Reasonable Salary for Entry Level Programmers? 1525
An anonymous reader asks: "I will be graduating from college in May with a degree in computer science. I have begun the job search and gone on a few interviews. So far I have gotten two job offers which I am thankful for, but the salary seems low. I am not saying that I am too good to pay my dues and work my way up, but I could make more waiting tables. It is somewhat distressing that I have spent 4 years of college and years before that developing my programming skills. I am not trying to get rich, but I was hoping that the high level of skill required would account for something(no offense intended to waiters). Can anyone give me any insight about what a reasonable starting salary would be, for an entry level software engineer?"
Average range (Score:2, Interesting)
I've been programming for 3 years (Score:2, Interesting)
Your salary is dependant on the company. Some companies don't care about emloyees and love to turn them over.
Also, if you are just starting, I wouldn't be worried. After a year they will probably bump you up to something more reasonable. You also can ask for a raise. If you ask for something you think you should be making and get rejected, look for a new position somewhere else.
Anything. (Score:5, Interesting)
Only take the table-waiting job if you can accomplish more worthwhile projects on your own time, and have excellent documentation skills to prove what you did.
4 years + Master's Degree (Score:1, Interesting)
$55,000 US + Benefits on the East Coast
Not your exact case, hope it helps.
Sorry pal (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been programming etc for over 20 years and I could probably make more money by driving a truck; various trades such as plumbing, electrician, ...
Depends (Score:3, Interesting)
After finishing my masters in robotics from CMU, I hope to be making 75-85K. We'll see, but I expect this to be about right.
Clearly spending 2 years more in school will boost my salary more than experience would have. (maybe)
Want to make more? Learn specialized skills, get a higher degree, or spend more time looking.
www.kirigin.com
Re:Welcome to the real world there son (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, the mean time in the field for the people here is 10 years. So I guess 10 years of experience is worth more than a degree? I personally want to finish my degree, but it won't be in order to work in IT.
-WS
First Rule of Job offers (Score:3, Interesting)
Bad news (Score:5, Interesting)
I have over 10+ years in tech, worked at a major software company and left for the dot bomb craze. I gave up lots of salary for equity and while the company was profitable and public, the market tanked a mere few weeks before my first vesting period. Even if it hadn't the AMT tax would have probably screwed me over anyway.
Since then I've worked some side stuff, waited tables, had the stupidity to try to sell cars and only in the last few months have things returned to what I call "normal."
Never mind that I worked on shrink wrapped products, developed a source level debugger, have had lots of experience on both Windows and UNIX. It all didn't matter to anyone.
I have to say, despite returning to a salary level that bests my previous best. I'm a changed person. Save, save, save.
IT blows. That's my 2 cents. HR people simply care about the last six months and are clueless if you are well ahead of your peers. They don't have the capacity to make this judgement.
You could tell them you architected (as an example) SSH and Kerberos have encryption patents and they might ask some stupid arse question like "Do you know JavaScript?"
Anyone starting school today... my advice is forget tech. If you feel it in your soul (like you should do it), fine, go to a tech school like DeVry, start making money and save it. Going to traditional 4 year programs for CS is an utter waste of time. Way too much change and like I said it's always about what you did in the last six months.
Re:Here comes one helluva flamewar... (Score:3, Interesting)
However the big problem with outsourcing, or any kind of distributed development, is the difficulty of managing via multiple time zones. Any project where you have to coordinate closely with other groups and work with customers in the US is not going to succeed when the developers are 5000 miles away. Routine cookie-cutter projects are another matter but those are boring anyway.
Still, in 5 years the good Indian programmers will make $50K -> $100K a year and we'll be back to normal (I hope)... At least until the Chinese outsourcing industry picks up.
CNN Article (Score:1, Interesting)
Remember these are average salaries. Some people make more, some people make less. I believe what you make out of college has a lot to do with the internships you did while you were in college. (You did do internships right?)
Here's another useful tidbit of information: Recent Forrester studies showed "word of mouth referrals" accounted for 62% of hires, while only 4% of people found jobs through high profile internet job sites (eg. Monster & Dice)
A bit of advice for anyone in the job market: The more people know what you can do, the more opportunities/options you'll have when you're looking for a new job.
