

Fellow Developers: What's your salary? - vu0tran

Form: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHkxSzVUR3JCZl9mMTNSQXZ4cWp4M3c6MQ<p>First and foremost, thanks for giving this a read over. I know it's a personal question, but I feel like it's data that can really help me, and others out.<p>A little about me. I'm a Lead (senior) level developer working in the advertisement industry and my yearly salary is 80k. I work in Washington State and always felt that this salary is a bit low considering I work near Microsoft and Google whose senior level engineers make 100-110k. This December, I'm hoping to be moved up Technical Director (basically in charge of the lead developers). The salary will be around 100k, which I still feel is a bit low. Perhaps better knowing the distribution of salaries, I can better judge where I'm at and help me negotiate a better salary in the future (or be content with what I have).<p>I'll also share this information after a couple of days and give some nice charts!<p>Once again, thanks for helping me out!
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staunch
All the Google developers are in the advertising industry too, some are just
in denial about that fact :-)

If you want more money then just tell your employer that. Decide in advance
what the minimum you need to be happy. Tell them. Let them choose whether your
services are worth that amount or not.

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vu0tran
Here it is guys:

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Av55q3freJTPdHk...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Av55q3freJTPdHkxSzVUR3JCZl9mMTNSQXZ4cWp4M3c&hl=en_US#gid=0)

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JoeCortopassi
$42,000/year - PHP/mySQL/Web Applications developer out in southern California
- 2 years experience

Anyone else get bummed reading these threads and seeing other people make 2-3
times what they make? Guess I got to pay my dues for now

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vu0tran
That's really low. After this survey is done, I can give you access to the
excel sheet. If I were you, I'd print it out, show it to my boss and ask for a
raise. If not, I'd walk away and find another job.

Frankly, 42k in SoCal does not cut it.

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JoeCortopassi
Really? I just assumed that the way everyone talked about php, that my choice
of language was the cause of the low salary.

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noahc
That's probably part of it, but if you're a good developer language shouldn't
matter that much. I'd put you in at least 60k range.

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thirdtruck
The numbers so far make my 40k/year for ~3 years of web maintenance work
(albeit outside of a metropolitan city) sound all the worse.

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dkhenry
So I am going to put my Information in the list , but i want to mention this.
To work at the job I work at now I took a theoretical 40K pay cut. ( Its
theoretical because it depends on overtime and bonus, but its what I made the
previous year ).

I say that to say this. There is so much more to your employment then how much
you make. You might be making less then a employee at Microsoft or Google, but
if you love your job and love your company then it might be worth the pay cut.
You really need to decide if money is what motivates you. There are other
things out there that I personally find so much more important like
environment, company personality and mission. I couldn't work for a place that
I didn't have a passion for what they do. I would never take a job at google
doing advertising it just isn't who I am. Think about that when you start
lamenting your salary

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scas
My first job was employee #1 doing software development and sysadmin work for
a non-funded startup in south Florida. Essentially, I was the IT staff for the
company. At the highest, my wage was about $7/hour, with no insurance or
equity. I was there for about 2.5 years.

My most recent salary was $55,000/year at a megacorp as a "customer engineer",
effectively doing sysadmin, development and project management, complete with
frequent meetings, on-call and weekly after-hours maintenances.

I have 7 years of experience where someone has paid me to keep things running,
11 if you count the side projects and open source project dabbling, and I've
never even come close to a 6 figure salary. Now I'm feeling bummed that I read
over this thread.

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sticknrudder
100k/y. I think 80K/y is low, if your efficient and good, and are getting no
other benefits actual, or otherwise. Consider health care, 401k plan, profit
sharing, paid hols. What's your commute like. Do you work more then 60 hrs /
week, or more like 30 hrs in the office, and another chunk at home. Lunch,
gym, pool table, model plane runway? Do you enjoy work, have friends. Add it
all up? $100k/year in a hell hole, might be worse that $80 where your at.

Also, is your company making money? Are you likely to be employed for years?
In this economy you might be lucky to have a job. Startups can scary places.

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vu0tran
Thanks for the advice. My company is a startup, about 25 employees.

All my colleagues think I do a great job. I've only been working there for
half a year, and I'm waiting on my annual review to settle issues with my
salary. The last thing is that I don't want to come off as arrogant or
impatient. I'm pretty sure my supervisors / colleagues would give me a 5 on
their review according to their occasional feedback.

As far as benefits go, I get medical, pharmacy, dental, and vision. No 401k,
no profit / stock options (yet).

