[_delirium]

> $33 million is 500 programmer man-years

Where do you live where $66k/yr the total cost of employing a programmer? I don't know what IBM uses for its internal accounting, but based on what several other large tech companies use, $200k/yr is a decent guess (including salary+benefits+overhead). That'd mean 165 man-years, and only a fraction of those 165 would be programmers, since the contract also needs to pay for managers, sales, billing, legal, etc.

[binarycrusader]

The midwest (Kansas, Missouri, so on...)? Seriously. $40K a year annual salary, and if you add in all the benefits, that might hit $66K.

[_delirium]

I don't know much about Kansas, but that is definitely not the going rate for enterprise programmers in St. Louis. But in any case, what proportion of software jobs are in the (non-Chicago) Midwest, anyway? The government is basically stuck with whoever submits a bid, which is most likely to be companies in the "IBM and competitors" category, and their cost structures are well into the $200k range (I wouldn't be surprised at $250k-$300k).

[binarycrusader]

Who said anything about enterprise programmers?

I have no idea why my parent comment was downvoted; I posted something based on my own (painful) experience and knowledge of what various other people I know made in programming jobs at the time.

There's actually a lot of programming jobs to be had in the midwest; courtesy of companies like Sprint, Oracle, credit card processing companies, large furniture service companies, and others.

[MBCook]

In KC, $40k might be a fresh-out-of-school salary, but even then it sounds low to me.

[keypusher]

Total employee cost is much greater than just salary.

[Steko]

I also heard programmers like to use computers. On desks. In offices. With air conditioning. Uh oh, those darn costs keep going up.