Good Luck!
Re:Here comes one helluva flamewar... (Score:2, Interesting)
Starting salary for the following Co's, anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)
Does anyone know what the starting salary is at Cisco? HP (California site)? Intel? Microsoft? Sun? Consulting companies (IBM included)? I'd appreciate responses from anyone that knows... even anonymous responses!
Meanwhile, here are a few facts and figures I've gathered through some research. Can anyone confirm these numbers? Caveat lector, as these are _all_ from sources whose accuracy I cannot ascertain:
IBM pays about $55K on average, starting off. However, they have many sites, so it would vary.
HP (in Texas) pays about $50-55K starting for technical positions.
Accenture non-consulting roles start out in the mid/high 20's for technical positions, from what I've heard. On the bright side, these jobs are unlikely to be outsourced, because you can't get much cheaper than that!
I've also heard that Intel pays very well starting off. But I've been unable to get a number for them
Golden Days Are Over (Score:1, Interesting)
I am fortunate now to have the freedom to help start new companies that don't necessarily pay any money at first. I do feel for those graduating into the current job market. It is the same in any industry: those who are highly skilled and intelligent are in high demand and those who are recently graduated without a track record have trouble finding even a relatively low paying job in their field.
Sorry I don't have any advice, just a story to tell.
Rule of thumb (Score:3, Interesting)
Divide it by 2.
Don't accept less than that.
Re:Welcome to the real world there son (Score:3, Interesting)
Naw, it proves you can show up for class for four years...which actually means something to employers because it proves you are at least somewhat dependable...
So, am I the only one that sees the solution? (Score:2, Interesting)
That's right: living in your mother's basement for one year scraping things together with a pizza delivery boy's wages while you scrape together your application. Come on, if you really expect to cut it as a software dev, you've got to be able to write one chunk of code that makes you and makes it onto your resume. Then you sell it and do it again.
That's self-employment as a contract programmer, and there's money to be made there.
Re:Likewise (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Likewise (Score:5, Interesting)
Another thing: If you can get a skill that differentiates you, it helps a LOT. My grades sucked, but when I was competing with the "2 quarters of ASP" kids and I had 4 years CGI experience, plus some java, it made me a lot more marketable. Not so much the skills, but that I acquired 'em on my own. Being a geek is helpful.
Whats Open Source Experience worth? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Think of the Future - Raises (Score:5, Interesting)
After a month I interviewed (4 hours of interviews for my own position) and I beat out someone else for my own job. The catch? They docked my pay 25% for the benefits (I was relying on my wife's benefits, $100 a month). My director said she's fix things in 3 months when the budget allowed for it. So, I basically played the waiting game and began applying for jobs after two months, and got an offer just in time to find out that she wasn't going to fix things.
It gave me the greatest sense of accomplishment to tell her that I was moving on, especially since she was going to counter-offer but I told her not to bother (I was aware of her budget and she could only afford half of the increase I was getting). Ahhh... memories...
Re:Likewise (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, I haven't read any posts concerning Standard of Living costs. An entry-level job (or any job), would most certainly pay more in N.NJ than in, say, Birmingham.
Re:Likewise (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I've been programming for 3 years (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Join the military and get into an intelligence specialty. If you plan on working with computers after you get out, I suggest Navy or Air Force though I know a great sys admin who was a Marine.
2. Get and keep a security clearance. Don't let it lapse. Don't do drugs or, God forbid, marry a non-U.S. citizen. Always pretend that you agree with everything George says and repeat after me: "Hanging is too good for anyone from France".
3. Earn 35% more (at least) once you get out and you don't even need to have any skills or a degree. Your job will be safe from outsourcing, there's a thousand Beltway Bandits begging for your resume, and headhunters are tracking down kids straight out of the military (as long as they have a ticket). It's like the dot com bubble!
Re:Likewise (Score:2, Interesting)
This is so true. While struggling for a job two years ago, I asked for 15k less per year than I was making. At a dental software company, they loved me, but as soon as I mentioned salary, it was "we'll call you".
At two other companies (nothing to do with dental) that were in my field of experience, one dragged ass making an offer, I would be their highest paid engineer, and the other snapped me up. Total cash lost: 10k per year. Made up over half of that with my first year's raise; no one else got above 2%.
