[erlang-questions] Standard modern salary for an Erlang programmer?

[Richard Carlsson]

Richard O'Keefe wrote:
> On 25 Mar 2009, at 3:22 am, G.S. wrote:
>> What's a standard, good average salary for the Erlang programmer  
>> with a few years of experience, based in USA?
>> Java is 70-90k,
> 
> Wow.  That's about double what I make as a university lecturer.

Are you sure about that calculation? That would mean a lecturer
in NZ makes just a little more than a Swedish graduate student,
which seems... weird.

Anyway, it's hard to compare income in different countries,
and doubly so if one of them is the US. About ten years ago,
I (then a graduate student) visited an old friend who had moved
to the US, got a Master's degree, and was living in the Bay
Area. Working with user interface design, she (then) made something
like 60-65k$/year, which was almost twice what I made at home.
But once I had picked up my jaw and looked at her standard of
living, it was apparent that I was not much worse off. The taxes
in the US are low (a mere rounding error, by Swedish standards),
but once she had paid the extortionate housing costs, and 17 kinds
of insurance, there was not much left of that salary.

     /Richard Carlsson