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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
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    Post How much am I worth

    Hey guys,

    Recently I've been experiencing financial issues and have began to ponder at the question of whether I'm paid enough for the job I do. I'm not sure if the lounge is the right place for this but I was hoping if I posted my skills then company's in the same industry could post what they would be wiling to pay or pay their current employees in similar positions.

    Ok so here's my scenario


    I currently work for a small webhosting / I.T company , They have several full time employees and their own office premises. I am employed as a php developer and work part time roughly 14 hours a week on a fixed hourly wage. I have 5 + years of php/MySQL experience and have worked with WHMCS , Kayako and other frameworks such as zend and codeignitor i also have 2+ years expererience in .net and c# . I am currently studying android and iPhone development , I have strong skills in object oriented programming and object oriented design , I also have lots of experience in both Linux and windows based operating systems and networks and I have several Microsoft professional qualifications , I also have a solid understanding of virtualization in both xen and openvz hypervisers and the cloud being deployed on platforms such as opens tack and cloudstack.

    During an average week I would mainly be coding however it's not uncommon that I find myself having to plan or deploy servers , clouds , infrastructures.

    So I would very much appreciate if any other webhosting related company's preferably UK based but US company's are fine to would post what sort of hourly rate they would pay someone like myself ?

    Regards Ross

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
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    Hi Ross,

    I'm not familiar with wages in the UK, but in the US, it depends on where you are located in the country, how much working experience you actually have (for example, 5 years of PHP/MySQL experience at 15 years old versus 5 years of PHP/MySQL *corporate working* experience at 25 years old is very different), etc.

    I would say, you could expect pay to be anywhere from ~$15/hour to ~$30/hour if you're actually going to the office.
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  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
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    Hi Ross,

    Are you working onsite or offsite? I'm assuming as a part-time worker you are not receiving any benefits.

    Knowing what we know isn't enough to justify this, because factors such as: education, experience, location of the business, size of the business, market capitalization, etc... all factor into wage garnishments and incentives.

    I would say for part-time work at 14 hours a week, $18-37.50/hour would be your range. 5 Years still places you on the low end spectrum in terms of "seniority" at most places, therefore that would be my guess.
    Doug
    Finance, Operations, and Business Executive

  4. #4
    Ross, if you would move to a 100% development position and you are really good with all the skills you listed you can expect anywhere between $20 and 35$ on the first half year. If the employer will see that you are really good, then he might pay you about $40-45.

    But again, for it you need to find a good development job, not part-time coder/it/networks/support/cloud eng. The situation in this field is not that good right now, so you need to be really lucky to find such employer...

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
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    Edinburgh/London
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    Sadly, I think you're looking at this the wrong way. You seem to be gauging your worth by your existing skill-set and qualifications (academic or otherwise).

    The question is what have they employed you to do and what is in your contract? That is the basis of the salary/wage you find yourself receiving.
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  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Toronto, ON
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    1,104
    ^^
    5 years php development could mean 5 years working setting up pre-fab like wordpress, phpbb, installing plugins..

    Or it could mean working on large sites with multiple developers using cvs, mvc style coordinating with designers, large file parsing, ssl, curl, numerous api's...etc.

    Ie; I know people who don't know anything other than wordpress and joomla, never really wrote anything custom or did parsing, crawler, data harvesting, encryption, api's, or push the envelope... Ie; 8 years ago I spent about a month perfecting an autocomplete function that worked with touchscreen for a point of sale application - around the same time google was doing theirs - now I can download a plugin and get it working in 30 seconds.

    5 concurrent years? 1 year off? 1 year doing IT? 1 year with a broken hand? etc.

    Honestly only the last year should really matter in terms of development quality - beyond that the years of experience should show quality of contracts, teamwork abilities, hopefully better knowledge of security etc.

    I only say that because of how much coding changes, you might've done amazing work 3-5 years ago, but only with php4 for example. Or a severly outdated framework etc. Sure it comes back easily - but again, you're valued on your current abilities.

    All that aside, you could charge minimum $20/hour part time in north america, get away with $30 without much trouble.. anything above that you'll have to get clients yourself, have a good friend who charges clients $60+ and gives you easy stuff, or BS your way.

    Generally companies use you for your side knowledge, they don't pay you for it. So the "other" skills are a plus, but don't mean much.. because everybody "knows linux" or "knows virtualization" in the same way that everybody is an SEO expert. I'm not cutting you down, just generalizing
    Last edited by mg-; 02-23-2012 at 02:22 PM.
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  7. #7
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Florida, USA
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    1,520
    You're worth as much (or little) as someone is willing to pay. Here in the States, I know many programmers who went from making $60/hr. to barely making $15/hr. due to the economy. With so many skilled workers unemployed or barely getting by, you're worth only as much as someone is willing to pay.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Posts
    66
    Hi Guys,

    Thanks for the replys

    Are you working onsite or offsite? I'm assuming as a part-time worker you are not receiving any benefits.

    Knowing what we know isn't enough to justify this, because factors such as: education, experience, location of the business, size of the business, market capitalization, etc... all factor into wage garnishments and incentives.
    I currently work onsite , I am currently studying software eniginnering at college/university.