Twice your rate as Sophomore (Score:2, Interesting)
then "entry level programmer" is an overstatement.
An employer is either paying for immediate results or potential. Designers and architects
carry around portfolios to show prospective employers -- why not programmers?
Get Thee a Portfolio (Maybe) (Score:5, Interesting)
But I digress. The point is it is extremely hard to tell how proficient a programmer is by simply talking to them. OTOH, five minutes browsing their source code tells you exactly what they know, and how they use that knowledge. Beware though; if you didn't actually learn anything in school, that too will show through like a sore thumb - if this is the case, avoid the source code and try to get the interviewer to talk about his kids.
Pick something random, peculiar, or fun. Try to do something that exercises all the areas you feel you are proficient in. Then write a simple program - a couple thousand lines is more than enough. If you're writing OO and use UML, consider adding that to the package. Same with unit tests, flowcharts, build scripts, or whatever else are the artifacts of your development process.
It has worked in my favour on job interviews, and I always appreciate when a candidate that I'm interviewing has something to show.
Wage distribution has changed (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically things got out of control between 98 and 2001 as venture capital flowed into companies that were required to grow quickly by the venture capital. All of the good talent was hired quickly, and then some of the average talent was hired. All that was left was the basic low-no skill talent.
So, there was a situation in which it became difficult to find low-average talent, and our standard economic models tell us that when demand goes up and supply stays relatively stable (it takes a little bit of time to supply new IT/Developers) that the price per unit will go up.
And that's what happened. The market tried to correct, everybody came flooding into the valley (as evidenced by Traffic Jams, zero rental inventory and huge monthly rentals) and, in order to have any chance of holding onto employees, companies started increasing salaries.
Good employees had great salaries and average employees had salaries that they would never normally be able to earn as companies scrambled to bring on staff. Salary inversions happened all of the time as an employee who started at $50K/year doing desktop support was making $20K/year less than a guy who started a year later. Most companies leveled these off, bringing up the $50K/year employee to $70K which created even more pricing pressure on employees.....
And then the Bust in 2001 when Venture capital dried up, the stock market basically collapsed. Public companies could no longer do secondaries to raise capital and Private companies, well, they grew very, very slowly if at all.
Companies laid off employees by the thousands and people fled the valley. (As evidenced by vast rental inventories, much lower traffic on 880 and 101 and a 30-40% drop in the cost of rental housing). Salaries in some cases dropped (HP/Microsoft dropped by approx 10% in the valley) and in almost every case froze for several years for existing employees.
For new employees, it was (and still is) a totally different situation - Basically for every IT job there are about 100-200 applicants. Only the good ones get hired and their salaries are at a competitive level. A solid IT Desktop Support employee at a mid-level company can expect to make 96-97 salaries in the valley ($50K-$60K). Sysadmins with 8-10 years experience are making $70-$90K. Everything has cooled off and the employer is in the drivers seat again.
The good news is that Great Engineers (IT/Software Developers) are _always_ impossible to find in the valley, good/bad/otherwise. You basically have to steal them from another company in order to hire them as they don't typically come directly out of school. Their salaries haven't dropped at all (as their companies held onto them - Great employees are always the last to be laid off) at their current salary, or they made a lateral move (equal salary) to a new company if their previous company went out of business.
What this means for you - If you love the business ignore the salary - it means nothing in the first 3-4 years of your career. Absolutely nothing. Work for free if you have to. Focus only on three things:
o The Quality of the Job - What will you be doing, will you have the resources to do it, will you be given lots of authority and opportunity to do new things.
o The Quality of the Company. Does it treat it employees ethically, Is it well financed (!!!), does it have great management, do you have highly skilled coworkers who will cross train you/develop you.
o The Quality of the Opportunity - Is this company in a hot space, are they developing a great product, are they first movers in a cool new technology that will become a standard.
Everything else will take care of itself if you are passionate, skilled and focussed. Don't worry about negotiating/looking for a great wage/etc... That will take care of itself. I promise you.
Even if you do make less than a waiter for the first 18 months or so.
