Pay scale for programmers at large organizations I'm aware of starts around $55K and tops out around $100K. And non-profits or small businesses pay even less.
I browse job ads on indeed frequently and see offerings in the $40-50K range for IT positions in the NYC area.
What do people think that offshore employees of an American IT company are paid? I haven't any definite figures for places I've worked, but I have gotten the impression from Indian job ads that $10K/year is in the ballpark. Why would a typical company pay more than five times that for US-based employees?
I’m nowhere near the west coast - I’m on the opposite coast. In most major cities in the US outside of the west coast your bog standard enterprise developers make $110K - $170K. This also excludes NYC.
Well in the US, look at the top 20 cities for developers - a simple Google search and then go to salary.com. That range is average.
As far “bog standard”, I’m referring to a CRUD developer doing “enterprise software” that may never see the light of day outside of the company or your yet another software as a service developer. They don’t spend all day worrying about “computer science” and algorithms and they don’t spend time worrying about the complexity of reversing a b-tree on a whiteboard.
Look at it this way, what I think you're talking about requires roughly the same level of talent as being a decent mechanic, electrician, or whatever, and clients get billed about the same per hour, like $100-150. So, if we pretend we don't have preconceptions, and with the knowledge that the programmers are competing with people who are paid $5/hr, whereas my other examples aren't, does it make sense that they would be paid much more than $50-100K on average?
Pay scale for programmers at large organizations I'm aware of starts around $55K and tops out around $100K. And non-profits or small businesses pay even less.
That’s clearly not the case in the US for any of the top markets even if you exclude the west coast and NYC. It’s easy to find average salaries in major US cities.
Why are companies willing to pay more? Because they have to to even get your bog standard CRUD developer. Outsourcing to other countries is either not an option or come with its own share of issues.
I find it annoying when people think using words like "clearly" is debating.
Whenever you think you know what the average is, you should ask yourself whether the population being averaged is remotely complete (or representative), and whether the data points are remotely trustworthy.
And what do you mean by "outsourcing to other countries is...not an option"? The largest and best known companies, including members of FAANG outsource work to lesser known US companies that use offshore labor. There are plenty of loopholes, even for things that you'd think would require US or EU citizens.
As a matter of fact, I do know firsthand about some jobs that are restricted to US citizens due to security requirements, so I have some specific data that points to those starting upwards of $80K. That makes me more confident that my estimate of the others is accurate.
Well, as “annoying” as you might find it. I mentioned both the source (salary.com) and the population (the top 20 cities in the US outside of the west coast and NYC to not skew the numbers).
I’m using readily accessible sites that have publicly available numbers.
Salary.com is not a source any more than wikipedia. I don't think that is just pedantry; I'm not saying they're wrong or you're misrepresenting anything, but you're just not addressing why you have your opinion in a way that makes me think there is something I should read up on to change mine. Or motivates me to search.
Do the top 20 cities in the US have most of the developers, or an unbiased sample? If you haven't considered that, fine, but without some idea, I, again, don't feel motivated to question my opinion.
TL;DR (in advance): I think you are correct in your estimate, though household income is higher than that. $100K household income is still considerably higher than most Americans make.
Just to give some real numbers, the median household income in the US is $63,688. Unfortunately I couldn't find reliable numbers for dual income families in the US, but it appears to be over 60% (I saw numbers anywhere between 60-69%, but unfortunately no authoritative references).
Rough histogram of income distribution is:
10th percentile: < $15K
20th percentile: $15K <=> $25K
30th percentile: $25K <=> $35K
40th percentile: $35K <=> $50K
50th percentile: $50K <=> $65K
60th percentile: $65K <=> $80K
70th percentile: $80K <=> $130K
80th percentile: $130K <=> $160K
90th percentile: > $160K
I constructed this from a variety of different sources since I couldn't find anything that stated it explicitly. It is not entirely accurate, but it should give you a rough idea of the distribution. Would be nice if someone could find better data.
