What is the beginning salary for a Software Engineer? By beginning salary I mean the fresh out of college.

Which country (and hence currency)?
Which industry?

I've seen graduates get anything from AU$25K to AU$55K (including 9% superannuation).

Depends heavily on where you live. I made $40k when I first started working. Friends of mine made $55k, but they also lived in a more expensive city. Another friend of mine living in California made $80k. You should check with developers in your area.

I'm making a little under €30k on my first "real" job, which lines up with the previous figures (ballpark $45k, US or AU). Berlin is crazy cheap for the awesome, no-car-required city that it is, so that's quite nice.

My first job (as a physics programmer at a games company) straight out of university was on £16k (~$30k at the time). That was not very high though... games pays less and I live in one of the lowest-paying areas of the UK.

There must be a website for this data... anyone know one?

Just a couple of months ago I checked what the us.gov website had it listed as. It had it listed as the #2 job expecting growth, mostly in the software production field (it was right behind Investment Banker, which is likely not #1 anymore with the banking issues). They listed an average starting income somewhere around $45k (I can't quite remember exactly what it was).

Software engineering doesn't seem, to me at least, to be terribly well paid.

I did an internship in Edinburgh in 2008 for 16 weeks and was getting paid about £1100 a month, whereas the full time boys floated somewhere around the £25-30k mark (even after being at the company for >5 years and being a "Senior" or "... Manager". There were two Development Managers who were probably on about £40k each.

This was at a reasonably sized company as well. Worrying stuff.

I've started at about $50k per year as a developer working on webapps here in Phoenix metro, Arizona. However, I was on an hourly rate, so the actual gross annual income was closer to $60k with overtime (paid at 1.5x the normal hourly rate)

Quote: Original post by ukdeveloper
Software engineering doesn't seem, to me at least, to be terribly well paid.

I did an internship in Edinburgh in 2008 for 16 weeks and was getting paid about £1100 a month, whereas the full time boys floated somewhere around the £25-30k mark (even after being at the company for >5 years and being a "Senior" or "... Manager". There were two Development Managers who were probably on about £40k each.

This was at a reasonably sized company as well. Worrying stuff.

I have no idea about the developer situation in the UK, but in the States the US government creates a yearly guide that creates a comparison between different professions. It gives the job outlook, which is calculated based on the amount of job growth in the field and the number of markets available, average starting salary, average experienced salary (>5 years), senior salary (>10 years). Salaries can be compared based on level of education as well, since it would not be appropriate to compare a graduate-level profession to an MD or PhD. Software Engineering, in the States, was #2 in job growth during the last report (which, due to the lag in response and compilation, was in 2007) and likely to be #1 in the next report. It was also #1 in graduate-level starting salaries, experienced salaries and I believe #2 or 3 in senior salaries (several other professions start to gain ground with over 10 years of experience). It also ranked fairly favorably to professions that require 10+ years of education, and rated higher than several MD professions.

Maybe the differences have to do with the field. In the US, there is more demand for educated and experienced software engineers than there is supply, which will obviously increase salaries. The balance between the two could very easily be different in other countries.

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