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U.S. Software developer wages fall 2% as workforce expands
- jebblue 13y agoThe Dice salary survey says salaries went up. I wonder which is right: http://media.dice.com/report/2013-2012-dice-salary-survey/ http://media.dice.com/report/2013-2012-dice-salary-survey/
- ISL 13y agoTo compare, you'd need to know the statistical and systematic uncertainties of each measurement.
- shaggyfrog 13y agoUgh. Those data visualizations are unclear at best, misleading at worst.
- hristov 13y agoThis does not necessarily mean that wages are falling. It could be that a lot of the new jobs created are "beginner" jobs with lower wages that pull the average down, but the existing jobs still pay what they used to or more.
- zanny 13y agoWhat is / will drive wages down is making the process of becoming an (experienced) programmer easier, by lowering the per case work needing done and lowering the barrier to entry (compare writing C++ in 2002 to 2012), and the resources available) and that most use cases are best suited by high level dynamic languages like Python or Ruby, which have significantly less work investment to get results compared to old favorites like Java or C. Most people don't need a tech savant. As that becomes more apparent as it becomes a game of legos putting blocks together rather than having to plastic cast mold every block yourself, I expect mean salary to drop.
- andrewvc 13y agoPossibly, however the better you are the faster you work the higher your value per hour. If I can be 3x as efficient as a junior dev I'm still worth more.
- modarts 13y agoIf you are introducing bugs that will at some point need to be addressed while "working fast", that'll cut away at a lot of the added value.
- jiggy2011 13y agoThis is somewhat offset by higher expectations. Every app better have 9 trillion features and social network integration etc. The complexities of twiddling with memory have been replaced with the complexities of making a ton of different systems work together in a sane way.
- iyulaev 13y agoWasn't the same thing said when we went from hard-wiring programs to writing machine code, then from machine code to assembly, then to 3rd generation programming languages, and so on?
- guard-of-terra 13y agoWhat's up with C++ in 2002 and today? If you knew C with classes in 2002 (MFC style) you were good, if you knew GoF patterns you were elite. Today you have to know STL, auto/smart/shared pointers, all kinds of right casts, you have to know boost (a huge code base) and on top of that you are expected to know C++0x (or how is it called?) with its lambdas, autos and stuff, while still understanding the whole "classic" C++. (But at least nobody cares about MFC and ATL anyway) And don't forget templates of templates of templates which crept into many code bases. And 64-bit (or ARM) is now reality which you should account for. If anything, you have to know ten times more in C++ in 2012 compared to 2002.
- bermanoid 13y agoWhich, to be fair, the article points out right at the top: "There are multiple theories for the decline in pay, but a common one cited by analysts is simply that the new people being hired are paid less than those already on the job."
- greenyoda 13y agoBut these are not necessarily "beginner" jobs: these unemployed people may have been hired back for the same types of jobs they had before, but at lower salaries. If you've been unemployed for a couple of years, you're probably willing to settle for less money just so you could have a job again.
- nknighthb 13y agoSome such instances could conceivably be a simple market correction, too. Some localities particularly entangled by the housing bubble could have had inflated tech salaries as part of general market/cost-of-living forces.
- wtvanhest 13y agoThis is unlikely since the housing market topped 5 years ago and may be actually coming out of the bottom finally (we won't know for a few more years) Another possibility is that there are companies hiring "software developers" for jobs that most HNers wouldn't find interesting because the level of software development is low and hence has a lower waged associated with the value generated.
- nknighthb 13y ago> This is unlikely since the housing market topped 5 years ago and may be actually coming out of the bottom finally No, that's exactly my point. Hiring would be occurring now because the economy is recovering from the recession, but at corrected wages that do not reflect an artificially bloated cost of living in particular localities.
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- grdvnl 13y agoI think even in the Silicon Valley the salaries other than the selective big guys has not even kept up with inflation. A 2 year-experience developer still gets between 80-100k or less. This is what was being paid in 2000 as well. The situation is probably the same elsewhere. Of course, my numbers above are from my own poor sampling.
- inovator 13y agoAnd without consideration of inflation.
- grdvnl 13y agoMy comment was considering inflation. Can you please elaborate what you were alluding to.
- nknighthb 13y agoI'm not sure what part of 2000 you're talking about, but the middle of 2000 was the beginning of the bust. I don't think that's a good place to take the sample.
- grdvnl 13y agoWell I am talking about time between 2000 and 2012. Salaries have remained in the same range since then for the most part based on my conversations with people I used to work for then in the Silicon Valley.
- JOnAgain 13y agoI really hate DOL stats. They have a menu of jobs, and you have to slot people into them. Often you have jobs that are halfway between 2 and you don't know which is "better", so you just pick one (e.g. I write a lof of excel macros, does that make me a programmer or an analyst? To me, it's obviously not a programmer, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's not applied universally). Also, categorizing people is often left to the discretion of the employer, and sometimes they have an incentive to lie (R&D tax credit anyone?). These stats include tech support and also capture a wide range from "Web Developers" to "Computer and Information Research Scientists". http://www.bls.gov/soc/2010/soc151130.htm http://www.bls.gov/soc/2010/soc151130.htm
- charlesjshort 13y agoSo does this mean the U.S. needs to issue more work visas?
