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Salary for an expert programmer in Boston?

bokononito — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:53:34 -0800

What is a reasonable salary these days for an expert backend programmer in Boston? This is a full-time job, for a startup.

Assume a healthy amount of stock options, and a promising startup (first revenue, great investors).

Also, assume someone who has plenty of experience, and prefers to work in a startup, not in a corporation, but also wants to be paid decently.

Thanks!

Career alternatives for a burnt-out developer?

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:56:31 -0800

Career alternatives for a burnt-out developer? Is there a world past my IDE that I'd make it in? I'm a developer. I'm pretty sure I'm burnt out. It's not the actual code that's taken it's toll on me, but everything else that goes with it. I've been getting 80% of a paycheck for 6 months now, no thanks to the economy. I'm overworked, I'm tired of dealing with incompetent management, the lack of any sort of job security, insane deadlines, and, well, all the crap that just goes with the job. I'm really beginning to realize I need a change.

Now, I realize with the current economic situation what it is, switching careers right now which technically still employed isn't the smartest idea. But I could literally be out of a job any day now, and I need to figure out what to do with my life. It's just me and my 3 cats to support, so I figure now's as good as time as any.

And hence my question -- what other career paths should I look into? As a developer for the last ~10 years, I've done several different things, everything from crap VB apps to industrial machine programming to web development. I'm not interested in the management side of things. I've worked with good and bad project managers, and that job is most definitely not what I want to do. I don't quite fit the typical anti-social geek stereotype, but I will never be called a people person. I prefer computers to people -- they're consistent, predictable and typically do what I tell them to. I love the analytical thinking and the problem solving aspects of my job. I get along just dandy with numbers. I love making things work. I have a degree -- a B.SC in comp sci.

I'm not really looking to go back to school -- a few courses would be okay, but I'm not really interested in committing to years of schooling, even part time. I've dabbled in sys-adminy type responsibilities out of necessity, and although I don't think it's my cup of tea, I'm not ready to completely rule out all aspects of the job quite yet. Technical writing however is not an option -- like most code geeks, I find documentation tedious and boring.

There are forces in my life that are trying to direct me to a nice secure government job. Influential people in my life have such jobs, and from the stories I hear, apparently I'm smarter than at least 90% of the people in these jobs. The pay cut scares me (everything I've looked at I could even consider being qualified for, after utilizing some creative bullshit to apply my current skill set, pays around 55-75% of what I make now, if I were getting 100% of a salary). Plus, there's all the bureaucratic red tape to deal with... I'm not sure how I'd deal with that.

So... any ideas? What should I do with my life? What else is there for a programmer-type once they're done coding?

(Sorry about the length, I got to rambling and I'm not sure what parts to cut out. I've posted anonymously because I don't need my current employer to know I'm looking to get out, even though I don't think they'd be surprised.)

Finding an open-source programmer?

liquado — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:52:54 -0800

I'm involved in a group of small/nonprofit organizations that would like to financially support the starting of an open-source software application. While I am technically-minded, I'm not a programmer -- and I don't really know what to look for in one (hopefully to be found on MeFi jobs!). Help greatly appreciated. I'm the co-chair of a nonprofit community fishing tournament. We've been using a software package to run our tournament that, bluntly, was never very good to start, and is showing its age.

Its function is basically to facilitate the entering of weights as anglers weigh in at the scale, calculation of current standings as the tournament runs, display on a fancy screen for spectators to see, display sponsor ads, angler photos, etc., etc.

We have a group of local tournament organizers (mostly nonprofit) that would like help developing something that would be useful to all of us, but that is cross platform and open source, so that other (fishing or otherwise, possibly) tournaments can benefit from it, as well. We're not interested in developing it as any kind of revenue stream; we just want a useful product for our own tournaments.

We likely can raise a reasonable amount of money to start the project, and are forming a committee to try and develop a spec sheet for it, but I don't know how to proceed from there. Other than the obvious usual HR baseline, what do I need to know/ask/require/expect in finding someone to start an open source project for us?

Alternately, is there a protocol wrt to looking for programmers who just want to start a new open source project (i.e., are not looking for financial recompense)? As I said, we will likely have some financial ability to make this happen, but someone wanting to do it on their own time would be okay, too.

