[shanelja]

I find it hard to believe someone couldn't even survive on $72,000 per year, even in the most expensive areas of America, surely this affords you a certain level of luxury too?

To put my response in to context, I currently earn the equivalent of $6,350 per year in wages in the UK, plus $3000 in government benefits to make sure I'm not homeless and I manage to survive. Sure, I can't always afford to eat (I have enough food in for 4 more days, but don't get paid for 6) but I'm surviving, I guess people are just used to different levels of survival.

[ashraful]

Really? $6k per year in the UK seems a bit too low. Thats what a junior programmer in Bangladesh (where I live) makes.

I always assumed that salaries for programmers (even without any academic degrees) would be much higher in first-world nations.

[shanelja]

Unfortunately it's my first job as a programmer (though not by any measure my first job) so I have to settle for less than what others get to get in to the business and make myself more credible and hire-able. I have adapted well though and I have the hope that things will be better soon.

[lumberjack]

Actually I'm surprised he got employed without a degree. From anecdotal experience, in the UK a degree is expected for most programming jobs; the rest will require formal qualifications of other means.

[shanelja]

It wasn't easy, I went through a lot of rejection before I finally found this job.

[ayers]

Is that full time work? I really hope that it isn't as £3,992 a year, even for a junior is outrageous and well below the minimum wage. We currently have an intern working for us part time and he is on far more than that.

[shanelja]

Unfortunately, it is around that, my maths was a little off, it's £4,100 per year.

[ayers]

Is it full time, as in 5 days a week?

[shanelja]

Yeah, I work 30 hours + some overtime, 5 days a week, 6 hours a day, plus 2 hours travelling each way (on a bus pass which costs me around 850 pounds per year).

[ayers]

I have just looked at your previous posts and see you are on some sort of apprenticeship. I guess this enables your employer to pay you below minimum wage somehow.

[shanelja]

Yeah, it's a strange one though - I was already freelancing for two years when I came in to this job, but couldn't find a job elsewhere without a degree in the time scale I had (I was jobless, broke and homeless at one point in the last 9 months) so I had to find any job I could in the field (I was determined, I came back to the UK to work in tech, I was going to do it, there was no compromise) and ultimately found this apprenticeship.

It's a decent arrangement, he expected a tech illiterate teenager and instead got an experienced PHP programmer with Adwords and Analytics qualifications.