Curiosity

[lnr]

A friend of mine recently wondered why they weren't earning 30K in programming, when it seemed like most of their friends were. So I'm curious as to what various people on my friends-list do. If you're not currently working but have done in the past feel free to fill this in with your most recent job in mind. If you don't want to reveal who you are, or if you don't have a livejournal, I'd still be interested in answers as comments instead.

NB Salary in UK pounds please, sorry for not making that clear in the question.

[Poll #256200]

Comments

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Are the salary figures GBP?

[lnr]

Yes, sorry, too UK-centric.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I haven't filled it in, given I'm a student.

[lnr]

Yeah, I wondered about trying to word it in a way that would fit (say) PhD students and their grants, but it didn't really work. I am more interested in what people are doing once they've left academia, unless they're employed there of course, at least in this case.

[simont]

(I'm extremely close to the bottom end of the salary band containing me...)

[imc.livejournal.com]

I'm extremely close to the top of the experience band containing me. :-)

The RS1A scale has ten points on it (officially). No more increments for me, then. :-(

[meirion.livejournal.com]

of course, i had 4+ years as a PhD student prior to beginning my working life, so change the answer appropriately if you think that counts.

-m-

[jbmurray.livejournal.com]

Same here regarding 4+ years "experience" as a PhD student before starting to earn anything like real money.

The question of being paid "too little" or "too much" is difficult, too. Compared to equivalent UK academics with my experience, I'm paid just about right. Compared to the UK average wage, I'm doing fine, and have money to go travelling etc. Compared to equivalent "professionals," we're doing crap, of course (all the more so because we start earning later). So I ticked "too little," as I think you want comparisons across sectors.

[(Anonymous)]

Can't tick the 'anonymous' box for polls, so:

GeekProg, 30k, four, sometimes, probably about right

(http://www.jobstats.co.uk/ is relevant)

[gnimmel.livejournal.com]

Geek (other) == I spend most of my time programming, but that's not my job title and I'm supposed to do other things as well. I'm also right at the bottom of the poll salary band I fall into....

I say about right

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

but I've had other people be extremely surprised at how low paid people who work in preschool care are. So whether the norm is enough is another matter enitrely, but I was basing my answer on the norm, and knowledge of how stretched the preschool budget is, from my mother being a playgroup supervisor.

(OTOH, it's incredibly fun and fulfilling, and I'm currently in the process of looking into doing it more formally/longterm. And the hours are good, given that I have to work around school hours anyway.)

[(Anonymous)]

Geek, programming, >40k, 4.5 years experience, mostly happy with the job, too much.

[sweh.livejournal.com]

Where you work and in what industry also has an impact. When I was working in London I worked for a Greek shipping company (from University, for 5 years) then a magazine publishing company (for 4 years). I was pulling in pretty good money, especially since I was living with my parents and so had limited expenses! Definitely enough for me to put a 20,000 pound deposit on a house.

Then I joined an outsourcing company working in a bank in the City Of London. I got paid close to bank salary rates for a senior Unix SA/engineer (but without bonuses and benefits and stuff) and within 6 months my pay had increased by 50% (pay rise and promotion and thus also qualified for company car allowance or equivalent in money) over the previous job. The industry standard (City geeks) is that much higher than geeking in most other areas. If I worked directly for a bank then I could probably have been paid even more.

Having seen a lot of the programmers in this place, most of them ain't worth 30K :-)

[nja.livejournal.com]

Programming's part of it, but this afternoon I'm scanning ancient slides of what I suspect is Brazilian medical equipment.

At one of my schools the majority of the teachers are earning >40k. At the other, the only one earning less than me is ~15 years younger than me. I'm probably slightly less likely to get punched in the face or accused of abuse, though.

[sparrowsion]

teachers are earning >40k

I passed my father's final salary (as Head of Sixth Form and Examinations Secretary) several years ago.

"too much" is an interesting question -- I think I'm paid about right by industry standards (particuarly as I haven't actually had a rise for over three years), but I also think that those industry standards pay programmers too much.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Notes:

- Technically I suppose I am a geek, insofar as that my job requires pathologically in-depth knowledge of one particular aspect of the world, but it's not a computer-related part so...

- I don't feel terribly underpaid, but my equivalent job is being advertised this week in SE1 at the band £32,682 to £34,974, so I'm thinking maybe I am.

- No, I'm not applying.

