Are financial programmers under paid?

[failed_trad3r]

Programmers and engineers are underpaid in all industries in the rich countries.
Programming and engineering requires more knowledge, skills and intellectual horse power than most other jobs.
The reason for underpayment is that engineers across the world talk the same language: logic. So the rich world engineers are directly competing with poor world engineers who ask for much less pay.
A Master's degree 5 years experienced java programmer in India is paid 1/4 of the same profile in the USA. They use the same language, tools and methodologies, have similar productivity and are interchangeable.
A lawyer in the USA cannot be replaced by an Indian lawyer. You need to have specific knowledge of American law and an american degree in law.
So unless the salary gap between rich world programmers and poor world programmers does tighten, the rich world programmers and engineers will continue to be underpaid relative to the demanding nature of their job, because cheap international competition is holding salaries down.

same thing happens to manufacturing. manufacturing is onshoring again, but the wages are much lower at 14$ an hour. globalization and multinationals which are growing and growing means you are soon competing vs the cheap labor of the world. Better be at the top in a multinational then a worker bee.

 

[baglunch]

now that's encouraging to read for someone like me looking to get into financial industry IT could you elaborate on that a bit? why soul crushing?

I was half joking.

In reality it is really subjective and spans the spectrum depending on your personality, role, project, and if you are front office, middle, or back office. Personally I have only worked front office and on trading floors so I don't know how the other halves live.

 

[nitro]

 

[just21]

Bloomberg - Why an Ex-Google Coder Makes Twice as Much Freelancing http://bloom.bg/1RxyNkY

 

[nitro]

Bloomberg - Why an Ex-Google Coder Makes Twice as Much Freelancing http://bloom.bg/1RxyNkY

That's more like it.

I am getting bombarded by people that have all these great ideas, but don't want to risk anything. So they want the "proof of concept" application to pitch to the investors, but I have to do all the work