DailyTech article makes my salary seem pathetic

[KingstonU]

After reading this article: Daily Tech - U.S. Tech Job Salaries Hit All-Time High In Q4 '07

I had no idea that the tech industry had an average hourly wage of $32.39. I am a little intimidated by the fact that in an article with a lot of user comments, nobody who posted comments mentions making anything lower than $60/hour or lower than $100,000/year and many mention doing so without actually having particularly impressive degrees. :Q

My goodness, I thought my $43.75/hour I made last summer was absolutely outstanding and a consequence of being in a field with high demand and low supply of workers, and that I likely may never make more than that in my life, but that was fine because (I thought) that was more that the majority of people make. For peats sake my salary last summer was more than both my parents combined!!!

But this makes it seem like $100k/year is common to even someone without a degree and that seems ridiculous to me. Does anybody else feel this way?

 

[mugs]

If you think a degree has anything to do with it, you're probably fresh out of school. So the $43.75/hr you made last summer was really good.

 

[Sphexi]

My family grew up with my dad making something like 50-70k a year on average, near the end of his 35 year career with IBM he might've been making about 85k or so, I honestly don't know as he never discussed finances with us. But a family of 5 on that, we never went without, never went month-to-month on any bills, the house was paid off in under 20 years, I'd say we were perfectly fine with that. Right now between my wife and myself we're making about the same or slightly less, but we're also at the start of our careers.

Keep in mind that it's easy to post a comment on an article claiming to have a 100k/year salary for doing next to no work with no degree, I'd wager a large amount of the people posting there are just straight up lying. But yeah, I understand where you're coming from. I make less than my dad did, but houses are now WAY more expensive than when he bought his back in the 70s. Hell, he sold our 3bdrm/2bath ranch for 162k in 2002(?), it's probably worth 250k+ now, how the hell do you afford that on 50-60k a year?

 

[pontifex]

i read several of the first few posts and they were talking about working in the 90s, not current day.

 

[LikeLinus]

You need to actually read the data and what the information is at hand

"based on data on nearly 5,000 tech professionals contracted out for long- and short-term projects."

This is for work that is CONTRACTED out to jobs. Not full time tech employees. It doesn't specify if that includes healthcare, 401K and the fees that the agency gets when they contract out the tech. It's for outsourcing.

I've worked for a consulting firm before. They would send us out to jobs and bill us out at very high rates for the project, but we never saw that full rate. They have to make their money also!

That's also out of only a sample of 5,000 people. You'd have to know what markets they sampled out of (NYC and CA are going to be much higher than say Florida).

 

[Evadman]

contracted.

 

[Safeway]

Yea, if you think 80k to 100k is average, you are out of your mind.

 

[Kelemvor]

Also depend son the specific job you are doing.

I'm making $25/hr with benefits included doing Help Desk work. It's a contact position and I've been doing Tech Support for over 10 years. I think I'm worth a bit more than that but there aren't many places around me that are looking for a higher position starting out.

And yes, a contractor normally makes more than a normal fulltime job since the employer isn't normally paying for benefits and 401k and things like that. If I eventually go fulltime I'll be lucky just to have my salary stay the same...

 

[Imdmn04]

100k is pretty common for someone with 10 years of experience doing something that is specialized.

Specialization is what commands the high salaries. A jack of all trade unix guy is not gonna make as much as someone who specializes on AIX or Solaris, a jack of all trade C++/Java/C# programmer is not gonna make as much as someone who has a very deep grasp of one particular language. A general build manager is not gonna make as much as someone who specializes in ClearCase or Perforce. Well, you get the point.

 

[zanejohnson]

alot depends on the area.... here in Texas you dont make as much in IT as say, New York, or California

as a technician working for a local company a few years ago i made a salary of $1600 monthly..... so roughly 10 bucks an hour.....

now im part owner of the same company (i own 35 percent of it) and so far it's doing GREAT, this just happened last month, and i've pulled in 4-500 dollars a week from that alone already... and we have ALOT of growing room.... my other business i started in june of 07, and made $30,000 in the last 6 months of the year, since then it's grown alot, i project between 60k and 65k for 2008

 

[WingZero94]

Salaries are probably a bit low right now, but not too bad.

If you stay a given organization too long, your salary will stagnate.

If you move around every couple years, learn a lot of different skills (within your domain) then you will make a lot more.

I've had 4 jobs since graduation (4 years ago). I got laid off at two and just started my fourth. Salary went like this: 37k, 45k, 64k, and now 82k. Now, I have worked my ass off learning new skills and getting certified (not a paper cert like MCSE either). One of my family members graduated with the same degree 1/2 semester before me. He started out at 27k, got a raise to like 40k. He quit (only one job) because he didn't like working there. He now makes 25k....

