Which Programming Language Pays the Best?

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I guess this would be handy to know if you plan on becoming a programmer. ;)

According to Quartz, which relied partially on data compiled by employment-analytics firm Burning Glass and a Brookings Institution economist, Ruby on Rails, Objective-C, and Python are all programming skills that will earn you more than $100,000 per year. Java, C++, JavaScript, C, and R also topped the list, routinely racking up salaries of $90,000 and above.
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Some of the older languages are outdated, so only a few specialized people still use them. That's why they are making so much. If you are starting now, you should go for .net/C#, javascript, or SQL (and DB architecture). I work at a software development company in LA, and finding good developers using those languages are almost impossible to find. Even paying WELL over the 90k mark listed in the article...
 
Those salaries are only good at Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, etc. HUGE tech companies.
 
^ Not really. I pull 90k working on a SaaS web application that is written primarily in PHP and Javascript (with some services in NodeJS). I'm not even a senior or lead developer either.
 
Once you get experience down and figure out how to market yourself its pretty easy regardless of the language, i take jobs with languages i dont even know and learn them on the fly. Its not very hard.
 
kcmastrpc said:
^ Not really. I pull 90k working on a SaaS web application that is written primarily in PHP and Javascript (with some services in NodeJS). I'm not even a senior or lead developer either.
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Upper east coast (DC and up)? West coast? Austin TX? Wall Street trading or financial services company? That would be my guess if you're in the U.S.
 
Nope, nope, nope. Nope. Small shop actually, < 20 devs. I'm not going to advertise my location, but it's not hard to figure out.
 
While not a programming language, Powershell is quickly becoming quite popular with the IT crowd
 
Romale23 said:
Once you get experience down and figure out how to market yourself its pretty easy regardless of the language, i take jobs with languages i dont even know and learn them on the fly. Its not very hard.
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Right. But I think you should take as a basis C, PHP and sql to get most of your bases covered.
 
Biznatch said:
I work at a software development company in LA, and finding good developers using those languages are almost impossible to find. Even paying WELL over the 90k mark listed in the article...
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You know why qualified programmers don't want to work in LA? Because the traffic is so bad that it takes you three hours to go 50 miles on open freeway (and that's if you leave at 6am).

Programmers are usually rational people, and that's why you have trouble getting the best ones. You can't pay me enough to put up with that poor quality of life :D
 
defaultluser said:
You know why qualified programmers don't want to work in LA? Because the traffic is so bad that it takes you three hours to go 50 miles on open freeway (and that's if you leave at 6am).

Programmers are usually rational people, and that's why you have trouble getting the best ones. You can't pay me enough to put up with that poor quality of life :D
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Yup, I would never work in LA no matter what the salary. I took left a higher paying job to go to another one that's slightly away from a city and I work from home 2-3 days a week. I don't know how anyone sits in traffic every day for an hour to go to work and not give up on humanity.
 
Back in 1997 when I started surfing I searched programming lets just say it's a different language I wouldn't even know how to apply it to anything. I'm sure there are tool sets to make it easier today.
 
BreezeDM said:
Yup, I would never work in LA no matter what the salary. I took left a higher paying job to go to another one that's slightly away from a city and I work from home 2-3 days a week. I don't know how anyone sits in traffic every day for an hour to go to work and not give up on humanity.
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The New York metropolitan area wasn't much better when I lived there. My two mile commute could take an hour some days. I'm an IT guy, I was too lazy to walk it, and due to the strange bus routes, public transportation would actually have taken longer, though it would have been cheaper.
 
On the blog I pretend to write, I once imagined I did some research (mostly by reading unrelated Wikipedia articles) about coder salaries. On bar graphs, it's pretty apparent that the highest paid computer scientists are Excel macro programmers and HTML programmers who use MS Word's "save as HTML" feature to build websites. Here's a graphic I made like ages ago (well, at least a few minutes) that shows this in detail.

acfyq9.jpg
 
if your not a programmer but are an admin, sec analyst or even field services/helpdesk powershell is a great language for your role.
 
Shit. I just became a dog owner 3 days ago, and I've already noticed my bank account getting smaller. I wish I would have seen this chart last week.
 
Biznatch said:
Some of the older languages are outdated, so only a few specialized people still use them. That's why they are making so much. If you are starting now, you should go for .net/C#, javascript, or SQL (and DB architecture). I work at a software development company in LA, and finding good developers using those languages are almost impossible to find. Even paying WELL over the 90k mark listed in the article...
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So python, ruby on rails and objective-c are outdated compared to say C, C++ and java?

You are also paying well over 90k in a place where the cost of living is well above the naitonal average as well.
 
Biznatch said:
Some of the older languages are outdated, so only a few specialized people still use them. That's why they are making so much. If you are starting now, you should go for .net/C#, javascript, or SQL (and DB architecture). I work at a software development company in LA, and finding good developers using those languages are almost impossible to find. Even paying WELL over the 90k mark listed in the article...
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90k in LA is chump change if you ask me..
 
did a cost of living comparison from where I live to LA, says my salary in LA should be 161,132...I wouldn't move there unless you paid me 200k probably.
 
Wrecked Em said:
Shit. I just became a dog owner 3 days ago, and I've already noticed my bank account getting smaller. I wish I would have seen this chart last week.
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Nooooo! :( We even talked about it before! I mean, there was no chart, but you're going to have some obviously huge amount less popcorn based on the bar graph.
 