    I'm not familiar with wages in the UK, but in the US, it depends on where you are located in the country, how much working experience you actually have (for example, 5 years of PHP/MySQL experience at 15 years old versus 5 years of PHP/MySQL *corporate working* experience at 25 years old is very different), etc.
    An interesting point and something i very much overlooked , In terms of real world experience i have 1 years worth of work freelancing for some big companies and about 6-8 months experience with the company im currently with anything before that was my own projects or for local charities or programming competitions such as the microsoft imagine cup and oracle thinkquest competition.

    Sadly, I think you're looking at this the wrong way. You seem to be gauging your worth by your existing skill-set and qualifications (academic or otherwise).

    The question is what have they employed you to do and what is in your contract? That is the basis of the salary/wage you find yourself receiving.
    Another valid point but if you look in the job market today most jobs are negotiable salarys dependant on experience , im really just testing the water out here .

  9. #9
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    Boston
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    Quote Originally Posted by RossMcFadyen View Post
    An interesting point and something i very much overlooked , In terms of real world experience i have 1 years worth of work freelancing for some big companies and about 6-8 months experience with the company im currently with anything before that was my own projects or for local charities or programming competitions such as the microsoft imagine cup and oracle thinkquest competition.
    Hi,

    In that case unfortunately, most (if not all) of the large corporations will treat you as an entry level employee with zero work experience. Since you also haven't graduated from college, you'd be treated as a student hire, intern, or somewhere in between. In that case, working part time 14 hours per week, your pay would probably be anywhere between $0 (unpaid intern) to $15/hour in the US.
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  10. #10
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    15/hr as an undergrad is quite proper. 14 hours part time every week, is also proper. youre in college/university ffs. you are supposed to also go to classes etc.

    and not having real work experience is naturally a downside. you havent graduated yet, you havent worked in serious environments for long.

    moreover, they probably think when you graduate, youre going to jump ship to another, higher paying company anyway. why should they pay an undegrad like you more than 15/hr ?

    youre basically getting your work experience there, which will be on your resume when you graduate. so, thats the added value you are getting from them.

    go talk to them if you intend to stay there after you graduate. also, as others said, what you have been contracted for matters. it doesnt matter whether you can build rockets with your skillset. if you are not contracted to also build rockets, you cant show it as a justification for payment.

    i'd say just leave it and get proper, hands-on, on-site work experience there, and be on good terms with your employer. (future reference, or future employment). by the time you graduate from the school, the people in your outfit should be knowing you as a 'go-to guy' who 'knows his stuff' and is reliable.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
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    I think everyone is looking it completely wrong.

    It's not what you know but what you can do or what you did already.

    I know people who never went to college and earn more money then anyone of us could ever dream of. Usually in the IT field, people just over estimated their skills.

    Real experience is far more valuable than college degrees, unless it's from MIT, Hardware, etc. And even so I would say people with this degrees are meant to be succesful already, not because of what they learned in College but because they made it.

    The Internet and software changes so fast that by the time you are done with college what you learned is outdated and someone active in the same branch is going to be miles away in terms of experience.

    I received tons of people who had a long list of features in terms of what they knew in software, IT, etc. College degree, etc.

    And I was shocked into how they knew absolutely nothing, zero, they where worst then newbies, but if you took a look at their profiles you would say they where geeks.

    Kids had more experience and its was embarrassing.

    So, if we are talking about IT and computers I think experience is what counts, not studies. All this Microsoft, Cisco degrees are worth nothing unless the company that hires you require some certified personal with that specific degree. I made several Cisco tests and I passed most of them without even opening the book and by know they are all outdated again.

    I would prefer to see what someone has done rather then what they can do.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Oct 2011
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    Miami, US
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    63
    It depends of too many factor.
    Just to point out one example, I was helping two friends just graduated with a Bachelor Degree in Computer Science and they received offers between $20 and $25 per hour. They were looking for position on big companies that offer benefits.
    Of course the position were Entry Level with no previous work experience required.
    Now they both are working as Java Developers and were looking for not more that 2 months.
    They live in Florida.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by nibb View Post
    I think everyone is looking it completely wrong.

    It's not what you know but what you can do or what you did already.
    Obviously, there are cases where experience trumps education. Also, IT is vast and there are discrepancies in pay everywhere (in response to your comment about people without degrees making more etc., etc.) I'm talking from experience though regarding large tech corporations in general. Typically, a college degree is required for entry level positions. To command a more senior position, your work experience and entire package are looked at.

    I agree with unity100 here--the OP shouldn't really be worrying about "how much he is worth" but strive to finish college and learn as much as he can (read: gain the experience)...
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  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nich View Post
    Obviously, there are cases where experience trumps education.
    i say experience trumps everything. someone fresh, or someone who can show solid past and work in that same area ?

    but of course, as you said, some jobs actually require less experience. ie, like putting a junior to a low paid job for some menial/trivial work. but still, from among people who would be willing to pay in same position and pay, i'd say experience would talk the talk.

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