Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?

This has got me thinking. I would literally <i>pay someone</i> to figuratively sit down with me, go through what I've done/can do etc and then based off their experiences tell me what I <i>could</i> be getting.<p>Of course, it won't be too accurate and location makes a big difference but perhaps an enlightened recruiter type with a bit of experience in a couple of parts of the world could give a ballpark figure, say X in SV, Y in NY, Z in the UK. That's more use to me than looking at self-reported salaries where I know hardly anything about the real circumstances. Failing that, just a guy in one place from which I could very roughly convert to my part of the world.

If you look at how salaries are distributed across the US public, the 60k - 100k category is way too large while 151k-200k should probably be just one range and not two.<p>As someone who hires programmers, I am much more interested in how many people make between 60-70, 70-85, and 85-100.

I love being in a profession where the lowest tier on a salary poll is "Less than 60k."

Quite interesting. In Germany or Europe very very few programmers would make more than 100k USD (around 70k EUR) unless he is in some position where he leads a team or oversees bigger projects. Then i see how cheap cars and computer hardware etc is in the US and i really start to wonder where this massive difference comes from. US engineers seem to earn way more and generally pay much less for many things.<p>Apple hardware for example is the same price in EUR as it is USD in the US, cars generally the same or even less.

Again, this doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense without location data. I'm voting with my salary adjusted to San Francisco levels by using the following adjustment tool:<p><a href="http://www.bestplaces.net/col/" rel="nofollow">http://www.bestplaces.net/col/</a><p>I'd recommend that people do the same so we can remove a substantial source of noise from this poll and actually get a meaningful distribution.

I was living in Virginia for most of the period from 2000 to 2008. I had salary jobs and I had contractor jobs. I preferred contractor jobs, since they pay better (and I thought I could get by without health insurance -- always a dicey gamble). I slowly got better as a programmer during the years I was there. During the first few gigs I got, in 2000, I was a true novice, and trying to prove myself. I would charge a low, flat rate for projects, and I doubt my hourly rate was better than $20 an hour. I slowly raised that rate to $25 an hour and then $30 an hour. These seemed like huge steps forward at the time. The country was still deep in recession, and the tech sector had been hit very hard, so it wasn't a great time to get into tech with no resume. Somewhere around 2005 it became easy to raise rates, so I raised mine to $40 an hour and then $50 an hour. (Most of the work I did at this time involved websites and used the language PHP. There were a few exceptions, like a big Rails project in 2006, but PHP was the norm.) For whatever reason, I never seemed able to get more than $50 an hour while I was in Virginia. I did start picking up some freelance gigs in New York City, for which I could work for higher rates. I worked remotely. Then, in early 2009, I moved to New York City. I was working for a startup as a freelance contractor. I charged $100 an hour. For awhile New York City seemed somewhat safe from the recession. But the recession caught up with it. The startup I was with burned out, and then I had trouble finding work. Being unemployed, I tried to work on projects of my own. This is when I started wpquestions.com. I went to a lot of job interviews, but apparently the rate I wanted was too high for recession-era New York. I cut my rate to $75, and then to $70 and then to $65 and then to $60 and then to $55. Finally, I just really wanted a gig, so I cut my rate to $50 an hour. I ended up working a contract at winespectator.com. This involved diverse technologies; I was porting a Java/Oracle app to PHP/MySql, and then later I was porting a FileMaker database to PHP/MySql. I started looking for other gigs. Things had improved economically in New York City. I found I could raise my rates again. Everything I've been offered lately has been between $60 and $70 an hour. Again, all of this is contract work, with no health insurance.

From the author of the poll further down:<p><i>my NYC salary of $176,000</i><p>That explains (to me) a lot the choice of ranges for the poll. $176k seems to be on the high-end worldwide.<p>Overall, because of the buckets and the problem with the wide variations over location, the results will be mostly useless. However, it's still getting upvotes (though much less than actual votes on the poll), most probably because of the fact that most people <i>really</i> want to know how much others are making. Is it because they're not sure they're being taken advantage of?<p>The salary taboo is an odd thing if you think about it. It's really at the advantage of the employers and employees overall would most likely all benefit from knowing how much others are making. Also, they are a lot of regular people whose salaries are public (engineers, nurses, doctors… working for local governments for example) and their lives are fine :) Yet, it's hard to even ask how much somebody makes, let alone share yours.

I'm on my first real job. I had no idea what to ask for and what I am really worth. I wasn't really desperate for a job but I only asked for something now seems too low (feels way too low after this thread). I screwed up in salary negotiation (Actually I didn't even negotiate.)<p>Anyway what matters right now is I love the job and it's pretty much what I'd be doing even if I was on my own. There are times that economy gets tight. I feel bad but I always move. Perhaps I'd MOVE ON someday.<p>Anyway I think there should be some resources that helps a guy going for his first job have an idea what black magic salary negotiation is. Perhaps the fellow HNers have some good stuff to share.

Here in Brazil, I get paid approximately 11k brazillian reais.. Translating to U.S. dollars that would be 7k. These numbers are really impressive to me.