Not that you said it was, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
I make good money as a programmer, but I started low ($30K in late '98). Though at the time that was actually a raise, the main reason I did it was because I just loved coding, solving problems in a practical way, increasing company efficiency, etc. Because of that I got promoted pretty quickly, and hired away once people who knew me needed someone with the skills.
I'm not saying I'm great -- but I do love what I do, and that is why I'm pretty good at it. I've never met any good coders who didn't have some degree of love for the work itself.
In other words, I'd probably still be doing this if I got paid less than a waiter. Which is why I'm paid more
Cheers.
Re:I don't know a good rate... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to say at all that $20/hr would be bad, just by comparison. I'm actually quite happy with my wage.
Re:ask for a lot (Score:2, Interesting)
Gary Nolan [garynolan.com] is going to be this election's Nader, and he's going to hurt Bush BAAAAAD.
Consider yourself lucky (Score:1, Interesting)
Just keep in mind most positions you are applying for you are probably, emphasis on the probably, not the top pick...
What I've seen (Score:2, Interesting)
I've seen data online that said that average salary for entry level software engineer is between 47-48K.
And yes, be thankful for those interviews and job offers. I've been out for 5 months and I've only been able to get one interview. All this rushing around to job fairs, phone calls, and online job searches at all the different companies is starting to really get me down since I'm not seeing any results. The one interview I did have went well, and I think I was in contention up to the end, but I got that "letter of regret" after a long while.
Don't take for granted those job offers. Even if it's not what you thought you would make it might be better to take it until something better comes along.
An index (Score:1, Interesting)
I live in a pricey part of the world where we interviewed an economist some time ago. The person was unfamiliar with the cost of living, so asked for a starting salary equal to 3x the average cost of a two bedroom apartment. We never hired the person (can't remember why) but I thought that was an interesting index, and probably a pretty good estimate of what the person was worth.
Re:Welcome to the real world there son (Score:3, Interesting)
I was at university for a grand total of 1 year. During that time I was involved in my own coding projects, and keeping in touch with my friends in the US who were joining security companies at the time.
At the end of that year, I left university and sent around a resume (targetted to specific firms), outlining what my skills were, and asking whether the company could use me. I received an offer and started work within a month of leaving uni.
However, the income I started on was pretty crappy at the time, and I wasn't that happy with it. Over the next few years I ended up staying at a company for around 9-10 months, picking up new skills, and moving on. Each new position resulted in a pay increase and an opportunity to learn new skills.
Five years later, and my salary/rate has more than tripled, and my skills are in demand. So in terms of initial starting pay - it was low, but I picked up new skills, worked in different areas relating to IT security, and eventually found a niche with a lot of experience backing me up. Unless you have a wife, child, mortgage, etc - don't sweat the initial low salary.
Re:I don't know a good rate... (Score:4, Interesting)
You can get the same house for about 180,000 in Vegas.
So I think it really depends where you are planning to live and work.
No CS for me (Score:2, Interesting)
Surprisingly things have gone well. Who knew?
Re:I've been programming for 3 years (Score:2, Interesting)
BUT
I used to own a small computer store in a college town. For 8 yrs, my best employees were ROTC(college) or ex-military come back to get a degree. Once I'd gone through a few years, I learned that, as a rule, the military folks were better disciplined, driven, and hard working than the non-military types.
That's not to say that I didn't have great non-military employees. Percentage wise it just was a better bet to hire military types, as I got more work for the dollar, and I needed every dollar I could get just to keep the lights on.
Re:Tough to say... but it aint what it used to be (Score:2, Interesting)
All in all it's a good job. Pays well and *tons* of experience. Way more than I think I'd get at a large company (after having interned for 5 summers at Northrop Grumman and one with Agilent). We engineers do *everything*. Code. Document. Support. Meet with customers. Booth duty at trade shows. It definitely helps with the people skills...it's amazing how much better you can get at approaching people after spending 8hrs/day for a week trying to initiate conversations with everyone who walks by.
Employers don't need to compete... (Score:2, Interesting)
I make a mere 50K per year for my credentials, and I don't think it's worth the work, stress, and time involved. There is no competition for employers because jobs are so scarce, so they can pretty much get away with paying as little as they can.
