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Biggest Pay Gap In America: Computer Programmers
- Thread starter HardOCP News
- Start date
Same in many ways. My wife is Korean and she was raised in an environment and culture where women typically are housewives and don't have jobs past the age of 25 cause by then they are supposed to be home with a first born son.
I don't think that's what she wanted though and she found me as a way out of that future. Instead she came to the states as a soldier's wife, worked some BS jobs, had my kids, took care of me, became a Barber and mostly worked her ass off all her life. Maybe it was different because it was her choice. It's probably true that it would have been easier if she hadn't married me. But now the kids are gone and I refuse her nothing. She's my Honey Bunny and I dote on her and she's getting lazier and a little spoiled and I am happy with it. She's earned it.
Armenius
Extremely [H]
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I've known twice as many:I've only known 1.5 female programmers in my life. One of them was only female from the waist up.
One was a lesbian, one was a nerd in the purest sense who loved what she did, and the other seemed to be in it just to get attention from the men. I'd call that a microcosm representing a diverse group
The biggest problem I have is the salary gap between infrastructure people and programmers. Without Systems Administrators/Engineers you guys would have nothing! In my market it is like pulling teeth to get 80K for a non-senior SNA position, and yet shitty .NET developers with no social skills or real technical aptitude can make that without blinking.
In my market it is like pulling teeth to get 80K for a non-senior SNA position, and yet shitty .NET developers with no social skills or real technical aptitude can make that without blinking.Then they are not as good, don't work as hard, don't put in the extra hours, or don't fight for raises as hard.
In my observation, Software Development is a meritocracy.
Our top paid people did all of these things, consistently, quarter after quarter.
I have worked with women who were ranked higher than me, and they earned more money than me.
I have also worked with guys who worked their asses off, 10-20 free overtime hours per week and were passed over for promotions/raises, because they simply weren't that talented.
The people getting the big salaries and signing bonuses are star developers/architects. They are rare talents, and they are paid like it.
In my observation, Software Development is a meritocracy.
Our top paid people did all of these things, consistently, quarter after quarter.
I have worked with women who were ranked higher than me, and they earned more money than me.
I have also worked with guys who worked their asses off, 10-20 free overtime hours per week and were passed over for promotions/raises, because they simply weren't that talented.
The people getting the big salaries and signing bonuses are star developers/architects. They are rare talents, and they are paid like it.
I've known twice as many:
One was a lesbian, one was a nerd in the purest sense who loved what she did, and the other seemed to be in it just to get attention from the men. I'd call that a microcosm representing a diverse group
Oh, almost half of the programmers we have here are women. We have this one woman and she is old as dirt and an awesome Oracle programmer.
And when I say old as dirt, that's coming from me and I am 56.
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."
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 don't see anything about a dick in the article. I can't speak to the masses, but I know a few women in this industry, and they have been paid less and not gotten promotions, despite being better than some of the males who passed them by, and in one or 2 cases there's no maternity leave/kids involved. That said, I don't know anyone that's gotten a 500k signing bonus (or even 500k). That's got to be some best of the best of the best engineer.
Personally, I think it's pretty fucked up that she gets 20% less for doing the same job.
Really? I've worked with at least a dozen over the years and on average their skill level was the same as the guys I worked with (mostly good). The worst I worked with was definitely a guy (I mean an empty chair was almost as productive).I've only known 1.5 female programmers in my life. One of them was only female from the waist up.
Mugato
Muh Feelz!
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2014
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I am also curious, we offer a position at a certain rate, Solder Tech II = 13.50/hr. Doesn't matter whether you are male or female...It's just LIBERALS whining again. If it's not this it's something else, amnesty, not being able to buy a cake, man it makes my head spin.
This is a narrow view of the pay gap. It's not merely what women in equal positions get paid, though I'm sure many assume that is what pay gap means. It's also the opportunities for advancement they get over time. I'm no expert in the field, but I see a lot of women (relatively) start off as programmers early on (associate, junior, etc), but higher up the ladder I see very few women in senior roles (lead, senior, etc). Many of them seem to be pushed towards non-engineering roles like product management, etc. I'm not saying this is by design or intent, it could very well be that many women who start off at these roles prefer to be more managerial (who are not as well paid as core engineers), I don't know, I'm just saying this falls under the "pay gap" too.
