Comparing to other colleagues in the core business of the firm, yes they are under paid. But they are well paid comparing to other programmers in other industries than financial. The point is that if you're a programmer you still be a programmer regardless which industry you're working for, and you'll get paid according to the programmers pay scale.
I am not suggesting that programmers are underpaid by 1000%. I claim most are underpaid by 50%, evenly across different domains.
This is a great idea and I had thought of it and even discussed it with some of my colleagues. I don't want to be in 401K matching or any of that crap. I want my money and matched money on the front line with theirs. So if they make 100%, I make 100%. In essence, _we_ make 100%. It is no longer us and them. If they lose, I lose. I don't know if there are legal ramifications to this though. It may require huge paper work and regulations and gawd only knows what. It also would probably require the firm to then allow itself to be regularly audited, even though it is a private firm.
Try millions. My code has literally saved firms millions on account of innovations. The problem is that corporate politics and trader self-importance prevents trickle-down economics from happening inside a socialist workplace. And, realistically, unless different people are competing on the same task within a group, it is a kind of bizarre central planning at the office. I am not aggressive enough on bargaining, but at the same time, the employer isn't entirely at fault because he doesn't know my skillset beyond his interview questions. Really, this is my own fault. I should correct it.
I was remarking on the salaries of programmers. I calced that 120,000 a year is 500 bucks a day. I was imagining a programmer who had some capital. A beginner is starting with 25K in another thread. For Her, 500 bucks a day income would be 500 divided by 25, 000 as a decimal percentage. Looks like a persent that is close to 1%. Could a programmer looks at a few market characteristics. See Rosy 2 comment. would that person then be able to generate an ATS that could make 10 ES points a day???? Programmers must be grossly underpaid as I see it. any programmer ought to be making tons of money.
So for you 150K is peanuts? What makes you so special? Programmers are dime a dozen. And the best ones don't make 150K. They make BILLIONS in Silicon valley. The profession that is underpaid are the good teachers and good college professors.
you are not thinking from their point of view. it's not about a fair contract. as far as they're concerned, its about hiring someone to do the work cheaply. the intent is not to have the programmer become a partner or to grow with the firm. the intent is to have him stay in the back office and do that programming "shit" forever. when he burns out, replace him. do you care who's your janitor? how about your human resources department? do you want them to get a percentage of your trading pnl and grow with your firm? how you think of these people is exactly how the people in charge think of programmers. steve jobs is many time wealthier than wozniak. everyone wants steve jobs to be the ceo of their companies. nobody wants wozniak. the industry is littered with examples like this (e.g., cisco, ebay). it's the rule, not the exception. same in every industry. oh and lets not forget the one of the biggest factors in driving down demand for programmers. open source free software and free code everywhere. why the hell do programmers keep doing stuff for free if they want higher salaries? i'm afraid they have all been mislead by the wozniak groupie and this notion that everything should be free. he is a millionaire. easy to be noble and work for free when you're already a millionaire.
Mostly true except for the bit about open source. Open source mostly competes with shrink wrapped software. But most code is not shrink wrapped - it is custom written because there is no off the shelf solution. There are other factors that have driven down programmer remuneration.