If I could do it all over again, I'd pick another field or learn Hindi. The only thing that will save this industry is either unionization or some sort of engineering license to practice software development in the US.
Re:Get A Security Clearance (Score:2, Interesting)
Salary in India (Score:2, Interesting)
I've heard it was about $10k (USD) a year for programmers.
The difference is in India the salary doubles every time you get a promotion so the management types actually cost more than in the US. But the whole project is cheeper because the lower ranks are getting paid less.
I saw this in a magazine article about Indian outsourcing, but I am not really sure how true it is about salaries doubling. I know that in developing countries in general the increments with promotions are a lot higher percentages than in developed countries, but the base is very low
Re:Whats Open Source Experience worth? (Score:3, Interesting)
If it was the pre-emptive kernel patch, then expect it to carry quite a bit of wait with Open Source friendly companies.
Personally, I'm starting to get a little wary of people who claim OS experience on their resume as it is becoming a habit of some resume builders to do such things. Not suggest you have but I would take that in to consideration when making your resume.
Good luck!
It really sucks right now... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, since you are already graduating, I hope you have work experience otherwise, it's going to be another 3-5 years before you can even hope of getting a job that makes those 4-5 years in school worth it.
I've got a year and a half left (till my BS) and I already have 3 years of experience in computational software development and 5 years for systems administration (mostly parallel development and design and deployment of beowulf systems). I got lucky in high school and grabbed an intership at a local manufacturer. Worked for their IT department doing piddly things, however, the entry on my resume and some dumb luck made future Jobs come to me.
I feel bad if you are getting this news too late. A friend of mine already graduated last semester and had little to no work experience. The best offer he got was an internship (internship??? the guy already graduated!) with IBM for around 12 bucks an hour to audit web code.
To answer your question: If you have no work experience, CNN claims that the average out-of-college CS degree holder will get a starting pay of around $48,000 a year. I call bullshit on that one and have a more conservative estimate of around $35,000 if you get lucky (it greatly depends on your location). At this point, you should just take what you can get and keep your eyes open for better opportunities. At this point, someone else is probably right behind you in the H.R. line, with his/her CS degree, drooling for that $10 an hour job.
If you have good work experience and have worked in a specialized field (not systems administration), the salary possibilities are endless if you know where to look. Accept nothing less than $50,000 or $60,000 if you know you're good, you have the experience to back it up, and you have sufficient funds to go a month or two without a job.
$55k starting out (1998), $85k last year (Score:1, Interesting)
Example:
$55,000 / 2,080 = $26.44/hour
$55,000 / 2,032 = $27.07/hour
A difference of $25.20/week, or $1,310.40 a year, which is a decent mortgage payment, or several car payments, or roughly what I spend on essential groceries in a year.
Good health coverage, $20 deductable this year (was $10 last year), 401k matching to the first $500 (what a fucking joke).
Whatever you do, take the max deduction out for 401k that you can, then put the max you can into Roth IRA's, too. Yeah, you'll take a hit now, and have less money to spend, but when you go to retire, you'll love how much you have accumulated. Forced savings makes you watch your budget more than optional savings.
Re:High level of skill? (Score:2, Interesting)
In my experience as a 20 year coder who has hired (and fired) CS University grads - they are almost always complete wastes of time. At least the community college grads don't think they know it all.
Take the stinkin job! (Score:3, Interesting)
What about computer engineers? (Score:1, Interesting)
From what I see from NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, and ATI, millions are being poored into R&D with rigorous product deployment... So i am hoping that the situation isn't nearly as bad.
I hate to say it but..... (Score:2, Interesting)
For example, I have a friend who has just finished a degree in computer science, and to his own credit is somewhat of a prodigy. He has some (small, but some) social skills, and is capable of holding jobs. Now even with all the things he has going for him he is still in a saturated working environment, where he ends up not developing software but instead fixing internet connections for less learned persons. Is this a suitable use of his skills? I would say no.
So to end this post I would say you pretty much have to take what you can get these days, and work your way up in a big way. The other option (as I have chosen to exploit) is always self employment. At least with self employment you can guarantee that if you work hard you will actually get paid more.
