[sf-lug] Fwd: [JOB] PHP/MySQL Developer, Santa Cruz, CA | 60k

[Adrien Lamothe]

If you can find an apartment in Santa Cruz, a single person can live on $60k/year there. Doing the math for rent (~ $1500/month, you don't want to live in a dump), car payment (~ $250/month), car insurance (comprehensive, say ~ $100/month?), gas (~ $450/month), food (say $300/month), you get a total of $2600/month, or $31,200/year living expenses, not including clothing, entertainment, vacation or incidental expenses. What does $60k/year leave you with, after payroll deductions? You get the picture. This is O.K. for a single person, but what about a couple? If a couple with children tries to move to Santa Cruz, then likely both parents are working, which means not one but both your candidate and the candidate's spouse need to find work. If only one parent, your candidate, works, then it is very unlikely the family can be supported by the $60k/year salary. Also, whoever takes the job shouldn't even think about buying a home or condo, if they do they'll quickly find out they
 don't qualify ($60k/year doesn't cut the mustard).

This is a primary reason software development has been spreading out, to areas with lower costs of living and lower costs of doing business. Enlightened companies are letting employees telecommute via VPNs. If you let your developer live in someplace like say Portland, then they will be more than happy to work for $60k/year.

By the way, a headhunter recently contacted me about some long-term contract programming at a Santa Clara company, doing PHP and MySQL. The hourly rate, on my end, would have been $70/hour; this doesn't include the agency cut. So, the client is paying at least $100/hour. So, good luck getting someone good offering $60k/year.

The principal of Bellarmine high school (I should say "ex-principal") resigned and moved to Georgia, because he couldn't afford to pay a mortgage and raise his family on what they were paying him. Bellarmine, a private school, is known for having one of the better pay and benefit packages in the Bay Area. I also know a physics teacher there, who is single, who left for mostly the same reasons, he went to St. Louis to work for Grumman. I bet Grumman is paying him more than Bellarmine was, and his cost of living is much lower.




Lx Rudis <lx_rudis at sbcglobal.net> wrote: moen:
>Offering $60k for the skillset described, in the 2006 Northern California
>job market, is just absurd.

ok rick, i'll bite:  
what _does_ $60k/yr buy in 2007?

i'm one of the directors of atari inc's rebranding effort.  
i am sitting here in the NYC offices at 1am typing, and i'm all ears.  

we've got two intermediate slots open.  
like that earlier post, my tech director is looking for PHP and SQL skills.
difference here is that you're talking to staff, not a recruiter.

x

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