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Comment by rdouble | Hacker News Reader

People who say this haven't done the math or looked at real salary numbers.

The average salary for a cardiologist is $308,000/yr. The average salary for a software engineer is $58,000/yr.

The cardiologist makes six times as much money. Even with a 12 year head start the programmer comes out behind. Medical school debt can be paid off in 2-5 years. In addition, the cardiologist can keep practicing into her 60s whereas a programmer should plan on changing careers in his 40s.

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>The average salary for a software engineer is $58,000/yr.

That seems awfully low. I would never have stayed in this business if I was making anything close to that.

Comparing the average software engineer to a cardiologist is just silly. If you're going to select a small, highly skilled portion of the medical field to analyze, you should compare it to a skilled portion of the software engineering field.

Let's draw a more valid comparison: that between cardiologists and graduates of good engineering programs. Graduates from top CS programs are making significantly more than 58K fresh out of college. The standard offer from Microsoft for a good UIUC CS student is 80K + starting bonus. Conservatively assuming an average salary of 100K over 15 years for the programmer, he is 1.5 million ahead once the cardiologist is finally debt free (12 years of school + 3 years to pay back debt). The cardiologist will then take 7.5 years to catch up, by which time the cardiologist will be in his 50s. I don't know about you, but I'd rather be debt free and making 100K in my 20s, 30s, and 40s, then being the guy on top when I'm 50.

22.5 years after high school is age 40, not age 50. Doctors start pulling (small) salary 8 years after high school.

I'm pretty sure it's 12 years of schooling after college. 4 years of medical school plus 6-8 years of fellowship. Thus 12 after college + 3 years to pay back debt + 7.5 years to get even is age 22 + 22.5 years = 45. Of course the reality is that someone who has worked at Microsoft for as long as the guy in the comparison is going to average more than 100K a year in compensation over 22.5 years. So my figure of the salaries evening out at 50 is pretty reasonable I think.

Medical school is 4 years after college. Average cost is $100k-$200k.

After medical school comes residency, which lasts from 3-6 years depending on speciality. Compensation during residency is $40k-$60k.

After residency, you can get a job. At that level of training, the salary will be $150k-$250k.

Optionally, you can get a fellowship after residency. This will be another 3-6 years of training, with compensation around $50k-$70k.

After fellowship, jobs pay in the $250k-$500k range.

Averages here are worthless. Is that $300k with or without insurance factored in? (In Florida "General surgeons paid in between $90,000 per year and $175,000 per year or more. OB/GYNs once again could expect the highest rates, with liability coverage ranging from $100,000 to $200,000 per year." Other states are less.) I'm told those in the medical profession have high salaries and correspondingly high insurance rates, which makes their salary much less than what it appears. There's also the cost of equipment if they need that. Similarly I'd like to control for location (which goes along with insurance costs anyway): a $60k job in the slums may be worth $100k in the Valley due to living costs alone.

"In addition, the cardiologist can keep practicing into her 60s whereas a programmer should plan to retire or change careers in his 40s."

And from where do you find this Bullshit?

From news articles and personal experience. There have been dozens, if not hundreds of articles about age discrimination in high tech. The people in my extended family who are doctors are all still practicing in their 60s, whereas the two who were programmers were laid off at age 48 and 52, never to work as programmers again. I worked in Silicon Valley, Boston and NYC for 12 years and I can count the number of programmers I worked with over the age of 45 on one hand! (Maybe even on 1 finger, technically the other guy was no longer working as a programmer...)

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