[jshen]

are you in a big city? All the devs I know make good money, and their salaries have been steadily rising for over a decade. Also, all the devs I know can get a new job in a week or so.

Then I hear stories like yours and wonder what the difference is. Maybe location?

[quaffapint]

It is most certainly location dependent. I'm in a standard suburb in the mid-Atlantic region (it's pretty much all the same, just different cities). I would be destitute if we lived in San Francisco.

It's a very interesting, albeit depressing, time to be a dev around here. Jobs are plentiful - I get contacted by recruiters all the time. The difference is they are offering senior devs what they offered junior devs way back when. It doesn't seem to be language or such dependent, I'm seeing the same thing in all the big corporate level and startup level languages. I used to be able to move jobs and easily get more money, not since the downturn. I guess companies decided they don't need to pay us what they used to (which was still just national average) and are sticking with that.

We don't go on any big vacations, we don't go out to dinner, our cars are old, I have a pre-paid cell phone, and I'm typing this on my 8 year old home built computer. The point being, I know what I need my salary minimum to be, and I'm really below that minimum now all too often (ie, come saving for property taxes). If I was single, maybe I'd move somewhere, but it's not really an option now with the kids in a good school.

[jshen]

Have you tried remote contract work? I know my company has a number of remote contractors making around $70-$80 per hour.

[quaffapint]

How did they go about finding the work?

[jshen]

The short answer is networking. They get to a point where they know enough people to find work.

What kind of dev work do you do?

[quaffapint]

Web dev with mvc in .net and php. I got to find places to network. Usergroup meetings are just a bunch of devs already working (usually fulltime).

[tracker1]

Location has a lot to do with it... It also factors in heavily with cost of living differences, and quality of life for a single guy vs. a family.

I'm in Phoenix, which has a lot of developer work, though most of it is fairly boring line of business stuff. Compared to say San Francisco, which has a little more developer work, but the pay is the same or not enough more for most positions I've looked at and the cost of living is a lot more. There are other trade offs as well that favor SF over Phx, for example Phx is hot 3 months a year, and hotter than hell another 4.

There's a few more rural communities in southwest Oregon I'd like to live in, but there's not really any tech/dev work near what I'd need to make there. Being a software developer outside the top 10-15 major metro areas in the U.S. is a lot harder, and the pay is significantly less.

I'd honestly suggest the guy consider relocating... it's rough for everyone, but Houston, Austin, Phoenix and a few other spots have a pretty nice income to cost of living ratio, and plenty of developer work.

[enjo]

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