If you want to find out what you're worth, change the name on your resume to a male name and submit it to a few headhunters to see what sort of salary ranges are available for "you" in your chosen area.

You don't actually have to interview - just get an idea of what they're paying at similar companies for similar positions.

Food for thought...

I was recently in a situation where I didn't feel I was making what I was worth. This had nothing to do with others around me in the company, but it did have to do with others in the industry.

After asking for a proper raise, and being denied, I left. My new job was a 40% pay raise from the previous. Problem solved. In fact, it turns out that employers that shaft you on pay also shaft you on other things. The new company makes it much easier to take a vacation, and they have full medical. Things just generally go smoother here.

My advice to anyone who thinks they are being underpaid: Ask for a raise, and start looking for a new job if they won't give you what you feel you are worth. You don't have to change, and you may find you're being paid fairly after all. But at least you'll have options.

The big problem in IT is a tendency to lowball, and taking a lowball salary screws you later on. For example, if you were making $60k but were laid off, you might settle for a job offering $45k rather than have no income at all or meager unemployment. But now a new job will look at the fact you're making $45k and, instead of saying "The market rate is $65k, we will pay you that and make you WANT to stay here" they think "This person is only getting $45k. We can offer $50k and save $15k off market rate" and then wonder why that person only stays long enough to find a higher paying job.

Anketam:

I told him that if he asked for anything less than $60,000 I would go to his house and beat him up. He asked for $60,000 and got it. Then on IM he told me: "The guy did not even bat an eye when I said $60k."
(1 min later)
"I should have asked for more."

Standard salary negotiation regardless of position. Ask for a lot and argue down gently. Don't get absurd, but don't ask for your 'worth.' If they reject you outright then they wouldn't have paid you your worth anyway. This isn't a no-haggle car lot this is your prospective job.

First, I think I must say that I'm in the category of Remy's friend: “I like having more money, but I was making enough before.” So my viewpoint may be skewed; I can't see how people in this industry can possibly spend the kind of money we make.

And yes, I've looked at places like glassdoor.com and see for my experience/skills/etc, I'm not getting paid fairly. But, what would I do with another $X? I live quite nicely within the salary I get now.

For those people out there worrying about salary, don't let that be the driving force behind a potential job search. If you enjoy the work and the people with whom you work, that's worth a lot more than going to some shitty job for something as trivial as money.

When I last interviewed, practically the first words out of anyone's mouth (especially recruiters) were: "how much is your salary?"

My response was always that that isn't the main factor: If an employer wants to stand over me, poking me with a stick, trying to get me to code faster, guess what? There isn't enough money.

All that's nice to be said, but you shouldn't get taken advantage of either. It's a balanacing act.

Strange coincidence that this came up now. We recently had our company call at which various things like sales, general news, etc are discussed.

When it got to the portion of the company I support (I am the single developer responsible for our main application), the CEO talked about how we're $1M ahead of revenue for that sector, well ahead of our projected client retention rates. Later in the call, a different manager thanked me by name for something I'd put in last week to make her life a lot easier.

So, I'm sitting there thinking <Carl Spackler>How about a little something for the effort?</Carl Spackler>.

Of course, I can't take credit for the entirety of that good news; the product owner does a great job, as do the admins and the sales people.

But, at the same time, I'm an important part of that team. Spread the wealth around a bit...

OK, rant over. :-)

Matt:

I do like the idea of sending out identical resumes with different names. Not statistically definitive, as it's one data point. You could, for instance, get one jerk of a headhunter. But doing that could be interesting.

They did exactly this in science, and found that gender discrimination is real there: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/09/14/1211286109#aff-1

From the abstract: "(They) rated the male applicant as significantly more competent and hireable than the (identical) female applicant. (They) also selected a higher starting salary and offered more career mentoring to the male applicant."

This female pay discrepancy has been thoroughly debunked. Employers in this country aren't paying women less. The average pay for women is less in large part due to the fact that women often take the middle portion of their careers off to raise kids (thank God for the women who do that) and as such their career average salary is lower and also because women *in general* aren't as motivated to advance to tech-lead and such.
There are differences between men and women (vive la differnce).
This one women *might* not be getting her fair share, but there is no systemic problem.

Never settle for enough- demand what you're worth.

Yes there is a gap, and no there isn't. Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

I've been in IT for nigh on 15 years now, and made everything from a few bucks less than my co-workers to quite a few bucks more than my co-workers. It's all relative. And depending on the job market in your area, you could job hop once or twice and make that difference up, if you really thought you were being lowballed.

There is more to the job than the compensation, though. And there's more to compensation than what you put on the tax form at the end of the year. Not only benefits (insurance and retirement matching, etc.) but also things that aren't as easy to quantify, like job satisfaction and personal growth. Are you getting to take company-paid classes or go to company-paid conferences in your field? Are you putting yourself in a better position to be hired after this job ends? Because jobs do end, for all sorts of reasons.

