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your first programming gig

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  • R realJSOP

    1982, and considering my level of experience, yeah, I suppose it was fair...

    .45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
    -----
    "Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
    -----
    "The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001

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    vaghelabhavesh
    wrote on last edited by
    #18

    John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:

    1982, and considering my level of experience, yeah, I suppose it was fair...

    Man you guys are genius. You know I born in that year. :-)

    If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much. 'Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.' Robert Heinlein (1907 - 1988)

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    • W wolfbinary

      Were you fairly compensated at your first programming job? Wwhat year was it?

      That's called seagull management (or sometimes pigeon management)... Fly in, flap your arms and squawk a lot, crap all over everything and fly out again... by _Damian S_

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      Maximilien
      wrote on last edited by
      #19

      yes, 1992. I assume all first time employees feel they are underpaid; only after years of experience (and seeing new first time employees) that they understand the original low pay.

      Watched code never compiles.

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      • W wolfbinary

        Were you fairly compensated at your first programming job? Wwhat year was it?

        That's called seagull management (or sometimes pigeon management)... Fly in, flap your arms and squawk a lot, crap all over everything and fly out again... by _Damian S_

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        Ian Shlasko
        wrote on last edited by
        #20

        Fairly? Well, it was minimum wage, but then, I was 16 years old, and it was a summer internship, writing a few tools in VB6 for a local government data processing center (Before I moved to NYC)... So I'd say it was fair, given the situation.

        Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
        Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)

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        • W wolfbinary

          Were you fairly compensated at your first programming job? Wwhat year was it?

          That's called seagull management (or sometimes pigeon management)... Fly in, flap your arms and squawk a lot, crap all over everything and fly out again... by _Damian S_

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          Single Step Debugger
          wrote on last edited by
          #21

          It was some “management information system “created with Delphi 2 in 2000. The payment sucked and the application sucked even worse.

          The narrow specialist in the broad sense of the word is a complete idiot in the narrow sense of the word. Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.

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          • W wolfbinary

            Were you fairly compensated at your first programming job? Wwhat year was it?

            That's called seagull management (or sometimes pigeon management)... Fly in, flap your arms and squawk a lot, crap all over everything and fly out again... by _Damian S_

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            Dan Neely
            wrote on last edited by
            #22

            Debatable. 2005; I was hired on the lower end of the pay curve for the area I was in; but because I'd completed my BS 2 years prior I can understand them being concerned that I had a problem that wasn't readily apparent (besides sucking at my interviewing skills). Several months later after HR bought it's annual salary market research report I was given a 'stop loss' raise that brought me up to the median rate for an entry level programmer.

            3x12=36 2x12=24 1x12=12 0x12=18

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            • W wolfbinary

              Were you fairly compensated at your first programming job? Wwhat year was it?

              That's called seagull management (or sometimes pigeon management)... Fly in, flap your arms and squawk a lot, crap all over everything and fly out again... by _Damian S_

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              Roger Wright
              wrote on last edited by
              #23

              1976. At $5 an hour, I suppose it wasn't really fair, but it was only one task of many I did as a lab tech for a university, and lab techs are typically paid very poorly. Writing an OS and Assembler for the Altair 8800, after rebuilding it from a botched job by my predecessor, then designing and building interfaces to an ASR33 Teletype terminal and a Varian minicomputer that was, itself, emulating an IBM 1103 was interesting and fun, but not very profitable... :-D

              "A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"

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              • A AspDotNetDev

                John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:

                still making less than five times that amount

                Ouch. I'm pretty sure you're being screwed.

                [Forum Guidelines]

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                realJSOP
                wrote on last edited by
                #24

                Really? I think there are more over-payed programmers than there are earning a fair wage. Besides that, what's fair is determined in large part by your local cost of living. In San Antonio, my salary is considered to be a goog chunk of change.

