Christmas bonus
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Just got a nice rather substantial Christmas bonus! Is this typical for software companies? None of the two companies I worked for before did that. Ivor S. Sargoytchev Dundas Software
Yup we get a nice bonus every Christmas. BW
"Get up and open your eyes. Don't let yourself ever fall down.
Get through it and learn how to fly. I know you will find a way...
Today"
-Days of the New -
Ryan Binns wrote: I get about US$27k a year Is that low for Australia? It'd be a decent salary in India :-) Nish
My blog on C++/CLI, MFC/Win32, .NET - void Nish(char* szBlog); My MVP tips, tricks and essays web site - www.voidnish.com
Nishant S wrote: It'd be a decent salary in India Yeah, that's why it's so hard to win jobs on RentaCoder at a rate that is above what kids earn at McDonalds. Seriously. I earn about US$40k a year, which I'd still say is very low for a software developer, although I suspect it's time to look for a new career, I think our value is just going to keep on decreasing. When I was looking on the mainland a while ago, most jobs seemed to start at the US$65k mark, and work up from there. Christian I have several lifelong friends that are New Yorkers but I have always gravitated toward the weirdo's. - Richard Stringer
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Just got a nice rather substantial Christmas bonus! Is this typical for software companies? None of the two companies I worked for before did that. Ivor S. Sargoytchev Dundas Software
Hell, no. Instead, we get forced to take annual leave over the Xmas/New Years week, if we want to or not. Christian I have several lifelong friends that are New Yorkers but I have always gravitated toward the weirdo's. - Richard Stringer
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If we're lucky our boss might get us a box of chocolates or a gift certificate or something. From the company we get nothing. The only time we ever seem to get a pay rise or bonus from the company is when someone resigns. :( SuzyB If I had a better memory I would remember more.
Suzanne Boyle wrote: The only time we ever seem to get a pay rise or bonus from the company is when someone resigns. LOL - most people only get an increased workload when someone resigns, so don't complain :P Christian I have several lifelong friends that are New Yorkers but I have always gravitated toward the weirdo's. - Richard Stringer
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*groan* :rolleyes: I don't know about you, but I learnt my approach to strategy from a common cunning linguist. ;P Anna :rose: Riverblade Ltd - Software Consultancy Services Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "Be yourself - not what others think you should be" - Marcia Graesch "Anna's just a sexy-looking lesbian tart" - A friend, trying to wind me up. It didn't work.
A cunning linguist who does cunning stunts. regards, Paul Watson South Africa The Code Project
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Just got a nice rather substantial Christmas bonus! Is this typical for software companies? None of the two companies I worked for before did that. Ivor S. Sargoytchev Dundas Software
My dad and mom would always get a good Christmas bonus in the firms they worked for. But so far I've never got one in IT. regards, Paul Watson South Africa The Code Project
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A cunning linguist who does cunning stunts. regards, Paul Watson South Africa The Code Project
As long as they're not cunning Cupid Stunts I don't mind! :eek: Anna :rose: Riverblade Ltd - Software Consultancy Services Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "Be yourself - not what others think you should be" - Marcia Graesch "Anna's just a sexy-looking lesbian tart" - A friend, trying to wind me up. It didn't work.
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Just got a nice rather substantial Christmas bonus! Is this typical for software companies? None of the two companies I worked for before did that. Ivor S. Sargoytchev Dundas Software
Our company gave out bonuses (and a 401K contribution) in lieu of raises the past two years. Steve
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Hell, no. Instead, we get forced to take annual leave over the Xmas/New Years week, if we want to or not. Christian I have several lifelong friends that are New Yorkers but I have always gravitated toward the weirdo's. - Richard Stringer
Christian Graus wrote: Instead, we get forced to take annual leave over the Xmas/New Years week, if we want to or not. Yeah, same here. I hate it. Christmas is the last time I would go away for holidays; it's too busy. I'd rather save my holidays for another time of year, but the company won't let us.
Ryan
"Punctuality is only a virtue for those who aren't smart enough to think of good excuses for being late" John Nichol "Point Of Impact"
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Nishant S wrote: It'd be a decent salary in India Yeah, that's why it's so hard to win jobs on RentaCoder at a rate that is above what kids earn at McDonalds. Seriously. I earn about US$40k a year, which I'd still say is very low for a software developer, although I suspect it's time to look for a new career, I think our value is just going to keep on decreasing. When I was looking on the mainland a while ago, most jobs seemed to start at the US$65k mark, and work up from there. Christian I have several lifelong friends that are New Yorkers but I have always gravitated toward the weirdo's. - Richard Stringer
Christian Graus wrote: Yeah, that's why it's so hard to win jobs on RentaCoder at a rate that is above what kids earn at McDonalds. Seriously. But CG, most people miss one point. A good Indian coder cannot demand US-rates even if he is good enough. Say Person-X (in India) proves himself better than every other rentacoder bidder out there (including US, UK, Aus people). But the company that rents him would be seriously angry if he demanded anything close to a US rate. Christian Graus wrote: When I was looking on the mainland a while ago, most jobs seemed to start at the US$65k mark, and work up from there. USD65K annual sounds quite okay to me - it's not great I know, but still quite good.