My story. (Score:2, Interesting)
I put my resume up on a few internet job sites and waited. I didn't call anyone. Calls started coming in about a month later but most of them were startup consulting firms (stock market bubble hadn't burst yet). I didn't want a job like that with a wife and baby to support.
Eventually a defense company called (by accident as they misread my resume) but decided to pull me in for an interview anyway after the phone screen. The day after I got back from the interview Fedex delivered my job offer. I started at a wee bit over $24 per hour (which happened to be exactly what I asked for). I have a 40 hour week and never work overtime unless I want to.
I'm in New Jersey though which isn't exactly the cheapest of states to live in. Hopefully that gives you an idea of what to look for. Just remember to factor in the cost of living for the area when determing your asking salary. Also don't forget to consider the benefits (medical, dental, vision, 401k, pension, insurance, etc.)
well (Score:5, Interesting)
If you're not good, say under the 75th percentile in skill, this will not work well, and it will be best at the 90th+. But if you're good, think about this.
Reality check (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:ask for a lot (Score:1, Interesting)
Funny, Australia and all the other commonwealth countries did
In 1776? Or was it after the Empire had long-since collapsed? And what about Argentina's claims on the Falklands? Maggie didn't take to that very kindly. Britain will walk away when asked to leave, but it won't be kicked out without a fight.
And I could be wrong but when was the last time that was required, say about 230 years ago?
Well, in America, it was attempted about 145 years ago and, fortunately, failed. Elsewhere, the best example I can think of would be the overthrow of Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania, 1989. It would have been nice if the demonstrators in Tiananmen Square had had firearms or access to RPGs as well, that same year, but, hey. Then of course you had the Bosnians resisting their ethnic cleansing by the "legitimate" Serbian government throughout the early nineties. And the Shiite uprising after Saddam. The failed Venezuelan coup, the successful Haitian coup, and so on. The concept bears itself out repeatedly throughout history, regardless of whether religiously anti-gun zealots care to acknowledge the fact.
You cumbubbles (love my new word) with guns kill more of your own families than govt officials
Actually, we kill a lot more of our personal enemies than we do either our own family members or government officials. A whole hell of a lot of those killings are just gratuitous murders, but a whole hell of a lot of others are legitimate self defense, often against a random and unknown attacker. In comparison, accidental shootings are actually quite rare.
Firearms make it easier to carry out a murder, but they neither increase, nor decrease, nor spawn, the dispostion toward murder. The crossing of that moral and psychological line is the prime mover - the choice of implement, once the course of action has been set in motion, is trivial in terms of both execution and moral outrage. Scott Peterson's (alleged) murder of Laci Peterson would have been no more or less heinous if he'd used a firearm. The Manson family's torture-murder of Sharon Tate's party was no less heinous for their NOT having used firearms.
Re:Likewise (Score:3, Interesting)
The market's pretty bad right now; I graduated last year from Dartmouth College, and a number of my friends were unemployed for several months after graduation (one is still without work, and another got his first offer last month). However: nobody I knew with a science or engineering degree was unable to find work. The offers I was fielding were in the $50-60K range, with a BA in Physics.
All that is not to say that it's hard to be happy with 30, especially in a city like Houston. I decided after much hand-wringing to go to grad school at Rice, and now I make a hair over 20K. Thing is, I'm happy with it because I really enjoy what I'm doing, my advisor is great, and eventually I'm getting a Ph.D. Plus, Houston is wicked cheap, so you really don't want for much with a 20K salary.
Just my two cents...
Re:Likewise (Score:3, Interesting)
H1B's diluting market... (Score:1, Interesting)
BUT when those workers start coming here (U.S.) in DROVES and diluting the marketplace, thus driving down salaries (supply and demand) that's where I draw the line. H1Bs have been coming here for years, 65+thousand of them per year. The market for programmers is shrinking and more and more jobs are being moved offshore and they're STILL allowing H1Bs in?!?!
Beam me up Scotty!!!
Re:High level of skill? (Score:3, Interesting)
In my experience as a CS undergrad, people who harp on their "twenty years of coding" and go out of their way to denigrate formal education are the sort who get insecure around people who actually know what an algorithm is.