                .45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
                -----
                "Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
                -----
                "The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001

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                • R realJSOP

                  Really? I think there are more over-payed programmers than there are earning a fair wage. Besides that, what's fair is determined in large part by your local cost of living. In San Antonio, my salary is considered to be a goog chunk of change.

                  .45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
                  -----
                  "Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
                  -----
                  "The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001

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                  AspDotNetDev
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #25

                  John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:

                  what's fair is determined in large part by your local cost of living

                  Ah, quite true. Glad to hear you're earning what is fair. :)

                  [Forum Guidelines]

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                  • W wolfbinary

                    Were you fairly compensated at your first programming job? Wwhat year was it?

                    That's called seagull management (or sometimes pigeon management)... Fly in, flap your arms and squawk a lot, crap all over everything and fly out again... by _Damian S_

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                    Dr Walt Fair PE
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #26

                    Yes, I thought I was fairly compensated at the time. I paid my college tuition by programming for professors the University of Texas in 1969-70 in Fortran. Later I was paid to work as a programmer on a research project that paid until I graduated in 1973.

                    CQ de W5ALT

                    Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software

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                    • R Roger Wright

                      1976. At $5 an hour, I suppose it wasn't really fair, but it was only one task of many I did as a lab tech for a university, and lab techs are typically paid very poorly. Writing an OS and Assembler for the Altair 8800, after rebuilding it from a botched job by my predecessor, then designing and building interfaces to an ASR33 Teletype terminal and a Varian minicomputer that was, itself, emulating an IBM 1103 was interesting and fun, but not very profitable... :-D

                      "A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"

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                      LloydA111
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #27

                      Roger Wright wrote:

                      At $5 an hour, I suppose it wasn't really fair, but it was only one task of many I did as a lab tech for a university, and lab techs are typically paid very poorly. Writing an OS and Assembler for the Altair 8800, after rebuilding it from a botched job by my predecessor, then designing and building interfaces to an ASR33 Teletype terminal and a Varian minicomputer that was, itself, emulating an IBM 1103 was interesting and fun, but not very profitable...

                      That sounds like some serious fun!! :-D


                      ^-^-^-@@-^-^-^
                      (..)-----;
                      ||---||
                      ^^ ^^
                      Moose.

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                      • W wolfbinary

                        Were you fairly compensated at your first programming job? Wwhat year was it?

                        That's called seagull management (or sometimes pigeon management)... Fly in, flap your arms and squawk a lot, crap all over everything and fly out again... by _Damian S_

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                        thrakazog
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #28

                        I was still in college when I got my first coding job. Due to that they considered me an intern while having no intern affiliation/credit with the school. The pay was a mighty $8 an hour. A big jump from the $5.70 an hour I was making working a cash register. That was round about 1999.

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                        • W wolfbinary

                          Were you fairly compensated at your first programming job? Wwhat year was it?

                          That's called seagull management (or sometimes pigeon management)... Fly in, flap your arms and squawk a lot, crap all over everything and fly out again... by _Damian S_

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                          Steve Mayfield
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #29

                          My first "programming gig" was in 1970 - progam was "Hello World" in FORTRAN and I got an "A" for the assignment :rolleyes:

                          Steve _________________ I C(++) therefore I am

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                          • W wolfbinary

                            Were you fairly compensated at your first programming job? Wwhat year was it?

                            That's called seagull management (or sometimes pigeon management)... Fly in, flap your arms and squawk a lot, crap all over everything and fly out again... by _Damian S_

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                            Gary Wheeler
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #30

                            1980, writing FORTRAN, I had four programming classes under my belt (I was a college student at the time). I was being paid $6.00/hour, and the folks I worked for billed my time at $35.00/hour to the client. Through my college career I programmed in FORTRAN, in 8085 and 8086 assembly language, managed several VAXen, and even spent several months as a technical writer. Considering that I learned as much or more from my job as I did my classes, yeah, I was fairly compensated.