Language doesn't matter, it's the type of software you work on and your level of experience that matters. Currently I use C (old school) for which they pay me over $150K/year. But it's for a large real-time embedded system and I have 30 years of experience. You PHP and C# app developers need not apply; you'd only get hurt. :eek:
 
so this threat made me wonder about cost comparison of things? like location to live versus salery? I used one of the cost of living calculators. How in the flying fuck, does LA have 120% housing cost, and everything else is more expensive as well, yet i only need to make 30% more? I literally have my monthly bills including rent, elec, water, and gas for a v8 f150 down to under 1k a month. I just dont see being able to live in a good area in a big house for that in LA for anywhere near 1.3k:p
 
defaultluser said:
You know why qualified programmers don't want to work in LA? Because the traffic is so bad that it takes you three hours to go 50 miles on open freeway (and that's if you leave at 6am).

Programmers are usually rational people, and that's why you have trouble getting the best ones. You can't pay me enough to put up with that poor quality of life :D
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Uh LA is very big, and that was used for location reference.... Central LA is a shithole, and thank god we are over an hour away, so we don't experience anywhere near that level of traffic. We have had some developers that didn't want to commute, but that was distance, not traffic. Most of the time the issue is they are full of shit, and don't have anywhere near the level of experience they claim. We've had contractors making 100$/hr that couldn't code their way out of a box (Obviously they didn't last long). And we are a small company.

Developers are just in very very high demand here, and I'm seriously considering changing career path from System/Network admin to development. Think about how everything is moving to electronic devices, development demand is only going to get higher. Plus a compsci degree works for either path, so I'm set.
 
Romale23 said:
so this threat made me wonder about cost comparison of things? like location to live versus salery? I used one of the cost of living calculators. How in the flying fuck, does LA have 120% housing cost, and everything else is more expensive as well, yet i only need to make 30% more? I literally have my monthly bills including rent, elec, water, and gas for a v8 f150 down to under 1k a month. I just dont see being able to live in a good area in a big house for that in LA for anywhere near 1.3k:p
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Yea, my rent alone is almost double what your entire monthly bills are, and it's not even a big house...
 
rivertown_rat said:
Language doesn't matter, it's the type of software you work on and your level of experience that matters. Currently I use C (old school) for which they pay me over $150K/year. But it's for a large real-time embedded system and I have 30 years of experience. You PHP and C# app developers need not apply; you'd only get hurt. :eek:
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I personally know obj c/swift devs making close to 300k a year. One of them is a high school dropout. Skill and ones ability to market themselves are the only things that matter.
 
What no .NET?? :D

I dabbled in programming in the 8-bit days but didn't see any careers doing it in those days.
I keep telling myself I will pick it up again in a modern programming language. Python is the one I like but has of yet not had much time to invest.
 
Biznatch said:
Some of the older languages are outdated, so only a few specialized people still use them. That's why they are making so much. If you are starting now, you should go for .net/C#, javascript, or SQL (and DB architecture). I work at a software development company in LA, and finding good developers using those languages are almost impossible to find. Even paying WELL over the 90k mark listed in the article...
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My cousin in law writes logistics software in SQL. java and C# and makes a killing, works mostly from home and travels 4 months a year to inspect operations.
Funny when I learned HTML, XML, PHP and ASP, Java and C# were "No one is ever going to use those..."
I make more on my farm now then from knowing those 4.
Go figure right?
 
amddragonpc said:
Those salaries are only good at Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, etc. HUGE tech companies.
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Nah. There are plenty of smaller companies and startups here in Seattle. .NET, Java, Ruby - pick your poison. A dev with around 5 years experience should have no trouble getting 150k here. Bonus for avoiding the meat factory mentality of MS and Amazon.
 
SGA76 said:
Apples, pears potatoes and (dent) corn.
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lol Don't think that is the crop he was referring...

OT... I swear home grown/real organic potatoes is a whole different food then what you get in a normal grocery.

Usually don't notice too much with other products but damn those potatoes are good.
 
kcmastrpc said:
^ Not really. I pull 90k working on a SaaS web application that is written primarily in PHP and Javascript (with some services in NodeJS). I'm not even a senior or lead developer either.
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Well, thanks for making me feel miserable :(
 
jroe52 said:
if your not a programmer but are an admin, sec analyst or even field services/helpdesk powershell is a great language for your role.
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if you are stuck in windows land sure. But majority of large corporations paying are going to be a largely *nix shop with only windows infrastructure for domain/exchange/etc services.

If you are an admin in a typical environment, you had better know powershell/bash/ruby/perl. Maybe some PHP and Python too. Admins are more and more being asked to be Devs along with it. Just how the industry is moving as a whole.
 
4saken said:
if you are stuck in windows land sure. But majority of large corporations paying are going to be a largely *nix shop with only windows infrastructure for domain/exchange/etc services.
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There are TONS of SQL, IIS and Sharepoint servers in companies these days.
 
heatlesssun said:
There are TONS of SQL, IIS and Sharepoint servers in companies these days.
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yeah i was including those in the etc.

But with the massive 'cloud' push and containerization of applications, there is gonna be a huge change for admins to know programming for orchestration purposes. Kind of the same affect Virtualization had on your now dinosaur server/infrastructure admins
 
dandirk said:
lol Don't think that is the crop he was referring...

OT... I swear home grown/real organic potatoes is a whole different food then what you get in a normal grocery.

Usually don't notice too much with other products but damn those potatoes are good.
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Not until Ohio becomes a "green state" if you catch my drift.
Probably switch crops then.
 
kcmastrpc said:
I personally know obj c/swift devs making close to 300k a year. One of them is a high school dropout. Skill and ones ability to market themselves are the only things that matter.
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Swift? Really? lol

300k for Cocoa developer? Hard to believe...
 
I find software salaries tend to be all over the map, even in the same region.

Plus what is posted is obviously the salary after the recruiter gets his cut, so that could be anything from a large piece to a smaller piece.
 
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