Ask HN: How much am I worth?

[samlev]

First thing's first: I'm not looking for work right now. Second thing's second: I'm not looking for back-patting, or false sincerity. I'm asking for honest opinions from people who I trust to know.

OK, down to business.

Everyone knows that salary negotiations are hard, especially for us introverted types. I figure that one reason why I personally suck at them so bad is that I don't have any real idea of how much other people (employers in particular) see my worth. It's tough, but that's how it is.

So what I want to do here is get a little equaliser in my pocket; I want to find out how much people would actually be willing to pay me, so that the next time I go into a salary negotiation I know when I'm getting low-balled, and how far I can push.

Of course, this will change with location, job, etc. but I just want your honest opinion. If you were to hire me, based on the work I can show you, what would be 1. Your opening offer, 2. The lowest you would expect to get away with, and 3. The maximum that you would pay. Optionally; 4. What could I do to improve this?

Just so you're not making random guesses, here's some background on me:

- I work primarily in PHP and JavaScript, but have had (commercial) experience with Python (Pylons/Repoze.bfg/Pyramid; Django; Zope/Plone) and Java.

- I've spent most of my years filling the roles of both a Software Developer and a secondary server administrator.

- I've started an Open Source project (http://www.samuellevy.com/mico) which, while not huge, has a couple of translations provided by users (Russian and Spanish), and is being used by a couple of hundred businesses.

My website: http://www.samuellevy.com

tl;dr: I want you to pretend that you're going to hire me, and then tell me what you would offer me.

[kls]

How many years experience do you have total?

Do you have examples of commercial products that you have worked on?

How good are you at JavaScript? It is a very hot languadge right now and there are not a lot of people that have deep development experience doing JavaScript. If you can build large JavaScript applications it can double your offer with the right company.

If you are strong in JavaScript you could be over 100-120k if you are in the states, if you are mainly a PHP developer then your top end could be in the 80-90k depending on years of experience. Java can get you up to 100-110k if again you have significant experience, but for Java those numbers are going to be seen in the enterprise space.

[samlev → kls]

In terms of commercial experience (i.e. stuff I've been paid for) I've been working for about 5-6 years now.

Most of the commercial stuff that I worked on was private/backend stuff which can't be shown without permissions and passwords, sadly. That is one of the reasons why I built MICO - so I could show off my work.

MICO is one of (and the smallest of) four major applications that I built with ExtJS (http://www.sencha.com/) as a front-end/interface

[kls → samlev]

Do you have any experience with jQuery/backbone/require or Dojo writing large apps both of those paths pay very well. with 5-6 years and some big JavaScript apps, you are fairly valuable, Ext lost some popularity when they pulled the licensing switcharoo, which put a bad taste in a lot of peoples mouth. That being said, I would look at you as a senior developer (assuming that we walked through your MICO project, and I liked what I saw and that I did not see any huge coding no-no's). I would offer you 100k knowing full well that I would be willing to go to 120k if I think you are one of the best developers that I have seen AKA a 10xer.

Here are the facts:

You have skills in an extremely hot market.

Most JS developers know jQuery which != JS. Ext is a larger framework for building large JS apps, it is on par with Dojo. Dojo developers can command 140k. I could retool you to Dojo or a jQuery/Backbone/Require stack in a few weeks. Especially if I have an existing team there to support your transition.

You have an open code base that I can review. You built it on your own initiative, this is a strong indicator of passion, which is important.

Based on that, if you receive an offer under 90k anywhere on the western or eastern seaboard your are getting low balled. If you are in the midwest I would expect it to be at lest 90k but it may be a little lower.

[samlev]

Clickables:

My website: http://www.samuellevy.com

Open Source project: http://www.samuellevy.com/mico

EDIT: My Resume, because that's probably important, too: http://bit.ly/wnOV2Q (Last updated Aug, 2011)