                            Software Zen: delete this;

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                            • W wolfbinary

                              Were you fairly compensated at your first programming job? Wwhat year was it?

                              That's called seagull management (or sometimes pigeon management)... Fly in, flap your arms and squawk a lot, crap all over everything and fly out again... by _Damian S_

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                              John M Drescher
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #31

                              March / April 1997. $7 an hour doing work for a research team on a DARPA project. After that I got a full time gig on May 19th of that year and I still work for the same research team (different from the $7 team) even though we have changed universities.

                              John

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                              • A Abhinav S

                                wolfbinary wrote:

                                Were you fairly compensated at your first programming job?

                                The kind of crap I wrote, I'm glad they did not charge me anything. :)

                                My signature "sucks" today

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                                Yusuf
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #32

                                I'm sure I can relate to that. :-O ;)

                                Yusuf May I help you?

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                                • R Roger Wright

                                  1976. At $5 an hour, I suppose it wasn't really fair, but it was only one task of many I did as a lab tech for a university, and lab techs are typically paid very poorly. Writing an OS and Assembler for the Altair 8800, after rebuilding it from a botched job by my predecessor, then designing and building interfaces to an ASR33 Teletype terminal and a Varian minicomputer that was, itself, emulating an IBM 1103 was interesting and fun, but not very profitable... :-D

                                  "A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"

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                                  Steve Mayfield
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #33

                                  Hummm...I worked part time for the CalPoly Engineering Dept from 1970 to 1975 as a lab tech and was paid whatever the minimum wage was at the time - I thought it was more than $5 / hour though - so long ago and I seem to have picked up a few parity errors in my memory recall :sigh:

                                  Steve _________________ I C(++) therefore I am

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                                  • W wolfbinary

                                    Were you fairly compensated at your first programming job? Wwhat year was it?

                                    That's called seagull management (or sometimes pigeon management)... Fly in, flap your arms and squawk a lot, crap all over everything and fly out again... by _Damian S_

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                                    Yusuf
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #34

                                    1998, some awkward looking web site, for a foundation that got their thinking spread all over the place, and the lead person having his skewed design. Not bad $1500 for about 3 month of part time job. :^) Did I mention they throw the whole website in less than 6 months. What a waste of time and money :doh:

                                    Yusuf May I help you?

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                                    • W wolfbinary

                                      Were you fairly compensated at your first programming job? Wwhat year was it?

                                      That's called seagull management (or sometimes pigeon management)... Fly in, flap your arms and squawk a lot, crap all over everything and fly out again... by _Damian S_

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                                      elchupathingy
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #35

                                      2009, worked on a program to strip out the headers of a TS video stream and forward the payload to a video encoder and was paid $10/hour. Which for being straight out of high school pretty decent, especially when I was only supposed to be an intern. :laugh:

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                                      • H Henry Minute

                                        I was more than fairly recompensed. It was about 1983/85 and COBOL.

                                        Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.” Why do programmers often confuse Halloween and Christmas? Because 31 Oct = 25 Dec.

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                                        Rob Graham
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #36

                                        It is impossible to be fairly compensated for having to write COBOL.

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                                        • W wolfbinary

                                          Were you fairly compensated at your first programming job? Wwhat year was it?

                                          That's called seagull management (or sometimes pigeon management)... Fly in, flap your arms and squawk a lot, crap all over everything and fly out again... by _Damian S_

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                                          Joe Woodbury
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #37

                                          1988, writing games for the Apple II using 6502 assembly and was royally shafted, especially considering how much money the company made for our work. (Turns out they originally paid us overtime--we were working 60-80 hours a week--then claimed they shouldn't have since we were "contractors." They were wrong [we weren't contractors by IRS definition], but I needed the work and lived with it.) (I don't count prototyping a database in 1987 using Clipper since my official title at the time was "office manager" or some such nonsense. I also don't count a prototype done in Apple Basic in 1982 for church accounting software that never went anywhere since I was doing it my spare time.)

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