What to learn to make 90k+ a year - Page 8 - Programming -- Two Plus Two Poker Forums

MrWooster · 10-30-2012, 12:54 PM

Just saw a poker graph in the programming forum and now I feel funny

RICHI8 · 10-30-2012, 08:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrWooster

Just saw a poker graph in the programming forum and now I feel funny

Don't feel jealous. We're programmers so our graph looks like:

Notice the lack of variance!

n00b590 · 11-15-2012, 02:36 AM

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Originally Posted by clowntable

I tihnk if you're just in it for the money the safe bet is to specialize on data. Databases, datamining etc.

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Originally Posted by kyleb

I agree. I'm in this field with little experience and I'm doing well. Takes an analytical mind, but for some reason there are tons of experienced developers who are just godawful at Business Intelligence-related tasks.

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Originally Posted by 10_2os

If you want to make money in software development, contracting is the way to go. In London rates for "commodity" developers start at about 300 GBP/day. Once you get quite good you can achieve 500+.

I'm a BI contractor (data modelling / ETL / SQL/MDX/cubes) and I can tell you that 90K GBP PA is very, very achievable in that niche if you're contracting.

As some of the other posters said, BI is not very easy to self-learn, and requires "soft skills" for the best rates as well as purely technical skills. You need to be a good business analyst, be good at communicating, write coherent documentation etc. to make the top rates in BI. If you're purely a techie, you're better off learning C#/C++ inside out and going to one of the banks to become a quant or something like that. Probably better money in that at the highest echelons ultimately, but it's not my field so I don't know for sure.

Is BI contracting something that can be done remotely, or do companies basically only hire locally? I ask because this seems like an interesting field and a really good fit for me, but I've grown quite fond of the freedom that comes with professional gambling.

10_2os could you share any additional info on how you got started, do you work independently (and if so how do you find your clients) or for a firm, etc.?

eof · 11-17-2012, 08:22 PM

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Originally Posted by sdturner02

Jesus. That sounds like a fate worse than death. And I like computers.

My two cents, fwiw:

-If your goal is money, I'd avoid game dev. Only a few companies create video games. But there are TONS of companies that need an online store, a mobile app, new feature on the web site, etc.

-Hopefully you're not too far invested in learning C++. Drop it immediately and start learning PHP, Python, or Ruby. This has nothing to do with "picking up bad habits" -- no one cares about that. It's about being able to quickly make progress and create results. I know you said you have time. It isn't as much time as you think.

-I love PHP, but my advice is to learn Python or Ruby. Lately it's become fashionable to complain about PHP. I disagree with nearly every point, but that doesn't matter. Only the perception matters. If the complaints persist, it seems reasonable to expect the demand for PHP coders to fall as companies move away from it.

-Learn Javascript and CSS. Seriously.

-For the love of God, please do not read that algorithm book this dude mentioned (no offense man). Instead, build something. Start a project that you can make progress on as you learn. It doesn't matter what it is. The point is that when you're finished you can actually show something to prove what you can do.

And since it can be anything, I'd suggest building the project you've been dreaming about lately.

QFT

best way to make 90K a year programming: be able to make things, and be able to show you have made things.

if you simply do these two things you will inevitably have people begging you to work for/with them; and can easily get 90k a year if you are willing to relocate; but can probably get it remote anyway, or could patch together a 90k~ income stream consulting for 75-150 an hour

eof · 11-17-2012, 08:48 PM

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Originally Posted by semesa

I've changed my schedule to be pretty huge fields/high stakes games so I'm unsure.
My best estimate using ANOVA model is about $120-$150/hr but my true $/hr at this point is a lot less than that due to 6 months of what I used to believe was "downswing" but was, in reality, a misunderstanding of variance resulting in me ignoring my decline in skill. I've since fixed that problem.

Keep in mind that I live in Australia, poker is tax free here. when I said $20-30 and $50-60 per hour, I was referring to the amount I was making that I was able to withdraw to my bank account.

Also keep in mind that I have no qualifications, I dropped out of school in year 11, and never progressed further in the official education system.

That being said, I didn't realise that $55/hr was fairly standard pay for programmers, thats quite a bit higher than I realistically expected most of them to earn.

I am a 'retired' poker player (2006-2009 microstakes to 12 tabling 200NL when i stopped playing for a living). i got into programming, and now earn more than my peak at 1-2. (more than your 55 number; and i would expect to earn 30%~ more if i went to a major city like NYC or SF).

however, I am going to take a month long 'poker vacation' doing only a tiny bit of consulting and mostly playing 1-2 and 2-5.

i prefer the life of a consultant over the life of the poker player; though i liked playing poker more than when i had a full time position.

i 100% think it's easier to make 50k a year programming, for the right person. but, idk how to pwn MTT's either, i was always a cash player.

deafeye · 12-09-2012, 10:39 PM

Making big money in Software has a lot less to do with your skills and a lot more to do with your ability to conduct business, negotiate, and sell a service (which happens to be you programming).

Granted, being really great at what you do to the point of noobs calling you a "hacker" out of awe doesn't hurt (except the cringing when they say stuff like that), but I know terrible devs that make $120k+ and fantastic ones that make around $55k.

