Anyone here work as a software developer? I'm looking

>>60802418
Software dev here making $35/hr with 5 years experience. It really depends on the company and if they have spots open to move into. If you're smart and know your shit, you will move up fast, but that comes with more responsibility which comes with more stress and getting shit done put on your plate.
But it's a great career, can be super comfy if you find the right role and it's not going anywhere anytime soon

>>60802535
Thanks for answering.

Do you ever develop anything on the side?

That's another reason I wanted to get into it too. I'd like to work for myself at some point. My current skills don't translate over to anything.

>>60802418
I'm an intern and I make 24$ per hour this summer after 3 years of CS, got a year of school left. 30$ is definitely a reasonable starting salary if that's what you're looking for.

>>60802678
Thanks man

>>60802418
>change away from finance
Gonna just put this out there: if you specialize in financial software when you have a finance background, you'll probably make more money than if you don't. It's not exciting, and you probably won't work in a "cool hip omg Silicon Valley" startup, but you'll have a more niche understanding of what you're making than just anybody they could hire off the street. It's probably also your best bet at finding a development job because your potential employers will see the job as an evolution of your "career path" and not a complete restart, where you might want to go back if it's not good enough.

>>60803028
this seems like wise advice

>>60802628
I'd like to do shit on the side. Have had a couple side jobs with buddies who started their own companies, but it's hard to care about when you got other shit going on.
Like the other anon said. If you can do financial software, you can make big bucks. After awhile the programming itself becomes secondary to how well you know the business logic and can create solutions put of that.

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>>60802418
>I'm pretty sure I could get an entry level position. What is a reasonable salary?
This various INSANELY by geography and industry. Three examples:

1. I know of "software developers" working at retail giants who maintain their time tracking and billing system (i.e. how dollars go from the company to the employee's bank accounts) who are paid $65k salary with 5 years of experience, because it's seen as this little side expense to maintain a basic system.

2. I also know of "software developers" working at a different retail giant who get paid $90k with 5 years of experience because he works on the company's core eCommerce system, rather than some internal, back-of-house billing tech.

3. One other "software developer" I know technically has the title of "marketing engineer", but most of what he does all day is write HTML and CSS for the top-of-funnel, specialized landing pages for a huge company. He makes $90k a year and has maybe 2 years of experience?

In case #1 and #2, both are in affordable cities with no state income tax, and where the monthly payment on a mortgage of a slightly-above-average house is $1500. Renting is also cheap, as are groceries, gas and so forth. They are throwing money into stocks, and one is saving money for her wedding. In case #3 it's goddamned San Francisco and the guy pays an assload in state income taxes, pays $3500/month for rent and lives below-average.

>>60803800 (continuing)
For my part, my company hires junior developers* at 40-50k salary, intermediate between 60k and 85k and seniors at 90k+ though most get there from being non-senior and just being around long enough that we trust them to be awesome. Standard of living in my city is average. Neither dirt-cheap nor San Francisco, but I don't think our junior devs struggle to live decently and can count on regular raises as long as they keep learning and improving.

*Junior for us means basically anyone with non-zero experience. What counts as that could be many things: a 3+ month bootcamp, 1-2 years at some other company (we poach a lot of employees from shittier companies), or maybe a CS degree if you've had at least one decent internship. We're not as focused on college degrees.
We hired this one freakin' awesome woman who had been running Gentoo as her main OS for like a decade because she is a tinfoil-hat-tier security girl. But she was like... an artist and/or musician? Anyhow she kind of knew enough scripting and Unix-isms from a decade of Linux that our CTO was impressed and hired her outright and she is really easy to work with.

>>60803800
>>60803819
And finally I would add that >>60803028 is correct. Being able to capitalize on a skillset or domain knowledge you have and specialize in writing software for a particular field gets you paid way more than just "knowing how to code". I've seen this in sciences especially.
Chemical Engineering degree? Cool you can make some money, but there's a ceiling unless you have a Masters degree.
Chemical Engineer who knows how to code? For the right company, they'll let you name your price.
Substitute "Finance" or any other number of specialties in for "Chemical Engineer" in the above statements.