
Want good programmers? Then pay them. - irrlichthn
http://www.irrlicht3d.org/pivot/entry.php?id=1295
======
Apreche
So true. I get calls from startup recruiters all the time. They don't seem to
realize there's this thing called rent. They want to pay with equity. Might as
well pay me with lottery tickets.

Here's the minimum I need to even bother talking to a recruiter. That means
that for me to accept the offer, it probably needs more than this.

Six figures, 30 vacation days, full benefits, infinite sick days, convince me
that you won't be out of business in any short span of time and you won't
bounce a check. Also, under no circumstances do I work more than 40 hours a
week.

The other thing that gets me is how companies expect you to really want to
work for them. The fact is you need me more than I need you. I'm not going to
spend my time solving your cute little puzzles and what not. My experience
speaks for itself. If you want to hire me, you should be the one jumping
through hoops to convince me I should quit my job and work for you. Only the
past naive college version of myself thought otherwise.

TL;DR: if you want to hire me, pretend that I am a doctor and you are a
pharmaceutical company.

~~~
elliottcarlson
I agree with a lot of what you said; but stating that you will under no
circumstances work more than 40 hours a week bothers me. I try to get out of
the office every day on time - but shit happens, and there are instances where
someone needs to fix something or else the company is losing revenue. You want
financial stability with a high salary - but aren't willing to help make the
company stable. Yes, a healthy work/life ratio is very important to me, but I
won't walk out that door in the middle of a crisis.

~~~
clavalle
Crisis mode is addictive.

It was fun to play the hero and get 'That One Critical Feature' out of the
door for an important demo. It is a rush. Investors like it. Engineers like
it. Soon a company is always in crisis mode; pushing hard to get the next
great thing out. It becomes the culture.

At one company I worked at the VP of Engineering was the hardest, longest
working person I'd ever met and a driver of that culture. No matter how hard
or long you worked, he could beat you at that metric without breaking a sweat.
There was a lot of pressure to live up to that example. Mostly I didn't mind
because solving problems on a deadline is fun. Mostly.

Eventually, inevitably, that lifestyle started catching up to us. Nerves were
frayed. Small technical disagreements started to stretch on into weeks long
religious cold wars. We started losing good people who had the good sense to
see what was happening.

Those of us who believed in the company and product stayed on, even thrived at
some level.

After a few years of this something drastic changed. Our VPoE mother died
unexpectedly. It hit him hard. He realized that he had been ignoring
absolutely everything but the business. Everything. And the culture shifted on
a dime. Engineers were no longer /allowed/ to be called on weekends whereas
before we had to respond in 20 min. He would make it a point to go out with us
after the workday, or even during the workday, to chat about life, the
direction of the company, whatever. Most importantly, he ran interference when
it came to the clients and laid down and enforced very sane timetables for
completion of projects and features. And if there was a delay, it was ok...not
the end of the world.

The product did not languish. Things still got done. Turns out clients, for
the most part, could not care less how hard and fast we worked. Having good
information for when something would be complete was sufficient. Sometimes
better because we were not breaking ourselves trying to impress them with
impossible deadlines that we would sometimes miss. Good information was better
than fast information.

On top of that, the quality of the product improved. Crises mode was used too
often as an excuse for shipping half baked product.

Creativity blossomed. Several revenue generating products were conceived and
executed in the breathing space we all now had.

People started recommending talented friends to fill positions again...

Altogether, it was just a much better scene.

Now our criteria crisis is much more strict. It is basically "Will someone
(client) die or lose their house if this is not done by some certain time?" If
the answer is no, go home.

If you are managing people and part of your evaluation criteria, formally or
informally, is "does that person work a lot of hours" or if your 'business
stability' requires that kind of sacrifice on any kind of regular basis you
are doing it wrong.

TL:DR Unless a client is going to die or go bankrupt if you or your employees
don't work extra hours, go home.

~~~
knieveltech
"The product did not languish. Things still got done. Turns out clients, for
the most part, could not care less how hard and fast we worked. Having good
information for when something would be complete was sufficient. Sometimes
better because we were not breaking ourselves trying to impress them with
impossible deadlines that we would sometimes miss. Good information was better
than fast information."

This. After years of working at shops where putting out fires was the norm I
took a position with a company that handles their client deliverables in the
manner you describe. For the first six months I was constantly jumpy, waiting
for crunch time to hit and slinking home at 5:00pm feeling vaguely guilty that
I was done for the day.

I just couldn't famthom how we could be working on all of the large project
initiatives in our pipeline with no screaming clients and no marathon code
sprints.

After a year in a sane environment it'd take more than six figures to get me
to go back to the soul-eating grind that is so typical in small dev shops.

------
pmjordan
Some context/perspective on the Austrian employment situation:

* Salaries are typically quoted per month, but there is a bonus of 2 months's salary paid per year, so yearly gross is 14 x monthly. The bonus is taxed at a lower marginal rate (6%, no social security contribution, IIRC, vs 37.5% lowest marginal rate).

* There is no fixed minimum wage in Austria. Instead, there is a collective bargaining system, which sets minimum salaries for each industry. Within each industry there are defined categories of jobs, education and levels of experience, along with minimum employment contract conditions and payment for each. This has some bizarre consequences, such that equivalent jobs (e.g. secretary) have different minimum wages in different industries.

* Employers are required to pay a _lot_ of social security/tax on top of what the employees themselves pay. (just checked this: 21.83% social security, communal tax 3%, about 6% other "social" contributions according to [http://www.gruendungswissen.at/gruendungswissen/blog-post/20...](http://www.gruendungswissen.at/gruendungswissen/blog-post/2011/04/06/gruenderlexikon-lohnnebenkosten/) )

* Employees are almost impossible to fire. If that programmer ends up doing negative work, he's going to be on your books for a while.

I've never been anything but self-employed in Austria (we get screwed in
entirely different ways) but culturally I think there is an expectation that
you won't negotiate on your salary. This is further reinforced by the built-in
graduated minimum pay: why permit the employee to negotiate a raise if they'll
legally be due a raise anyway?

~~~
pavlov
_Salaries are typically quoted per month, but there is a bonus of 2 months's
salary paid per year, so yearly gross is 14 x monthly._

Interesting. During the recent Euro crisis, when journalists discovered that
some workers and officials in Greece enjoy a similar "extended year" of extra
salary months, there was wide uproar across Europe about how the corrupted
Greeks are being overpaid in ridiculous ways.