Thanks for any advice!

Help finding Programmer

tnoetz01 — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:05:46 -0800

Where/how can I find a good Cold Fusion programmer to work on a project in exchange for equity?

In an OOP world, what's the best way to handle a lot of sequential code?

grumblebee — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:19:40 -0800

Design-pattern (programming) question. I'm working on a huge app (many thousand lines of code), and one of the most complex parts of it is the initialization logic. There's a ton of code that needs to run sequentially and only once.

Currently, I'm handling all of this with singletons, but I wonder if there's a better way.

Here's the basic framework now (in pseudocode).

MainInit.getInstance().init();

/* inside MainInit's init() method... */

DataManager.getInstance().init();
CommandManager.getInstance().init();
GraphicsManager.getInstance().init();
... etc ... //maybe 40 more calls like this

This seems pretty straightforward and easy to maintain. I don't have any real problems with it. But it's sort of off-the-top-of-my-head. I've never worked on an app that needs so much initializing before.

Since it's not really about objects -- it's just about tons of code running in sequential order -- I'm not sure of the best, tried and true method of breaking it up into manageable chunks. And I can't find much about it in my Design Pattern books.

I'm cool with non design-pattern solutions, too. I know patterns aren't for everything. I just need a really good way of organizing this sort of code.

Interview Filter: How to handle a tricky history

debgpi — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 18:43:20 -0800

I have a friend who is looking for a programming job. He has an interview coming up, but there's a problem with his past. He was convicted of a felony over a decade ago. The felony was not drug or child-related (I don't know more than that), but it would look bad to the employer. He's not been in any trouble since. Should he address his past in the interview, and if so, what should he say? He is not in a state which requires employers to ignore older convictions. His interview is not for a school/government position. I thought the hive-mind might have some good insight. Thanks (once again -- I love the hind-mind).

Why 'argument'?

b33j — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:31:30 -0800

Why do mathematicians (and/or programmers) describe information passed to a function as an 'argument'? I'm learning PHP (slowly) but find myself hung up on one small piece of terminology, 'argument'. I keep expecting an argument to be a proof, or an equation, or something that says or does something or refuses even to do something. And yet, it's just a value. So I'd like to understand why it has that name, and then I can move on. I hope.

Can we purchase an online auction solution to meet our needs or do we need a programmer?

bristolcat — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 13:03:14 -0800

Are there any good online auction solutions out there or should we hire a programmer? I am helping my brother research for a project he's working on. He needs to set up an online auction site with strict requirements, but I found our options lacking. After exploring phpauction among others, I wonder if our requirements would be better implemented by a freelance programmer.

The requirements:
-Needs a clean, simple interface for both admin and user.
-The payment must be submitted within 15 days after purchase to an escrow site, so no online payment.
-The admin needs to be able to restrict users based on eligibility.
-The auction must be posted for 15 days before anyone can bid on it.
-If the auction ends with no bids, the user must wait 120 before they can post again.
-Auctions must feature reserve prices.
-Each auction must include certain disclaimers.
-There should be as little hands-on work done as possible by the admin, outside of checking registrations for eligibility.
-Must be secure.

Does something like this exist? Does something exist that we could customize to meet our needs? Would we be better off hiring a programmer? How much would something like this cost if we hired a programmer?

We appreciate any help you can give us! Thanks!

Need to find a "personable" web developer who won't steal my ideas.

creative — Wed, 23 May 2007 18:37:21 -0800

How do I find the web developer/programmer of my dreams? And in the process, how do I not get my ideas stolen? This is really a two part question, so I'll go one at a time.

1:
First, how do I find the web developer and/or programmer of my dreams? I'm still not sure what the difference is between the two, but I know I need at least one of them. Someone with knowledge and experience with PHP, MySQL, AJAX and other such things.

I'm not looking to hire someone as an employee or anything like that, I'm just looking for someone to whom I can say "I am making a web site that would require me to do X. I lack the skills required for me to do X myself, so I need you to do it." And they'll reply "Sure. I can do X. It will cost you Y and probably take around Z amount of time."

