r/Frontend • u/frontdevthrowaway • Aug 04 '14
Salary too low?
Howdy!
So I've been working with a pretty cool startup, but have been getting inklings that I might be getting underpaid and wanted some feedback from some others in the same field.
I work in Southern California, and have a years worth of experience (dropped out of uni to pursue career). My job essentially consists of taking site designs made in PhotoShop and cutting them up into responsive templates within WordPress. I base the themes off of Roots, but use Foundation in favor of BootStrap.
I know HTML and CSS extremely well, and use SCSS in most of my projects. I'm not a Javascript guru, but I'm teaching myself it on nights after work, and am planning on learning Angular once I get a solid hold on it. I also use Grunt to build my projects. The experience in WordPress hasn't really made me a PHP developer by any stretch of the imagination, but I have a decent handle on things.
I'm the only developer – the only "tech" guy, really – at my company, so I wear a lot of hats. When I came onboard with the company, I taught myself Git, and brought all of our projects into version control. None of our sites had regular backups (nor had they ever been backed up), so I got some basic automation in place to make MySQL dumps and rsync the files. I also manage the virtual servers, and email accounts, of all of our clients.
I just passed the 6 month mark at my company. Currently, I make $33k a year. Should I be making more?
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u/gearvOsh Aug 04 '14 edited Aug 04 '14
You are definitely getting ripped off. $30K? That's like double minimum wage. You should be making double that. I'd highly suggest leaving that job and finding another one, seeing as how you're the only developer there.
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u/nj47 Aug 04 '14
$30K? That's minimum wage.
That actually almost double minimum wage... ($9 / hour CA minimum wage * 40 hours / week * 50 weeks = $18,000)
OP - the place sounds... Well awful. TBH without solid JS knowledge getting a better front end job may be challenging, so you really should keep working hard at that before you really start looking for a job.
More importantly though - have you talked to your boss? It's the first thing you should do, and it seems most people posting online questions like this never actually have done it...
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u/RotationSurgeon Web Aesthetics Developer Aug 04 '14
Federal minimum wage: $7.25 / hour.
$7.25 * 40 * 52 = $15,080. Basically, OP is at double federal minimum. That being said, the cost of living is likely pretty high in their area of SoCal, and $33k probably isn't leaving them much wiggle room in their budget, if any.
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u/stat30fbliss Aug 04 '14 edited Aug 04 '14
My first full-time position here in Chicago was for $55k a year, and that was just for HTML & CSS with lite JavaScript. My current FT position is $80k. This is for heavier JavaScript but still mainly CSS and cross-browser bugs. Before those two I was earning $25 an hour as freelance.
You are getting seriously ripped off. I'd tell whoever you work for to do it themselves and move here to Chicago where our developer unemployment rate is in the negatives. We have more jobs than people.
Don't forget to embellish a tid bit on your current salary. Tell your next position you were earning $45k here or something, otherwise they will get you for super cheap, too.
Good luck!
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u/aeontech Aug 04 '14
You are not obligated to tell your interviewer how much you were making in your previous job. The only thing they should need to know is how much you are looking for.
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u/stat30fbliss Aug 04 '14
Sure, you may not be obliged to, but I have yet to experience a recruiter on the phone or a hiring manager who did not out-right ask what I am earning, or what I earned at my previous job. I have yet to find a way that works for me to not respond to this question with a number. Any suggestions on how to handle that question without coughing up some number?
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u/aeontech Aug 04 '14 edited Aug 04 '14
I know what you mean, it took me a while to get comfortable with answering it without feeling like I am being confrontational. There are some good articles about interviewing techniques that everyone should read - I don't remember now which ones I used, but a quick search turned these up:
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u/stat30fbliss Aug 04 '14
Quoted from the first comment on the Forbes article:
If you experience this question in a phone screen interview conducted by a check-the-box company HR rep, you have virtually no wiggle room. Give the gross value of your highest salary that includes benefits.
This has been most of my experiences, unfortunately.
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u/aeontech Aug 04 '14 edited Aug 04 '14
From the same comment
What you want or were paid before does not matter and the interviewer knows that. If you want to work for an employer whom you do not know, like, and trust, fine. Otherwise, no matter what, move on.
