Programmer pay rates in Armenia, from intern to top (opens in new tab)

(yerevancoder.com)

3 pointse_d_g_a_r8y ago3 comments

3 comments

This kind of discussion can only help programmers.

A point I've raised elsewhere: why should geography figure into a pay rate. The work programmers do in Armenia isn't less valuable than work I do in the Bay Area. They should be paid closer to my rate. Even if the figures quoted in the article are US dollars it's still low for programming. Programmers who live in Armenia should demand more.

Note: obviously geography will have some indirect impact. Local shops in Armenia providing services for local businesses can likely only afford local rates, for example.

FBISurveillance8y ago

I think those numbers are impacted by outsourcing market a lot. As discussed here multiple times, when you work remotely for a company without a middle man, other rates are applied.

With Basecamp, for instance, you'd get proper pay so you'd be able to afford flight tickets for a conference, which is not the case with rates in this article.

Disclaimer: born, lived and worked not too far from Armenia; worked in outsourcing for a good chunk of my early career. I'm a strong advocate of location-independent fair salary and hope other companies will follow Basecamp's lead.

EDIT: typo.

FBISurveillance8y ago

Pardon my sloppy example, but using https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/developer/ as GitLab salary calculator (on the bottom of that page), you can earn at least $76k/year working on GitLab as a senior engineer. While still not fair—in my humble opinion—that's more than 2x compared to numbers on the article.

Mind you, outsourcing firms take at least 30% of your paycheck (from what I remember from more than decade ago, $1.5k fees on top of $3k/month salary).

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3 comments

sidlls8y ago

This kind of discussion can only help programmers.

Note: obviously geography will have some indirect impact. Local shops in Armenia providing services for local businesses can likely only afford local rates, for example.

FBISurveillance8y ago

I think those numbers are impacted by outsourcing market a lot. As discussed here multiple times, when you work remotely for a company without a middle man, other rates are applied.

With Basecamp, for instance, you'd get proper pay so you'd be able to afford flight tickets for a conference, which is not the case with rates in this article.

EDIT: typo.

FBISurveillance8y ago

Mind you, outsourcing firms take at least 30% of your paycheck (from what I remember from more than decade ago, $1.5k fees on top of $3k/month salary).

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse