IT/Software career thread: Invert binary trees for dollars.

Cad_sl said:

Thats a microeconomy of the bay area because good coders are in such demand there. It's not like that anywhere else in the US. Whats your specialty? Bunch of my in laws are doctors and they're first year out of fellowship accepting offers for 500k+. Even the family law dude is getting 250k. These are employee positions so their malpractice is covered, but I asked and for the radiologist its like 20k a year. Fucking joke. I never made more than 200-ish as a wildly successful contract software architect.

So, move out of the bay area, you're apparently oversaturated with doctors there. Doctors typically make less in desirable places to live, just the facts of life.

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mmmm bay area paychecks in Boston mmmmm

I have clearly gone into the wrong business

Medicine is vastly different in the past 5-10 years. Luxuriously wealthy millionaire docs, who mostly got that way from business savvy and not some inflated wage, were always an exception, but are now going the way of the dodo. But what's worse is the docs that were making good but not insane money, are now being offered salaries that have them questioning- was it worth it? And it's not just about the salary, but also loss of autonomy. You can't compare physician salaries to average national income. You have to compare physician salaries to what an equally capable person could otherwise be making had they pursued other fields, with the same skills and capability for success .
Competing against noctors is a losing battle as they don't have debt and years of lost income to have to justify. So what you're left with are foreign putzes and DOs occupying more and more positions in our country. Remember a time when your doctor spoke English as well or better than you? Because that will vanish soon.

I am butthurt, but not because someone is getting paid more than me. But because you are just flat out lying because its fun to be an Internet troll, or are posting some ridiculously exceptional salary (easily top 1% of year 1 salary offers in rads) and acting like that's the norm.

It would be like if I was using 20 yr old Internet startup millionaires as my example of comparison(which I am not)

I thought my year 1 salary of $76k was pretty good, now I am questioning my life choices

wormie_sl said:

an MD scoffing at DOs. Get off your pedestal.

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Some of the best doctors are I know , including one personally(who is vastly smarter than me) are DOs. In fact I think the do's that you do see in more advanced specialities , are generally superior to their md counterparts - and it makes sense, because it was much, much harder for them to get to that point.
That doesn't change the fact that most do's I've come across (and I've ran into a lot as they rotate thru rads) are just plain dumber and leave me with little reason to believe they will be better doctors. It's still plain fact that the majority of do positions are filled with people that did not get into medical school, with only a minority being those that chose do over md due to costs

Is he interventional? Like I said, vastly anomalous exceptional salary. Not representative of anywhere else in the country. Texas historically always known to be great for doctors, especially outside of big cities. On top of that a still good salary.
just important to keep in mind your typical rad makes about half that starting or less, (not just in Bay Area)

Cad_sl said:

And yea, you're just being stupid now talking down about DO's. You realize DO's do all the same training as MD's right? And that schools that produce DO's are medical schools? Not even sure what "DO's didn't get into medical school" means. How the fuck do you think they got their DO?

Washing my hands of you...

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Plainly obvious I was referring to md medical schools, why even bring that up? We all go thru the same training in my md med school too - doesn't mean I don't know some terrible docs, and some that are way Better than me?
What the fuck does it matter we went thru the same training or not? You are starting with dumber, less
Capable people. You put them thru the same training, your end product will not magically be the same.
Again, this is from personal experience working with md students and do's. of course there's lots of exceptions.

Tl:dr - aychamo was a do

Noodlemod_sl said:

I thought my year 1 salary of $76k was pretty good, now I am questioning my life choices

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I took the first (only) offer that came my way and I'm making way less then "national average" for even a low end Android dev. I don't question my decision, it's still way more than what I was making before, but I can't help but feel a bit miffed at getting lowballed like that. Figure if the salary doesn't creep north of the low end at some point I'll just chalk this up to experience and start looking elsewhere. I actually kind of hate that I think this way.

You shouldn't expect to be making big money right out of school in the developer field. Also, what you do/specialize in plays a huge role in what you'll be paid. You a web developer? Lol well so are 5 million other people, you're not going to get paid well compared to other developers unless you're exceptionally talented.

Just put your time in and show your stuff. If you really enjoy it and excel at it and have ambition you'll be up there soon enough.

Here is how my career has gone:

First job after graduation - $15/hr working for TheLadders.com as one of two front end UI engineers (their term for front end web developers). This job was in SoHo Manhattan and I was commuting from Long Island. 2.5hrs each way and I was working 70+ hours a week. That job fucking sucked

Second job about 1.5 years later - $48k/yr salary, OK benefits, 1h15m commute each way, still on Long Island. Still doing web development

Third job about 1 year later - $55k/yr in CT. Moved for this job. This was for Microsoft BizTalk which I had never heard of at the time. I was a bit lucky here because a friend of mine convinced me to interview for it at his company even though I had never even heard of the software. After about 2 years here I was making $75k. Another 3 years later I was making $100k, still at this same company.

Current job 8 years later - $130k/yr still in CT. This is the cushy job I was discussing earlier. I also have another ~25k/yr income from my rental property.

I live well now but I ate shit for a long time before getting to this point. I can't understand the mentality that you'll automatically be making big bucks by simply switching careers. You need to earn it. I've been a developer for 10 years at this point and I happen to work with a piece of software that is very misunderstood and very expensive to hire talent for. A little bit of luck and a whole lot of hard work got me there. I wish I made $76k/yr out of college.

Noodlemod_sl said:

I thought my year 1 salary of $76k was pretty good, now I am questioning my life choices

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That is pretty good.
NOTE: Rapid Salary growth started in year 4 when I joined a Start-up
NOTE2: I am not including bonuses and stock grants. This would nearly double the final line.

[NH] 50 - 54 (1 review cycle)
[Job Switch, MA, 5% income tax] 58 (left are 5 months)
[Job switch, NH] 62 -> 70 (1 promotion)
[Job switch, MA, startup, 5% income tax] 68 -> 112 (N/A review cycles. Raises were kinda random)
[Acquisition] 120 -> 144 (2 review cycles)

Bolded line is the key one. You cannot grow your ability at a large company. You will need to leave EMC to obtain new skills, there is no good growth path from Junior -> Senior in a company like EMC, VMware, Google, Oracle, Apple, etc...

Trial by fire in a start-up works the best.

Didn't have my first paying job until I was 27(not counting working in the library in college for 10$/hr). Started at 41k. Then I made 42k, up to a whopping 51k when I was 33. How old were you when you got your 76k/yr?

I started when I was 30 because I went back to school later in life

Edit: And I know my starting salary was good, in comparison to doctors it is chump change