Software Engineer - What's a good wage

abitmenthol

Hi guys,
I was just wondering roughly what the current market rate is for someone with the following details, i.e. what would be realistic to expect if looking for a new job, salary rates or contract rates?

1.1 Honours Computing Degree
Over five years experience in across 3 jobs in the financial/banking sector including work abroad
Bulk of experience in VB. Net, VB 5/6, SQL programming
A good bit of C++ experience, and a bit of Java and ETL, along with XML, JSP, HTML etc.

Basically, what is a realistic salary to expect from a new job "in the current climate" for a .Net SW engineer with over 5 years experience, still currently in a job but looking to move for better prospects. I'm also looking to get away from the banking/financial sector if possible. I find the type work involved (after the few years experience) to be very repetitive and not challenging enough. I'm looking for more innovative/interesting work, not to mention the fact I feel I should be earning a bit more than I am. I realise I'm lucky to have a job at all these days, and appreciate that fact very much. But if there happens to be a few opportunities around in the sector I'd like to at least assess my options.

Thanks for any input, or if anyone could recommend a good source for such info (besides payscale.com).

€45K if they really want you, loads of folks out there with similar experience on the scratch.

Mr. Loverman

Five years dev experience... I would have thought 55k plus. However Ireland is ****ed now so maybe 45k is more realistic.

bob the bob

Banks will be paying more than most.

Also, "computing degree" is a bit vague, was it a programming intensive course? Makes a difference...

Rulmeq

bob the bob wrote: »

Banks will be paying more than most.

Also, "computing degree" is a bit vague, was it a programming intensive course? Makes a difference...

After 5 years your degree could be in advanced knitting, if you haven't picked up enough in your work experience to make up for a bad degree then you're not a very good developer.

Also CPL have pretty accurate salary surveys, other companies have similar ones, but they will all tell you the same thing.
http://www.cpl.ie/content/SalaryGuide/ITPermanent/

There is no harm in looking around, go for interviews, test the water, ask for the upper limit of your band (probably 50k, but no harm in looking for 55k). You don't have to accept any offer that you wouldn't be happy with.

abitmenthol

Thanks for the replies guys.

It was a pretty programming intensive degree alright. Programming was core to it really.

I had seen the CPL salary guide also but was a bit dubious ad to the figures being correct or realistic given the market these days. Do you reckon it isn't too far fetched then? If its not I reckon I could be doing a lot better than I am at the moment....even these days.

qwytre

45k sounds spot on. The only problem may be that there are not so many jobs at that level available.

testicle

Whatever you can get to be honest.

Nermal

CPL is going to be a little inflated. The purpose of CPL is getting people to switch jobs, after all.

Rulmeq

Nermal wrote: »

CPL is going to be a little inflated. The purpose of CPL is getting people to switch jobs, after all.

On the contrary, their salary surveys are used by both employers and employees. In my experience they are very much on the bell curve when it comes to these surveys.

testicle

Rulmeq wrote: »

On the contrary, their salary surveys are used by both employers and employees. In my experience they are very much on the bell curve when it comes to these surveys.

They may be used by Employers that use CPL, but that's about it! CPL have a vested interest in inflating salaries. Their job is to get the most money possible, which means the highest salary possible for the employee.

Rulmeq

testicle wrote: »

They may be used by Employers that use CPL, but that's about it! CPL have a vested interest in inflating salaries. Their job is to get the most money possible, which means the highest salary possible for the employee.

You can keep saying that as often as you like, but in my experience they are as close to the peak of the bell curve as it is possible to go, if there is a complaint I could level at them it's that they are too conservative with their figures for people with more than 5 years experience.

Smoggy

abitmenthol wrote: »

or if anyone could recommend a good source for such info (besides payscale.com).

What's wrong with payscale.com ? I would have thought it would be more accurate that CPL, as it's user input generated.

irishguy

Id say €50k MIN in a .NET role (Guessing its about the same as java), its if your any good. I wouldnt worry about "the current climate" there are LOADS of development jobs at the moment. We are finding it hard to hire at the moment in Java and QA.

Also I wouldnt listen to recruiters who will tell you C. 45k as they just want to place you and a few K's extra wont really change there commission.

irishguy

Also I would say CPL are about right, only thing is what the hell is a "Technical Architect" with 2 years experience 25 - 35k. should that one not start at 5+ years??

testicle

Rulmeq wrote: »

You can keep saying that as often as you like, but in my experience they are as close to the peak of the bell curve as it is possible to go, if there is a complaint I could level at them it's that they are too conservative with their figures for people with more than 5 years experience.

How long have you worked for CPL?

abitmenthol

Smoggy wrote: »

What's wrong with payscale.com ? I would have thought it would be more accurate that CPL, as it's user input generated.

I just think that the info on Payscale might be a bit stale. A lot of people would have created accounts over time and not updated them. It's not like a brand new survey is done yearly or anything. I've seen the anonymous profiles the list and they look awfully familiar to ones I remember looking at 2 years ago.

I just wonder how reliable the figures are on it for a pretty small sample size taken when you are narrowing the search to Ireland. It doesn't seem to have too many accounts that it's drawing the info from. Maybe I'm wrong.

dvpower

irishguy wrote: »

Also I would say CPL are about right, only thing is what the hell is a "Technical Architect" with 2 years experience 25 - 35k. should that one not start at 5+ years??

Some of the figures in that survey are bizarre. I'd expect a Technical Architect with 0-2 years to already have been a Dev with 5+ years, so according to CPL, newly promoted Architects are all taking massive pay cuts.

Mind you the .NET dev with 3-5 years at €36 - €50 seems about right.

Rulmeq

testicle wrote: »

How long have you worked for CPL?

I have never worked for CPL, how long have you had a vendetta against them?