I wish I could compare this curve to comp in finance. It seems like a lot of money until you realize PE firms/hedge funds/banks are offering fresh MBAs +$200K a year. I'm not saying finance is better, it's just a data point to put things in perspective.

Off-topic:<p>You've got two typos. The {first,last} option should be "{Less,More} <i>than</i> {6,20}0K".<p>I've always wondered about this particular typo. I've caught myself do it but extremely rarely. And that's just me being occasionally erratic. However, since you've got it twice, I'm wondering: do you even know that it is incorrect? I have this theory that those who learned to speak English before learning to write it never had to pay attention to this.

Hey, if you guys want to compare salaries, how about doing it via salaryshare.me?<p>Here is the pool I created for HN: <a href="http://salaryshare.me/1bc4550900b5d2c5f667783e3cc05818" rel="nofollow">http://salaryshare.me/1bc4550900b5d2c5f667783e3cc05818</a>

I make 10,000 RMB per month (about $1550 USD) at a start-up in Beijing. On one hand I feel certain I could earn more in the US, but on the other hand it might be harder to get a job at a start-up as someone entering the field from the arts with a relatively modest tech background.

In academia, I was paid around $56k. Moving into industry I went up to $75k. I just took a new job with a big multinational and my salary popped up to $140k.

As others have pointed at, location is a big factor here. The issue I have is that it is US-centric. Has there been a poll or is there any data regarding the HN demographics (including region)?

Though I'm not really a programmer but a researcher, I voted anyway since, in practice, most of my work <i>is</i> programming. It probably just makes me an underpaid programmer... ;-)

60K - 100K is too wide a swath for this poll to be useful IMHO

This poll is meaningless with an international audience.

It depends a lot on the domain and your expertise of the business overall. For example, working for a non-profit is completely different than working on trading algorithms for a hot hedge fund where you also partake in creating the algos.

<a href="http://glassdoor.com" rel="nofollow">http://glassdoor.com</a>

One more general question to pile onto this -- what is a 'normal' junior developer salary, for someone fresh out with a bachelor's degree? I'm thinking $60k plus options(for a startup).

Would be interested to see this broken down by country as well, if possible.<p>I'm not doing too badly even when currency conversion is taken into account, but the number of people on 120-150k is impressive.<p>Puts it a bit in perspective, our local media keeps harping on how low our salaries are, but in tech, salaries are pretty comparable with salaries outside of SF/NY, much better than Canada/Europe even, though lower than Australia.<p>(I'm from New Zealand).

I'm simply astounded at how many people checked "less than 60k," but I guess I've been living in a bubble. I make 80k, and I'm a 19 year-old intern.

I don't quite understand the factors involved in making salaries in SV so high compared to other locations, and I'm not having much success just googling.<p>Could someone please briefly explain them to me or point me towards some useful resources so I can alleviate some of my ignorance in this area?<p>Edit: I'm aware of the higher cost of living, but I'm thinking that's probably not the only significant factor.

I live in New Brunswick, Canada and make $45,000. Pretty decent wage around here.

FFS, I'm getting paid £15k. I asked for £25k and was laughed out of the office.

It might be more accurate to ask what the hourly salary is (and for full time employees, factor in benefits). I have (almost) never worked full time in my life, so for me at least, this poll is not accurate.

Comparing salaries can be useful, but how about also comapring quality of life at work, at home?, work for someone else?, are you happy earning that amount? So obviously higher is not better in some cases.

The 0-60k range seems quite large, maybe should of had a 0-30k option too.

An interesting poll might be how much you feel that you under (or <i>over</i>!) paid. Voting for percentage difference would remove concerns about absolute salaries reflecting cost of location.

Not nearly enough, but that is what I get for joining a young startup.

Are we talking dollars paid or adding up all the benefits?

Suppose my salary consists of base, bonuses, social (retirement and savings funds, medical insurance), and stocks. Which do you count to get to this number?

What about $1M+? I want to see the votes on that option.

Including things like stock options? Certainly for companies like FB, etc. this would add significantly to the value of the package.

What if you're a salaried contractor? Meaning you work at a contracting firm as a salaried employee, but go to clients?

Although I'm just a student doing programming work for a summer job, I can't complain with the pay! (Less then 60K)

Damn, I'm average. Does the 101K+ crowd care to share what industry/stack/niche you work with? Hints acceptable :)

I chose less than 60K because my coding is a side business. I run a successful IT business as the main course.

As an intern, my real yearly salary is less than 60k, but I voted for the yearly extrapolation in 60-100k.

Front-end dev, Just below 60, I got the feeling taht even for back-end salary are much lower in Canada

Really depends on the location, even within the United States, much more so abroad.

Are salaries generally higher at big companies (google/twitter/fb) or at startups?

6k/year 5yrs experience... please add a 0-10k category? haha

A typical senior Indian programmer earns $ 16k per year

Programmer, Developer or Architect? They're very different paradigms. I'd bet your 200k range is mostly Architects. The Developers and Engineers in the middle, with "Programmers" at the bottom.

What is this "K"? The prefix for thousand is "k" and if asking about money it would be nice to specify the currency.

Are those pre-tax salaries ?

20K, Russia, Izhevsk

80k

Where is "less then 15K"??? =P