In the EU it's nowadays easy to see the speck in your brother's eye, but not
notice the log in your own...

~~~
tezza
The Press wrongly just focus on one issue at a time. Other problems become
side-notes or explicitly ignored.

Any solution to the current focus problem is paraded as a global solution.

But when the long ignored problems finally burst, the Press simply say 'the
problem resurfaced' as if it had gone away somehow.

Relating to Austria, their banks were all wiped out lending to Hungary (more
than 80% of loans to Hungary were Austrian)

There will be no mention of these zombie Austrian banks until one goes under.
(Like Dexia)

\---

 _from 2008:_

<http://www.economist.com/node/12564042?story_id=12564042>

[http://www.moneyweek.com/investments/stock-markets/the-
plagu...](http://www.moneyweek.com/investments/stock-markets/the-plague-heads-
east-14050)

[http://www.moneyweek.com/personal-finance/credit-default-
swa...](http://www.moneyweek.com/personal-finance/credit-default-swaps-how-to-
spot-the-riskiest-banks)

------
kamaal
Well this looks like the story of nearly developer community no matter which
part of the world you are in. Lets face it 'monthly salaries' suck.

Programmers are a unique lot, Well last few weeks I've been pulled up for work
on weekends. Almost 18 hour schedules a day. And what do I get in return? Not
even a thank you. Its presumed to be a part of my job. Any other profession
and unions would be up in arms about bonuses and pay for extra time. But not
here, not in our profession. We don't have any work hours, we don't have
holidays and vacation, we don't have a concept of over time pay. What we get
in return are stupid certificates, mementos and some bravos(as though somebody
cares about them).

Compensations in the software world are a huge rip off. There is no co
relation between the work and pay that we get.

And please don't tell me about start up's. If you are lucky by any means to
end up with good amount of stock, and an another round of luck if the start up
is successful then you are OK. But most of us fail ingloriously, spend best
years of lives burning through crazy hours, without vacations for peanuts in
return. The Start up lottery is what it is, its a lottery.

Over the years my net learning's are:

1\. Corporate/Company loyalty is JackCrap.

2\. Work only as much as your paid, use rest of your time for personal
projects and other ways of making money.

3\. Save money, and invest for your early retirement. Never having to depend
on employment to make a living post 40's.

4\. Make people pay, never do anything for free. Cash counts.

5\. Your biggest asset is time. Use your time well to make money, and invest
it over large periods of time to make more of it.

~~~
throwaway1979
Sir ... I tip my hat to you.

Can you elaborate on #3? Are you in the US? Did you move to a cheaper
location? I don't understand how the future's going to play out with respect
to retirement. I'm in my early 30s if that helps. I looked for a financial
planner ... but could not find any in my area. Just financial advisers wanting
to sell me the latest "product". Any books/tips?

Funny story: my fiance and I got went to the local Barnes and Noble to check
out their personal finance section. Over half the books were on how to make a
fortune in foreclosures. The other half was the rich dad/poor dad crap. We
ended up getting a very very simple book called "the smartest money book
you'll ever read". It was saying the right things but still - very high level.
I wish someone wrote a book on how to retire for intelligent people with jobs
in the private sector. I'm beginning to suspect the math is so bleak that it
isn't possible :(

~~~
randomdata
_I'm beginning to suspect the math is so bleak that it isn't possible :(_

I'm starting to come to that conclusion myself. They say you need $1M to
retire today. With inflation, we're probably talking at least $2M by the time
I'm ready to retire.

Given that you and I are of similar age, these are critical times for
compounding our retirement funds. With so little investment opportunity right
now for the average investor, it is very difficult to keep your savings up
with inflation, let alone increase your wealth. Unless you want to turn
virtually all of your income into retirement savings, $2M seems pretty much
out of reach.

This is, perhaps, another reason why the startups are so hot right now. Given
the current financial climate, it seems like the only hope of seeing a decent
retirement for the average person without a lot of capital to start with.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
> it seems like the only hope of seeing a decent retirement for the average
> person without a lot of capital to start with

not on a risk-adjusted basis

~~~
randomdata
The odds are low, sure, but the odds are essentially zero if you take any
other route. Granted, a lot can change with time.

------
cletus
The comparison to equity being getting paid in lottery tickets is apt (IMHO).

Nevertheless there has never been a short of pioneering spirits willing to
risk it all to strike it rich (just look at the gold rushes in the Dakotas,
California and elsewhere). This is really the modern day equivalent.

There was a thread here last year where people talked about their exits. A
common story was "worked my ass off for X years, ended up with $10k". It's
survivor bias.

There is something to be said for getting paid well. I work for Google, I'm
not high-level and I haven't been here forever (~1.5 years) and, honestly, you
get paid--and _treated_ \--really well. Now you'll never strike it rich but
you can live incredibly well and, if you prove yourself, have an awful lot of
freedom to pursue your goals with an amazing amount of resources and latitude.

Some of the comments in this thread bother me, particularly the 30 days paid
vacation a year. In Europe maybe. In the US? Good luck. Never working more
than 40 hours a week nor staying late? It just smacks of entitlement. I'm not
saying you need to kill yourself for the company but it really is a two-way
street.

I tried pursuing that once. The end result of that is what Chris Dixon calls
"transactional" work [1]. You owe them nothing. They owe you nothing. I've
worked in banking and finance and that's as good as it gets there. It's really
soul-destroying actually.

So I work more than I should. Thing is, I'm never looking at my watch because
_I enjoy what I do_. And if I want to go off for a nap or wander off and see a
movie or do something else to relax or recharge I can.

Now someone will inevitably bring up that not everyone can do that. Fine.
Whatever. You've made other life choices. I get it.

The biggest problem startups are facing in hiring (IMHO) is that there is a
disconnect between equity offered to early employees and the risk. Last
cofounder? 33% or 50% typically (before dilution). First employee? 1-2%. Maybe
3%.

We're not in 1999 anymore. You don't need $5-10 million to launch a startup
anymore. What used to take $5 million now takes as little as $50,000. The
lowering of the barrier to entry means talented engineers are nearly always
better off starting their own startup rather than working for yours, unless
you have an _amazing_ track record.

[1]: <http://cdixon.org/2009/10/23/twelve-months-notice/>

~~~
Jabbles
Is there something intrinsically wrong with giving someone 30 days' holiday
per year? Surely this is the same kind of freedom to spend your time as you
wish that Google (with its 20% time) is famous for?

As you said, in Europe this is common, and the viewpoint that it "smacks of
entitlement" is puzzling. Is it just a cultural difference? I'm don't think
there is any evidence either way that this affects productivity.

~~~
3pt14159
In my experience Europeans have a different view of life than North Americans.
Especially East coasters. In work I find they are more interested in
perfection and creativity, and less so on productivity, output, and
efficiency.

Thirty days of holiday a year is affordable if North Americans would be fine
with houses that were 13% less spacious, but most North Americans I met
_heavily_ optimize living space, where Europeans outsource their after hour
times to pubs and social atmospheres. An "excellent" amount of vacation in
North America is 20 days + 7 or so Government mandated days off. I've yet to
meet someone under 35 that has a better deal than that, even in tech, and for
most workers it is 10 days + 7.

~~~
Retric
I am a 31 year old programmer working 40 hour weeks in the US. I get 21 days
PTO + 2 floating holidays + 7 Government holidays + 5 days training days + 3
months sick leave at full pay + unlimited sick leave at 60% pay (long term
disability). I also pay 2k/month in rent for a small, but nice apartment in
the DC area.

Ignoring sick-leave and training that works out to 30 days / year off, they
don't let you cash it out and there is a 25day cap designed to get you to
actually use that time off. (Most people end up taking a month off every other
year or so, they also let you go a little negative to encourage longer
vacations.)

PS: They also do maternity / adoption leave, and give separate time off for
funerals etc.

