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Comment by Tycho | Hacker News Reader

Hmmm... when I graduate I'd definitely take a £18000 p/a job. I mean it seems at this age getting your foot in the door, getting started and putting some 'commercial experience' on your CV is far more important than the actual salary.

On the other hand, if I could make a living doing freelance web development, then I could build that up until I have an income that employers would need to match (rather than just throwing me the low end of the offered salary-range).

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As of 2011-04-13, 18000 pounds sterling is 29421 US dollars. Despite what you say about "getting your foot in the door", I would hesitate before taking a job that paid so poorly. For the record, my internship paid $25 per hour. That translates to $42000 per year [1]. I'm not an exceptional programmer, and my grades in school weren't that stellar either. I would strongly encourage you to negotiate before selling your services for so low a price.

1. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%2425+per+hour+

I see ads for 'Senior developers' that want to pay £25-33k. Granted there also ones paying better but the highest advertised I've seen is £40-45k p/a. Obviously it will be higher in London though, and there are lots of ads for contractors at £300 per day.

Meanwhile I know people who finished their CS degree and never got a programming job. I know one guy who's a decent programmer, only got a couple of interviews, one only because he offered to work for 14k, but ended up working in a bank admin job for 13k for years before finally getting a secondment to an SQL/Excel position at 18k or so.

I don't know, man. Just seems there's a disconnection between the salaries you guys talk about on HN and the salaries that are realistic for me. Bearing in mind if it's a graduate job then there's going to be many gaps in your knowledge (unless you're exceptional), so it seems you should bite the hand off the first place that offers you a job and the chance to become a more complete developer (after which you'll have a much stronger negotiating position, but until then, as an unproven dev companies can justifiably look at you as a liability).

1. Move

2. Go contracting

If no one would put up with these low wages they would be forced upward.

But what if I don't want to move, or don't want to spend anytime in unemployment? £1500 per month is pretty appealing when you have rent to pay. Also, while £18000 might be a joke in the respect that you're only slightly better off than the average admin job, despite the vastly different knowledge and problem solving requirements, what about the whole 'majority of developer applicants can't solve FizzBuzz in ten minutes' thing? Or the belief that programming ability is like compound interest - the more you learn, the faster you get better? Or the outsourcing to India (where I bet they get a whole lot less than 18k per head)? Those things would seem to make low starting salaries natural.

But I do like the idea of selling your skills on a freelance/contracting basis, and foregoing all the noise of the industry hiring practices. I'd definitely give that a shot before taking a 18k-24k job. Seriously doubt £25+k for a first, junior dev role is on the cards though.

You need to find positions where they don't look at you as cost-center, and instead as someone providing value to the bottom line. 300 pounds a day is ridiculous. Most contractors make double that in day.

Tip: When asked about my salary expectations for my first job, I said "£20-24k". I got £22k. Many of the other people who started alongside said lower figures - and that's what they got.

Don't quote something way out of the range of the company you want to work for, but don't undersell yourself either. You'll probably get what you asked for... £15-25k is dirt cheap anyway, for any large corporation, but that £10k makes a whole lot of difference to your life.

I think freelancing is a quicker way to get established and reach a high value if you can swing the social and project management aspects. Especially early on, your value increases enormously with each deliverable product you produce. Freelancing allows you to build a portfolio quickly, and you'll be able to point others to jobs you've completed. Successful jobs also inevitably lead to referrals and you can raise your rate on every new contract as your portfolio improves and you become more valuable.

Working for a salary, you can easily get stuck on projects that aren't portfolio-worthy, don't teach you anything that useful, and which you only have a small hand in anyway. And naturally it's comparatively much harder to get pay increases. One solid project that impresses people can take you from charging $50 to $100 an hour as a freelancer overnight. Try convincing your boss to double your salary after 3 months just because you've been shipping good code.

As for breaking in, talk to as many people as you can. Go to meetups, talks, events, whatever is happening, in both the programming AND (very importantly) business/entrepreneurship categories. Just chat and share ideas. If you're confident and you've got brains, people will recognize it, and you'll soon need to beat offers away with a stick. The first gig is the hardest to get because you have nothing to point to in your portfolio. Do this one for free if you have to, or build things on your own. Whatever it takes to get something finished that you can use to prove your competence.

Hi,

£18,000 is what I got at my first job over 15 years ago. I know things are tough in the UK for you young 'uns now though.

Commercial experience isn't as good as having some nice websites in your portfolio IMHO.

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