My blog on C++/CLI, MFC/Win32, .NET - void Nish(char* szBlog); My MVP tips, tricks and essays web site - www.voidnish.com
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About 4% of India's population is Christian. Not sure what the breakdown is between them (catholics, protestants etc). If I recall correctly, only Christmas is a national holiday. From a geographical point of view Islam came from the west of India, and all major muslim holidays are observed in India (muslims make up about 10% of the population and in absolute terms India has the second largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia). We also observe major Hindu, Sikh, Budhist, Jain, and other religious holidays (or at least we did when I lived there). Then there are days like New Years, Indpendence Day etc. Damn!!!! why the hell did I move to the US. :laugh::laugh::laugh: However, if things have not changed much, I think most of corporate India has a 6 day work week. I think the 2nd Saturday of each month is off.
Ranjan Banerji wrote: If I recall correctly, only Christmas is a national holiday. Maundy Thursday and Good Friday too Ranjan Banerji wrote: I think most of corporate India has a 6 day work week Only Govt companies - even that's slowly changing. Everyone else has a 5 day week now. Ranjan Banerji wrote: Damn!!!! why the hell did I move to the US. Money and better life-style :-)
My blog on C++/CLI, MFC/Win32, .NET - void Nish(char* szBlog); My MVP tips, tricks and essays web site - www.voidnish.com
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Christian Graus wrote: Yeah, that's why it's so hard to win jobs on RentaCoder at a rate that is above what kids earn at McDonalds. Seriously. But CG, most people miss one point. A good Indian coder cannot demand US-rates even if he is good enough. Say Person-X (in India) proves himself better than every other rentacoder bidder out there (including US, UK, Aus people). But the company that rents him would be seriously angry if he demanded anything close to a US rate. Christian Graus wrote: When I was looking on the mainland a while ago, most jobs seemed to start at the US$65k mark, and work up from there. USD65K annual sounds quite okay to me - it's not great I know, but still quite good.
My blog on C++/CLI, MFC/Win32, .NET - void Nish(char* szBlog); My MVP tips, tricks and essays web site - www.voidnish.com
Nishant S wrote: A good Indian coder cannot demand US-rates even if he is good enough. Of COURSE he can. Indian software development uses price as a basis for attracting business, but if you, in India, jump onto RAC, you can bid as much or as little as you like, as can every person/company around the world. However, Indian programmers in particular seem to be known to bid low, thus creating an expectation that flows on to all RAC sellers. The reverse is the problem. Although I am in Australia, I can only get work by approaching the low rate that I think would be cheap to call the 'indian rate', I don't think it's only Indians pushing the price down. We're working for one guy who is asking that we don't tell any other managers at his company where we are from. If they found out we are not in India, they'd assume they are paying too much. They are paying about $50 a day, for two of us. I must be insane. I don't blame the Indians, they are just making a quid, in accordance with the local standard of living. And I don't really blame the companies, if they get good work from India, why would they pay more ? However, the net result is to devalue what we do, and from what I've seen, there's a lot of hacks, from all over the world, putting out some pretty dodgy code, while at the same time lowering expectations of what a programmer is willing to work for. And in the meantime, I've gone from working for 2-3 nights for $3500 to working 2-3 weeks for $350. If I wasn't doing it on the side, I couldn't do it at all. Sadly, my mortgage is high enough that if I stop doing it, it'll be because there's more money in delivering pizza. Nishant S wrote: USD65K annual sounds quite okay to me - it's not great I know, but still quite good. I'd love to make that much. The trouble is, the place where that sort of money is offered, housing starts at about $750,000, and that's for a pretty basic sort of house. The cost of living there is out of control. Christian I have several lifelong friends that are New Yorkers but I have always gravitated toward the weirdo's. - Richard Stringer
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Nishant S wrote: A good Indian coder cannot demand US-rates even if he is good enough. Of COURSE he can. Indian software development uses price as a basis for attracting business, but if you, in India, jump onto RAC, you can bid as much or as little as you like, as can every person/company around the world. However, Indian programmers in particular seem to be known to bid low, thus creating an expectation that flows on to all RAC sellers. The reverse is the problem. Although I am in Australia, I can only get work by approaching the low rate that I think would be cheap to call the 'indian rate', I don't think it's only Indians pushing the price down. We're working for one guy who is asking that we don't tell any other managers at his company where we are from. If they found out we are not in India, they'd assume they are paying too much. They are paying about $50 a day, for two of us. I must be insane. I don't blame the Indians, they are just making a quid, in accordance with the local standard of living. And I don't really blame the companies, if they get good work from India, why would they pay more ? However, the net