Hacker News Reader

Comment by bjourne | Hacker News Reader

> It happens. Gain experience. Move on. I worked for a tyrant for $12/hr fixing bugs and adding new things to the program. Over a year and a half I did this. It was Visual Basic 6.0 and this job I had about 6 years ago.

That's not an argument. There is no reason for the op to accept being treated badly because you were. I was severely underpaid at my first job too, but I don't think it is right that others should be underpaid just because I was.

View on HN

What makes you think someone with no real experience and half a degree is underpaid at $15? He may be overpaid.

I never claimed to have zero experience :)

Assume the value of Mr Throwaway's work to the institution is $X. We also know that Throwaway's total take home is $15/hour * 18 hours/week * 4*4.5 (nr of weeks) = $4860.

I claim that underpayment occurs when the ratio of pay to value of work produces is about one to five. I would estimate, given the description of Throwaway's assignment, that the value of the work is about $50k. Therefore, Throwaway's ratio of pay to value of work being one to ten means he is severly underpaid. We can argue about exact ratios and stuff, but fact is, $4.8k is shitty pay for the job he is asked to do.

1) Colleges do not hire students to do work at "market rate". That is never how it has worked. You get slightly above minimum wage to do some work. If you want market rate, go find a job off campus! No law against that (well perhaps for some VISA holders)

2) The better comparison, would be how much would this work cost to do form a body shop in India? I bet a lot closer to 5k then 50k. And honestly if he is anything like most college students I know, the India work may actually be better.

1) I didn't speak of any market rates. I spoke of the fraction of his take home pay in comparision to the value of his work. That fraction is exploitative.

2) Indian workers are likely also underpaid. I find that comparison irrelevant.

brianwawok, when I first started out, you could say my boss was some guy who hired me off the street and decided to take a chance on me. Was he wrong in his judgement of paying me $12/hr? Probably not. While I came with some knowledge and experience, it was mostly personal and non-professional. It took him about 3 months to get me ready and trust me enough to work in his software. While he did give me a small raise once I started doing that, it would be the only raise I had seen. While I was upset that he continued to pay me what he was paying me, considering I did live on a coast at the time, and the fact that in over a year, his customer base rose by thousands of companies using his product across the nation, I did not see any benefits for that, at least not monetary. But I am very grateful that he did take that chance on me, because it was he who gave me that "real world experience" to put on my resume and have every single company thereafter take me seriously as a programmer. This was a benefit that I had not foreseen, for sure, being young and at a college with too much debt, I didn't know any better.

I have also had this discussion with my girlfriend regarding salary, who also works as a web developer. We have discussed our salaries and pay worth and she pointed out this very thing: What makes us think we are getting underpaid for the amount of work we do? Surely, the company does not just randomly give out salaries and does their research on what a typical web designer would make. They likely figure their own costs of charging clients and the quota we need to meet, and pay us a base salary.

I suppose searching Indeed.com or a salary website does reveal the national average. But seeing something like that is always off. Lets take this the salary of a web developer/designer, which is $64k national average as of 2015. This salary varies greatly depending on where you live: Middle of the country tends to pay less, while the coasts tend to pay more, so are we really underpaid? Or overpaid? Or are we where we should be based on 1) geographical location 2) cost of living in geographical location 3) experience.

The other point is too: If someone is unhappy with their current situation, including the demands of a job vs. salary, than change it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com