How many software vs hardware people?
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@thecreativeone91 said:
Just don't think most IT people make what S.A.M. Makes. Most of us are more around the $40k-$60k range rather than the salaries like scott.
That might be true but I doubt it. Only the SMB market really has positions in those price ranges. And even there I know tons in low cost markets in non-senior positions above the $80K mark. I know literally thousands of people in the enterprise space in the six figure range. I tend to work with more expensive people, of course, not helpdesks which enterprises are full of too making quite a bit less. But I think that the SMB and government markets give a very skewed view of how low paying IT is.
I'm at the top of the market, that's true. My headhunters recently called me the highest paid IT person in global finance (non-management, of course) with offers well into the seven figure range. That is way above market. But making six figures is very common in IT. I know many job openings that are in the $250K - $750K range, and mostly not in high cost areas like NYC and SF (they have the most, I just don't now as many there.) Jobs in the millions are extremely rare, but in the hundreds of thousands are not.
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There are, no doubt. massive numbers of $60K and less IT jobs out there. But most are local government, non-profits and SMBs and only in very low cost markets and nearly all are entry level or junior positions. I think to get any hope of getting the main averages that low you have to include all of the bench jobs and other non-IT positions as IT.
And even then, often positions are flexible. I once accepted only $45K, long ago, with an SMB. They couldn't afford anything more. So I negotiated accordingly, they could not go up in money but I could go down in hours. So I negotiated the salary that they could do with fewer working days in the week. I could live as a single bachelour on $45K (this was long ago in 2000) and the tradeoff of getting a short work week was a good one. Both parties were happy. But it looked like I only made $45K on paper, because I did, but I only worked 80% of full time which nothing showed. So my real income, had I worked full time, was more like $56K or more. And that was $45K at 32 hours a week.
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Wow.. they must have just really wanted you to be willing to accept you for $45k at 4 days a week instead of another guy they could have hired at the same pay for 5.
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@Dashrender said:
Wow.. they must have just really wanted you to be willing to accept you for $45k at 4 days a week instead of another guy they could have hired at the same pay for 5.
But they couldn't get someone at my level for that pay for five. They got more skills for less time. There was little value to them having me sit around for a fifth day compared to getting stuff done that other people could not do in four. I was actually an amazing value for them.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
But making six figures is very common in IT.
Not in the UK, sadly.
Six figures in the UK is a lot more than six figures in the US. Hitting six figures in the UK is $150K in the US. That's a big leap over $100K.
I've worked with a lot of six figure UK people, though. When I was $200K in the US it was because I was offshored to be cheaper than my UK counterparts (also far more productive, US team did over eight times the workload per person) so we cost less in raw money AND we produced more per pound spent.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I was actually an amazing value for them.
Modest
LOL...hey, if it's the truth and he's just being honest, I see no issue.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I was actually an amazing value for them.
Modest
It's not very much bragging to say that at $45K I was a steal. IBM hired me three months later (I didn't quit, the start up went under) for $55K at 10 hours a week. I took a job way below my market value - it was a nice fit for me at the time and I was a good deal for them. At $45K I was ridiculously cheap. That was entry level wages then. I'd been offered $45K (for full time) in 1998, back when two years of my experience was a big deal.
If they were paying $150K and I said I was a steal, that would be one thing (back then.) But $45K could not buy them my skill set (Linux, Windows, HTML Code Review, site management, desktop management, etc.) anywhere else. They had been looking for something like nine months and were pretty excited to get me and actually cried when they had to let me go (I was the last employee to get a paycheck - everyone who stayed after me worked for free and were never paid.)
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But I'm hyper-logical, and I often get mistaken for being arrogant when that's not the case at all.
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@scottalanmiller said:
It's not very much bragging to say that at $45K I was a steal. IBM hired me three months later (I didn't quit, the start up went under) for $55K at 10 hours a week. I took a job way below my market value
But you got to remember Back then IT was few and far between they couldn't find just anyone to do it. Now days there are millions of qualified people and it's dime a dozen. IT experience isn't as valuable now, as they can find many to do the job. So why would they pay more if they don't have too?
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
It's not very much bragging to say that at $45K I was a steal. IBM hired me three months later (I didn't quit, the start up went under) for $55K at 10 hours a week. I took a job way below my market value
But you got to remember Back then IT was few and far between they couldn't find just anyone to do it. Now days there are millions of qualified people and it's dime a dozen. IT experience isn't as valuable now, as they can find many to do the job. So why would they pay more if they don't have too?
That's partially true, although I'm not sure that there are more trained, qualified IT pros today. The field is vastly larger. There are more people working in IT and the number of IT people needed is many times larger. The deficit still remains and companies just can't hire people and the training level seems much lower. The level of skill expected for entry level positions back then was so much higher.
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So where is the brain drain coming from?
Or better yet, why aren't people being trained better?
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@Dashrender said:
So where is the brain drain coming from?
Or better yet, why aren't people being trained better?
Profit margins
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@Dashrender said:
So where is the brain drain coming from?
Or better yet, why aren't people being trained better?
Americans are not cultural inclined to like doing IT. It's not "cool" to do IT at the ages necessary to be good at it. It's not really much of a drain, it is simply that IT requires smart people with certain aptitudes and the market (the physical human production market) doesn't make good IT candidates at the rate necessary to keep up with the needs of the rest of the population for IT support. We've made a world too complex for itself and only a small group is really well equipped to live in it. As complexity increases, those ready to deal with it decrease as a percentage.
Add to that the Mythical Man Month effect of throwing more people at it rather than limiting ourselves to only hiring good people and the problem gets worse, not better, as the IT pool size increases - the more we hire the more we need to hire because so many IT people are getting in the way.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Wow.. they must have just really wanted you to be willing to accept you for $45k at 4 days a week instead of another guy they could have hired at the same pay for 5.
But they couldn't get someone at my level for that pay for five. They got more skills for less time. There was little value to them having me sit around for a fifth day compared to getting stuff done that other people could not do in four. I was actually an amazing value for them.
In some cases while you had a shorter week, I am sure that you got more done, so their value was still up there.
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@g.jacobse said:
In some cases while you had a shorter week, I am sure that you got more done, so their value was still up there.
I got a lot done and supported a lot of technologies without needing multiple people. That was a significant source of value. I was not doing any one job full time but doing at least three completely unrelated IT jobs at once
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@scottalanmiller said:
@g.jacobse said:
In some cases while you had a shorter week, I am sure that you got more done, so their value was still up there.
I got a lot done and supported a lot of technologies without needing multiple people. That was a significant source of value. I was not doing any one job full time but doing at least three completely unrelated IT jobs at once
This is one reason Staples loves me. I can do it all, minus keyholder tasks, and do it well. I can teach/train others, sell, do tech work, do onsites, provide top-notch customer service, and I know operational stuff better than any associate-level person. I bring a ton of value to the store.
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@scottalanmiller said:
[They] actually cried when they had to let me goNone of my previous employers have ever cried when I left
Maybe it was just their British reserve preventing it....
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
[They] actually cried when they had to let me goNone of my previous employers have ever cried when I left
Maybe it was just their British reserve preventing it....
Oddly... mine did... I've kept in contact with one of them and they wish I would come back and work for them...
