Biggest Pay Gap In America: Computer Programmers

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It's been a while since someone wrote one of these articles complaining about the salary gap between men and women in the tech industry. It's kinda hard to take this serious when all the data comes from Glassdoor and the author likes using lines like "being computer programmer is even sweeter if you have a dick." :rolleyes:

Life is sweet for computer programmers. Companies crave their coding skills and will do anything to attract and keep them -- offer a $500,000 signing bonus, hand out salaries in the $100,000 to $200,000 range and even provide company-funded ski trips to Tahoe. But being computer programmer is even sweeter if you have a dick.
 
I wonder if there is evidence for or against a certain sex being better at being programmers, and thus why they are paid more.

Hell I'm an asian guy, but I don't flip my shit when I see the NFL or baseball is at most .01% asian. Sometimes people's physiology or mindset isn't set for a certain type of gig.
 
There are female computer programmers?

*Edit for clarity* this was a joke, I actually work with female computer programmers, but the male : female ratio is very slanted. It's basically the reverse of massage therapy or nursing so if you take that to 11: no women are programmers. There, joke thoroughly killed.
 
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Biggest thing I have seen males in tech that females do not do: demand raises

You have to throw a hissy fit about salary to get raises. It's just the way it works. The company is going to try to pay you as little as they can get away with.
 
ruffbytes said:
Biggest thing I have seen males in tech that females do not do: demand raises

You have to throw a hissy fit about salary to get raises. It's just the way it works. The company is going to try to pay you as little as they can get away with.
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Well that's the way it is pretty much in any profession these days.
 
Steve said:
It's been a while since someone wrote one of these articles complaining about the salary gap between men and women in the tech industry. It's kinda hard to take this serious when all the data comes from Glassdoor and the author likes using lines like "being computer programmer is even sweeter if you have a dick." :rolleyes:

Life is sweet for computer programmers. Companies crave their coding skills and will do anything to attract and keep them -- offer a $500,000 signing bonus, hand out salaries in the $100,000 to $200,000 range and even provide company-funded ski trips to Tahoe. But being computer programmer is even sweeter if you have a dick.
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Where are these companies offering this kind of money? The one place I got an offer from after being snubbed dozens of times wanted to pay me $55,000 USD a year with a move completely across the country. Where I ended up I didn't have to move at all, the job is arguably less stressful, and I am getting paid $54,000 USD a year with no state income tax and far cheaper living expenses.
 
Ah, female hates job, leaves job, wines on Glassdoor that it must be because of "gender discrimination."

Every company I've worked for used the same payscale for both men and women. I'm curious about where this phantom "pay gap" comes from.
 
ruffbytes said:
Biggest thing I have seen males in tech that females do not do: demand raises

You have to throw a hissy fit about salary to get raises. It's just the way it works. The company is going to try to pay you as little as they can get away with.
Click to expand...
Societal expectations and pressures, women are discouraged to act out like that. When women do demand shit people see them as bitches, cold etc. Still not the best way to get paid well, just look really sexy.
 
Armenius said:
Where are these companies offering this kind of money? The one place I got an offer from after being snubbed dozens of times wanted to pay me $55,000 USD a year with a move completely across the country. Where I ended up I didn't have to move at all, the job is arguably less stressful, and I am getting paid $54,000 USD a year with no state income tax and far cheaper living expenses.
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Pretty common salary in Silicon Valley, New York, Seattle. The 500K signing bonus is bogus though. I've heard Google offering a comparable amount in stock, but that's still pretty rare.
 
Looks like they changed the article; the article now claims a $100k signing bonus instead of a $500k signing bonus.
 
The average (non-lead or senior) Programmer salary in the Bay Area and Seattle is $85-110K (source I own two software development companies in both locations and regularly talk with programmers and fellow owners at other companies). There are exceptions for people with unique skills and a few companies do pay more, but no one is getting $200K signing bonuses unless they have a really special skill set (encryption or security). At the Senior level, 120-180K is the average for a Senior programmer and if they have Lead experience, you will definitely see competitive bidding. As for men vs. women there is a gap, but part of that is due to there not being a lot of Senior level female programmers. There are a lot of junior female programmers, but go back 5-10 year ago CompSci classes were predominately male. So, if you are averaging out female programmer salaries you will get a much lower number. I fully expect women to be making more than men in the near future, since a lot of women are going into graduate programs and opting to not get married or have kids.
 
