Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with salary and it

Pay for Flex?

drjimmy11 — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 19:58:42 -0800

What, anecdotally speaking, are Flex developers getting paid right now in Los Angeles or a similar city? I have been to the salary calculators and such, they tend to come back with a number up around $120k or so- but I'm not sure how "real world" that is. I'm a Flex developer with about 2 years experience in Flex, and 10 years programming overall. I consider myself an expert in Flex/AS3 (have written my own framework, used all the major ones, can explain their strengths and weaknesses, and stuff like that).

I'm interested in knowing, if I put myself on the market tomorrow, what salary could I expect to find in Los Angeles for full-time? How about as a consultant? How high is the demand, really? Mostly just looking for anecdotes, but hard data is welcome if it's more specific than those generic salary calculators.

Thanks!

IT Contractor vs full-time Employee. Disadvantages to going the contractor route?

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 07:49:02 -0800

I'm currently employed full-time for a large consulting firm and have recently been offered an opportunity to engage on contract as an independent consultant. I'm hesitant about the loss of stability that this may imply and request the communities feedback Background: Working for several years for a "Large IT Consulting Organization", which also sub-contracts with Contractors and Professional Services organizations to supplement existing in-house skills for our clients. I have a good relationship with these folks and have recently been offered an opportunity to leave my current organization and contract for an engagement of at least 6 months to a year.

The question of compensation, tax, and benefits I think I've got a decent handle on. I'm more interested in the stability aspects to going the contractor route.

I'm an IT professional, age 25-30, recently married, no children for at least another few more years. Wife has a well paying job, current medium term savings give us roughly 6 months cushion time if I'm not drawing a paycheck.

In my current organization, it's important to keep oneself 'billable'. At the same time, I'm salaried and so have a measure of guaranteed income which I find reassuring.

Does anyone have any feedback, or lessons learned one way or another about going this route? I'd like to know more about what everyone thinks about this from a long-term career growth perspective, as well as short term gotchas and things to be on the look out for.

You can contact me directly at itcntrctr5@gmail.com

How much should I be making in IT?

Anonymous — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:42:04 -0800

I'm The IT for 50 users. What is my salary range? The economy sucks right now, and I realize I'm worth only what someone will pay me, but help me decide whether I'm working for slaves wages. I get paid $55k a year plus some benefits. I'm the only guy at a firm of 45 users. Here's what I've done over the last 12-14 months:

- Upgraded to the latest Exchange version, moved and now monitor 100GB of mailbox storage.
- Turned the PBX over to VoIP, expanded to a branch office and programmed the routers, switches and associated VPN
- Also implemented this "unified messaging" thing with IM and other fancy features
- Virtualized a rack into just a 3 or 4 physical servers (with 10-15 servers a piece)
- Support mobile, branch office and other users.
- Most importantly deal with the fact that no one else in the company has any idea of what I do beyond the occasional visit to install a program.

Ok, ok. Sort of burnt out I work 50-60 hours a week. I'm beginning to feel as if I'm really underpaid for this job, and I don't know anyone else who does IT who can help me judge my salary. Out of college I researched tech companies for a consultant relative. I'm 25 now, he retired about 18 months ago and I promptly got this current job through a connection as a "a smart kid who could figure things out." Well I guess I went from an elevated help desk to deploying servers and expanding into branch offices. I'm an expense and don't make money for the company in a direct way, so I have no idea how to value myself. Is my salary in the price range I should expect?

Again, I do realize the job market is bad, but I'm trying to gauge if I just feel underpaid, like everyone feels, or if I really am underpaid.

Salary for IT: I can't find a title for what I do, so I can't research whether I'm underpaid or not. Help?

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:42:03 -0800

Salary for IT: I can't find a title for what I do, so I can't research whether I'm underpaid or not. Help? I made good money last year, but that's because I worked enough overtime to nearly double my salary.
I won't be repeating that again this year, but I don't want to take a killer pay cut because I refuse to work myself to death.

I got agreement on the less hours, and a raise.
But I have a feeling I'm still underpaid - but I can't be sure.
I'm having trouble finding a job title that matches what I do on salary-comparison websites, so it's hard to calculate.

So here's what I do:
Employer is 45 employees in 3 sites spread around the SF bay area.
Apart from 6 hours a week getting "warm body" level help from their old consultant, I'm the entire IT department for all 3 sites and the firm in general.

I do helpdesk, hardware and software maintenance, training, etc. for 45 staff and their workstations/laptops/remote connections.
There are 8 servers to maintain, configure and back up. MS 2003, Exchange, Terminal servers.
I do all the purchasing, licensing, research for alternatives, etc on all hardware and roughly 25 pieces of specialized software.
I meet directly with the Managing Partner of the firm weekly to prioritize work scheduling and plan out IT strategies, policies, and design workflow and processes for the firm.

BUT: I'm the whole team, so I'm not a manager. I moved into this from a clerical position with no prior training or IT certifications. (I was clever enough to figure out the basics on my own; the understanding was that I'd be given time to go out and get trained/certified, but the workload and the lack of an alternate to cover for me hasn't allowed for that.) So I can't use a metric like "an MCSE supervising 5 staff averages $X a year".

What would be a job title for "(solo) all-around general IT guy who knows more than he should, but holds no certifications"?

mail me at nomdegare@gmail.com

End of year reviews and when to ask for a raise? Or how I learned to love the unemployment line

ronmexico — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 16:32:28 -0800

When to ask for a raise in the rush to the year-end-review. I've taken on quite a few hats in the last year and pushed myself quite a bit into more responsibility. I work in IT, initially the lone IT tech doing desktop and server support. The end of this month will be my 3 year anniversary with this company (this is my first IT job). Now my responsibilities have gone from desktop and simple server support to a multitude of server platforms/vendors, virtualization, network administration and R&D, you name it, as well as working with the other IT guy, whom I 'mentor' 90% of the time.

I am building documentation of the projects I've completed this year as well as recently becoming an IT representative for our company during overseas meetings with a worldwide customer in the past month (during which I was complimented by the CEO who attended).

I plan on asking my manager for a decent raise that I feel is competitive for my job duties. I have always gotten a bump every year but I really feel I can seize this year's accomplishments. While our company is not huge, our department has been the money maker for the last 2.5 years, but they tend to underpay when you look at the average salary doing what I'm tasked with.

December is when we find out our bonuses, get reviewed and usually get a small raise. So, has anyone else "jumped the gun" on talking pay increase? I'm wise enough not to ambush him with this one :)

How much money does a technology coordinator make?

bonheur — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 07:11:04 -0800

What kind of salary can I expect as a computer lab technology coordinator at a fancy private school in the Boston area? I am interested in this job as a technology coordinator for a school. The position would involve managing and maintaining about eighty computers and one server, supervising the computer lab while classes use it, and collaborating with teachers to develop curriculum to make use of all the new, fancy technology. I have two years of teaching experience and one year of low-level tech support experience. I would be part of the IT department at the school, and have two supervisors in that department. The salary scale for the position is stated as $30,000-$80,000, depending on qualifications. I need help figuring out what kind of initial offer to expect, or what salary to ask for. Help?

How much can I fudge my salary history?

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 09:35:47 -0800

Relating to yesterday's credit check question, how do you reply to a prospective employer who wants your salary history in a way that's fair to your value? So many IT/Web type jobs over the past few years have seen pay rates chopped down. If they ask, and A) I know my former employers don't give out salary information; and B) they don't require some sort of three year old pay stub - then why can't I just fluff it up to my true value again? I don't want to get in trouble, but I'm sick of getting low-balled. There's no way I can let them continue to get away with this! Do you just lie? What's the system?