[darklajid]

Going from "Making too much?" to "Damn, I might be underpaid.." is quite a change during the course of ~12 hours.. ;-)

One more reason to take a step back. This is an international, diverse crowd of people and obviously you'll find people that both earn more and people that earn less than you. I tend to think (guessing wildly) that we have a biased set here, though, with average+ developers participating on this site. If that is correct, you'd end up with a result set that is biased towards the upper end of the salary range as well..

In the end I'd try to find out what the comfortable amount of money to sustain your preferred lifestyle is. With that number in mind I, personally, would recommend looking for a job that does excite you, won't burn you out - and would rather take a hit on the salary side.. I'm not sure if that is something you're open to, though, since this thread topic started with salary alone, not salary vs. quality of life..

[notimportant]

I realize that that was a foolish thing to say ;) I won't take this thread as a reason to storm in to my employers office demanding a raise; but it is useful information to plan my future out accordingly. My current train of thought was that I would have no choice but to enter management shortly to be able to move up; and as stated in some of my replies, it's not something I want to do. With the realization that I may be able to expand quite a bit still as a developer alone (granted I am overseeing people, but it's far from managerial type functions) than it allows me to see what career path I can make for myself.

Quality of life will always remain important to me; but at the same token it's not all about the money, and it's not all about leaving at a punctual time. I understand this sector can call for some long and grueling hours and have paid my dues and am still willing to do so when necessary. As for salary, I have turned down jobs that were better compensated - but the atmosphere didn't sit well with me.

Sadly this is so confusing, and I hope I will be able to make more sense of everything as this thread continues to expand.

[yummyfajitas]

...we have a biased set here, though, with average+ developers participating on this site. If that is correct, you'd end up with a result set that is biased towards the upper end of the salary range as well..

Since notimportant is a random member of this biased sample, we should also assume he is one of the average+ developers participating here.