These requirements have lead me to a bunch of those freelance type sites where you post your job and people bid. I don't like those places. Nothing personal, and I'm sure each one of these people are highly skilled and capable, but when I get a reply in broken English, it lessens my confidence in our ability to accurately communicate with each other.

Not to mention, it's too business-y for me around those sites.

See, when I say "web developer/programmer of my dreams," here's what I mean. If the number 1 most important trait is skill and knowledge, and number 2 is a fair price, then number 1A would be personality.

I want someone with a sense of humor. Someone fun to work with. Someone who will do their job and do it right, but doesn't mind joking around and communicating like regular friendly people do. I keep saying "someone" because I'd much rather just work with one person than a company.

Does this person even exist? If so, how do I find this person? Where do I find this person? I'm honestly sitting here completely out of ideas on how to even begin to find such a person.

2:
My second question is, assuming it is possible to find the above person, how do I do it without my ideas getting stolen in the process? For example, let's say I come across someone I'd like to hire. I send them an email and we start talking. At some point I have to go into detail about what it is that I need them to do. As far as I can tell, there is absolutely nothing I can do that would prevent this person from thinking "Hmmm. Screw this guy, I'll do this for myself."

It's not like these are huge million dollar ideas or anything even close to that. It's just little stuff that certainly does not warrant me copyrighting/trademarking anything.

But still, is there any way around this, or am I just supposed to contact these complete strangers on blind faith alone?

Thanks in advance for any help.

How to write the best resume and cover letter for a computer programmer

Battlecat — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 06:40:48 -0800

I'm a computer programmer looking for a new job. What are some tips for writing the best resume and cover letter possible? Hiring managers and HR folk - What do you look for in a resume and cover letter?

Programmers/software engineers/IT people - What has worked best for you?

What are some good general guidelines for writng resumes and cover letters?

What are some guidelines that are specific to programmers?

Do you know of some good templates that I could follow?

Are there businesses that will help you write your resume?
Are they worth the money? Can you recommend any in the NYC/New Jersey/PA/CT area?

If you started out in a junior position, and then worked your way up to a higher position, how do you list your accomplishments at the company? Split them between the two positions, or merge them into one entry?

Does Oracle 10g knowledge transfer to EBS?

pivotal — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 15:48:13 -0800

Can a person experienced in Oracle Forms 10 easily move to Oracle EBusiness Suite? OK, I'm a hiring manager with bugger-all Oracle knowledge. Say I have a customer with a requirement for Oracle EBusiness Suite development and support, and an employee with heaps of Oracle 10g Form Builder experience, can I stick these two together fruitfully?

I guess I need a bit of a canned education of what makes up EBS, but I'm presuming the PL/SQL knowledge is transferable between the two? Does the whole Oracle Forms thing go out the window with EBS, or is there some other transferable knowledge there?

Would I be better off sending them a Java programmer?

Atmel ATmega not programming over DAPA

Napierzaza — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 13:26:32 -0800

AVR Programming Hell: I've built my own Atmel programmer for my ATmega32 and it doesn't work a lick. I built the following circuit to the letter and tested it over and over:
http://www.captain.at/electronics/atmel-programmer/

But nothing happens when I try to program it using UISP (in Debian Linux). I have modprobed my LPT port but it always fails after 32 tries to program the chip.

Does anyone know if this is a good schematic for DAPA programming for the Atmel?

I'm trying to verify that my LPT port works but am not sure how to via Linux.

Where do I start on finding technological wizards to make my digital media concepts reality?

skylar — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 03:27:47 -0800

A friend (okay, it's me) has absolutely no understanding of coding or building software whatsoever. But I have a couple of potentially very exciting digital media business concepts which would require for a software program or web app to be built. How would I go about finding someone, or a group of people, to work with on investigating one or more of these concepts and making them reality? I'm willing to invest some money, but this needs to be at the lower end of the scale and I have no idea where to start.

Am I being duely compensated?

youthenrage — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 09:19:58 -0800

Am I making enough money? According to salary.com my pay should range between $50k and $70k, but I make $40k. Are online salary comparison tools to be trusted? Am I getting ripped off? Some details - I'm a relatively recent college graduate with a bachelors in CS. I graduated cum laude, have about a year of work experience and am currently employed by relatively small, but growing super quickly, consulting company. My job title right now could be best described as J2EE/Java Developer.