But let's put our respective insecurities aside for a moment. You don't know anything about this guy, except you know he's dismayed that entry level coders are being offered $8-10/hr for their services. I'm dismayed too. That's about the amount I earned both as a construction worker and as a telemarketer.
I'm not sure what your deal is about community college graduates. I did my time at the community college before transferring to the University. The classes were cheaper, the instruction was comparable, and both scenes offered students ranging from very smart to very un-smart. I certainly wouldn't reject an entry level applicant on the basis of having come from the wrong school. But I do see a couple of differences between the two:
1) There are classes and degrees at a university that a community college simply don't have the ability to provide. My community college offered nothing beyond an A.S.
2) There's no actual research going on at most community colleges, hence no opportunities for students to participate in said research.
So is it the chance to participate in research that turns the CS University grads into "complete wastes of time?" Or is it the extra two years studying compilers, operating systems, algorithms and data structures, graphics, numerical analysis, and AI that saps them of their potential?*
If you would be so kind as to go beyond the inflammatory one-liners, and describe your dealings with the products of modern education in some degree of detail, I'm sure your perspective would be quite helpful to us young'uns. You know, things like, "What sort of tasks did you ask these new employees to perform?" "What sort of knowledge did you assume they already possessed?" "What sort of personality conflicts emerged, and why?" "Was their code any good?" "Was the problem that they didn't learn what they were taught in school, or that the material being taught isn't suited to the realities of software production?"
Somehow, I expect another one-liner instead. But I can always hope.
* This is actually a pretty good summary of my degree program. I feel fortunate, because it appears to be one of the better ones.
Consider yourself lucky (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:relevance of college (Score:1, Interesting)
"My question is, does going to an Ivy League school (as I do) actually help in getting jobs?"
Um, you missed something that was unspoken:
You go to the Ivy League school, and you still have enough money afterwards to start a business, and/or you work in the family business with your wealthy parents.
Nobody cares what school you went to -- they care whether you are a member of the aristocracy or not. The Ivy League school is just one tiny piece of the trappings of the aristocracy.
Re:I don't know a good rate... (Score:3, Interesting)
And you guys wonder why your jobs are being shipped to India? $45K for someone with no experience! $60K for 6 months experience and with little responsibility- that is just fucking insane!
When I graduated I started on 10K ($18K at today's exchange rate) and that was working in central London- one of the most expensive places in the world to live.
I now have 16 years experience- pretty much all bleeding-and am a senior J2EE architect with other related skills/experience (I was a Rational consultant for a while so: RUP, UML, requirements management) and I'm now on 55K (around$95K at today's exchange rate).
Try the big name companies (Score:1, Interesting)
Some previous posters were quoting $50-$60K for other major companies, like Intel and HP, but I find this a little hard to believe. How could they get away with paying $20K less than another company that's 5 minutes away and attracting the exact same candidates?
The important thing with these companies is to get your foot in the door. If you're a talented programmer and you read a few of those programming interview prep books, I think it would be pretty hard not to get a good-paying job. Just be enthusiastic, show confidence (not arrogance), and study those prep books as if you've got an exam for school.
Be happy =P (Score:3, Interesting)
My Major GPA was 4.0
Total gpa was 3.96
I have YET to get a job offer for a computer programming position. Any position. Even database work.
I am qualified.
I cant find work. I am even willing to move anywhere. In this time, take what you can wherever you can and hope some better times come along.
Err... (Score:3, Interesting)
I started at $12 an hour and supplement my "job" with side consulting at $50-$75 / hour (depending on how well I know the client).
First IT Job (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Buy euros? (Score:2, Interesting)
America has a huge trade decifit. This makes the dollar drop in value. However, China has pretty much financed the reckless American economic policy by buying American Dollar. If China had not done this the dollar would be a lot less worth.
The reason China buys American Dollar is that they do not want a too low dollar, as this makes it hard to sell Chinese goods in America.
If China has a change of policy and stops buying Dollar, the Dollar will soon be a lot less worth.
On the other hand, there is a lot of talk about America raising there interest rate. This will lead to a higher Dollar, as American bonds becomes more attractive to foreign investors.
Which way will it go? I do not know. But just because Euro is high compared to what it used to be, is no reason that it will not go even higher. Especially, if the current economic policy of America is continued.
