devs1010

Consider going into project management, this seems to be what some people do when they don't want to be a developer anymore. I have worked with PM's who used to be developers and had basically completely stopped coding and went solely into management. One guy, at my last job, I don't think had even close to 10 years experience as a developer before he went into management. If you go this route, please don't become the type who attempts to trivialize the work of the people who do do the coding, the aformentioned PM had this attitude and it was rather obnoxious given that his skills had deteriorated (or were never there in the first place) as far as actually being a developer.

I'm just curious what type of dev work you're doing, why did you take such below market pay without any equity? that's low for most types of dev with equity for someone with ten years experience

I agree, I hate those slide presentations too. If its about programming, I want to read it, period. I don't want to watch a video or go through a slideshow

It is when you interact with a client as your own business rather than as an individual, similar to an independent contractor. Essentially, the focus is on deliverables and overall project completion rather than the day to day control that an employer has over an employee.

equal to whatever anyone else has, adjusting for who's been there longer, so initial founder still has the most, etc

wow you are out of line to expect anything for minimum wage and,not give him a very large share in the company unless he has no experience and its more of an internship

jeez I applied for four jobs just last week and I already have a job, not to sound to hard on you but you always have to keep pushing forward with career networking even if things are going well and even if its just online networking

webstorm.

Thanks for the reply, its encouraging that you have been able to keep growing your rate. I have only a few years experience but have crammed a lot into that time period so am hoping to get out more on my own going forward and the idea of being paid for milestones is appealing. I think its always hard to convince someone to pay you more when they have been paying you one rate. For me, there have even been situations where I was an contracted hourly rate employee, quit that position for a higher paying job and then they still asked me to do some side work at my old rate. In this industry, employers will almost always try to take advantage no matter what value you are creating so I think more developers need to learn the business side to get fair compensation.

In my opinion, the concept of paying per hour is one of the biggest fallacies in software development. I am salaried but I don't get paid based on hours worked, I have deliverables that I meet, its irrelevant how much time is spent on meeting those and is impossible to quantify because often the hardest problems are solved in my head when doing something else, could be when stepping out of the office to go for a walk or while on the commute home, etc. We are paid to use our brains and this does not correlate directly with the traditional concept of billing for time. Also,things I do outside of work often positively benefit me, such as working on a side project or reading a book about new programming styles / concepts, however this would never be considered to be "billable hours".

Its my goal to one day work on a per-project basis, I haven't quite figured out how to make a go of this yet, however I really think this is how most software should be done for anyone with a few years experience under their belt. Working software is valuable and if you can commit to something and deliver, the concept of time should be immaterial (outside of meeting a deadline)... its all about value delivered. By tying ourselves to hourly billing rates, I think software development as a profession is held back and part of the reason it may not be as well respected as it should be by "business" people. It takes standing up and proclaiming the value that you bring every now and then to make people realize this isn't an assembly line type of job and never will be.