We have good health benefits, and get a bonus at the end of the year as well as accruing 1.25 vacation days a month (these are lost at the end of the year, no reimbursement or carrying over). This sounds pretty generous on its face, but most people never have enough time to take vacation because we're kept so busy. The company expects you to put in whatever hours are necessary to complete projects on time, including lots of extra hours. I've worked 60 hour in weeks, including one 21 hour day. We're told that these sacrifices will be taken into account when our bonuses are distributed, but there's nothing in writing or any guidelines.

We have a couple of offices on the mid atlantic coast, and most on site locations are relatively close to our offices, but there's no guarantee of this. If we pick up a client 2 hours away, and are assigned to the project, travel is mandatory. You're reimbursed for the expenses, and sometimes given a per diem - but sometimes the client site can be as far away as New Mexico.

I've been working here since the summer, and because I was desperate and my credit cards were rapidly becoming maxxed out, I accepted an offer to work here for $40k a year. According to salary.com's salary comparison tool, I'm in the bottom %1 percentile for this job category, with the average salary ranging from $53k - $67k. Is this accurate? Am I being taken advantage of? Should I ask for a raise?

I feel like there's a huge disparity, but can't prove that I'm not just inflating my own worth in my brain.

What is the name of the programmer who killed himself?

onepapertiger — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 19:33:04 -0800

I read this article a few years ago about a Silicon Valley programmer who committed suicide after getting rich off a startup. I can't remember the name of the programmer but I do remember some of the details. Does anyone know this story? *The coder was Asian. He was either Chinese or Korean.

*He got rich with an Internet company he started with his friend.

*His mother had died and when he got rich, he bought her a green Jaguar. In his suicide note, he begged that no one ever sell it, even though his mother had died shortly before he killed himself.

*He broke down at a presentation to a company and couldn't answer their questions. He said, "I'm just a coder."

*His girlfriend, Christine (I think), had moved from Paris to be with him. She moved back to Paris after breaking up with him. I think they had gone to college at Berkeley, Stanford or UCLA together.

I think I read this in either Wired or Salon, but I'm not sure. Anybody know?

First programming job

cillit bang — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 09:36:45 -0800

I'm a competent self-taught programmer with zero commercial experience and no relevant qualifications. How do I go about getting my first job? The problem is that everything I've worked on so far I've done by myself. I've done some fairly elaborate things (have a look at Projects), but it doesn't seem like employers care. All the jobs I've applied for have rejected me for lack of experience. They seem to care a lot less about my degree (Media Technology) not being Computer Science, though obviously it doesn't help. It also doesn't help they have no non-programming jobs to put on my CV/resume.

So what do I do? I'd like to sell myself to employers as a useful junior programmer who can get things done, since I'm not really in any position to sell myself as an expert-who-you-must-hire. But the people hiring junior programmers are only interested in recent graduates with internships, and the people handing out internships are only interested in current CompSci students. Am I screwed?

I'd probably be looking for PHP/MySQL/JavaScript/Web 2.0 work (though not web design). I can also write desktop applications for Macs (which no one is hiring for). I know zero Microsoft technologies. This in London, UK.

(btw The answer I'm expecting is "Find a non-profit that wants a website designed". That doesn't sound to me like something employers will care about much, especially if I want to do actual programming. Am I wrong?)

Getting hired as telecommuter software engineer?

SomePerlGeek — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 10:56:29 -0800

I am an experienced software engineer and was laid off recently. I'm currently applying for positions. My ideal would be a telecommuting gig, which is the type of position I had most recently. A certain job mailing list I subscribe to has a lot of promising positions, but many of them are marked "onsite". Here's my question: shall I apply for some of these "onsite" positions in the hope that my qualifications will impress the hiring person enough to consider hiring me as a telecommuter? Or would this just be a waste of time for everyone concerned? Obviously, I would carefully consider whether the job as described actually seemed to require someone's physical presence, and not apply if that were the case.

But my impression is that a lot of people/companies have perhaps not really considered the option of hiring someone who would work offsite, and might be open to it if there were a well-qualified candidate with a proven track record as a telecommuter (e.g. me).

