What's an acceptable salary for starting off?
This is 2016 and not the days of the scrap programmer. I am posting this to see various opinions on what you think a fair starting salary would be, at the minimum, for something getting some kind of gig. I don't mean a full-blown, wage-kinda job: just some kind of project where you will be paid weekly or such, but likely on a fixed salary; however, you can look at it as hourly if you want.
Let's ignore whether this is freelance or not, and just crunch some numbers.
My numbers are below, and contain criteria aside them:
No college degree/no college, certification, no professional experience, good resume/CSV, and demonstrative proof of advanced C, C++, x86-64 Assembly: $48,000-$62,000 per annum.
Some college, no degree, no certification, no pro experience, good resume/CSV, and demonstrative proof of advanced C, C++, x86-64 Assembly: $50,000-$70,000.
Some college, no degree, certification, some pro experience, good resume/CSV, and demonstrative proof of advanced C, C++, x86-64 Assembly: $55,000-$75,000.
College grad/B.S., may/may not be certified, no pro experience, good resume/CSV, and demonstrative proof of advanced C, C++, x86-64 Assembly: $57,000-$74,000.
College grad/B.S., may/may not be certified, some pro experience, good resume/CSV, and demonstrative proof of advanced C, C++, x86-64 Assembly: $60,000-$80,000.
No secondary school completion, may/may not be certified, no pro experience, good resume/CSV, and demonstrative proof of advanced C, C++, x86-64 Assembly: $50,000-$65,000.
Advanced degree, certification, years of work, good resume/CSV, and demonstrative proof of advanced C, C++, x86-64 Assembly: $85,000-$135,000+++.
I am going by first-world figures here, factoring in inflation.
Fact as, any top programmer with great skills and lots of experience should rake in six figures without issue -- if you're not there yet, keep working on it.
When I complete learning C++ pointers I'm half way to a possible 50K+ start soon!
Personally, I would not take a job that paid under $1.2K a week to start. I'd also expect a growing wage the longer I continue working to satisfaction for the company, such as a 2K/week salary bump every year.
Let's ignore whether this is freelance or not, and just crunch some numbers.
My numbers are below, and contain criteria aside them:
No college degree/no college, certification, no professional experience, good resume/CSV, and demonstrative proof of advanced C, C++, x86-64 Assembly: $48,000-$62,000 per annum.
Some college, no degree, no certification, no pro experience, good resume/CSV, and demonstrative proof of advanced C, C++, x86-64 Assembly: $50,000-$70,000.
Some college, no degree, certification, some pro experience, good resume/CSV, and demonstrative proof of advanced C, C++, x86-64 Assembly: $55,000-$75,000.
College grad/B.S., may/may not be certified, no pro experience, good resume/CSV, and demonstrative proof of advanced C, C++, x86-64 Assembly: $57,000-$74,000.
College grad/B.S., may/may not be certified, some pro experience, good resume/CSV, and demonstrative proof of advanced C, C++, x86-64 Assembly: $60,000-$80,000.
No secondary school completion, may/may not be certified, no pro experience, good resume/CSV, and demonstrative proof of advanced C, C++, x86-64 Assembly: $50,000-$65,000.
Advanced degree, certification, years of work, good resume/CSV, and demonstrative proof of advanced C, C++, x86-64 Assembly: $85,000-$135,000+++.
I am going by first-world figures here, factoring in inflation.
Fact as, any top programmer with great skills and lots of experience should rake in six figures without issue -- if you're not there yet, keep working on it.
When I complete learning C++ pointers I'm half way to a possible 50K+ start soon!
Personally, I would not take a job that paid under $1.2K a week to start. I'd also expect a growing wage the longer I continue working to satisfaction for the company, such as a 2K/week salary bump every year.
Last edited on
| When I complete learning C++ pointers I'm half way to a possible 50K+ start soon! |
closed account (E0p9LyTq)
| Personally, I would not take a job that paid under $1.2K a week to start. |
Enjoy being unemployed for a long, long time. No experience and a sense of unjustified entitlement is not a good way to start a career.
They are salaries for top-notch programmers. Only a few of lucky people can award this, and it heavily depends on the companies they work for.
| GoodGirlIsHere wrote: |
|---|
| No college degree/no college, certification Some college, no degree, no certification Some college, no degree, certification ... |
There are no certifications for C++.
(well, technically, there are places that offer "certifications", but they only waste money and valuable space on the resume)
Last edited on
I'm sorry but this kind of cracked me up.
As has already been said, good luck getting that nice of a paying job with no upper education. I don't think your degree even necessarily has to be computer science, but you definitely want something. Even when you have your degree, I'd say you're overestimating what the average programmer would make. (Not radically over though)
I'll put in perspective what's probably more accurate for an inexperienced low certification programmer, because I am one. There aren't a lot of real jobs that hire from that niche of people (not where I live anyways), however fortunately I managed to get an internship with a power solutions company. They pay me 17 USD an hour, which really will only gross you a little over 30k USD a year.
Keep in mind to get this internship, I wasn't just expected to know the basics of a single language or something of that sort. Jobs want a lot more from you than just the ability to use pointers, or write a recursive function. Those kind of things are just assumed. They wanted me to know multiple languages fluently, source control (i.e git), and during my interview they asked me critical thinking problems that weren't even always programming related.
The process I had to go through wasn't abnormal. Your first interview could be easier, or it could be much harder, it'll depend on who is interviewing you. Make no mistake, I'm not trying to discourage you, eventually you'll be job-ready. It's important to be realistic however.
As has already been said, good luck getting that nice of a paying job with no upper education. I don't think your degree even necessarily has to be computer science, but you definitely want something. Even when you have your degree, I'd say you're overestimating what the average programmer would make. (Not radically over though)
I'll put in perspective what's probably more accurate for an inexperienced low certification programmer, because I am one. There aren't a lot of real jobs that hire from that niche of people (not where I live anyways), however fortunately I managed to get an internship with a power solutions company. They pay me 17 USD an hour, which really will only gross you a little over 30k USD a year.
Keep in mind to get this internship, I wasn't just expected to know the basics of a single language or something of that sort. Jobs want a lot more from you than just the ability to use pointers, or write a recursive function. Those kind of things are just assumed. They wanted me to know multiple languages fluently, source control (i.e git), and during my interview they asked me critical thinking problems that weren't even always programming related.
The process I had to go through wasn't abnormal. Your first interview could be easier, or it could be much harder, it'll depend on who is interviewing you. Make no mistake, I'm not trying to discourage you, eventually you'll be job-ready. It's important to be realistic however.
Last edited on
Topic archived. No new replies allowed.