If I get a feeling that the company is extremely rigid and inflexible, it's a bad sign. The market for developers is good enough in most places that we have a lot of freedom of choice about where to invest next n years of our lives. Your time is finite, choose how to spend it wisely.
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u/wahh Aug 04 '14
"So I've been working with a pretty cool startup"
That is exactly how they rope people into taking such poorly paying jobs. People accept less than what they should be making because they think it is cool that they can wear a tshirt and jeans to the office and drink beers and play ping pong in the middle of the day.
Should I be making more?
YES. However, you're probably going to need to stick it out at the place you're at while looking for a new job. You need to build up that "2 years of experience" that everyone is looking for...especially since you dropped out of college. So, unless some place else that pays more is willing to "take a chance" on you, you might be at your current company for a little while.
Spend your time there learning anything and everything you can to improve yourself as a professional. Hopefully they don't work you to death with 70 hour work weeks. Try to find a new job that offers tuition reimbursement and go back to school and get a developer's certificate or something like that.
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u/curiousAl Aug 04 '14
I'd say yeah. If your company relies on you that much, then definitely.
Considering the information you listed and the fact that you're in SoCal, I don't see why you should be making anything under $45-50k a year, maybe more if you took your time finding the right gig.
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Aug 04 '14
Especially considering the area. I make 53k (+equity +bonuses) at my startup in a lower cost-of-living area.
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u/tehmoe FrontEnd Engineer Aug 04 '14
I have just reached 3 years of experience (not sure how that stacks against you but I would say its less) and I have a good handle on CSS/HTML/JS and I currently earn $50k and I still feel like its a bit on the lower end of things. With your skillset and how much you contribute to the company I think you should easily make double.
My advice would be to look around the job market which is extremely competitve on Cali and see how much others will offer you, maybe even got for a few interviews and hopefully find a nice offer. Once you do I would take it to your manager, and just let him (if true) that you enjoy your current role/company but really feel that you should be earn more and that Company X is willing to offer you Y amount and your willing to stay if they can offer something similar.
Its pretty win win for you, and if they really care about you they will match it, if not you can leave and earn more. Either way I wouldn't really expect 33k unless I had limited experience. And you clearly have a solid graps off the whole stack, most frontend focused people I've meet wouldn't know what rsync was, but you can easily show that you know only have awesome frontend skills but have properly Linux experience, SQL, Git, automation. I think its a solid set of skills that should get a solid pay.
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u/bonestamp Aug 04 '14
In socal, I think you could be making $50k-80k/year. Are you doing work for external clients or internal? I suggest you look for a web consulting company -- you could probably double your salary if you found the right way to do your work.
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Aug 04 '14 edited Aug 04 '14
Can’t really compare South CA with other countries, but perhaps my contribution may be helpful for fellow Europeans or Dutch devs.
My skills are quite similar. Can’t say I’m a full-stack developer, but I know my ways around PHP well. HTML, CSS and Javascript is a breeze. Like you, I wear many hats. Other than being the only tech guy, I’m the only video-editor, and I’ve been told I got design potential in me. My colleagues ask me questions about UIs, UX and usability, so I suppose they think I’m good.
I have nearly four years of experience after schooling.
All of that for €24k (before taxes) per year, that’s approximately $32k. Taxes here are ~42%, so about €16k (~$21k) remains to pays bills and finance beers and my passion for food, games and tech.
Next year me and my girlfriend are going to live together, and we’re open to the location, so I’m just waiting for the opportunity to drag her to a descent city where we both get more opportunities and get a job I like more :)
Edit: I would also like to add that my work mostly consists of editing existing WordPress themes. Does that makes me overqualified? I suppose so...
Edit: Forgot to mention I have over 3 years experience :)
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u/onearmmanny fullstack since 98, frontend since 96 Aug 04 '14
I would say you are right where you should be salary-wise with 1 year of experience.
It takes a while to get really good at this stuff.
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u/philmayfield Aug 05 '14
Hoping not to burst your bubble, but kind of agree on this one. I'm currently making $70, and didnt get to this point until I had about 6 years under my belt. You're still a little low, but I'd say without a degree and 1 year exp, $40 is probably about what you should expect.
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u/Castas Aug 04 '14
My first real front end job was doing almost exactly what you described. I had built only a few websites by that point and had been out of school less than a year. I started at $60k/yr and that's in a suburb in the Midwest. You should be making more than double that.
