| HN Mirror

The tech market in general is experiencing a depression of technical talent. Three things caused this issue:

#1 was the .com bust it drove a lot of talented people out of the market as well as most of the "gold rushers" (aka people who learned flash in a week and where commanding 90k for crap). A good deal of those people moved on to other careers in other fields. Probably in the area of 40% of my associates of that era are now in business or pure science related fields.

#2 Again .com bust but this time educational. The university tech programs experienced the same issue. The money went and so the students that where in it for the money jumped off the ship. I was going back to school at this time and it was literally 1 day full class, next day, me and two other guys in the class.

#3 "we'll outsource it all" did not work. Companies terminated entire development teams to move them off shore only to have to bring them back after the fact. Each time you do this, it is the breaking point for some of the individuals who decide that this one is the last one and leave the industry.

So yes, if you think you are underpaid then you are underpaid especial for "typical web developer" which is one of the hottest fields in tech. This industry has the peculiar way of chewing people up and spitting them out. If you go by the numbers chances are you wont last in it. You need to charge a rate that reflects that reality. The funny part is once you do your resilience in putting up with the grind becomes higher. I have lasted a long time in this industry and I can tell you there where two times that I tried to get out. It can and will burn you out, it is just a matter of whether or not you can survive the burnouts without leaving the industry. A fare wage for the work has a lot to do with being able to survive it until it passes.