There's a lot to be said for happiness to, which is why in such a awesome field you can choose to do things like say "**** the man", start consulting, and run your own show.

clowntable · 12-10-2012, 03:36 AM

Oh since this is somewhat themed "I just want to make $$$" I'd like to add that a pretty easy way to print money over here is to learn ABAP and do SAP stuff for the rest of your life.

That language is something else though, grown and kept backwards compability and seems like they never designed anything beforehand so be warned :P

suzzer99 · 12-25-2012, 10:20 PM

The hardest skill for us to find is good up-to-date CSS developers. Second hardest is JavaScript framework (jQuery, dojo, Ext etc.) developers. If you can show aptitude in either of those things companies will take a shot with you. And if you do well you'll be making $90k+ pretty quick.

daveT · 12-25-2012, 10:30 PM

You mean you need a damn good designer with excellent CSS3 skills, right? I mean, it shouldn't take too much effort to become a CSS maestro (compared to becoming excellent in javascript + dojo + jQuery + backbone + []), but it takes considerable talent to be a top-notch designer. Unfortunately, designers don't think too well in code. I have a difficult time believing you can't find someone with very good CSS and knows how to cut images out of a PSD file, hook them up with a top-notch designer, and get the CSS person up to ultra-modern speed within a month.

suzzer99 · 12-25-2012, 10:44 PM

No we have visual designers. We need really good CSS3 people with mobile (webkit) experience who not only know how to make a page look good - but also know how to keep multiple sprawling CSS files as organized and maintainable as possible. Also deal with stuff like SASS, installing fonts, optimizing pngs, inserting binary stuff in the CSS, refactoring CSS using lazy styles JS, etc.

My boss spent a year and a half looking for someone qualified and couldn't find one. We're in LA and pay well. Now we're off shoring half our work to infosys. They have tons of qualified java programmers, a couple decent JS guys, but no one who really knows CSS.

daveT · 12-25-2012, 11:15 PM

Excuse me if I'm conflating the issue a bit:

You seem to be saying that someone can, for example, go to some monster website (like nba-dot-com), create their idea of good CSS that is a) responsive and b) mobile-friendly, learn a bit of Sass or LESS, post their well-organized files on github, and after (at most) 3 months of doing said project, be in such demand that they will get 6-figure offers while 24-year-olds w/ 6 years of CS college experience are called under-qualified for junior-level positions?

I understand that much of it is self-management on not needing someone to look over their shoulder to make sure the code looks good and stuff, but I'm kind of surprised that this is reality. I think the issue is finding someone that is already there who did a project as I described above, but wow, really? Why didn't I already do this?

suzzer99 · 12-25-2012, 11:30 PM

I'm saying that's our toughest skill to fill right now. Maybe we just suck at finding good CSS ppl. I know infosys doesn't have any.

I'm not really sure the arc, but if someone did what you describe in the first paragraph they should be able to find an entry-level job pretty quick. I was able to land an entry/mid-level $60k Java web-dev job in 2000 with SAS/Perl experience and a personal project dicking around with Java Servlets. After 3 months of that I got a job as a senior (lol) Java developer for $70k which worked its way over $100k in 4 years (could have made more if I jumped ship sooner).

It's like that still getting in the door with front-end experience, only the salaries are obv. higher across the board for programmers. Once in the job, if they're good they should be making 6 figures in two years - probably sooner if they're willing to hop around and boost their resume with side projects. Our lead CSS guy is a contractor with his own LLC who probably grosses something like $15k/month.

Also I suspect the lead CSS job on nba.com is a lot more involved than you think.

daveT · 12-25-2012, 11:55 PM

You really are tempting me to try that now. I enjoy doing CSS, but I was always under the impression that no one gives a two hoots w/o design chops so I never bothered to get better at it or take on a challenging self-project. Of course I'm understating the difficulty of doing nba.com, but I was just pointing out the weirdness of how pretty much anyone with a bit of determination would be able to get something done that is close enough to that site with little more than a few tutorials and maybe a book on responsive CSS. Plus my brain is wired to shoot to the top of the heap or don't bother. I'm sure an easier site would more than suffice.

suzzer99 · 12-26-2012, 12:11 AM

You really should if you think you'd like it. I don't know if our CSS guys started out as designers or not. You need to be proficient with Photoshop obv,

Our company is trying to convert from a separate mobile and full site to a singe responsive site next year optimized for the iPad. It will be a possibly impossible challenge - but I'm looking forward to it. If responsive design really takes off, as it should, CSS will only be more in demand.

I'm trying to get my work to send me to this responsive design class in NYC in a month. I'm the lead JS guy, but I'm sick of not really knowing CSS. With responsive design - CSS will always be the first option. So I need to know everything it's capable of if I'm going to make front-end design decisions. If they won't pay for the class, I may just go and pay for it myself.

We're still pretty ****ed though until IE-8 is out of circulation - no CSS3/HTML5

daveT · 12-26-2012, 02:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by suzzer99

We're still pretty ****ed though until IE-8 is out of circulation - no CSS3/HTML5

May be of interest...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdTxeR90_1E