~~~
enjo
Where is this?:)

~~~
Retric
<http://www.boozallen.com/> they start you at 16 or 17 days PTO after 5 years
it's bumped to 21, but all the other benefits stay the same.

PS: I know plenty of people who work insane hours there. But, it's not
'required' just useful for promotions etc.

------
dkarl
_In Austria, an entry level programmer with high level university training
will usually get offered 2200 Euro gross. I'm not kidding._

I think employers should be cut a little slack with entry-level, straight-out-
of-school programmers. They regard them as having no proven value, which is
fair, and in most cases they will have to sink a significant amount of time
and effort into making them productive in a business environment. The world is
more than 19-year-old open source celebrities and wizard start-up coders.
There are a lot of regular people with CS degrees and no experience beyond
school projects. Entry-level positions exist for people like that. (Even
programmers with a history of open-source contributions are an unknown
quantity when it comes to their ability to contribute to projects they didn't
choose, that don't scratch their own itch, that don't come with public
bragging rights, etc.)

Not providing an exceptional starting point for exceptional kids is
forgivable, because exceptional contributors have their own contacts already
that they are presumably working. If you don't have contacts and are stuck
looking at normal entry-level jobs, then forgive the corporate world for being
a little skeptical. If we want corporations to hire and train normal graduates
(and we do, if we care about unemployment, and our future pool of skilled tech
workers) then we should accept them being payed a fair guess at what they'll
be worth in their first year of employment. If you think you're worth more,
then maybe you should forgive employers for not being psychic enough to take
you at your word. If you think you're worth more _and_ you have better
options, then why do you think entry-level positions are intended for you? You
have your path, and these jobs are for someone else.

------
mgkimsal
_most_ companies don't know how to value the contributions of software
developers. i'm not actually sure they know how to value the contributions of
most employees, period, except for salespeople. However as a dev, I'm biased
some. I do think the potential for high value contributions, and the ability
to avoid even costlier mistakes, is higher in the IT/dev dept vs other
corporate departments.

Several years ago I was offered $60k at a company as a developer. I was coming
to them with, at that point, 12 years of web development (backend, php, etc).
I pointed out that $60k was not something I thought was reasonable for what I
was bringing. "This is what everyone starts at here," was the reply, and I
learned that was their starting salary for 'just out of college' devs. They
hadn't hired any senior-level devs before (but had dozens of devs), and didn't
even know how to put a value on the skills one brought to the table.

I've learned they've since changed their policies some, but that policy
actually did a lot of damage to their rep in the local scene, and it was hard
for them to get _good_ devs for a while. The few I knew who were really good
generally didn't start there, or started, then left after a bit. But...
because I knew people there, I learned about their internal stuff. I was (sort
of) shocked at how many basic dev mistakes they made, which ended up costing
them extreme time/money to fix months or years later. These were rather
elementary mistakes in most cases - I'd made them 10 years earlier myself in
some cases.

How does one put a value on the savings experienced devs bring to a company,
in terms of simply _not_ making bone-headed decisions which cost a lot to fix
later on? This is not saying I'm perfect - of course I'd make some mistakes.
But mine would be harder to detect ;)

Lastly, somewhat relatedly, devs just coming out of school are almost _never_
taught a few basic skills which are nearly universally required - how to break
down a project in to smaller parts, debugging techniques (how to think about
debugging, not particular tools), testing (including how to think about making
code testable the first time), and version control concepts (again, not a
particular tool, but the importance of version control). I'm seeing devs come
out of school with degrees who have never heard of git/svn/cvs, nor understand
why they need version control ("it's just me on a project").

~~~
SatvikBeri
> How does one put a value on the savings experienced devs bring to a company,
> in terms of simply not making bone-headed decisions which cost a lot to fix
> later on? This is not saying I'm perfect - of course I'd make some mistakes.
> But mine would be harder to detect ;)

Learning how to translate your value as a developer into dollars is an
extremely useful skill that will help you gain a lot of respect and earn more.
Speaking from experience, people are a lot more impressed when I say "I saved
my last company $3MM in 8 months" than if I say something like "I set up a
reporting architecture which allowed us to automate a lot of work and greatly
reduce the number of errors, plus create new reports faster."

So how do you actually figure out your value? Here are some methods:

1\. Time savings. Almost everything a developer does reduces the need for
other people to spend time working on any given project. Ask a few people how
much time they save per week thanks to your software, and multiply that by the
number of people using what you've created.

2\. Sales increases. Compare companies in the industry that have great
development practices to companies that have terrible practices. Find out what
features have helped increased sales, and point out how these features
couldn't have been created without fantastic developers available. You'll find
that a case for hiring good programmers. almost writes itself.

3\. If you want to get really advanced, take (1) and (2) and actively seek
projects where you'll be make major contributions to the company's bottom
line.

~~~
patrickyeon
#3 is the center of patio11's usual advice for programmers who want to make
more money[0]. It boils down to "find a part of the company that is making
money, go there, and show them how your contribution helped make more money."

[0] [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-
pro...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/)

~~~
SatvikBeri
The one thing I would add is you don't _need_ to be in a profit center of the
company, though it helps. Even administrative roles have a lot of ways to
contribute to the bottom line (the $3MM example I gave was in a reporting
department!)

~~~
malandrew
You don't need to be in the profit center of the company, but, and this is a
big but, when you are not in the profit center of the company you, your
colleagues and your department are seen by the CFO and accounting side as an
expense and not a cost.

Being seen as an expense in many companies means that there are budgets and
less perceived room for negotiating by those deciding your salary. They have a
budget to meet. It's not like they can easily go to their superior and say
"Hey, if you increase my budget for salaries X, I can reduce the company's
expenditures by 2X". Unfortunately budgets for most non-core departments only
go down, unless the demand for the service that non-core department by the
core departments go up, i.e. "In order to offer 2X capacity, I need 2X the
budget"

Plus, you generally never want to be in the non-core part of any
company/industry because the quality/talent of the people you work with in the
profit center of a company/industry. It's simply much harder to surround
yourself with good people.

------
smikhanov
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.

~~~
mgkimsal
The OP didn't mention 'entry level' with respect to that post. The post was
looking for someone with 5 years of experience in tech X. That's probably not
'entry level' anymore, no matter how you slice it.

~~~
smikhanov
From the original post:

 _In Austria, an entry level programmer with high level university training
will usually get offered 2200 Euro gross_

That's what I was referring to.

~~~
mgkimsal
Sorry - missed that. I saw his reference to 5+ years.

------
pavlov
_Wake up, people: Are you serious? You want highly specialized people with
actual skills, and expect them to be OK with that comparable low payment? If
the same person sits down and starts creating his own software, he will
probably earn much more one year later by himself already._

Probably not. Most programmers don't have any idea what software sells and how
to sell it.

~~~
kitsune_
I seriously doubt that. It's not like most programmers live in a bubble and
never have contact with other people.

As a programmer you usually accumulate detailed domain knowledge in a variety
of industries. You often end up knowing more about the core business of a
company than their individual stakeholders and employees. Programming requires
specifications, and often, an IT project forces companies to identify and
formulate business processes for the first time. Often this leads to the
realization that existing processes are simply broken.

On top of that, you get a feel for how companies work. As an example: internal
politics, warring departments battling each other. You see good and bad
examples of leadership and management.

In meetings with clients I often feel more like a management consultant than a
programmer.

~~~
wpietri
Running a successful business isn't about knowledge. It's about skill. The
first time I started a business, I thought, "Hell, I understand all the
technical stuff, and the rest looks simple. How hard could it be?"