- skylan_q 13y agoYes, because there is a shortage of X workers until wages hit the federally mandated minimum.
- nandemo 13y agoTwo related thoughts that always occur to me in these discussions: * Many (I wouldn't say most but at least a sizeable minority) American programmers and IT workers display reservations regarding the policy of issuing visas such as H1Bs for a large number of foreign workers, because it's perceived as unnecessary or perceived as catering purely to the interests of megacorps. I wonder, do those software developers elsewhere) have a problem with buying products manufactured in China or other countries with low wages? Buying stuff made in China, including from American companies that outsourcing to China, effectively lowers American blue collar wages below the mandated minimum. * It seems a lot of people on HN are favourable to policies allowing working from home. Most companies still don't have such policies, but I suspect that if telecommuting ever becomes commonplace (e.g. due to software development process or technological changes), it will depress salaries far more than the measly 60~80k H1Bs per year have ever done. For every H1B holder there are certainly many others who are skillful enough programmers and speak English, but cannot work in the US due to the limited number of visas, or don't have a degree, or don't want to take the risk of working under the constraints of H1B, or simply don't want to move to the US for any old reason.
- jlgreco 13y ago* It seems a lot of people on HN are favourable to policies allowing working from home. Most companies still don't have such policies, but I suspect that if telecommuting ever becomes commonplace (e.g. due to software development process or technological changes), it will depress salaries far more than the measly 60~80k H1Bs per year have ever done. For every H1B holder there are certainly many others who are skillful enough programmers and speak English, but cannot work in the US due to the limited number of visas, or don't have a degree, or don't want to take the risk of working under the constraints of H1B, or simply don't want to move to the US for any old reason.* Or live in states with poor economies and no tech jobs of their own and are willing to work for less than what a Bay Area programmer is.
- arasmussen 13y agoThis title seems very misleading. There's a difference between "U.S. Software developer wages [falling] 2%" and the average falling by 2%. Since the demand for software engineers is so high, perhaps companies have been lowering the bar for how qualified an engineer needs to be in order to be hired. Less qualified generally means paid less. That's just a theory but it's what I think is happening. I've heard from industry sources that the same engineer is worth as much as 7% more than he was last year (not including the experience he gained since last year). I'd believe it. I think the qualification bar is just lowered because the demand is so high and supply so low.
- ardit33 13y agoI think this has due to an expansion of entry level jobs. ie. Code/App Academy, people learning Ruby on Rails and going to entry level jobs. Since tools are getting better and better, there is an expansion on the lower level of engineering. They should have been measuring people with the same level of experience (e.g. 5 years or experience), and see how they stack up. My personal experience, and from what I have seen around for experienced devs, expect a 5%-6% increases annually (few percentage points above inflation). It is never linear though. You usually you might see this increase as a modest early 3%-4% on your current job, and then if you switch jobs every 3 years or so, get another 10% or sometimes more from your new employer. This is for experienced engineers (5+ years). If you are very early in your career you probably will see higher jumps on your early years.
- camus 13y agooh yeah , blame it on Rails , Like JEE garbage makes you look smart ...
- riggins 13y agoCode/App Academy, people learning Ruby on Rails and going to entry level jobs I kind of doubt it's Code Academy. This article as of Jan 2013 said Udacity (which IMO is more rigorous than Code Academy) has only placed 20 people and Coursera only a 'handful'. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324339204578173421673664106.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732433920457817... About 350 companies have signed up to access Udacity's job portal in recent months, though it has placed just about 20 students so far. But the company (Coursera) matched only a handful of students in its months-long pilot
- brown9-2 13y agoWhat is the margin of error for a statistic like this? Seems like 2% could be within measurement error, unless the DOL data is counting every single software job in the US.
- textminer 13y agoAm I the only one driven crazy by reporting that states an ambiguous "average" for something asymmetric like salary, when the choice between median and mean as a measure of centrality makes all the difference in the world?
- elchief 13y agoYou are not alone, amigo.
- guest 13y agoU.S. Software productivity falls 200% as legions of the technically illiterate conspire to make it look like they are doing work they can't actually do.
- mkumm 13y agoI wonder how much of the $2k decrease could be contributed to geography? I think we are seeing more opportunities for technical jobs throughout the US, lowering the percentage of developers that need to be paid a Silicon Valley wage.
- bicx 13y agoI really wish they would weigh geographic location into their stats. I live in TN where around half that $99k average wage is the norm for CS grads, and that's considered a good salary. Cost of living is much lower here than in Silicon Valley, so it partially evens out. A country-wide average is really no help to anyone with such disparity.
- gexla 13y agoI was wondering the same. You can't talk about average wages without adding location information in with those wages as that's a big part of it. A good indicator of use usefulness of this info is that nobody can explain why these wages have dropped. Sounds like they need more info.
- TheCoelacanth 13y agoYes, this could be an instance of Simpson's paradox. If more jobs were created in low paying areas, the salaries could rise in every single geographic area, but still decrease overall.