The Glassdoor "study" apparently does take into account adjusted salaries, and programming is a 28% difference. But it's certainly not something to be taken too literally. Out of the 500,000 salaries taken into consideration for their study, the computer programmer only represented 138 of those. And it didn't break down differences in programming jobs. Thus, an entry level intern programmer, and a senior lead developer were both counted as a programmer. It's a poor part on Glassdoor though, as they state that the adjusted rate itself rises from nearly 2% for 18-24 year olds to up to ~10% for 45+ year olds, which might include the high level manager jobs. And most of the high discrepancy pay jobs fall into the category of low sample sizes of self-reported salaries. 138 programmers? How many of them are female? And what about taking into consideration age, company, experience, etc.? Now, consider high end jobs, where the salary can vary tremendously. Just a couple of those could easily skew the numbers.
Inglix_the_Mad
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2004
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- 332
No, it's simpler. The fact is that women don't ask for as much money in the first place, but do tend to ask for more flex time and such. I've dealt with lots of employees, and almost to the last, women don't tend to ask for as much salary but tend to ask for other "perks" instead.
Personally, I think it's pretty fucked up that she gets 20% less for doing the same job.
Sure, but it's not a one sided thing.
I first started contract work I was kind of surprised at how employers didn't seem to like their people talking about their pay. Then I grew to learn why. It causes trouble. The reason it causes trouble is that people only seem to apply the concept of fairness in regards to their current pay completely forgetting that they all had the same fair chance when they were negotiating their salary and accepting their job positions.
It's just something I learned awhile ago.
Everyone has to make their own deal.
Massage therapy and nursing are horribly sexist industries, we should start an activist group. #MaleEmploymentMatters
And also all those cooking apps and databases.
Including wearing a dress?
Men who drive Chevy's
Where's my dislike button?
And to add to this you also have the new face of IT and software development. Temporary workers hired under short term contracts and as staffing teams to come in like "the pros from Dover" who are here to do a job. These guys get higher salaries but there are usually no benefit packages at all and FICA contributions, etc.. are the responsibility of the worker and not the employer. It's sort of like your working for yourself and you don't really hire onto the company team, your just a hired gun and when the job is done, hit the road and look for the next one. The staffing team version has an office and the peeps are employees and the firm lines up the next work custom building teams for each new contract.
Most people have little chance to do any real negotiating for their salary positions. Supply is rather high on the labor side and jobs are scarce. Ask for much more than average and they just move on to the next applicant. And the way the contracting agencies work, you are lucky if the recruiter isn't taking more of your salary than you are getting. There are a few exceptions but programmers are kind of a commodity item thanks to the global economy, the H1B visa program, and how easy it is to outsource such work. I suspect most RN's are making more per hour than the average programmer.
The concept of fairness comes up once you're in the door and prove that you're better than your peers but don't get paid accordingly once the employer knows who's better than whom. I rarely see employers make things equitable and your salary is largely determined by what your previous salary was. Employers almost always require this information before negotiations happen which is why employees are at a disadvantage.
The concept of fairness comes up once you're in the door and prove that you're better than your peers but don't get paid accordingly once the employer knows who's better than whom. I rarely see employers make things equitable and your salary is largely determined by what your previous salary was. Employers almost always require this information before negotiations happen which is why employees are at a disadvantage.
I've only known 1.5 female programmers in my life. One of them was only female from the waist up.
I know 5, but that's not a significant percentage of the programmers I know. I don't think I can even come up with a total number of male programmers I know, it's a lot.
The United States Navy suddenly had a big problem when women started working on board the ships. The corpsman were being swamped by the women sailors. Men work longer hours and take less days off. The studies that show men making more money than women often fail to control for hours worked. This is not to say that there are some women who work as hard and as long as men but men and women do have different attitudes about working.
Beware of feminists seeking to discriminate against men by creating a compelling narrative that leaves out relevant details...
Beware of feminists seeking to discriminate against men by creating a compelling narrative that leaves out relevant details...
I've known dozens of female Linux admins, Windows admins, networking experts, computer animators, and even the occasional odd female hardware technician. Oddly, I've only one real female programmer. though and one tranny programmer. Until now I thought the programming world was a sausage fest and that's all there was to it.
She is a jeans and tee shirt kind of girl. A lot of fun to work with though.
Transgenders don't bother me. I really don't care what is happening outside of work on the code or project. Trouble seems to start once the personal life leaches into the work life.
I would work with cross dressing little people if they were doing a good job and keeping their mind on the task.
The fact that you don't talk about pay is why many don't negotiate. They don't know they can get more. AFAIC, it's in every employees best interest to find out what everyone else is making so they can negotiate for more. The only beneficiary of people not knowing what co-workers make is the employer.
