$24 an hour

While sitting at work one day, I got a text. I didn't recognize the number, but when I saw the content, I knew exactly who it was from. The text said "i can't believe you said that stuff about NepotiSoft on linkedin". It was from the HR person at NepotiSoft.

I immediately knew what the problem was. On my LinkedIn profile, I had posted that I worked on a project at NepotiSoft that failed, and it did so because of the lack of requirements put forth by both the government and by NepotiSoft's management.

I could understand that this could be construed as distasteful, and possibly unprofessional, so I changed the LinkedIn profile, and replied back that I was sorry if I upset anyone, and that the post had been updated. With this reply, there was a small text conversation in which I was lambasted again for saying something [possibly] negative about NepotiSoft, and to which I replied that NepotiSoft has a lot of problems.

Then I got a reply that I didn't expect. The text said "We paid people $31 that 'claimed' they could do more then they really could, and wanted to only write code, writing code is a $24 an hr job..." (the grammar and mistakes are there because it is a verbatim quote).

This was an obvious shot across my brow, as I was paid $31/hour at NepotiSoft, and I failed at my assigned project (I will argue until my death it was of no fault of my own). I can understand that they may be pissed off that I left, and that the project failed (they will argue that it didn't fail, but that is a later post...). It wasn't the direct shot at me that made me think about the text, the conversation, and the situation.

It was the dollar amount. $24 for a software programmer?

I work in a room with about 15 other software programmers, and none of them make $24 an hour. I would say the minimum is probably around $30 an hour in respect to those 15 people. These are people that are extremely seasoned, and are experts in their respective areas (everyone is a C programmer, but many specialize in Java, or Perl, or C++, or Cisco, or dealing with Linux & it's configuration, etc..), and I consider myself one of these experts.

For a good C programmer who is knowledgeable about Linux, and who has expertise in legacy systems/programming/structures/code, it is not absurd to make $75k+ a year. In NYC, $100k jobs are common (so can be said all along the East coast). Government programming jobs will start around $50k-60k, and it is not uncommon to get the same amount when it comes to government subcontracting. Private sector jobs demand at least $50k-60k for a C programmer, and often more for someone with a particular expertise.

The only programming jobs where you can make sub-$60k are web-programming jobs. Web programming doesn't require a lot of expertise, and doesn't command as much expertise. But even then, there are some very creative and experienced web programmers who are well-worth much more than $60k.

It really bothered me that someone could think that programmers should only make $24 an hour. What a joke.

An introduction to NepotiSoft

Since I have a huge interest in project management, and corporate environments, I should give some backstory about my bad experience. This post will just be a description of a company that I worked for about a year ago. My tenure there was exactly one year, and it will probably be the worst year of my working career. It's sad that I know so much about a company after one year, and that I have such a strong opinion. I know some programmers who were with this company for a few years, and I bet they'd have a lot more to contribute.

I won't use the real name of this company, as they are still in business (kind of). But we will call them NepotiSoft.

Why the name NepotiSoft? Because while this company will tell you that their main focus is software and IT-related products, their real focus is nepotism, and making sure that their family members reap any and all benefits before anyone else.

NepotiSoft had some beautiful offices when they hired me. Everyone had their own office, and they were located in a beautiful part of the city. We were around a lot off cool places in town, and it was a really exciting area.

When I hired on, the company consisted of: a CEO, a part time President, a CIO (who was also a developer), an HR person who was also the contract specialist/account, a marketing/sales person, a secretary, a full-time developer, a full-time tester/researcher/whatever you could find for this person to do (non-technical), and a full-time CSS/imaging guy.

During my tenure there, another 3 developers were hired (excluding myself), with 1 being fired and another being hired in his place. The CEO would also bring in the spouse on occasion to help with accounting stuff. I am assuming this was done so that they could give some more money to the CEO's family without it looking suspicious.

In my 1 year at NepotiSoft, we peaked at 13 full time employees. 4 of those were all family members. NepotiSoft is now working with 6 employees, with 4 of those being family members. They effectively fired all of their developers (excluding the CIO), which makes them a software company without an employee who is fully dedicated to software development (no split duties). We will get to an analysis of this in a later post.

The company like to publicly declare that they were a "Christian company." I have no idea what this means for a business(full disclosure, I am Christian). They liked to recognize everyone's birthday with a cake and a gift (usually a $25 gift card), and they would sing 'happy birthday' to people before cutting the cake (I always find this weird when done for someone over the age of 14 or so). They would always lead the cake cutting with a prayer (which I liked, but saw as potential to be very offensive). In the end, they would use this idea of them being a "Christian company" as a way to get employees to be nice to them when the company itself was being very unChristianly. It was a way to keep employees from being smart, and treating the company the way the company treated them.

That is a good enough description of the company so that later posts can be understood. The most important point is that the CEO, President, salesperson, and HR rep/accountant were all related, and are still employed despite the fact that they are a software development company without any true developers, despite the fact that the salesperson has never made a sale and that a 6 person company does not need a full time accountant/HR rep or secretary.