supply and demand do play major factor. the value of demand (successful PERSONALITY programmer) is rare and huge supply (LAZY) programmer; equal UNDER PAID P.S those of u that are under paid, u know the answer why u are under paid LAZY
You humans and your entitlement!!! Are millions underpaid at $1 per day? maybe. if you are so worried about what others value your life at, do something about it. now fly to India and yell at them about how you are underpaid!! God is listening!!! lol New threads: Should college kids ever work, or just given 100k a year? Should I just ask my parents for 1 million dollars, or work? If I say I am smart, can I start at CEO? Can they make a movie after me if I am lazy?
I second that. Couple points: * Most humans are not that lucky in that they get to do what they have a strong passion for (heck, most do not even know how to spell passion). Either they never had a passion to begin with, or they did not pursue it because they did not value it, or they lacked the properties to pursue such passion (lack of education, brain power, patience,...). I would reckon to say only 2-5% of all people do something they truly enjoy and combine it with their career and life choices. * If one belongs to the minority of those who do something they have a strong passion for, then that very often highly correlates with success and a truly happy life without ever sensing the need to compare oneself with others. * If one belongs to the majority of people then: a) one still can go after one's passion but realize sooner or later its not a true passion because he/she does not bring to the table (or is not willing to learn) what it requires to pursue such passion. Those are the losers of society. They cannot feed themselves, their families, they get frustrated and depressed because they realize time and again they cannot make it yet are too proud to realize that they are not strong willed enough. b) one can chose another profession and realize that one can turn a passion into a hobby while still choosing another career in order to feed the family or themselves. They are obviously not as happy as those few percent that are able to successfully combine their passion with their career but, well, they did not belong to such group in the first place. * People on this board care WAY too much about what others' houses are worth, how much they get how much they should or should not make. Psychologically there is only one explanation for that. Lack of self-worth and self-confidence coupled with a lack of passion of what they are currently doing and/or the lack of success in what they currently do. Conclusion: Generally if one has a strong passion for something and one is willing to put in the time and efforts to go after such passion then success usually follows. The problem is here: Most people delude themselves into thinking they belong to the 2-5% and yes they may be able to identify a "passion" but in reality it is just a curiosity not a passion. A passion usually causes someone to be absolutely driven, for a few its easier because they bring the brain power and/or education and competitive mind to the table, for others to be driven means they have to work hard, they have to give up friendships, holidays, free time, .... Most are not willing to do that. They think there are shortcuts in life. Sorry to sound overly harsh but generally I think there are a lot of people who are incredibly uneducated to the degree of being outright stupid. They are fed by media and society that there are shortcuts and they steadfastly believe there are shortcuts in life. Truth is there are hardly any shortcuts, at least probabilistically way too few to make it worthwhile to purse. This website seems to be drenched with those hopefuls and diggers for shortcuts. So, are financial programmers underpaid? Who cares. I am well rewarded for my work, that is all I care about, and I am truly happy. I just feel shocked and amazed how fast my ignore list is growing in such short time being here. I just cannot tolerate and stomach stuff written by extremely stupid or lazy individuals. Financial programmers are all fairly rewarded, heck, having worked as trader at several banks I doubt there is a single individual in this industry who could truly claim to be underpaid in comparison to the value added/service rendered.
Engineers Allege Hiring Collusion in Silicon Valley "Tech companies love new ideas, unless they belong to someone else. Then any breakthroughs must be neutralized or bought. Silicon Valley executives know all too well that a competitor's unchecked innovation can quickly topple the mightiest tech titan. Just how far Silicon Valley will go to remove such risks is at the heart of a class-action lawsuit that accuses industry executives of agreeing between 2005 and 2009 not to poach one another's employees. Headed to trial in San Jose this spring, the case involves 64,000 programmers and seeks billions of dollars in damages. Its mastermind, court papers say, was the executive who was the most successful, most innovative and most concerned about competition of all -- Steve Jobs..." http://www.cnbc.com/id/101457858
LOL that's my high school teacher, I remember him teaching pascal and c but no one paid any attention to him and he doesn't care. That was one of our favorite class though because we get to play network multiplayer doom all period. (back then it's impossible to play doom on a modem without major lag) Back to the subject, 150k is pretty much the limit for a senior developer nowadays unless you are directly working on front office system as the traders lapdog. There are tremendous pressure to move to low cost centers in India and Eastern Europe. For us basically every dev in NY I lose, I can only hire in low cost region for replacement which is a pain in the ass especially if you don't have a strong tech lead over there looking after those guys. You can't compete anymore, foreign developers are dime a dozen who are willing to take 70k and work hard in the us. Overseas are even less. Silicon Valley is the place to be as a dev, Wall Street is no longer the industry with the highest salary for programmers.
Agreed, 150k is the average for senior dev, I think you can max out at 175-200k. After that any extra money in the financial industry is going to come from the bonus which is getting weaker in the big banks at 20-30% and 30-50% in the hedge and prop shops for pure IT. With the cost of living in the NY area you're just living day to day unless your spouse has equal earning power. In recent years, the firms I've worked for seem to be starting to favor strong local talent over cheap off-shore dev. I think a lot of it has to do with motivation, off-shore programmers can be as skilled as anyone local, but in practice i've seen off-shore teams of 20-30 get derailed for days due to something as simple as a one line misconfiguration or a process that failed to start in their UAT environment. Seems like they are good at structured things but terrible at trouble shooting, but that's just my personal experience. I have friends who work at google or other tech companies who make just as much as financial industry dev or less, but are twice as happy due to the environment they work in. Soul crushing would be an understatement for financial industry IT work as a whole.
wow which big bank still pays 20-30% bonus for IT? i need to move there after 07/08, bonus is pretty much a running joke, we hand out ~5% to senior dev and that's the top 20% performers.
now that's encouraging to read for someone like me looking to get into financial industry IT could you elaborate on that a bit? why soul crushing?