6 ms·

I've wanted to ask something similar for a long time. I have a government job that has decent pay, but the schedule sucks, and I'm not challenged at all. I hav

I've wanted to ask something similar for a long time. I have a government job that has decent pay, but the schedule sucks, and I'm not challenged at all. I have freelance full-stack experience, just nothing black-and-white professional wise other than sysadmin & electronics experience in the military. I recently moved to what could be considered an "up-and-coming" startup city and I've been tossing around the idea of pursuing a change of career to development, but I keep telling myself an entry-level gig while keeping my salary around $80k isn't a reasonable expectation. Does anyone here have any insight?

exelius 12y ago
$80k is actually about right for an entry-level developer at a startup since you have some experience. Hell, most places will pay a kid fresh out of college $60-70k. I'd say go for it; what do you have to lose?
- scrapcode 12y ago
  A $80k/yr secure government job with a guaranteed retirement. For someone without a formal education (yet), that's not the easiest thing to come across outside of development.
  - 386 12y ago
    Hey scrapcode, I'd say don't quit and get your formal education while you are in government. It will be much harder to do so when you get a job in software development, and what if when the bubble bursts? I don't know when you will be eligible for retirement, but why not stay on and become an expert in a field that interests you, you can get a MSc and even a Phd along the way. You can then consult after you retire, on top of what you get from your retirement.
k-mcgrady 12y ago
The salary is probably highly dependent upon the city you want hired in. From what I've seen for example salaries in the bay area tend to be much higher than anywhere else - even other cities that have a high cost of living.
pcsanwald 12y ago
it depends on the city. In NYC, this is a reasonable expectation. If you're in baltimore, you should let me know, I might have a job for you.
- gr3yh47 12y ago
  I (OP) am in the area roughly. How can I reach out to you?
- scrapcode 12y ago
  I'm in Kansas City. Thanks for reaching out!
scalesolved 12y ago
Based in the states I'd say you'd be hitting $80 within 1-2 years, perhaps quicker if you are a) good or b) using a tech that's hot right now. I'd say work out timelines of how much you'd stand to lose if it took you 1,2,3 or 5 years to get past a certain point. I'd guess you end up recouping it in the long run but if you think it'd make you happier then you can't put a price on that.
vinceguidry 12y ago
There are no entry-level programming jobs. You have to lie, cheat, and steal your way into a development career. Practically what this means is getting a company to take a chance on you. This isn't too hard because the market for web development talent is really hot right now and nobody wants to pay the salaries developers are commanding at the moment. But getting a company to take a chance on you requires that you adhere to their expectations of you R.E. salary, what you're putting on your resume, what you tell them in the interview. Once you have some professional experience under your belt, then you can start to be pickier about who you're going to work with. I was in your exact position two years ago, down to the sysadmin and electronics military experience. First job I took was $40K. It lasted three weeks before they let me go with a letter of recommendation, which I never ended up using. Second job was with Panasonic for similar money. I hated it so I found another job after about six weeks for where I'm at now. They hired me at $60K and I made enough noise after a year that they bumped me up to $75K. I was a Test Engineer at Panasonic but represented myself as a Web Developer, as that's what I was actually doing at Panasonic when I wasn't doing testing. I'm active in the development community and while there's a hot market for talent, there's a lot of pickiness on both sides of the table, perhaps justifiably. I would love to hire an entry-level guy to work with me, but my company doesn't seem to want someone that's actually entry-level, but rather someone who is experienced but willing to take an entry-level salary. They lowball the experienced guys and won't even make offers to the unexperienced guys. So none of my candidates have worked out so far. Companies don't want to foot the bill for teaching someone how to code, perhaps because they don't want to pay all this money just to watch them walk out the door a year later.
Justen 12y ago
I made this jump about a year ago. I was a DoD contractor out of college for 4 years, but I knew after ~2yrs that there weren't going to be any fun challenges. The closest you'd get would be prepping for the demo days to present to the higher-ups. I started working with the MEAN stack to offset the boredom and after about 15 months I switched to a local startup. The pay was about 30% less, but I didn't have any professional experience on my resume (just my side project) so I saw it as more of a stepping stone. After ~6 months there, I applied to remote positions and ended up finding an awesome Senior level front end gig making quite a bit more compared to my DoD job. Also, I'm way happier now that I get to work with the cool things I used on my side projects. If our situations are as similar as I think, I'd say float your resume out there and see what bites. GL!
- scrapcode 12y ago
  Would you mind if I shot you an e-mail? It sounds like you took the exact jump that I worry about taking, and it'd be great to ask you a few questions.
  - Justen 12y ago
    Sure, my email is in my profile

exelius 12y ago

$80k is actually about right for an entry-level developer at a startup since you have some experience. Hell, most places will pay a kid fresh out of college $60-70k. I'd say go for it; what do you have to lose?