The joke was on me, for sure. It turns out it is very hard. Extremely
rewarding, certainly, even if not financially: almost every entrepreneur I
know could have made much better money in some bullshit corporate job.

But the notion that if "an entry level programmer [...] sits down and starts
creating his own software, he will probably earn much more one year later by
himself already"? I'm confident saying that's arrogant youthful idiocy,
because that's exactly what I was full of when I started out on my own.

------
benjaminwootton
Sometimes small and medium businesses simply don't have the money to pay the
big bucks that we think we are worth.

I've worked with a number of companies turning over in the low £millions, and
it's very rare that the founder is taking lots of money off the table whilst
low balling the staff on salaries.

These businesses simply don't have the margins and the runways to let salaries
get out of hand.

As most of the economy is made up of these kinds of businesses, many of which
have IT as the cost centre providing some non-remarkable CRUD development,
this is probably a big factor that holds down average salaries.

Turn it around a little and image you are the small-medium sized business
owner. You need a person, but can can only sensibly offer a salary of 75% of
the market rate.

Are you best just not to offer the job for fear of exploiting someone or
looking like a cheapskate, or do you put it out there and hope to find someone
who is happy to work for that price?

[I'm a developer who agrees with the OP so I'm playing devils advocate
slightly, but there are two sides to this.]

~~~
dagw
_can can only sensibly offer a salary of 75% of the market rate_

I'd happily consider working for 75% of market rate, if I could work a 60%
week. Add to that the ability to work remotely and things can start to look
really enticing. If on the other hand you expect someone to work 100%, plus
unpaid over time, plus be in the office every morning by 8 am, plus being on
call, plus an absolute minimum of vacation days, and still only want to pay
them 75%, then hiring will be almost impossible.

If you really can only afford 75% of market rate, you can probably still get
good people if you're willing to be flexible on all the other non-salary
aspects of the job.

~~~
danssig
Oh how I wish this would be considered more! I'd be willing to take quite a
beating on the rate for even a 4 day work week (4 8 hour days, not dressed up
40 hour weeks).

>and still only want to pay them 75%, then hiring will be almost impossible.

Oh hiring will still be possible, you're just going to get really crap people.

------
EternalFury
Smart individuals don't relish the thought of being saddled by hustlers who
intend to ride them to the top of the mountain. Granted, you can't make
everyone a co-founder, but there is quite a bit of leeway between that and
token equity.

I get contacted all the time by start-up hustlers who tell me in detail what
they expect or want. When I compare their "wild desires" to what I estimate
they will contribute to building something from nothing, I am left with only
one conclusion: They believe engineering/programming/technology is as trivial
as blogging about your dream of becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg.

Sorry, fellas, but coding and talking are not the same thing. Coding and
hustling are not the same thing either.

Another pet peeve of mine is people who contact me claiming they are looking
for a technical co-founder. I go along and quickly learn they have already
made all technical decisions and claim they have "90% of the code in place".
In the back of my mind, I know why they say that: They just don't want to
admit my contribution would be worth more than a single-digit percentage of
their unborn company.

In the end, I can see through all that and I am not about to let anyone take
advantage of me.

I am not alone either and all those smart individuals you need to build a
successful company can see through it all as well.

Conclusion: 90%+ of all start-ups fail lamentably. Because too many
entrepreneurs just want to get rich before anything else and it's hard to
convince people to join you when you are so obviously self-centered.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
_Granted, you can't make everyone a co-founder_

Yes, you can. It's called a collective, or a cooperative. There are some
functioning software cooperatives, Galois Systems being one of the more
lucrative examples.

------
adrianhoward
On occasion I have long complicated discussions with companies about how hard
it to find developers. Assuming they're actually asking for a sane skill-set
the problem is usually down to two factors:

1) Not paying enough

2) Not doing interesting work

(with the very occasional 3 of "having a bloody awful reputation")

The trick is, of course, finding a non-blunt way of getting this across :-)

~~~
dasil003
I think companies can get away with both those things if they have a good
engineering culture. That is to say, if they respect the engineers enough to
let them have a higher problem solving role than simply implementing what some
non-technical manager passes down.

~~~
adrianhoward
Surely "let them have a higher problem solving role" == doing interesting
work? :-)

~~~
dasil003
Yes I would agree with that, though it's non-obvious. I mean the best solution
could be a CRUD app that would be the very epitome of boring to many seasoned
programmers, and yet I think there will always be some smart programmers who
will find it interesting if for no other reason then that they personally
haven't done that type of thing before.

------
LinXitoW
German dev here. Here, you hear companies complain about qualified laborer
scarcity("Fachkräftemangel") and the politicians eat it up. It's not true
though; it's just that the companies have totally wrong ideas of what they can
demand/offer. There are a lot of unpaid internships, entry-level pay with
senior-level experience jobs and a lot of the companies file much more job
offers than they actually need, just so they can get more applications.

According to simple market rules, less supply with more demand should increase
the price/salary, but it doesn't.

~~~
gaius
Quite; allowing for inflation, developer salaries have been flat since 2001.
There is _not_ a shortage of developers, and that is provable.

~~~
weavejester
Provable how? Not raising developer salaries might be _indicative_ of there
being no shortage of developers, but it's not proof by any stretch of the
imagination.

In markets of asynchronous information, supply and demand fails. It's quite
possible for developer salaries to remain constant or even decrease _at the
same time_ as demand for good developers goes through the roof.

------
redguava
"If the same person sits down and starts creating his own software, he will
probably earn much more one year later by himself already."

I think people really underestimate what a small portion of a successful
business the ability to code well is. I am not saying it isn't helpful, but I
would put my money on someone that is an average coder with great business,
marketing, customer service skills over a great coder that lacks those any
day.

This isn't to downplay a developers role in business, I am a developer myself,
it's just that a great developer can't turn that into money without working
for someone else, or having the other business skills that are required.

------
JVIDEL
And the sad part is that recruiters are going to keep talking crap about
"motivation" and how gamification makes working "fun".

Pay up: there's an actual deficit of coders in the market, know why? because
years ago people who were grade-A material for programming decided to go into
finance instead, because those guys actually get paid

You know who makes the most money in the gaming industry? not the artists,
they are actually among the worst paid. The coders? they are above the artists
that's for sure, but still not even close to the highest tier: business.

Yeah, the beancounters, the guys that take 1/3 of the game and sell it
separately as a DLC, they are the best paid in the gaming industry, not the
guys that you know, actually make the games...

~~~
mseebach
> because years ago people who were grade-A material for programming decided
> to go into finance instead, because those guys actually get paid

That's not just "years ago", that's very current.

~~~
JVIDEL
OK I meant when it started

------
TheCapn
I think companies forget the concept of compensation and its relation to
attracting talent. You don't pay a person necessarily what they _deserve_
because you'll often fall short. You pay what is _necessary_ to secure the
talent you require.

I'm from the Canadian Prairies; a lot of our industry here is oil. Rig workers
don't require much skill, the job is physically demanding yes but almost
anyone can pick it up and do it should they wish to do so. This is a low
skilled labour job but its extremely high demand because oil is a massive
industry. Guess what? They earn $75,000+ per year in some cases. That's more
than entry level programmers who require degrees. I don't think its unfair as
a programmer because their jobs are in demand. If you want me to work as a
programmer in the area then you better make it worth my while. Shortage of
programmers? Attract them with incentives!

------
pwaring
This reflects my experience (UK) - I get recruiters asking me on a regular
basis why they can't find any PHP developers, when I look at the job ad it's
because the offers are things like 'experienced mid-level developer, 20-24k'.

------
jacquesm
I've seen crap programmers get paid insane amounts of money and incredibly
good ones get paid peanuts...

If only there was a strong correlation between programmers self-assessment
with respect to their value and what they're actually being paid. That would
help everybody and would make salary negotiations a lot easier.