result is to devalue what we do, and from what I've seen, there's a lot of hacks, from all over the world, putting out some pretty dodgy code, while at the same time lowering expectations of what a programmer is willing to work for. And in the meantime, I've gone from working for 2-3 nights for $3500 to working 2-3 weeks for $350. If I wasn't doing it on the side, I couldn't do it at all. Sadly, my mortgage is high enough that if I stop doing it, it'll be because there's more money in delivering pizza. Nishant S wrote: USD65K annual sounds quite okay to me - it's not great I know, but still quite good. I'd love to make that much. The trouble is, the place where that sort of money is offered, housing starts at about $750,000, and that's for a pretty basic sort of house. The cost of living there is out of control. Christian I have several lifelong friends that are New Yorkers but I have always gravitated toward the weirdo's. - Richard Stringer
Christian Graus wrote: Indian software development uses price as a basis for attracting business, but if you, in India, jump onto RAC, you can bid as much or as little as you like, as can every person/company around the world Perhaps 90% or even 95% of Indian companies/people do that. But what this means for the other 5% is that, the moment they bid a typical US-hourly rate, their bid is seen as abominably high. When I returned from the US, last year, my then-employer asked me if I would be willing to work at $20/hr upto a max of $2000 per month. The same guy was paying me about USD 4200 per month when I was in the US (on a side note, that was very low for California standards). So, for the same work, by the same person (me), he wasn't willing to pay even half what he paid me when I was in the US. This money thing is funny. Employers always try to pay as low as possible and employees always want more pay. A while ago, qualified employee-candidates were low in number and we could demand high salaries. Now with stuff like VB.NET/BCL and Java/JDK, anyone can start coding in 1-2 weeks. So demand for employees has gone down. The only way out is for MS to stop making these form designers and other RAD tools, so the only way to code would be hand-coded C/C++. That way those of us who understand C/C++ and can code in it can start demanding USD 250K annual and more :-) [oh, just dreaming :sigh:]
My blog on C++/CLI, MFC/Win32, .NET - void Nish(char* szBlog); My MVP tips, tricks and essays web site - www.voidnish.com
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Christian Graus wrote: Indian software development uses price as a basis for attracting business, but if you, in India, jump onto RAC, you can bid as much or as little as you like, as can every person/company around the world Perhaps 90% or even 95% of Indian companies/people do that. But what this means for the other 5% is that, the moment they bid a typical US-hourly rate, their bid is seen as abominably high. When I returned from the US, last year, my then-employer asked me if I would be willing to work at $20/hr upto a max of $2000 per month. The same guy was paying me about USD 4200 per month when I was in the US (on a side note, that was very low for California standards). So, for the same work, by the same person (me), he wasn't willing to pay even half what he paid me when I was in the US. This money thing is funny. Employers always try to pay as low as possible and employees always want more pay. A while ago, qualified employee-candidates were low in number and we could demand high salaries. Now with stuff like VB.NET/BCL and Java/JDK, anyone can start coding in 1-2 weeks. So demand for employees has gone down. The only way out is for MS to stop making these form designers and other RAD tools, so the only way to code would be hand-coded C/C++. That way those of us who understand C/C++ and can code in it can start demanding USD 250K annual and more :-) [oh, just dreaming :sigh:]
My blog on C++/CLI, MFC/Win32, .NET - void Nish(char* szBlog); My MVP tips, tricks and essays web site - www.voidnish.com
Nishant S wrote: the moment they bid a typical US-hourly rate, their bid is seen as abominably high. Yeah, but what you're not seeing is that where-ever you are in the world, once you're not on location, a reasonable rate is seen as too high. As Tom said recently, there was a RAC project going the other day and the maximum bid equated to $20 a DAY. Eventually, all these companies will move from India to Romania, or where-ever the next wave comes from. Then, everyone in India will be hurting the way I am now. Nishant S wrote: So, for the same work, by the same person (me), he wasn't willing to pay even half what he paid me when I was in the US. Well, that's just plain wrong. Nishant S wrote: Now with stuff like VB.NET/BCL and Java/JDK, anyone can start coding in 1-2 weeks. So demand for employees has gone down. I can only hope that employers come to realise what they are getting at those low rates. As I said in my post above, no RAD tool will teach design skills. Some of the sites I've seen recently, I'd lose my job if I wrote them. Nishant S wrote: The only way out is for MS to stop making these form designers and other RAD tools I seriously think that what needs to happen is for employers to realise that no RAD tool can teach how to write a robust, well designed system. No matter what, the boom has happened, we're just increasingly being reduced to office workers. A few years ago, offshore work was very lucrative for me. Now, it's hardly worth it. Christian I have several lifelong friends that are New Yorkers but I have always gravitated toward the weirdo's. - Richard Stringer