Nice Work - and You Can Get It

Nice Workand You Can Get It

The typical trainee programmer, including those without a college education or prior work experience, starts at the compensation level of typical corporate first-line managers. (The latest median annual earnings of computer programmers, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, were $53,040.) Sometimes, staff members in a companys human resources department cannot understand just why this is so, because they cannot accurately measure and evaluate the creative skills needed by programmers: Why are programmers so valuable ? This book will show you why, and indicate how you can start for even more than the salary usually offered for a particular job.

And where can all this lead? The most creative, productive, knowledgeable, ambitious, and best-compensated of all corporate programmers are programmer consultants . They have moved up from being corporate employees to becoming independent programmers, whom corporations summon to resolve a programming crisis or work on projects too complex for their in-house staff. Programmer consultants (programming contractors) have refined their skills, creativity, productivity, and reputation so they can successfully tackle the hardest and riskiest programming projects. They are like the signature chefs of the cooking world. Theirs is the corporate programming job to which ambitious programmers aspire.