~~~
kamaal
Programmer salaries are decided most of the times by people, who don't know a
jack about programming.

I know a lot of people make money just by being the manager's 'best man', Just
polish the managers boot and he will give you the title of 'best team player'
around.

On the other most good programmers tend to concentrate on their work, poor
social skills and merely delivering stuff that doesn't get highlighted. You
can do a lot of fire fighting at work, no body above your immediate manager
will even know about it. There are a lot of people around you who are known to
level above you manager just because they can make more noise and blow their
trumpet louder than anybody else.

Perceptions drive a lot of things in this world.

------
coenhyde
Remember the USA has had 50 years of Silicon Valley. The rest of the world is
playing catchup. While developers may understand the what creates a successful
software product/company, the businesses adopting software development have no
idea what they are doing.

There isn't the 50 years of collective physique at play. They haven't seen
software giants rise and fall. And they haven't been exposed to the inputs
that create a successful software company. As time goes on things will
improve.

Just avoid these companies like the plague.

~~~
Wilya
To be honest, the US companies probably have also more money to throw at the
problem than those of any other country.

Everytime I see someone speak about the absurdly high salaries around Silicon
Valley and saying that they are too low, I cringe a bit inside.

~~~
throwaway1979
Why do you cringe? Do you know what the average price of a house is in MV/Palo
Alto/Sunnyvale? Cheapest housing I could find that was decent (not fancy but
descent by my personal definition) was just over 2K/month in rent. 6 figures
in Silicon Valley isn't the same as it is in most parts of the world.

That said, what I find strange is that experience in software doesn't seem to
be rewarded. I keep hearing about fresh grads getting offered nearly a 100K
right out of school. How much does a veteran developer make? Almost the same
as far as I know.

~~~
Wilya
A naive search shows you get a 1000 sq feet house for 2K$ in MV/Sunnyvale. If
it's really true, that doesn't exactly sound a _huge_ amount. Look at the
rents in Paris or Stockholm, and imagine you're paid 50k$.

~~~
throwaway1979
In the US, you are responsible for your own retirement (in most of the private
sector). If you lose your job for a prolonged period of time, you also need to
have funds saved up (generally, the safety net is thin). You're comparing
apples and oranges.

Take Stockholm as an example. I found it to be ridiculously to be expensive ..
even to eat out! That just means people don't eat out as much as they do in
NYC or SF. However, the wait staff were wearing far better clothes than me and
didn't seem to care about tips ... I believe they get paid better wages than
the US. That's good for them. I don't think they should get paid any less. I'm
just saying it is a different social structure.

------
mhofer
I am a Vienna-based programmer and am looking at job adverts regularly. I
fully agree with what you have written, sometimes I feel they mus be joking.
There is no appreciation for hackers and what they are worth. Take this advert
for example: [http://derstandard.at/anzeiger/derjob/d/155533/c-senior-
soft...](http://derstandard.at/anzeiger/derjob/d/155533/c-senior-software-
entwickler-%28m-w%29) 5 years experience in C++ and only 2,500 EUR gross?
Seriously?

~~~
seclorum
I'm in Vienna and work for a local startup in the mobile application
development scene .. and yeah. Pay-rates are definitely not what they should
be, here in Austria. I think it has a lot to do with the "Kollektiv-vertrag"
prices being set too low by the government itself ..

~~~
accountoftheday
one way to think of it: with your average salary you are propping up all the
people not as good as you who still get the same salary. if you cannot feel
good about this you then move away from your socialist country. I did.

~~~
DominikR
Well, I've been thinking about moving from Vienna to somewhere more
competetive for some time (though its not about the money, I'm paid really
well here - just about competition, which I happen to enjoy a lot), but the
reasons for not doing it are some of the features you get when living in a
more "socialist" (though I wouldn't call Austria socialist) country.

Security, low crime rate, very few homeless people, drug addicts etc.. I can
basically go to a party, get drunk there and take a walk after that in any
part of the city during night without being afraid that some homeless person
will attack me. If you ask me, thats a big pro for staying here. Sure, I would
probably earn more if I did the same job in San Francisco, but then I would
have to deal with a much worse social situation, and I would have to be more
cautious.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_Sure, I would probably earn more if I did the same job in San Francisco, but
then I would have to deal with a much worse social situation, and I would have
to be more cautious._

Does the crime rate actually differ much between SF and Vienna? A quick google
search provides very little info, but suggests there is not much difference. I
haven't been to SF lately, but crime is a negligible issue in NYC.

Though SF may be a special case - I've heard they have extremely generous
benefits and the homeless move to SF to collect them. Can someone with more
knowledge comment?

~~~
DominikR
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_r...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate)

San Francisco has more homicides with its population of ~800k than all of
Austria combined with a population of 8,5 million.

~~~
base698
Almost all of them are gang related--YAY drug war! As an upper middle class
software engineer it's not really a good argument.

Though the poverty and hopelessness can be a little sad if you walk through
the bad areas.

~~~
DominikR
I'm not saying life is bad in San Francisco, those statistics are just one
part of the equasion. (the other parts: leaving behind family, friends, the
good life I already have etc)

I am just against the notion that propping up that random incompetent guy (at
least to some degree, so he wont roam the streets doing crazy stuff) is always
a bad decision.

Preventing those people from failing miserably (and the negative side effects
that come with it) - thats basically why we have a lower income over here.

And my pricetag for giving up all that is higher than just doubling my income.

------
tluyben2
I see people getting low salaries who do not assert themselves. I know of
friends and employees who are capable of sticking up for themselves getting
over twice the amount the ones get who do not. Employees who don't ask for a
raise don't get one as apparently they don't want one.

One of my best friends (developer) gets FAR too little for his experience,
intelligence etc, but when I tell him to ask for more he says that he's happy
like this and he doesn't care. Most devs (I met here and I met a lot) are like
that; of the 100s of devs we employed we had maybe 30 asking for a raise
directly. The rest (and we are talking a period of 12 years now) are just
happily plodding along. People rather have the boss not whine when they don't
turn up after a boozer or when they want to suddenly out with the family than
more money. Fine.

I'm from EU, the Netherlands. Most people are know are not very money focused;
quality of life is the word. A lot of them work less to spend time with their
kids/family and most are happy making nice money to live, go on vacation twice
a year (and the trend here is to go inside of EU because 'there is enough
beauty, why go further?', which is often much cheaper than flying to the other
side of the world) and have a good pension.