How do you build a ROM reader?

gaelenh — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 07:35:58 -0800

How do I read the contents of a flash ROM? Can anyone point me in the direction of a cheap ROM reader/programmer or how to build one on my own?

I want to read the contents an EEPROM on a game controller and eventually try to reprogram it to reroute inputs/outputs. It is 8-pins, but the numbers printed on it don't seem to indicate a known make/model type. Will that be a problem?

Is there an inexpensive way to do this? I am fairly good with the soldering iron and have programmed os/application-side controller drivers, so the technical aspect shouldn't be a problem.

Help me hire a programmer

shothotbot — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 06:18:03 -0800

Where should I advertise to hire a programmer in Stamford, CT. We are a mid-sized fianancial services firm located in Stamford, CT looking to hire a programmer. We are looking for a real gear head, who can produce good code on several different projects and who can work independently. We have postings on Bloomberg and CraigsList but have had uninspireing responses. Aside from recruiters, where else should I be looking?

Help finding a PHP programmer

shawnmk — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 22:18:22 -0800

How does one go about finding a reliable, experienced PHP programmer for the odd small job? (more inside) Currently, we have several scripts that are apparently being used maliciously by spammers and would like to hire a good PHP programmer to look at the scripts and add whatever is necessary to block them from being used maliciously.

Searching Google and even sites like guru.com are like trying to find a needle in a haystack when there's no way of even knowing what the needle looks like - it's easy to say you are qualified to do this sort of thing and even to conjure up some references, but how do you know that someone is legit and really knows how to handle something like this? Is this something simple that any good php programmer would know how to do? If so, where do you find a good php programmer for a small, quick job like this?

work work us? please?

luriete — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 12:39:57 -0800

I need to hire a web developer type person. I have installed MT 3.2 on Dreamhost and have some templates of what I want the site to look like and how I want it to behave. The templates are just Photoshop-made art really. I now need someone to build the CSS and make it "work." It's a slightly unorthodox site - two MT weblogs with different rules on a single page. And lots of modification, some of which is taken care of by plugins. So I need someone who knows MT, CSS, etc.

My friends and I can raise a little bit of money to pay someone, but we're not a company of any size, and this is a sort of community / sparetime project. Obviously we will pay someone, but can't afford much. I approached a few small companies locally but they wanted thousands of dollars, and unfortunately that's more than we can possibly afford. I know that you get what you pay for - but I'm still hoping that we can afford someone who can help us. Any ideas on where to start looking?

30 Day Return Policy

KirTakat — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 08:24:41 -0800

What's up with the 30 day return period on laptops? Are there any fees that I'm going to lose by going that route? Basically I'm looking at getting the Dell Inspiron 700m, with the current deal of 40% off making it the best bang/buck ratio I can get. Unfortunately I've got big fingers and I'm a programmer, meaning I might get screwed if the keyboard is too small. So I'd like to know how the 30 day return system works if I don't like it.

I have a question on learning programming if you have no programming experience.

TeamBilly — Sun, 30 Jan 2005 08:38:10 -0800

Inspired by this thread on programming languages, I have a question on learning programming if you have no programming experience. (more) I didn't want to derail the other thread because the poster had a very specific question which was answered comprehensively...

If someone wanted to make a complete career shift and begin teaching themselves to code from the ground up, what would be the recommended strategy? For example, I know HTML fairly well, but I also know that HTML is not, in the pure sense, a programming language.

So, aside from the possible "How to Code for Dummies" idea, I'm curious if the more experienced could point someone who has never written a line of compiled code in his life in the right direction. Thank you.

HTML Job Title

twine42 — Sun, 31 Oct 2004 09:04:35 -0800

Random question : How would you describe people who create HTML? We're not programmers. We aren't really coders. How would you describe us? (Apart from stereotypically skinny and semi-gothic or resembling comic shop guy from Simpsons!)

It's largely academic to me now as I normally work in PHP which lets me call myself a coder, but I'm writing a Cv and it's bugging me. The phrase "[...] leading team of 4 HTML writers." really doesn't scan properly no matter what word I finish the sentance with...