Welcome to the real world. (Score:2, Interesting)
Your in a buyers market now, the employer has a few years worth of grads to choose from now.
Rates for Britain (Score:3, Interesting)
Insightful? (Score:2, Interesting)
Cluestick: I will metamod you moron mods to newbie-.
Re:I don't know a good rate... (Score:2, Interesting)
- Your Money or Your Life
by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. They give great basic advice, although they are very conservative in terms of where to keep your investments. Their contention is that you make very rational decisions regarding allocating your most precious resource (your time!)and after five to seven years, you should be more free to choose to work when you want, and spend the rest of the time devoted to causes of your own choosing, like open source development, community development, running a soup kitchen that teaches programming skills on the side, or whatever. It's worth a read!Re:I don't know a good rate... (Score:4, Interesting)
$45k in Silicon Valley is nothing.
$45k in L.A. is barely a living wage.
$45k in South Carolina is a nice living.
$45k in India is a rich man.
This is why jobs are getting outsourced. A company can get the same quality of work and provide the employee with the same standard of living overseas, or even in less expensive areas of the United States.
Re:The subject says it all (Score:1, Interesting)
The farther you get from work, the dumber you get because you spend more and more of your time convincing others that you are worth something and less time actually producing something of worth. 'Management decisions' contrary to popular belief, do not benefit the organization, they are purely political. True business success, when it happens to medium/large organizations, is not caused by genius managers but by truely random evolutionary processes. ( Somebody HAD to win, but it was nothing more than luck. )
In med/large companies you will not rise if you give a damn whether the company goes out of business. If you happen to know a problem can be solved for $1.95 and you can keep that fact secret and solve it for $1,000,000.00 and claim 'success' you will gain MUCH more mojo and rise MUCH faster than if you solved the problem for next to nothing. Genius would solve the problem for $1.95, but the People-Genius knows that solving it for $1,000,000.00 pays better. Another word for this type of genius is 'parasite'.
So if you are a true genius, start your own business and 'miraculously' survive, cash strapped, against the big boys by solving million dollar problems for a couple bucks. Don't be a labor-aphid for the parasites to feed off.
Re:I don't know a good rate... (Score:2, Interesting)
Assuming he's in the U.S., the money for many, if not most, retirement plans are in 401k's. These are not managed by the goverment. There are still some corporate pensions, but these too are private, and with some of the shady dealings that have come to light with them lately, they are being watched more careful than ever.
If you cant trust politicians now, how on earth are you going to be able to trust politicians not to go mad over the coming 40 years?
Putting money into a mutual fund that invests overseas will help you do that, plus helps manage your risk. Plus, I would rather trust our government than a foreign one. How many other countries have changed forms of governments in the last 200 or so years? How many have had all their people's private assets confiscated by the state? I'll take my chances here and use a mutual fund to mitigate the risk of investing in other countries.
Just a suggestion... (Score:2, Interesting)
Starting salary is negotiable. Part of getting what you want is the attitude you have. You can't just go into an interview and let them have 100% of the control with things. You have to be assertive and confident. If they start talking figures to you, or ask you how much you want, there is an appropriate answer. "I am negotiable, send me an offer and we will discuss it." Larger companies will make you an offer and if you don't like the offer, counter offer. If it's extremely low, then your chances of getting a decent amount out of them is slim.
I have worked in smaller startup companies before. The job security and pay is usually less. If you are interested in a larger company, they may start you out paying less than some nitch startups, but the experience can be extremely valuable. I have heard many times at my company that a resume didn't stand out as much because the person has never had any experience with a larger corporation.
One other thing to keep in mind is that you should always be upfront and honest when dealing with companies. I have sat through other peoples interviews with my team and some of the stories I have are rather entertaining. I still don't see how someone could associate IPC coding with sending database information from a VAX/VMS system, but I digress... Just make sure that you tell then the truth when they ask questions. If they ask you "Do you know how to use IPC coding?", then unless you can tell them about shared memory and messaging queues, or at least what IPC stands for, then say "I am not sure." You will find larger companies will more likely ask you some in-depth technical questions while interviewing. These days, I am a little weary of companies that don't.
A reasonable rate (Score:2, Interesting)