------
carlob
I wouldn't compare European salaries with US so quickly. I have a cautionary
tale to tell: when in 1990 the USSR collapsed, many Russian physicists decided
to move abroad, some to western Europe, some to the USA. At first the European
ones were complaining about their lower salaries, but once they started having
kids and needing more medical care, they realized that they were actually much
better off than their American counterparts. The lesson here is: you might
even make much less, but in Europe there are much much better public schools
which are free, hospitals are (mostly) free and in general Universities are
either free or at least one order of magnitude less expensive than in the US.
Should I go on? Most contracts in the US do not have unlimited sick leave,
whereas in Europe we get that and 20 days of holiday; the US are one of the
four countries in the world with no national law on maternity leave (who are
the other three is left as an exercise to the reader…). But I agree with the
general point that salaries of developers should not be so low compared to
managerial positions.

~~~
gopi
I see this argument (Europe is superior) made again and again. Let me try to
clear the misconceptions. Please note i am a immigrant in US and somewhat
qualified to compare it with the other countries.

1, Public education is free in US. Of-course the quality varies depending on
which school district you live. But in most metros (other than NYC/Bay
area/north east) you will be able to buy a 4 bedroom house in a good school
district for around $250k.

2, Healthcare - Health Insurance is paid by the company in almost 99% of the
cases. Depending on the insurance plan sometime you will have some out of
pocket costs (lke $20 copay per doctor visit etc).

3, Vacation - Most companies offer around 2 weeks of paid vacation a year (in
addition to sick leaves). Yes its less than in europe but you can always take
non paid vacation.

So the bottomline is US offers 2x the salary with 1/2 the cost of living and
3/4 the social benefits as Europe. If you do the math its better to work in IT
in US compared to any part of the world.

~~~
danssig
You're not clearing any misconceptions, you're making them. It would take a
lot of research and work to discover what a "good district" is, while in
western Europe you can just send your kids to school and not worry about it.
Lots of states don't have any good districts at all.

Healthcare paid for by the company is the stupidest thing ever. The company is
trying to save money and having them pay for health care means (a) you have
little or no choice of what provider they choose and (b) you cannot be without
a job ever due to the insane exposure that would put you and your family under
and keeping the insurance plan you had with your employer will usually be
prohibitively expensive.

Many employers just give you "catastrophic" coverage which will leave you with
something like a $10k deductible (I'm serious) and if you do manage to go over
that expect to take the company to court for not paying. Anecdotal but I only
know two people who tested this (I'm one of them) and in both cases the
insurance companies refused to pay. I sued them to get my bills paid. The
other guy wasn't so lucky. Shame, he would have retired by 40 if it weren't
for a surprise illness.

You can't "always" take non paid vacation. In many companies if you do that
make sure you take all your stuff with you and polish your resume before you
leave.

2x the salary? Not where I live. I'm above all but a Facebook/Google salary
(but those are within view) and I don't know what 3/4 the social benefits
you're talking about are. The US has worse roads, hostile public services
(e.g. DMV, police, etc.), a horrible health care system and poor worker
protections (compared to Europe). Could you break down your social benefits
because I literally cannot imagine what you could possibly mean with this.

~~~
gopi
1, 10k deductible?, thats unheard of unless if they worked for a startup with
funding issues :)

2, It takes about an hour to find out the good school districts in any metro!.

3, 2x salary is real, Just compare the 2200 euro beginner salary ($35k yearly)
mentioned in the post with US. An beginner american programmer can easily
start at $60k. After tax it will be really 2x than in europe.

Anyway with so many downvotes i think its not a good idea to argue further :)

------
_pferreir_
I think this is a consequence of the corporate mentality that prevails in
Europe. We're still (or at least many of the big players) at the stage at
which developers are seen as easily replaceable, as "mere code writers".
People do not value our contribution as they should, it's like we're doing
something that in a couple of years will be done by robots. While it's still
true that it's easier to find a job in IT than somewhere else, the pay is
quite limited in some countries, and unless you are willing to sell your soul
to the devil, your career aspirations too.

------
abhaga
This is like saying, "Want diamonds? Pay for them!" which, I agree, is an
entirely valid statement. But the reason the diamonds/good programmer are so
expensive has little to do with their inherent value. It has more to do with
lack of supply. A B level player will not suddenly graduate to A level if you
start paying him higher.

~~~
bgilroy26
Who is DeBeers in this analogy?

~~~
abhaga
I don't have a very good answer to that but in India, our education system is
certainly a big shareholder. And the job security afforded even at low skill
levels due to outsourcing, another.

------
pjmlp
Same thing in Germany and Portugal, too markets I know very well.

The sad thing is then watching the outsourcing taking place, and how the money
"saved" in outsourcing, is then spent repairing the work from bad deliveries.

So development cost actually increases, but since now two cost centers are
being used, the business costs look nicer on the spreadsheets.

------
encoderer
From my own experience of comparing my salary to those of friends in this
industry, a lot of the discrepancy I see is largely based on very poor
negotiation skills. In my case, my dad taught me how to negotiate salary on my
first real job the way some guys dad's teach them how to box. I'm horrible in
a fight but have proven to be a fairly good negotiator.

And I can understand why people compare software engineers to doctors and
attorneys: Cases of highly trained "knowledge workers". But one big difference
is that doctors are most often hired by other doctors. And lawyers are most
often hired by other lawyers. Most engineers are hired as support-staff in an
unrelated field. The ones that do work for software companies and startups are
usually paid more. These are all just a few correlated data points but I think
there's something to it.

~~~
skerrit_bwoy
Excellent points. Your typical doctor or lawyer is in a revenue generating
function (doctors, in fact, are THE revenue generators of hospitals), and are
therefore hired by other revenue generators and paid accordingly. But your
typical programmer is writing some access database for the HR department to
throw away in a year.

------
josephcooney
"we're having trouble finding people" is a familiar refrain from people
looking to hire developers.

if you're having trouble finding people you are, by definition, not paying
enough.

~~~
Mikushi
Or there is a shortage of developers in your area.

My previous company was offering competitive salaries, good environment,
challenging work, and we had trouble filling position with decent
developers...

~~~
waterlesscloud
Raise salaries and attract developers from outside your area.

The problem was that you weren't actually offering "competitive" salaries, you
were merely offering what may have been standard for your area but no longer
was sufficient, by your own report.

~~~
tensor
When someone says "there is a shortage of oil" it is indeed true that oil
costs skyrocket. It is also true that there is a shortage of oil. Shortages
cause prices to increase, so much so that many people might not be able to
afford a resource at all. It's a bit silly to say "there are no shortages!
Only cheap consumers!"

~~~
waterlesscloud
The point here is that if you can't find programmers at a given salary, that
salary is not in fact "competitive".

You can decide that you can't afford actual competitive salaries, but calling
your salary offers competitive when they are not will not help you in any way.

~~~
tensor
That is certainly true and I am not taking issue with that.

------
kayoone
Its pretty similar in germany. I know quite alot of people that do some more
or less simple work for some of the big german industrial companies (cars,
food stuff etc) and work 9-5, have alot of holidays and earn more than the
average software developer that works his butt off. If you throw in a couple
of late/night shifts at those jobs you will get a very good extra pay as
well... as a developer ? you wish...

I think its because competition for dev jobs is much lower in europe because
there is no Google, no Facebook, no Microsoft etc.

That said, if you work as a contractor for some of the big companies in cities
like Berlin, Hamburg, Munich etc you can easily make 100K EUR, even as a bread
and butter PHP dev.

------
benvds
As a 28 year old, developing part-time since 15, full-time since 22, and
always self-learning in my own time i've seen lots of people in other
industries with just 4 years full-time experience, not self-learning, doing
nothing in their own free time getting offered a lot more for job positions.
The strange thing is, often these people have trouble finding work as most
industries aren't as easy as ours. I guess supply and demand is just skewed in
the jobmarket. I also guess it-work is under appreciated but it's all our own
fault. B.t.w. I started as a freelancer so I have only myself to blame for my
income.

------
francoisdevlin
There's another way of looking at this. Do you want to work with smart
colleagues and good management? Work for a company that pays you & the other
developers well. It'll be much more enjoyable to go to work each day.