At this point, I'm a big fan of looking elsewhere turning in my notice when asked why, say $$$ when they offer more, if it's not insanely more I'll say, you should have given me that at the last review. Even if it's insanely more, I'm still on the way out...just delayed until I can find a better offer.
Pay should be based on the work, not your negotiation skills. Maybe we should all hire agents to negotiate our salaries, which will have to be 10% higher to pay our agent's fee.
IME, most contractors actually work for some other company, so FICA is covered, but the insurance typically is not. I know you do contract work, so I guess that's not the case for you, but where I'm at, we have lots of contractors and they're not independent contractors.
It's more common than it use to be. When I was in college, there was probably a dozen in the program through my sophomore year, but after that, no more than 6 stuck with it. OTOH, there were quite a few in grad school, but very few were Americans.
Problem is, it's not all one sided. I've seen it and felt it myself. Someone finds out that their coworkers are making more because they undersold themselves. Now that person is unhappy, but management generally isn't going to renegotiate the salary that person contracted for. He might get a decent bump come job evals, but typically no. Sometimes they threaten to quit, etc, sometimes they get the raise, sometimes not. Usually they just get unhappy and leave.
In the contractor world jobs can be very temporary things. Since I started in 1998, I have worked for;
L3 5 years 3 positions
CSC 2 years 1 position
Northrup Grumman 1 year 1 position
Oberon Associates 1.5 years 2 positions
Raytheon 3 years 2 positions
NCI 2.5 years 2 positions
Semper Valens 1 year 1 position
And almost a year of total time accrued without work between jobs. Contracts come and go, shrink and grow, and turnover is pretty standard fair. Not much reason to get upset over a deal you made. Chances are you'll bounce or be bounced soon enough and have more than enough opportunity to sell yourself better.
Seems like I am always a new hire and never vested. I'm pretty good at interviews and have a lot of contacts. This current job I was hired without an interview, just on my reputation and the people I know.
Oh no, I have never been an independent contractor, always worked for the big guys or their favorite new sub. I'm with a startup now, we just topped the 50 employee mark, benefits are improving as the company grows. You help these companies build themselves you get known. It can help.
"It's important to note that Glassdoor's survey has some limitations. The company's data come from online job postings, so its study might not include many lower-paying jobs at tech companies, like assembly line work, gardening or kitchen help."
How the hell do you get gender based pay gap info from want ads? At all, much less reliably?
How the hell do you get gender based pay gap info from want ads? At all, much less reliably?
Yes, and they should leave. That type of action forces companies to stop underpaying employees. That's exactly what I'd like to see happen. Employers have virtually no loyalty to employees, and employees should feel the same about there employers. Unless you're a superstar (and you know it -- and the 2 don't always go together), sharing info only helps you in your career. Your employer does not have your best interest at heart. So share your info. Let your cheap ass company lose a lot of good workers and maybe....just maybe.. they'll quit playing these games.
Start ups are a bit different. At those, you're working your ass off from a piece of the future. I'm really talking about established companies. And there is a disparity there with women too, though more with opportunity to move up. Have a good friend who's quite talented and hard working and she finally had to go to HR and raise hell, because guys less talented than here were getting promoted over her for years. When she told me she hadn't been promoted for 10 years, I was in shock, because she was training the people they then promoted over her. And all the talk on here about women wanting more flex time or time off for kids, doesn't apply. This is a real thing, no matter how many guys on here claim it isn't.
Honestly, the fact that people here haven't worked with many women is just another symptom of the problem, because women do get CS/CE degrees.
Glassdoor is not just ads. You can go there right now and post anonymously about the company you're at. And despite what your quote says, lower level people can't post and at my company, people that work in stores post as much (possibly more) than those working in the offices.
Never happen in this line of work and in Arizona.First off, like I said, contracts change so frequently nobody from the rank and file is around more than a couple years. Second, they can let anyone go any time they want and they don't even have to justify it. All they have to do is say they don't need you any more, goodbye.
Stereodude
2[H]4U
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- Oct 20, 2000
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- 3,285
There's an inherent problem there. Everyone thinks they're a superstar at their job, and so Joe isn't going to understand that Lenny makes more money than Joe does because Lenny is a rockstar who is better at the job than Joe is and Lenny is rightly paid more.
It's like bad drivers. None of them think they're bad drivers.
nilepez isn't wrong, I can't say he is wrong. I can say I don't think his "solution" is good for this kind of environment,( the environment I work in), because it's not a normal dynamic.