scrapcode 12y ago
A $80k/yr secure government job with a guaranteed retirement. For someone without a formal education (yet), that's not the easiest thing to come across outside of development.
- 386 12y ago
  Hey scrapcode, I'd say don't quit and get your formal education while you are in government. It will be much harder to do so when you get a job in software development, and what if when the bubble bursts? I don't know when you will be eligible for retirement, but why not stay on and become an expert in a field that interests you, you can get a MSc and even a Phd along the way. You can then consult after you retire, on top of what you get from your retirement.

k-mcgrady 12y ago

The salary is probably highly dependent upon the city you want hired in. From what I've seen for example salaries in the bay area tend to be much higher than anywhere else - even other cities that have a high cost of living.

pcsanwald 12y ago

it depends on the city. In NYC, this is a reasonable expectation. If you're in baltimore, you should let me know, I might have a job for you.

gr3yh47 12y ago
I (OP) am in the area roughly. How can I reach out to you?
scrapcode 12y ago
I'm in Kansas City. Thanks for reaching out!

scalesolved 12y ago

Based in the states I'd say you'd be hitting $80 within 1-2 years, perhaps quicker if you are a) good or b) using a tech that's hot right now. I'd say work out timelines of how much you'd stand to lose if it took you 1,2,3 or 5 years to get past a certain point. I'd guess you end up recouping it in the long run but if you think it'd make you happier then you can't put a price on that.

vinceguidry 12y ago

There are no entry-level programming jobs. You have to lie, cheat, and steal your way into a development career. Practically what this means is getting a company to take a chance on you. This isn't too hard because the market for web development talent is really hot right now and nobody wants to pay the salaries developers are commanding at the moment. But getting a company to take a chance on you requires that you adhere to their expectations of you R.E. salary, what you're putting on your resume, what you tell them in the interview. Once you have some professional experience under your belt, then you can start to be pickier about who you're going to work with. I was in your exact position two years ago, down to the sysadmin and electronics military experience. First job I took was $40K. It lasted three weeks before they let me go with a letter of recommendation, which I never ended up using. Second job was with Panasonic for similar money. I hated it so I found another job after about six weeks for where I'm at now. They hired me at $60K and I made enough noise after a year that they bumped me up to $75K. I was a Test Engineer at Panasonic but represented myself as a Web Developer, as that's what I was actually doing at Panasonic when I wasn't doing testing. I'm active in the development community and while there's a hot market for talent, there's a lot of pickiness on both sides of the table, perhaps justifiably. I would love to hire an entry-level guy to work with me, but my company doesn't seem to want someone that's actually entry-level, but rather someone who is experienced but willing to take an entry-level salary. They lowball the experienced guys and won't even make offers to the unexperienced guys. So none of my candidates have worked out so far. Companies don't want to foot the bill for teaching someone how to code, perhaps because they don't want to pay all this money just to watch them walk out the door a year later.

Justen 12y ago

I made this jump about a year ago. I was a DoD contractor out of college for 4 years, but I knew after ~2yrs that there weren't going to be any fun challenges. The closest you'd get would be prepping for the demo days to present to the higher-ups. I started working with the MEAN stack to offset the boredom and after about 15 months I switched to a local startup. The pay was about 30% less, but I didn't have any professional experience on my resume (just my side project) so I saw it as more of a stepping stone. After ~6 months there, I applied to remote positions and ended up finding an awesome Senior level front end gig making quite a bit more compared to my DoD job. Also, I'm way happier now that I get to work with the cool things I used on my side projects. If our situations are as similar as I think, I'd say float your resume out there and see what bites. GL!

scrapcode 12y ago
Would you mind if I shot you an e-mail? It sounds like you took the exact jump that I worry about taking, and it'd be great to ask you a few questions.
- Justen 12y ago
  Sure, my email is in my profile