EchtoGammut said:
The average (non-lead or senior) Programmer salary in the Bay Area and Seattle is $85-110K (source I own two software development companies in both locations and regularly talk with programmers and fellow owners at other companies). There are exceptions for people with unique skills and a few companies do pay more, but no one is getting $200K signing bonuses unless they have a really special skill set (encryption or security). At the Senior level, 120-180K is the average for a Senior programmer and if they have Lead experience, you will definitely see competitive bidding. As for men vs. women there is a gap, but part of that is due to there not being a lot of Senior level female programmers. There are a lot of junior female programmers, but go back 5-10 year ago CompSci classes were predominately male. So, if you are averaging out female programmer salaries you will get a much lower number. I fully expect women to be making more than men in the near future, since a lot of women are going into graduate programs and opting to not get married or have kids.
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As a business owner, have you seen a group of people (sex, race, culture) have a certain better aptitude for programming? Or is it just general education?
 
Guess I should have gone into programming instead of hardware/networking/administration. :(
 
Do these studies ever take overtime into account? Hours worked per week? Equalize for position level? From my experience, women with families don't volunteer to work extra hours as often and avoid salary positions expecting 50-80+ hours a week more than men.
 
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trentchau said:
As a business owner, have you seen a group of people (sex, race, culture) have a certain better aptitude for programming? Or is it just general education?
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Not even education, it just comes down to love of what they doing and/or time put into development. I can honestly say there is no difference between men and women in programming giving similar levels of experience. One of my mentors was a female developer who worked by herself in a male dominated industry and is well respected by all. First and foremost, is love of the game. If I am hiring, I look to see what the person has on Pastebin, Sourceforge, basically projects they do in their spare time. If they are always trying new things, I know I have a good candidate. For junior programmers, I want to make sure they know the basics but I kind of assume the I will spend the next 6 months teaching them how to code, so I want someone that is curious first and foremost.
 
EchtoGammut said:
Not even education, it just comes down to love of what they doing and/or time put into development. I can honestly say there is no difference between men and women in programming giving similar levels of experience. One of my mentors was a female developer who worked by herself in a male dominated industry and is well respected by all. First and foremost, is love of the game. If I am hiring, I look to see what the person has on Pastebin, Sourceforge, basically projects they do in their spare time. If they are always trying new things, I know I have a good candidate. For junior programmers, I want to make sure they know the basics but I kind of assume the I will spend the next 6 months teaching them how to code, so I want someone that is curious first and foremost.
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Thanks for giving an answer, that makes a lot of sense.
 
So.. Apparently the Author did not actually read the Glassdoor article they are pulling their data from.

"Differences in education, age and years of experience "explain little" of tech's gender pay gap, says the report." <---- From The garbage Article

"Based on more than 505,000 salaries shared by full-time U.S. employees on Glassdoor, men earn 24.1 percent higher base pay than women on average. In other words, women earn about 76 cents per dollar men earn. However, comparing workers with similar age, education and years of experience shrinks that gap to 19.2 percent. Further, comparing workers with the same job title, employer and location, the gender pay gap in the U.S. falls to 5.4 percent (94.6 cents per dollar)." From the Glassdoor Reports.

Yay for cherrypicking data to support erroneous conclusions.
 
Quix said:
I've never been offer a $100k signing bonus...
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I'm not sure I quite trust the article, or the stats. As for the bonus, if you decide to go work in the finance sector, it's possible. But you still have to be a fairly good programmer with a healthy background (aka, top ivy league school, preferably masters or PhD, etc.). Places like Google and other Silicon Valley companies, while offering decent salaries for graduates, have nothing on Wall Street firms. (But the work you'll do in finance is ultra boring).
 
Quix said:
There are female computer programmers?

*Edit for clarity* this was a joke, I actually work with female computer programmers, but the male : female ratio is very slanted. It's basically the reverse of massage therapy or nursing so if you take that to 11: no women are programmers. There, joke thoroughly killed.
Click to expand...

I've only known 1.5 female programmers in my life. One of them was only female from the waist up. :eek:
 
EchtoGammut said:
I fully expect women to be making more than men in the near future, since a lot of women are going into graduate programs and opting to not get married or have kids.
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Well, there's a rub to that. With all these people deciding that having a family is for lazy uneducated losers, they have created a rise in employment. But in 20 years, who will be buying the products those career minded individuals are depending on for their livelihood?
 
Yiffy said:
I believe this is relevant here:
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Good video.

