Ask HN: Are Programming Salaries Inaccurate?
After I came back from teaching English overseas, I was desperate for a job and applied across the boards of Craigslist. I got a bite on a programming job making $10 an hour. I was thrilled because someone actually considered me, a person with very little programming experience, for the job. I was just happy to take the job and get experience. Even with the $40,000 student loan debt I had. After my training period was over, my boss increased my pay to $12 an hour working in Visual Basic on auto-shop software.<p>I did this for a year and a half before I realized: I was being taken advantage of. And I get it: He took a chance on me, trained me, etc. I fixed tons of bugs in his system and improved his customer base by thousands. Aside from fixing bugs, they told me my job was to improve the user experience and user interface to make it more user-friendly. I did just that.<p>But at $12 an hour with $40k debt and bills to pay, where exactly was I going? It was corporate slavery -- which is all too common for most programmers. Coding monkeys. He was also an arrogant asshole.. one of those bosses who was a micromanager and would even make me email him our conversation that we had in meeting, and then he would critique our own meeting and my words as he wanted them. More time was wasted doing this than actually programming.<p>As much as I loved programming, I couldn&#x27;t live on that salary, nor do anything or go anywhere with my life. He ended up offering me double my salary only when I had put in my 2 weeks. I really just had checked out and didn&#x27;t want to be there, so trying to negotiate a salary would have come with too many strings. &quot;I&#x27;m paying you do a job... why didn&#x27;t you do it this way&quot; etc. etc. Yeah, he was that type of person.<p>Luckily, I eventually got out of it... if you are interested in reading more about that: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com&#x2F;the-opportunity&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com&#x2F;the-opportunity&#x2F;</a><p>Unless you work on the coasts, like Silicon Valley area or New York, I think programming jobs around the country are much less. When the market is saturated though and people are desperate for work, companies can take advantage of that.