I do about 35 hours a week in the office (20 minute commute) and about another
10 hours a week at home.

The company, as far as I know, is making money. I'm likely to be employed for
the next years, I hope my company will grow, but I can't be sure.

Great working conditions... You know what they say though, the grass is always
greener on the other side.

Should I ask for stock options? Is it too early? I feel like a lot of the
technology I've produced for this company, has made them hundreds of thousands
of dollars. :/ I've developed entire systems for them by myself.

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sticknrudder
If it's a startup, they probably don't want to pay you top dollar. The might
just not have it. I wish startup management would be honest about the dollars
in investment, And how much they themselves make. I also wish that everyone in
a startup got a good size of the pie.

On the good side, if the company grows, you might be in the right spot.
Options will likely open up. And, having a successful project on your resume
usually helps for the next job.

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SingAlong
_I wish startup management would be honest about the dollars in investment,
And how much they themselves make._

I side with you on this. It also helps you gel with the team better knowing
that they trust you so much that they share their numbers with you.

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vu0tran
80k is starting to look like it's on the lower side of average.

Out of everyone who submitted so far (13 people), the average for any type of
developer is around 85k. For those that consider themselves "lead" or "senior"
level, they were pushing about 105-110k on average / median. However, there is
a large range. The lowest for a senior level so far is around 70k, whereas the
highest is almost near 140k.

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sc68cal
The one thing that needs to be controlled for, is the age of the person
filling out the survey. I would be below that average for pay, although I am
only one year out of college and into a full time position. Obviously, not a
candidate for the title of "lead" developer. Perhaps "sole" developer at the
company....

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jmaclabs
That's a good point. My salary might be considered extremely high for my years
(1) in the role I am in now. However, my years as an engineer (15) definitely
boost my salary to a 'senior' level. Your form doesn't take that into account.

Also, I'm waiting for the link to a nice chart of your results - when?

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vu0tran
EOD tomorrow.

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kingofspain
I was quite recently on £15k (just under $25,000)/year for a job that involved
PHP/MySQL dev and all the frontend (across 5 pretty big sites), sysadmin,
graphic design (I did all our ads) and developed a couple of iPhone apps.

If anyone is feeling they are underpaid then please use my tale of woe to
cheer yourselves up :)

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rdl
This is really not a useful metric; there are a lot of "developer+domain
expertise" positions which are much more about the domain expertise than the
development experience.

I've seen people who could hack together perl scripts making >$250k/yr due to
being experts at other stuff, and they were titled Developers.

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mtogo
Your account is new so i assume you don't know this, but it's bad form to post
shortened links to HN.

Here's the URL:
[https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey...](https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHkxSzVUR3JCZl9mMTNSQXZ4cWp4M3c6MQ)

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vu0tran
Thanks for pointing that out. I have updated my post.

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gexla
I don't have a salary because I'm a freelancer. If you feel you aren't making
what you are worth, there is an easy solution. Leave your current job and go
with that other gig which is offering you more. If you don't have another
offer open to you, then maybe you are lucky just to have a job.

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vu0tran
I agree. But you know what they say, the grass is greener on the other side. I
love my job. I love my boss, my coworkers, my commute, the culture,
everything.

The only thing I don't like is my salary. Now if I were to get 110k at
Microsoft and be miserable, is that worth the extra 30k a year? What about job
opportunities in this startup and other factors?

I started to realize that I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I wasn't sure
because I didn't have a good grasp of what's out there and how much I should /
could be making. Hence the survey :)

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proexploit
When thinking about switching jobs, you could try applying values to
additional factors and seeing where you come out.

For example:

Great weather - "Ok, I'd take $5k/year less for that."

Boring work - "Hey, I'd have no problem doing something boring for a few years
for an extra $25k."

It's far from an exact science but it may help you figure out what it's
actually worth to you. (Some things may be priceless as well, e.g. "There's no
amount of money I'd take to work for Phillip Morris."

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booduh
<http://www.glassdoor.com>

(unless otherwise?)

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vu0tran
I've looked at glassdoor. I wanted to get a different dataset to compare. I
don't trust glassdoor's figures all that much tbh

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like2program
Software engineer (Java, Groovy, Jython) in Chicago with about 1.5 years of
experience. 70K/year.

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vu0tran
I'll go ahead and enter that into the form so I can chart the data later.

Thanks a bunch!

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chromejs10
$-18,000/year

^-- I'm a student :(

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mikeburrelljr
Look fwd to seeing the data...

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efader
Too low

