Will your pay at a salaried job
after you graduate be totally unrelated to what you're paid now? Yes.

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steven2012
The company I work in Silicon Valley for pays our software engineering interns
$5000/month (USD).

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jtfairbank
Yes, but you'll pay a third of that for short term housing.

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SQL2219
You are gaining valuable experience, which over the long term will be of great
value. You need to have a longer term view of your situation. I know people,
and I've heard and read many stories regarding folks who want to get in the
tech business, but no one will give them a chance. It's not permanent, it's
just a stepping stone to something bigger down the road.

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bbcbasic
Reminds me of when I was paid £6.66 / hr back in 2000 to do some VB6 work in a
northern-England location. It was enough to pay for the rent / food over the
summer holiday, but I appreciated the experience. So I think 7 would be
underpaid compared to that, allowing for inflation. Well a true Scotsman knows
how to get value for money :-)

I agree with the "ask for more but don't quit" sentiment (unless there are
other reasons that make it worth quitting). It will pay dividends when you try
to get your first full time job, as it proves you are employable and you will
even have a reference to help you. So do good work there and be nice to them
when you leave.

P.S. Try to get a MV* framework experience in PHP that will translated nicely
into Ruby/.NET job rather than doing vanilla PHP ... if you can. Convince them
to try it out if they are not, and then you have a nice "I'm awesome" story
for your full-time job interview.

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shoo
Here's another data point for you:

i was hired as a casual to develop software in an academic environment after
finishing my undergrad & honours studies. I did this for a few months before
lining up a permanent job. This was backend python, numpy, scipy, git, applied
mathematics. & roughly full-time work, as i wasnt studying any more.

~2009; Australia; AUD$35 / hour.

pretty good money when one is still in the habit of living like a student on <
AUD$15k / year.

edit: different perspective:

* what alternatives are available to you?

if you can find another place willing to employ you for more, you could switch
jobs.

* what alternatives are available to your employer?

if your employer can replace you with another eager intern/student at a
similar rate, they have no particular motivation to pay you more, unless
you've gained relevant experience there that is valuable to them, or they
consider you particularly capable and wish to keep you around, etc.

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cmdkeen
Of course it is low paid, it's lower than the living wage and you're hardly
doing menial unskilled labour.

But crucially you're gaining work experience which will give you an edge when
you start looking for jobs once you graduate (which if you've just started 3rd
year you'll presumably be doing this time next year). Even if you stay in
Scotland you should be able to find programming jobs paying in the ~£25k range
for new STEM graduates.

Could you earn more? Yep. But probably more important if the hours are
flexible, the work interesting etc.

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switch007
Depends on your experience (lots of other comments assuming you have no prior
experience as you're at Uni). It sounds low when you can get like £6-6.50
working at Tesco.

Just make sure it doesn't stay that way for long. By that I mean: gain
valuable experience, work hard at being "so good they can't ignore" you" and
get yourself a better position when you graduate. Good luck!

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samwillis
That's about a £13,000 salary. As a third year student you are probably
thought of as an intern. In the UK a very good intern salary is probably
£18000 in London (some would think this a grad level salary) or £15000 else
where. You'll could possibly negotiate a little more but at your stage in your
career the experience is far more valuable.

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acomjean
Its 10$ and hour US.

Just a point of reference: our bioimformatics programmer intern (in a masters
degree program) make about 17$ hour (£11).

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giuscri
an ot silly question, just seriously curious: how is Node used in this stack?
To serve php pages?, as the webserver?

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romanovcode
Probably to run tasks e.g. gulp/grunt :)

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thejosh
Yes, a little but you are still a student. You should be getting paid a lot
more.

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hackerboos
Is this a "web agency" perchance?

