What's Life As A Programmer Like In Your Country? Programmer is the lowest profession here

[soccermage 0]

Hi guys. What's life like as a technically competent programmer in your country?Over here, programmer is the lowest life form. Everyone despises the programmer, from the sales to the users. The consultants are people who normally are poor in actual programming, but good at talking and sales, and they rose up to be a consultant.Here, a programmer works from 8:30am to 9pm everyday rushing projects. Pay increments are low, and can expected to be laid off by 35 yrs old, once u are considered technologically backward.How's life of a programmer in your country?

Notice from m^e:

Good topic Am pinning it. I can see the beginning of a nice discussion.

Edited November 13, 2005 by microscopic^earthling (see edit history)

[abhiram 0]

Well... how about telling us what country you are from?

[hatim 0]

Well in Pakistan programmers arent that bad ...but i guess its just outsourcing ...western people coming in getting their projects done preety cheap. In the end big money is in busniess and consulatancy for technically sound people....so start learning stuff like project management ..and get good atr speaking and marketing...if u deal with computers , hardware its less money ..if u deal with people and money directly ..it more money

[Quatrux 4]

Well here in Lithuania, I don't know any serious programmers or a company which develops a lot, but there is and the money is not so bad, eventually the best programmers find their future in foreign countries by leaving Lithuania, because they pay more money there, joining projects, also there are a lot of programmers which work for their hobby or free time by having other paid job, etc. Nothing special.

[warbird1405241485 0]

In Holland I think programmer is quite a good job. A big part of my family is doing something with computers and there are also some programmers amongst them. They got all paid very well, and so are the other programmers here I think. That's why I want to become a programmer as well -=jeroen=-

[Killer008r 0]

The U.S., I would say is built by programmers. Although alot of them are looked at as bad. I am one of the people that most Americans would say is a bad kind of programmer, since I design computer games that their children would want them to buy for presents. And then become 'morraly corrupt' after playing them. Because you and I know people's attitudes are decided by what games they play.

[PureHeart 0]

Here, in Vietnam. Programmers earn lots of money. They love their work. Most programmers were born in high-income family. Many people study Information Technology but few have a job.Programmer seems to be the best job here, high creative, high income....

[cubensis 0]

here in bogotá is an excelent job, actually working at my college 4 hours each day,and my salary is pretty good compared with the normal people,i earn 2x the salary and work the half, so this profession is really good, and if this is the beginning i can't imagine what the future holds for me,i hope to travel all the world arround while coding and rocking!

[xboxrulz1405241485 0]

Here in Toronto, Canada, computer programming is just another job, like a doctor, lawyer, whatever. It's just another way to make money. I won't say that it's so good that it's like the CSA (Canadian Space Agency) or something.xboxrulz

[CaptainRon 0]

Well in India, its a dream career!two things are at an all time high, Call centres and Software Engineers. Salary hikes are the highest in Asia as per Forbes, so no doubt, being a Software engineer makes your family proud of you.And hell! you guys wont believe, when I took Computer Science as my stream in engineering in 2002, each and every damn person went about saying... "There is no scope kid.. y did u take this field?" be it the librarian or a passenger in a flight.And four years down the line when i am selected in Wipro, i want them to ask me the same question :-)

[apurva 0]

Yeah thats true now in India a programmes is on demand..Salaries are just wow wow..

[Chesso 0]

I don't know about here in Australia, i'm just a hobbiest software developer and web developer in general. I know a few friends that have been hired as web designers that make some decent money but that's about it.I haven't seen any jobs for this field..... none at all to be honest. But I don't have $1000 to take courses for certificates that are probably outdated.My other half right now is doing an IT course, and one of the assigments asks for an explanation on settings up and installing an Apple Printer that was disconinuted two years after it's first release in 1986 and was primarliy for businesses only at a cost of arounf $1000.Otherwise I have no idea what's it like here in Australia, but I don't know a single person in this country in my entire life that makes software..... perhaps someone else from Australia knows more about this?

[Fixxxer 0]

Here in Bosnia and Hercegovina programmer job is very hard to find, mostly becouse of corupction and stuff like that. Second its very hard to find good programmer. But programmers that really doing good job get paid more or less 3X compared with ordinaly people. Outsorcing is not in trend right now.

[iGuest 3]

Being neighbours with Australia I know quite a bit about their Programmers, since their companies like to approach New Zealand too.The pay is probably acceptable if you live here but it does depend on the company that hires you, I feel Australia/New Zealand have quite good living conditions, and sometimes this is what provides better opportunity for others considering migrating than the pay, so if programming isn't paying well or living conditions isn't that good, why not consider moving, programming here is always in demand also specific areas of project management as well as consultancy.There's strong demands for different languages, though .NET seems to be capturing a lot of people's eyes, I haven't seen too much development made in Australia/New Zealand for this, so I'm thinking it's not as successful as people are expecting it to be or their software just isn't being recognised largely enough, though if it does get recognised, usually a company from overseas will buy it out.The lead developer for Firefox, is a New Zealander, who use to live out west from where I am, before he was offered the opportunity to work in the U.S., which he now lives/works over there. There's also software that was developed here which got bought out by bigger companies, I know Ghost (Symantec) was developed here before being bought out.It's always tough finding good programmers, although combining good programmers with clued up people still can benefit in many situations. That's why I believe collaboration is a good thing.Outsourcing isn't a trend here, though you'll usually be the one being made to do projects for other countries, UK, Australia, and the US are just a few that I know we program for.Cheers,MC

[Arbitrary 0]

Well, I live in the U.S., but since I'm not old enough to be getting a job, I'll just talk about my dad. It's Silicon Valley here...where all the housing and living prices are rocketing through the roof ($900,000 for an indecent 2 bedroom house? What in the world?!), so most programmers don't make enough money to actually buy a house. We rent. It usually takes two people in a household both working high-profile jobs to buy a house. Obviously the pay he gets would be more than sufficient if we had lived elsewhere, like maybe in Arizona.As for getting hired, he's been offered a number of jobs. People contact him a lot to ask him for if he wants this job or that job. So, I suppose the job crisis isn't as bad now as it was before. (I mean, back in year 2000 the economy was down in the dumps and most programmers were afraid of being fired, especially if they didn't contribute enough to the company) Sill, despite the current improvements of the economy, there is plenty of competition, so if you're in a managerial position with no real connection to the work, you could get fired easily. I know a couple of people who work at Google too. But they don't say it's the best thing in the world like all that hype does. It's just like any other corporation--there's plenty of work to be done, and working over normal hours isn't abnormal. I don't know about pay...as that isn't discussed much. I'm sure much of the hype comes from the obvious high-profile workers there, who are bound to earn (and rest) more than average.On the other hand, I suppose if we lived elsewhere in the country with similar incomes, we would be thriving.

Edited July 19, 2006 by Arbitrary (see edit history)