~~~
frou_dh
There may be a correlation, but it takes a lot more than good pay to foster an
enjoyable company.

~~~
marcusf
It's more of an indicator of negatives rather than positives; A company that
pays comparatively shit (€2200/month comes out to about $35000, seriously!?)
will probably not be a place that respects developers and attracts talent.

~~~
dasil003
It's actually $40,000+ because they get paid 14 salaries. Given the other
benefits of living in Europe, this is competitive with the US in general (not
Silicon Valley) for entry level programmers.

~~~
marcusf
$40k entry level is competitive? That's a whole factor of three away from the
$120k people volley around here for entry level jobs in the valley. It's
really that much of a difference?

~~~
dasil003
Yes.

First of all, where are you getting this $120k number for entry level people
from? Very few actually get $120k right out of school. According to WSJ we
just surpassed $100k as _average_ , and remember that includes senior people
making $200-400k at Google et al. Top companies who are selecting the cream of
the crop can afford to pay this because they know how to get great talent and
make the most of it.

If startups are paying $100k+ to people straight out of school (mine certainly
isn't) then it's an unfortunate symptom of easy money and does not bode well
on the fiscal responsibility of founders which is key to early-stage success.
Bubble or not, money will not stay this easy indefinitely and that will have a
direct impact on low-end salaries.

Finally, European benefits are not to be underestimated when put up against US
salaries. 2-3x vacation, free healthcare, inability to be fired, cheaper
education, etc, etc.

~~~
marcusf
This might be something I've conjured up in the back of my head, but I'm
certain I've seen people talking about $100k+ as a salary for an MIT grad.
It's always seemed crazy exuberant to me so I'm glad to hear different.

In the comparison with Europe, it's always good to keep in mind that benefits
differ wildly between Austria, Portugal, the UK, Sweden, Estonia, …. But yes,
there is much to be said for at least the Swedish benefits. A five week
vacation, free universities, free healthcare, _harder_ to be fired (complete
inability is more of an italian thing), etc.

I'm definitely not complaining, but with a comparable entry level salary ($40k
vs $55k for me when I started), something close to comparable taxation (I paid
a total income tax of about ~27% that year, what's US levels, 20%? 25%?) and
all our benefits, it feels like you guys get the very short end of the stick,
which is a completely different message than gets bandied around by the media.

*Edit: Just did some reading and realized I seem completely off base on my income tax estimates for the US. I'll let it stand for posterity.

------
TamDenholm
2200EUR a month is around £21.5k a year, which while in London is not enough
to live on where i live (Edinburgh) is on the lower end of a normal wage range
(£20k-£25k) for a PHP Developer here.

This is specifically the reason I work in London for 4-6 months of the year as
a contractor and do my own thing the rest of the time.

------
manuletroll
I'd be very happy to make 2200€. I'm in France, and I'm paid barely above
minimum wage. Granted, I don't have a very high level of college education,
but even so, I made more when I had a job in a factory a few years ago. And
the job market here doesn't seem to be that competitive, unfortunately.

~~~
marcusf
If you're willing to move, come to Sweden. Stockholm is screaming for IT
talent, we're open to immigration and the pay for someone with a few years of
developer experience is quite a bit beyond that.

~~~
shiftpgdn
Any tips for an American wanting to emigrate?

~~~
marcusf
For non-EU peeps, it's a bit harder.

First, there's always the love visa -- find yourself a swedish girl and move
here (you don't need to marry). On a more serious note, the easiest thing is
to get a job at a Swedish company with a US presence (or vice versa) and get
them to help you move. For example I know Spotify is recruiting aggressively
and they have offices in Stockholm, SF and NYC. Most medium to big software
companies here already has international people on staff and a lot of them has
experience with the (comparatively little) bureaucracy required.

If you're any good and really serious about it, feel free to send me a mail
(on my profile) and I'll see if I can help you out in any way :)

------
migfromparis
In France the situation is the same. Starting salaries go from 35k€ to 50k€
gross a year. No wonder a lot of students from college start as investment
bankers or quant.

~~~
manuletroll
You might want to rephrase this as "In Paris".

~~~
draven
Yep, I'm around €35k/year w/ 6y experience in the "province" (that's what we
call the "non-Paris area" in France.)

------
facorreia
In my experience, from what I see in Brazil, entry-level programmers with no
professional experience are paid much more than the equivalent in other
professions. And, even after years of "training" in college, they will need a
year of two of actual on-the-job training before they start adding enough
value to justify their cost. In short, a company that hires fresh-out-of-
college programmers is making an investment in them.

~~~
thdn
Im interested on moving on to Brazil, how much its the average salary ? and
there's some craiglist like site for IT jobs ??

~~~
facorreia
It's a bit hard to compare, with different costs of living and the
overvaluation of the Brazilian Real exchange rate. But salaries are mostly way
below American levels. A decent programmer can make US$ 20k/year. More
gratuated developers, analysts and architects will make US$ 30k - 50k. Over
US$ 60k would be considered a very good pay. As for websites, I suppose one of
the biggest is <http://www.catho.com.br/>. As a foreigner you would probably
want to go to São Paulo because it's the main economical center and it's
pretty safe for Brazilian standards.

------
geebee
I think a big part of the problem is that employers are competing only for the
pool of existing programmers. This makes sense - the bigger problem (expanding
the size of the pool) is beyond the influence of almost all employers (maybe
the giants facebook and google can influence this somewhat).

As a result, only very incremental progress can be made. If the standard
salary is 70k, employers will balk at offering more than 80k. If they have to
offer 90k, they'll feel that a bad shortage exists, because they're offering
way above the "market" salary - causing them to conclude that good devs can't
be had "at any price".

Here's what I think they don't get - to really solve this, they need to start
attracting people from other professions. They need to get the top minds that
are currently going into medicine, law, finance, and so forth (well, the
percentage that could and would go into software development if they rewards
were greater).

Honestly, I don't see industry ever making this jump. I think they'll keep
competing for the same smallish pool of talent and scratching their heads
about why they can't attract more candidates for an incremental increase in
pay/benefits.

~~~
cbsmith
It works both ways though. A programmer position that makes business sense at
40K might not make any sense at 90K. It's not like all companies need
programmers regardless of price. If the price is too high, they can just go
another way.

~~~
geebee
I agree - my criticism is directed only at those companies that claim that
they desperately need programmers and can't find them at "any" price.

I understand that there's an implicit "reasonable" condition on price, so my
real disagreement is around what counts as reasonable. Most of these companies
would view a 200k salary as unreasonable. I'm not so sure.

