[doktrin]

There are certainly some important take-aways in this article.

What certainly hit home was the reference to high turnover. In my experience, attracting and retaining (perceived) top 1% developers is no small feat. It's damaging to a project when a "rockstar" developer builds out a product set in her chosen (often bleeding edge) framework / language, and then departs at the sign of another "fun" opportunity elsewhere. No one needs to sign an oath of loyalty in blood or commit to a project for life, but fickle engineers - no matter how talented - can be a net loss to a team.

Insofar as the salary requirements are concerned, the numbers are a little off. Top developers in this area (DC) command north of $120k, with junior developers starting at anywhere from $50-60. Regardless, however, I tend to regard salary (within reason) as an appropriate investment.

Lastly, as he mentioned - not all teams are equipped to handle & mentor junior engineers. This requires a formalized and real commitment, which unless executed properly - will result in un-productive junior hires. Like the author, I believe that mentoring and training junior staff (and interns) is a fully achievable goal, but one that requires planning and forethought.

[dsolomon]

Personnel retention is easy - just demonstrate on any level that the contributions of the workforce is appreciated.

Since I'm in the DC area too, with clearance, the number you're throwing around are a bit of a stretch. We've got junior developers in the high $30K range and senior in the mid $60K range.

[vbtemp]

Since I'm in the DC area too, without clearance, the numbers you're throwing around are not realistic. Junior developers will start in the 50's-60's (with BS), usually 70-80 with MS, and seniors will generally be 110+... In the contractor sphere with clearances, it will be correspondingly higher.

I do know that some agencies tried to give peanut wages to certain fresh-out-of-college students, but everyone I knew scoffed at it and found positions that paid twice as much elsewhere.

[dsolomon]

10+ years of working in the DC area supporting the Columbia customer, McLean customer and the Quantico customer for a variety of companies and still no one paying close to the rates you're claiming. It obvious you can't distinguish between the billing rate and a salary rate.

[vbtemp]

Ok, then enlighten me. Are you claiming that an average dev in your business will make high 30's before tax?

[dsolomon]

Yes. We have some on sight, for a government agency, as part of a government contract, for which we are the prime.

Additionally, we've taken people from help desk, put them on the server team, then placed them doing host based security and paid them upper 40's (before taxes).

Clearance level is TS.

[freyr]

> We've got junior developers in the high $30K range

That seems incredibly low, especially for a major metropolitan area. You must give great benefits.

[jtbigwoo]

It's not that surprising to me. My friends and I compared offers out of college and then didn't talk at all about salary for over a decade. A couple years ago, I started asking around when I was considering a job offer. I found out that we were making anywhere from 60k to 115k! We all had the same years of experience (~12 years). We all had different specialties, but that didn't really seem to matter. The guys who stuck with one job at a small-to-medium company seemed to do the worst--five percent raises don't exactly cause your salary to skyrocket. Those of us who worked at big companies did better, probably because the big companies make an effort to do salary surveys and pay competitive wages. Those of us who worked for consulting firms or changed jobs a few times did the best.

[freyr]

I'm still surprised. Every single year, magazines & websites rank the top college majors by starting salary, and computer scientists/engineers always are always near the top of the list with numbers in the $55,000 - $70,000 range.

Of course there are below average programmers, and perhaps they deserve a below average salary, but $30,000 less than average? I'm surprised.

[dsolomon]

5% raise - who's giving that much?

Corporate norms are 1.5% to 2.5% for the talented.

[doktrin]

Personnel retention is easy - just demonstrate on any level that the contributions of the workforce is appreciated.

I think you may be painting a simplistic picture, and are making an implicit statement about my experience.

I have never worked for a software company that didn't value it's developers or their contributions. Quite the contrary, in fact. Benefits, high salaries, flexible hours, work from home all on top of routine praise and a very supportive work environment. None of these will guarantee that a top employee won't be attracted to possibilities and challenges elsewhere.

We've got junior developers in the high $30K range and senior in the mid $60K range.

It is frankly unimaginable that a highly qualified developer would be paid $60k in the DC metro. The cost of living is easily on par with many parts of the SF Bay Area. It's quite possible that our standards for "senior developers" are different, but I'm quite confident my numbers are correct.

As far as $30k for junior engineers - frankly I know data entry technicians in Virginia who are paid that much or more.

[dsolomon]

Benefits: Trying being assigned a practitioner closest to the work location so you'll miss as little work as possible; or benefits that are project dependent (some projects support a 401k, some don't)

High salary: 30K starting with sr devs going for around 60K to 70K

Flexible hours: 730 to 430 M-F, with Wednesday onsite support needed from 6pm to 10pm (you are allowed up show up no later than 9AM on Thursday)

[doktrin]

So, you work for a company that pays bargain basement rates and affords very few benefits and an inflexible schedule. I'm sorry to hear that.

That being the case, I'm increasingly unsure as to why you were lecturing me on employee retention.

[dsolomon]

Because it is easy and you're just being dense.

[rdl]

Either you are in a particularly underpaid/oversupplied field, or DC is the solution to startup hiring. If there are a substantial number of available "senior developers" in anything useful to Silicon Valley in DC for <$75k/yr, it would be worthwhile to set up a Northern Virginia tech center.

The only tech company I know which has a substantial number of cleared people, a presence in DC, and is a startup, is Palantir, and there's no appreciable pay difference between Palo Alto and DC. New grads are effectively capped around $127k, but most take around $80k and more equity. It's also an excellent place to work.

[ericb]

Are these junior developers actually interns?