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Re: Writers vs developers salaries (was RE: Salary info from Coopers and Lybrand survey)
Subject:Re: Writers vs developers salaries (was RE: Salary info from Coopers and Lybrand survey) From:"M. Dannenberg" <midannen -at- SI -dot- BOSCH -dot- DE> Date:Tue, 5 Aug 1997 10:38:50 +0200
Bergen, Jane schrieb:
> We are not allowed to discuss salaries at work, but of course everyone
>
> does...at least in some vague manner. I would say that my experience
> has
> been that the developers I work with make 1.5 to 2 times as much as I
> do. The managers in development probably make lots more than that,
> even.
> I know the houses they are buying are sometimes 3 - 4 times what I
> paid
> for my little abode. I must not be living right.
>
> I work for a software developer and programmers are gods. The measure
> is
> not if you do what you're supposed to do and well, but rather if
> you're
> "technical" enough. It's the only word that counts.
>
To adapt the old feminist adage, techwriters who want to earn as much as
programmers, lack ambition. I too work at a company where anybody who
doesn't write code has to justify their existence and is often regarded
as some kind of useless adjunct. However, this is a small company, where
the heads of development are very much involved in the marketing effort.
Because of that they are aware that decent documentation is absolutely
essential if you want to sell software. Programmers grow on trees these
days, but a good techwriter is pretty hard to come by, so by the law of
supply and demand, that drives the price up. I think that in today's
economic situation techwriters have no reason whatsoever for selling
themselves too cheap.
Mike (off on holiday in about three hours WHEW!!)
--
Mike Dannenberg
ETAS GmbH & Co.KG
midannen -at- si -dot- bosch -dot- de
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