That last paragraph is miles away from the truth. Developers are not coders and you need a lot of fundamental knowledge in things like math, logic, design, etc., a degree, very strong grasp of a lot of technical skills, and plenty of practical experience to be worth six figures, much less 250k. Well paid coders are quickly being replaced by either AI, offshore resources, or a combination of both and at the best of times they made half of what you suggested.
If you were able to grind your way into 250k with only a GED and skills you taught yourself off the Internet, consider yourself a unicorn and also an artifact of the past that is basically impossible to replicate now.
A buddy of mine just cracked six figures. He has a degree in development. His degree literally says “programmer analyst”.
Even after all that, he didn’t hit six figures until many years into his career.
programmer analyst
This is more of QA / testing than programming. What title did he start with, how many job changes and what is the current title?
I know TONS of people who went to school for CS but couldn’t cut it because they didn’t sit down and continue learning and building a portfolio to really be the shining star to land the job they wanted. If you count them the average cs major probably gets paid like 40k or some shit. It’s easy to not make it over the bar because you have ADHD, can’t keep enough things in your head, don’t have the work ethic etc.
Also i’m talking US salaries, not other nations. Not working for non profits, schools, startups etc that are low wages.
You misunderstand. That’s what his degree says.
He’s been a developer since starting his career. He has no intention of moving to QA.
He’s spent a lot of time between colleges and universities and holds several diplomas for programming, and even spent time teaching during his degree. He has deep knowledge of programming fundamentals, logic, even dabbled in AI and compiler design, making his own compiler at one point as a project for school.
He’s spent the better part of a decade acquiring the knowledge he has. He’s been a senior developer at several companies, and when he broke six figures, it wasn’t a raise he asked for, nor one he had to change jobs to get. He’s also not the type of person who changes jobs for a raise. He’s had four different employers over the past 5-10 years…
He’s a very smart person and very logical. I feel very privileged to be his friend since highschool.
Yeah, no.
It’s a title solely meant to pay less for software engineers, and usually dedicated towards IT folk working with vended products.
I know this because I got a 30k bump when my org remapped people’s titles based on their work, and they really didn’t want to keep losing software engineers.
Software developers can make 250k++
That’s what I said, it’s possible. It’s not everyone. It’s not show up first day after your coding bootcamp with 0 self study and 0 effort outside of an education program. It’s a few years of learning bleeding edge skills.
There have been machine learning roles paying over 150k for someone with 2 years of experience programming and “an interest in machine learning” all this year because of the AI craze. 150k is way beyond low income by all measures and is very realistic for the typical dev after 2-3 roles and fiveish years of experience. every year that goes by someone with practical experience designing and implementing ML projects in business is going to be worth their weight in gold, so long as businesses are willing to pay.
You don’t need a degree for dev. My brother doesn’t have one, he’s doing just fine. He took a boot camp but put WAY more effort in on his own time than a simple course. He did manual labor before the boot camp and made less than a third of what he is paid now. He’s looking at roles that pay well above 100k after less than two years of experience.
Saying that programming roles are being placed by AI or offshore labor is the biggest red flag that exposes that you do not know how things actually work in CS. I will say that going offshore is a thing many businesses decide to do but it bites them in the ass in this kind of position.