Examples abound, but I remember a company talking about how great its salaries
were, and one example was a guy with a PhD from University of Texas (Austin)
and 5 years work experience. His salary was $125,000. I wouldn't expect it to
endear me to many Americans to scoff at $125k a year, but when you think about
how long PhD programs are, how high the attrition rates are, how much talent
it takes, and the kind of salaries available to people with professional
degrees that take a shorter time (with far lower attrition rates)... well,
it's pretty clear that $125k actually isn't all that competitive. I'm sure
that it would give employers sticker shock, but to get competitive with the
other fields attracting the best and brightest, they might well have to go
over 200k for someone like this.

If it's not "worth it", then clearly there is no shortage, it would be a
suboptimal use of talent.

~~~
keithnoizu
Including bonus and stock I make that working as a developer in test with only
an associates degree in management.

It's pretty underwhelming pay for a doctorate.

------
ClementM
Programmers do get paid...sometimes. Look at programmers in the finance
industry. It is somewhat unfair, but it seems that your pay depends more on
the industry you work for, than your actual skills. It's a market. It's all
about where you are.

~~~
vetler
Indeed. You want a higher salary, go where the money is.

------
alFReD-NSH
Since I am a programmer, I vote up this post, hoping it helps that I get a
raise!

------
KeyBoardG
We've built our team around the idea that, you pay people enough so that money
isn't an issue and then move on. The main focus is on creating a positive work
environment and doing our best to keep moving forward with new and interesting
work. As a result we have a great team who are generally positive go-getters
even in rough times.

We've had a couple people here who were soley motivated by money which stuck
out like a sore thumb and ultimately didnt last.

------
markokocic
Seems like everyone in discussion focuses on vacation, sick leave and salary
in the US, and noone is talking why is the software engineer salary in
Austria, and similarly in the rest of Europe less than in the US.

The reason is simple. Try to remember one software package developed in
Austria? Can you name one software company based in Austria that is successful
in selling software or services? Do you know of any, even moderate, company
from Austria whose primary role is creating and selling software? That's
right, you can't.

That's because software engineers there work for companies where spending
money in producing software is a cost, not an investment. If software is not a
primary line of business, than there are two things in place. One is that
developers are an expense. Second is that you don't need that good or
experienced developers working on glorified enterprise internal applications.

So, if you want money, either work for a company where software development is
primary line of business and be paid accordingly, or work on your own. You
can't make good bucks working for cost center.

------
csaba
Try to work as webdev in Hungary (mostly php, rails and other mainstream
languages are not really used). I know a place where you could get about
$1200. But that's the rare case. For a freshman $400 is the max, if you're not
lucky enough to born in Budapest. I deeply consider moving somewhere abroad,
because here I don't feel I can be as good as I want to be...

------
snowwrestler
> There are currently 22% more open job positions in this area compared to
> last year

If there is an overall shortage of qualified developers, paying more to hire
great developers does not fix it. All it does is raise the salaries of the
existing qualified developers. That is fine and great for them, but it doesn't
solve the shortage.

~~~
ArtB
Well over the longer period it will bring more people into the career.
Economic issues work on the scale of years. But I assure you that if you start
paying more now you'll see more people entering in 6 years (ie. you'll catch
the attention of people in the middle of highschool and then when they pop out
of uni they are yours for the hiring).

------
solsenNet
Microsoft has learned a trick about recruiting straight from college
developers.

Microsoft quotes the new higher a large number (120k per year) but it is all
back end weighted to a bonus at the 15th month or some sort.

this allows Microsoft to see the work product and fire the ones that don't cut
it, way before the bonus comes.

~~~
keithnoizu
I think my benefactors approach to hiring fresh grads has more to do with
lowered resistance to, in my personal opinion, horrible internal politics &
internal systems.

It is my understanding that generally a new hire will do well on their first
year's review cycle as a low mark would reflect poorly on the hiring manager
that approved them. So generally you'll hit your target bonus of 15% or
whatever it is nowadays.

------
matant
In South Italy professionist graduated, certificated, with ten yeas of
experience as Java programmer, earn net 1500 euros. I’m graduated and work
from 2 years and earn net 1200 euros. I prefer be waiter, i’m moving away from
Italy to start as waiter, it’s better!

~~~
manmal
Consider remote working as a freelancer in other European countries, they pay
70€+ per hour if they need you (and you are good ;)). All you need is a fast
internet connection and a coffee machine at home :)

------
balajiviswanath
As a programmer, I love the fact that the demand is outpacing supply. But, I
also have this weird feeling that we are back in 1999. Back then, even crappy
programmers commanded 6 figure salaries. Hopefully, I'm wrong.

------
shaydoc
"there ain't no money in poetry, and that's what sets the poet free"....

------
nicolasd
I agree with you. They always say there are so much job offers and the
industry search developers but with around ~1600 without taxes you don't get
enough.

------
socialist_coder
Funny, my first post on hacker news was about programmer salary in Austria. I
got offered a senior programmer job in Vienna for a fraction of what I'm
making here in the US.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2473544>

It's good to know that I wasn't crazy for thinking the salary was too low.

------
physicslover
At my last company I had 20 days vacation and about to transition to 25 days.
However, work was so busy that I had to plan and request my vacations 3-6 mos
in advance. I now have less vacation but more freedom to take it when i want.

If one really wants to maximize free time contract work is where its at.

------
RedwoodCity
Something tells me this question exists in all industries and has existed for
most of human history.

------
noodleey
I can say exactly the same thing for designers. Want good designers? Pay them
good.

------
wyclif
"There's no shortage of smart, hardworking engineers. There's a shortage of
smart, hardworking engineers willing to work for very little money." ~ David
"Pardo" Keppel

------
xbryanx
Corollary: you'll never have a mass of good programmers in sectors that CAN'T
PAY them competitive salaries. This is a bad thing.

~~~
khuey
Why is that a bad thing?

~~~
xbryanx
The brightest and the best selling ads while very little programming talent
goes towards combating ignored problems like teen homelessness, and other
under represented issues is bad in my book. But, I'm a bleeding heart
idealist, and possible dinosaur.

------
drivingmenuts
The one thing I do need is the ability to pay rent and bills WITHOUT WORRYING
about them.

Because every minute I spend worrying about my financial situation is a minute
I absolutely cannot spend working on your software.

After that, it's all good.

Though sick days and vacation is nice, too. Or at least don't ask me about it
when I just kinda disappear for a day or have a completely unproductive day.

------
njharman
$$ gets you more programmers, not necessarily good ones.

Just look at dot com era (if you're old enough to remember). Tons of money,
thrown at everybody and anybody. The vast majority of which were not "good"
programmers. Many weren't even programmers just good at faking it, till they
made it.

~~~
danssig
More money may not get you good programmers but below market rate will
_absolutely_ get you crappy ones.

------
lucian1900
Yep.

I get paid £18k with 5+ years experience in what we're doing.

------
eternalban
Learn to negotiate.

------
horsehead
Frankly, this is an issue in all industries. The company i work for is always
complaining about the quality of people they have to hire. But then they offer
salaries of $26,000 a year (not in software obviously).

But point is: to get quality, it costs money.

~~~
rmc
It's probably less of an issue in some industries, like law or surgery or
constitutional lawyers. In these places employers pay much more, and they
expect to pay more.