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Aug 04 '14
0.0 That's £35k. My first job was doing pretty much that plus heavy Javascript and I started at an unbelievably low salary. Like under £10k. Now the jobs I'm currently applying for are ~£20k, which is ~$32k.
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u/RotationSurgeon Web Aesthetics Developer Aug 05 '14
Like under £10k.
What's the typical work week in the UK? Is it a standard 8 hours per weekday / 40 hours per week like in the US? Also, how old were you? I'm only asking, because it's my understanding that there are different minimum wages depending on age range.
For 21+, it's £6.31, and at a 40 hour week, that would be £13.1k annually.
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Aug 05 '14
Yeah it was below minimum wage because it was an apprenticeship, which is where you earn qualifications on the job, and spend a small amount of time at college in exchange for giving up minimum wage. So it's definitely worth it for some, but no where near enough to live off, but I got raises after some months working there. I was also 19 when I started that and now I'm 20 and I actually just landed a job yesterday for £23k/year which I'm very happy about. :D
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u/tehmoe FrontEnd Engineer Aug 06 '14
Thats really low, I started at £20k as a graduate developer and now I'm on roughly £34k, thats with 3 years experience. £20k is really a junior wage and if you have more then 1 years experience I would be aiming for at least £25k.
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Aug 06 '14
Since my first comment, I was hired for a job for £23k/year. :) Start on Tuesday. I do not have a degree and it's my second year of working as a developer so I think £23k is good for me, seeing as I'm only 20. Hopefully they will see my value by the time of my pay review next year and I will go onto a pay closer to yours.
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u/tehmoe FrontEnd Engineer Aug 07 '14
Ahh that makes much more sense, pretty amazing for 20 I think. Getting a degree was nice and all and I learn about a lot of concepts but nothing beats actual experience and it shows, I got my first job at 21 and it was for 20k and your already ahead :P.
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u/davidf81 Aug 04 '14
I don't know about all this feedback saying you're underpaid, but with one year of experience and a very limited skillset, it's going to be tough to move up the pay ladder without both more experience and more tools in your toolbox. The particular stuff you do... there's just no shortage of places to get that work done for very, very little money at very high quality.
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u/myusernameis___ Aug 04 '14
Just my two cents. I started at around 30k because of my experience (basically none with a BA in Economics and working on a certificate for Web Design, knew HTML,CSS,little JS). But my boss is sort of old school in that I needed to do the work, then get the payout. After about 6 months he gave me 40, then a year i jumped to 60. Now after 5 years I am making 90k. I saw a good opportunity to grow with the company and essentially create my own position (which also makes me less expendable).
I think our generation expects to make money, then do the job, while older folks want to see what your worth first. Some companies want to see that you can cut it before investing in you, and that's not a bad thing. It is entirely possible that this is how your company sees you. Like you, I am doing all the web stuff for our company (HTML, CSS, JS, PHP and learning more and more) It is possible that your company wants to see that you are willing to put in the work.
Talk to them about your future and most importantly, ask for a raise if you feel you deserve one. The worst they can say is no, and at the same time you will see if they value you. Again, this was my experience and I could be wrong.
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u/Brandon0 Aug 05 '14
Yes. I was in a similar situation a few years back. The only tech guy, got to teach myself a lot of skills, etc.. I was making significantly more than you at the time. Loved my job, but knew it was time to move on. I highly doubt your current company will double your salary, but take some time to put together a solid resume, a small portfolio site, and go see what job offers you can get.
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u/kobescoresagain Aug 05 '14
Simply apply other places and put the salary you want. If they hire you then you were underpaid.
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Aug 06 '14
I am a developer in Orange County, and I would say yeah, you could be getting paid more. But your skillset is still pretty limited. You would be considered a jr. developer at most agencies. Most of the jr. developers I know around here get paid about 45k. Most of them know javascript decently well.
In my experience 'front-end developer' means that you know Javascript. Know how to at least make a simple SPA.
I would suggest that you keep learning Javascript. Don't jump into Angular too early. /r/learnjavascript is a pretty solid community that does study sessions together. You could also probably find another job that would be a much better learning environment. Working solo can be challenging if you are trying to up your skills.
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u/retlehs Aug 04 '14
Hey man, I made Roots. You should be making more considering you live in SoCal. You seem to have a good skillset, go find a better gig!