What about the men? They make it sound like all men make exactly the same amount for the same job, like it's just common place. I know the men at my work probably have a 23% pay gap between same job grades.

A guy makes more then you? Get in line sister......
 
The main reason why women make less than men IMO is because they don't know how or want to negotiate, where men will try to haggle for another few days of PTO, another $2k salary, some office perk, etc. I was trading with a girl yesterday and I threw out an offer for exchanging 3 of my low value commodities per 1 of each of her high value commodities, which I thought was ridiculously bad exchange rate for her. I'm thinking she'll never take it and at least counter at 4 to 1 which would still be plenty fair exchange rate, maybe 5 to 1 if she was smart.

Nope. A minute later she responds back, sounds okay. Later on as we commenced the trade she mentioned she thought a 3 for 1 was a steep price so I said I'd do a 4 for 1 exchange then, but nope she's all like 'I promised a 3 for 1 exchange'. That about sums up 99% of females IMO, they don't like to negotiate, and most of them have no sense of direction :)
 
kinjo said:
So.. Apparently the Author did not actually read the Glassdoor article they are pulling their data from.

"Differences in education, age and years of experience "explain little" of tech's gender pay gap, says the report." <---- From The garbage Article

"Based on more than 505,000 salaries shared by full-time U.S. employees on Glassdoor, men earn 24.1 percent higher base pay than women on average. In other words, women earn about 76 cents per dollar men earn. However, comparing workers with similar age, education and years of experience shrinks that gap to 19.2 percent. Further, comparing workers with the same job title, employer and location, the gender pay gap in the U.S. falls to 5.4 percent (94.6 cents per dollar)." From the Glassdoor Reports.

Yay for cherrypicking data to support erroneous conclusions.
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That is always my primary problem with these wage "studies." They always take and compare it in aggregate. But, of course, if they did the sensible thing and compared apples to apples they wouldn't have anything to complain about or any stories to push. The fact always is that, in general, women choose lower paying careers than men. Then when there is an actual gap it can be explained by lifestyle choices and bargaining ability/willingness.
 
I can only speak from experience my wife, but when she puts her pay requirement on resumés she sends out, they are always far lower than what she should be asking for. I always have to tell her to put a higher number on it.
She puts it low for fear of it being ignored, and a lack of appreciation for her epic skill set and experience.

Perhaps this is similiar?
 
alxlwson said:
I can only speak from experience my wife, but when she puts her pay requirement on resumés she sends out, they are always far lower than what she should be asking for. I always have to tell her to put a higher number on it.
She puts it low for fear of it being ignored, and a lack of appreciation for her epic skill set and experience.

Perhaps this is similiar?
Click to expand...

My experience was the same. Me and my wife did the same job, she made probably 20% less then me. We both knew she was being taken advantage of, but she was satisifed with where her position.

Maybe thats the take away. Men have been conditioned to never be satisfied with their career. We are told that's a good thing, to always look forward. But then detach from other things in our life due to stress of excelling at work.
 
So, you're saying you're wife was raised to accept mediocrity?
 
pothb said:
So, you're saying you're wife was raised to accept mediocrity?
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Pretty much. Her mother got knocked up when she was 17 with their first (of four). They got married, he graduated, when to UofL and earned a double masters in EE in four years. Shes been a stay at home mother her entire life. My wife was raised that men bring in the money and take care of the bills, and the women raise the kids, and keep the house in order. It was never directed that way, but that was the example she grew up with. Her mother has always been a mouse as far as opening her mouth goes.
All the kids are out of the house now, and her father thanked her mother by buying a 15 acre farm and three horses for her. He gave her her dream in thanks.
 
Armenius said:
Where are these companies offering this kind of money? The one place I got an offer from after being snubbed dozens of times wanted to pay me $55,000 USD a year with a move completely across the country. Where I ended up I didn't have to move at all, the job is arguably less stressful, and I am getting paid $54,000 USD a year with no state income tax and far cheaper living expenses.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure our Dev's aren't making more than around $120 tops and last I heard, most of them are facing some severe cuts, like 20 to 25%.
 
alxlwson said:
I can only speak from experience my wife, but when she puts her pay requirement on resumés she sends out, they are always far lower than what she should be asking for. I always have to tell her to put a higher number on it.
She puts it low for fear of it being ignored, and a lack of appreciation for her epic skill set and experience.

Perhaps this is similiar?
Click to expand...


Many people suffer from this. They just don't recognize their worth or are afraid to miss out. I tend to sell myself short as well.
 
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