I remember my first conference, it was a Healthcare Informatics conference in California, when I was working for a hospital in South Carolina. I went by myself, and during one of the breaks a couple of the guys at my table asked me how I was enjoying the conference. I said "It's ok, but I really wish the presenters wouldn't waste our time with the OSI layers at the start of each talk. A - we're professionals in IT and should know this already, B - it's just a model, and C - it's very obviously filler because the speaker can't fill their 10 minute time slot with what they're talking about." I got a few chuckles, and a few blank stares, and one of the guys in that group presented next, and skipped over his OSI layer slides, as did most of the presenters after him.

I still get talked down to by vendors and people who don't know me, because I'm female, and because some of the vendors I work with think they're the end-all be-all of their product. I deal with it and make sure the vendor knows that their behavior isn't appropriate, but the people I work with every day have respect for me (or else I'd have found something else to do).

I don't have PMS, I don't plan on having children, and I don't put up with potential employers like GF. If you look disappointed because I showed up and am female, I don't want to work for you.

A co-worker long ago gave me the best/worst compliment and most complete description of why I still work in this industry. He was whining that he couldn't meet girls, and I pointed out that I was female. He said, "You're not a girl, you're a sysadmin."

Computers don't care what my gender is. There's no different shell prompt showing I'm female. My ls isn't colored pink and purple because I'm a girl. My sql queries don't run slower because a woman typed them. And sudo doesn't ask me "Are you sure you want to be root, little lady?". Online stores don't ask me if I'm sure I want to buy this hardware because it's not compatible with my not being a dude.

I make what I make, which is a fair wage for what I do in this area, and I'm happy with what I'm doing. More importantly, I'm in an environment where I can grow the skills I want to grow, and my work environment is awesome. Not as awesome as google (no slides, no corporate-sponsored lunch room, no nap room), but awesome enough in the corporate world that I'm not looking to go somewhere else.

Matt:

Additional point- asking about salaries is a firing offense at every company I've worked at.

This policy violates federal law, federal regulations and will result in massive penalties when it gets to court. The National Labor Relations Board has repeatedly held that discussing salaries, wages and benefits to be an "organizing activity" covered by section 7 of the NLRA and that company policies forbidding such discussions are banned because they violate section 8 of the NLRA (one example is Handicabs, Inc. v. NLRB, 95 F.3d 68).
NLRA:
http://www.nlrb.gov/national-labor-relations-act
Handicabs, Inc. v. NLRB, 95 F.3d 68:
http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/95/681/546798/

If they fire you for discussing salaries, get a lawyer because you're going to get a lot of money even after the lawyer does the walletectomy.

If your salary is lame, a signtificant amount has to do with you doing a bad job negotiating.

golddog:

First, I think I must say that I'm in the category of Remy's friend: “I like having more money, but I was making enough before.” So my viewpoint may be skewed; I can't see how people in this industry can possibly spend the kind of money we make.

And yes, I've looked at places like glassdoor.com and see for my experience/skills/etc, I'm not getting paid fairly. But, what would I do with another $X? I live quite nicely within the salary I get now.

Are you maxing out your 401k and IRA? You won't be making this kind of money for the rest of your life, nor will you always be working at a place that offers a 401k. Between my 401k, IRA, catch-up contributions and the post-tax-contributions my 401k plan offers, I'm socking away about $35k this year for retirement. It is a nice amount (my brother is torqued off because it is more than his gross income), but I won't have this career forever, nor will I always be working in places where 401k plans are offered to lowly contractors.

As for the "everything we invested in him/her", I have no clue what that means. I've been paying for my own continuing education out of my own pocket and am working towards another bachelors for an exit plan out of IT. The age discrimination is fierce and all the older programmers I know personally mention hitting brick walls getting hired after about 54-55 years old.

I don't doubt that women on the average make less money than men do. The question is whether this is the result of discrimination or different lifestyle choices.

Like, as someone pointed out, many women take time off in mid-career to raise children, while men rarely do. Similarly, at least among people I've worked with, women are far more likely to put in their 40 hours a week and then go home to take care of house and family or other interests, while men are more likely to be willing to put in extra hours.

Is it better to spend more time with your kids and make less money? If on their deathbeds Alice is surrounded by her loving children with fond memories of all the time they spent together as they were growing up, while Bob dies alone in a nursing home, is Bob really better off because he made 20% more money in his life?

I've seen studies that have found that women who do not have children and who put in the same hours that men do make slightly more than the average man.

I think the reality is that people who devote their lives to their jobs make more money than people who split their lives between work and time with family, community, or even hobbies. You make your choices and you accept the pros and cons. It's rather unfair to say that you want all the advantages that come from spending more time with your family and then complain because you do not make as much money as the person who devotes his life to the company.

in the eighties I was moonlighting for a gun shop that was on the cutting edge of technology, programming an inventory application on an Apple II in GW Basic. I went in one day and noticed that all the employees were pissed about something. Turns out that one of the disgruntled employees was upset about being the lowest paid employee. He had fished the carbon sheet from the payroll out of the trash and was able to read the amounts of all the employees paychecks from the carbon paper. He then typed up a list of all employees and their salaries and posted it in the breakroom bulletin board. Then everybody was upset.

So maybe it's better if you don't go there.