[vatine]

FWIW, when I last worked full-time as a developer (C, writing crypto goop for EDIFACT routers for the Stockholm board of healthcare, back in 1992-or-so), I was paid a whopping 12000 SEK/month (that would be about 10K-12K UKP/year using an approximate exchange rate). I was responsible for all coding, most implementation design and found bugs in the specification requirements documentation (they used some spectacularly *bad* mistakes in the initial design for signed transmissions). At the time, I think the going industry rate for "newly-baked MSc CompSci" was on the order of 18-20 KSEK/month.

[(Anonymous)]

Programming geek, 30-40K, 3-4 years, sometimes, about right or too little.

[arkady.livejournal.com]

I've been accused of being a Tube Geek in the past, but I don't think my job really counts as geekery - though I'm unofficially the IT-bod at work as well. To be honest, considering what the job entails I suspect I am actually overpaid - but on the other hand my pay is probably commensurate for my age and experience.

[ceb.livejournal.com]

Assuming PhD=job; physics=non-geek (could well be geek but I was assuming you meant sysadmin etc.)

[reddragdiva]

My salary's precisely 30k. I ticked 30-40 because there's a theoretical on-call allowance, but I'm not on the on-call roster (and very pissed off - I want the cash!).

This quiz is incomplete without a location entry. London is not Melbourne is not New York is not Sheffield is not Dogshit, Nebraska.

[lnr]

There is that, I guess I'm used to the fact I know where most of you live/work :-)

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

2nd level Geek, prestige class Other, £10/hour working part-time from home, far too few hours per year. (Was being paid a rather higher rate than that by the same company at one point, but that was the point where the company went bankrupt; a little money that I actually do receive is better than a lot of theoretical money that I don't.)

I do pretty elementary webmonkeying and minor tech support but have a relatively long history with the company and my limited knowledge of the company's field turns out to be extremely good relative to almost all others. 4 years, 8¾ months. Not very happy, though I like and respect the other people involved in the comapny. Being paid... probably about the right rate (*), but just far less employed than I would like to be.

(*) The sort of webmonkeying that I do is nothing that I couldn't have done at about the age of 14 and so is probably really a minimum wage job these days, but being knowledgeable and informed in the field, moderately able to get along with people and having a reasonably good reputation can justifiably command a premium.

</rant>

[pjc50.livejournal.com]

I note that people with higher salaries prefer to keep quiet, or at least anonymous, about it here. Is this fear of jealousy, a desire not to be seen as bragging, embarrasment of riches, or what?

[(Anonymous)]

Geek - other (UNIX Sysadmin)

30-40K in UK pounds

7-8 years, I think by now...

Mostly.

Too much given that I read news half the time.

... and given that my real name is easily deduced from my LJ username, I think you know why I'm not putting it on this for Google to find. I'll bet LNR knows who I am anyway.

[rillaith.livejournal.com]

I ticked other, because I'm not a "proper" developer, but do a lot of programming for web stuff ... i'm being paid the same as I would have left nGame on 3 years ago had they had money, and this is in london and that was in cambridge, so i also ticked too little. I'm pretty much on the 6/7 year turning point, but ticked the 5-6 option.

but then, this company is a bunch of hairy collocks anyway. pardon the language.

[catyak]

Totally unrelated to your poll, my toddler son keeps pointing at your icon and saying "WOW!" I asked him which icon was his favorite, and he always pointed to yours.

Do you like younger men?

--Susan

[lnr]

At the moment I seem to be finding 23 about the limit of how young I can cope with, so perhaps he's not *quite* old enough yet.

[aendr.livejournal.com]

Is a research scientist who spends a lot of her time programming and debugging fortran and then running models on supercomputers and the rest analysing the results, writing wave routines to analyse them with, a geek (other)?

[lnr]

Up to you. If you think the geeking is the main bit go geek (other), if you think the science is more important go non-geek.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, I filled it in based on my last 'proper' job (not the temp stuff). My current answers would be: Non-Geek (although an argument could be made for Programming!), about 4.5K, seven months and one day, Yes, Too Little (but no chance of a raise other than on April 6th).

[truecatachresis.livejournal.com]

Whilst I'm being paid too little, that's not too little for the job I'm technically doing, where I'm probably being paid a little too much, it's too little for the job I should be doing (and the promotion I was offered last year, but has not yet materialised...).

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

I have, of course, answered for my last job. Interestingly what I get paid for being a useless parasite is about half what I got for being a professional sysadmin.

[(Anonymous)]

Geek - other (but seem to have done mostly programming for the last three years)
>40K (does K = 1024 or 1000?)
10+ years
Not Very (looking to change)
About right

[lnr]

You *are* a geek. K = 1000 in money.

Another anonymouse earning lots, I'm as curious as pjc50 as to what it is that makes any of you not want to reveal who you are. Do feel free to say if you can work out how without giving yourselves away.