I do think we both agree that people need to go into job interviews and salary negotiations with a good understanding of what they are worth right from the start. It puts you in a reasonable position. Selling yourself low at hiring time just to get on board is the act of a desperate person or one who lacks self confidence. If a woman or anyone else has this problem then they need to straighten this out for themselves.
But I don't think the world needs to fix it for them.
White Knights please check your hats at the door
Stereodude
2[H]4U
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- Oct 20, 2000
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I'm not saying the current situation is right or fair. I just said having everyone know what everyone else makes isn't ideal. The average employees will want the same money as the really good ones because they think they're just as good. If you pay the average ones the same as the good ones to make them happy, the really good ones will either become average pretty quick or leave.
With programming, generally an empty chair is better than a mediocre programmer. A few good programers will get more done by themselves than if you had them working along side with a team of 20 mediocre programmers because they won't be spending time fixing the mistakes and redoing the work of the mediocre ones.
heatlesssun
Extremely [H]
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- Nov 5, 2005
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- 44,154
I agree with what nilepez was saying but have to agree that the idea of sharing salary info in the work place is problematic at best. There's just too much drama that that kind of thing can cause.
Agreed, I am a one man Storage shop, Architect, Engineer, and Admin all rolled into one. I think my employer and their customer is getting much more than their money's worth. But at the same time I would never step out there and claim on my resume that I am a storage architect or engineer class asset. I can't back it up. I wouldn't even say I was a gifted admin. I'd say I am getting the job done, I'm working hard and not afraid to tackle what's thrown my way to the best of my ability. I'm learning fast cause my feet are always in the fire.
Because the people who wrote this contract really don't even know what they need the skilled people didn't get hired. Instead they hired some guys like me who are sysadmins and generalists. They are getting off lucky, the people they hired aren't lazy and aren't stupid and some have been around awhile and know how things are supposed to be. Together we posses the skill, experience, and desire to see the work succeed. The government customer is lost but they know they are lost and trust us to lead them in the right direction.
But there is one fly in the ointment. We have a company guy, in leadership, he is one of those guys who has the schooling and a few certs and no real experience but is convinced he knows what's what. He routinely sells the customer on technologies and services and promises work that are not realistic. And he is the fair haired boy of the next higher boss who knows nothing of Enterprise IT work in development lab environments. It will be awhile before they finally accept that this guy is wrong for the position and move him off somewhere harmless and get someone in here to take the reins and see us in the right directions.
Such is work.
Because the people who wrote this contract really don't even know what they need the skilled people didn't get hired. Instead they hired some guys like me who are sysadmins and generalists. They are getting off lucky, the people they hired aren't lazy and aren't stupid and some have been around awhile and know how things are supposed to be. Together we posses the skill, experience, and desire to see the work succeed. The government customer is lost but they know they are lost and trust us to lead them in the right direction.
But there is one fly in the ointment. We have a company guy, in leadership, he is one of those guys who has the schooling and a few certs and no real experience but is convinced he knows what's what. He routinely sells the customer on technologies and services and promises work that are not realistic. And he is the fair haired boy of the next higher boss who knows nothing of Enterprise IT work in development lab environments. It will be awhile before they finally accept that this guy is wrong for the position and move him off somewhere harmless and get someone in here to take the reins and see us in the right directions.
Such is work.
I don't think that's the case. If you think you're a superstar, you're likely to negotiate a great deal. IME, most people are more like Dilbert. Work hard and underappreciated. FWIW, I've never been under the illusion that I'm a rock star, and virtually nobody I work with past or present has an ego that big. And FYI, I've also worked with people who made more than a lead developer and did less than a junior developer. Paying people based on there EGO is dumb, but paying them based on there negotiating abilities is a recipe for pissing people off, because eventually employees talk about salaries.
The beauty of Glass Door is you can post that stuff anonymously so that your co-workers can find out without exposing yourself in anyway.
You solve that by having different levels of programmers and telling the programmer, "John, you need to do this/improve that to get to that level. Right now, it's probably arbitrary. I've also seen bosses say, "Do A and you'll get X and you do A and B and then they say, can't do it this time. It's not that they can't do it, they just don't want to and if you don't know what others are getting, then there's no way to know that you're being played.
That said, I get what Icpiper is saying. However, I think even then, it can be useful to know (perhaps towards the end of the contract) so you know what you should do for the next gig.