He stayed at 1 job and didn't work hard. I moved around and worked my ass off. I won't let my employers walk all over me. It happened once and I got laid off. Never again. I now know what i'm really worth, plus I have the accomplishments to back it up.

Just work hard, learn skills, and don't settle. Move around a bit if you want to increase your salary.

 

[Koing]

Mate was doing software testing and was making nearly $100k contracting. He did it for 3months. Totally different to a permy job. The company is now offering him a full time position for about $60k a year with the standard benefits.

The field you workin is very important. A work friend has gone to a big iBank for ~ $90k + up to 25% bonus and the standard stuff you get. We do software support on our trading platform. The guy has about 18months experience. If we did support stuff at another company we'd get sod all. Easily less then half of what we can make after 18-24months experience, but the only difference is we understand the business flows better, FIX, how to fix trading issues and understand the business better. But is that really worth 2x?

I wouldn't have dreamt of making anywhere near $100k in my last job, but in my current job it is almost guranteed unless I get fired or sacked (very unlikely, we're already losing 2-4 guys out of our 10 man team, and we are desparately hiring). Once I get 2-3yrs experience I'll be just over 100k with up to 25% in bonuses. You will be doing 50hr weeks but thats fairly standard if not more.

Koing

 

[SacrosanctFiend]

Originally posted by: zanejohnson
alot depends on the area.... here in Texas you dont make as much in IT as say, New York, or California

as a technician working for a local company a few years ago i made a salary of $1600 monthly..... so roughly 10 bucks an hour.....

now im part owner of the same company (i own 35 percent of it) and so far it's doing GREAT, this just happened last month, and i've pulled in 4-500 dollars a week from that alone already... and we have ALOT of growing room.... my other business i started in june of 07, and made $30,000 in the last 6 months of the year, since then it's grown alot, i project between 60k and 65k for 2008

I thought drug dealing would yield better results than that.

 

[clamum]

$32/hour? lulz. I don't make anything close to that and I do software development.

 

[Koing]

Originally posted by: WingZero94
Salaries are probably a bit low right now, but not too bad.

If you stay a given organization too long, your salary will stagnate.

If you move around every couple years, learn a lot of different skills (within your domain) then you will make a lot more.

I've had 4 jobs since graduation (4 years ago). I got laid off at two and just started my fourth. Salary went like this: 37k, 45k, 64k, and now 82k. Now, I have worked my ass off learning new skills and getting certified (not a paper cert like MCSE either). One of my family members graduated with the same degree 1/2 semester before me. He started out at 27k, got a raise to like 40k. He quit (only one job) because he didn't like working there. He now makes 25k....

He stayed at 1 job and didn't work hard. I moved around and worked my ass off. I won't let my employers walk all over me. It happened once and I got laid off. Never again. I now know what i'm really worth, plus I have the accomplishments to back it up.

Just work hard, learn skills, and don't settle. Move around a bit if you want to increase your salary.

WINNAR!

Koing

 

[ultimatebob]

If you want to make some serious coin in IT, consider becoming a contractor! You can pretty easily pull down $50 an hour if you have a few years of experience in a hot skill!

 

[chuckywang]

Originally posted by: ultimatebob
If you want to make some serious coin in IT, consider becoming a contractor! You can pretty easily pull down $50 an hour if you have a few years of experience in a hot skill!

Being self employed?

 

[Capt Caveman]

Originally posted by: chuckywang

Originally posted by: ultimatebob
If you want to make some serious coin in IT, consider becoming a contractor! You can pretty easily pull down $50 an hour if you have a few years of experience in a hot skill!

Being self employed?

Yep, and if it's a hot skill, I've seen $125/hr as an independent contractor.

 

[ultimatebob]

Originally posted by: chuckywang

Originally posted by: ultimatebob
If you want to make some serious coin in IT, consider becoming a contractor! You can pretty easily pull down $50+ an hour if you have a few years of experience in a hot skill!

Being self employed?

You don't have to be self-employed if you don't want to be. There are plenty of contracting firms out there that specialize in this sort of thing that will find you work.

 

[Midnight Rambler]

I think there's a lot of BS'ing around here re: salaries.

Of course, industry and geographic location plays a big part.

For example, I hold a Master's degree in Mech. Engineering from a top-ranked private school, have worked for GM for 30 years, and have achieved the highest classification possible without going in to some form of management. To date, the most I have ever made in a year was $87K, and that included a lot of performance bonuses.

 

[LordSnailz]

Other thing to note is location, a lot of people here in the valley make over 100k but with 50yr/1200 sq. ft houses starting 750k, that's not a lot of money. It's all relative ...