Re: US-MN-Mpls >>> Ada Software Engineers <<<

[Jerry Petrey <gpetrey@hercii.mar.lmco.com>]

kevin@nospamworld.com wrote:
> 
> In article <36C24646.804BC44E@stny.lrun.com>, Dino says...
> >
> 
> > Also based on supply/demand I would
> >think that engineers with Ada experience could name their price these days ?.
> 
> Actually, Ada programmers make less than C++ or Java or even C.
> 

This is your opinion but unless you have access to EVERY programmer's
employment records, it is purely a guess.

I have not found your guess to be the case in my experience.

> You don't have to believe me, just go to http://www.dice.com, search
> for Ada as key word, you'll see about 30 or so positions, with less pay than
> C/C++/Java/Unix positions. (If you search for C++ you'll get 100's of
> positions).
>

I just did a search and found 206 Ada positions on this site.

 
> When I last was looking for a position, calling the Ada work agents listed,
> they would be shocked if I mentioned a rate over $50/hr. Yet, calling the
> C++ agents, and asking for $80-$100/hr was not even questioned, and many
> positions would be happy to pay that for the right person. One agent told
> me not to bother sending my resume if I am asking for more than $50/hr,
> and this was for a huge defense project done by a huge defense company.
>

Again, my experience has not found this magic $50 barrier for Ada.

 
> The reason is simple. Ada is used 99% of the time in defense and/or
> goverment work. And these pay less than private commercial work where
> Ada is hardly used.
> 
> It is sad really, since Ada is a better language with no question, but
> since there is little demand for it, the pay is less, even though there
> are many more C++ programmers, the C++ programmer still makes more than
> then Ada programmer.
>

I find the demand for Ada very high and the rates going up.
You have to know where to look and have the proper skills.
 
> This is my own list of software skills, listed on decreasing order
> of pay level:
> 
> 1. C++/Perl/Java beans/Corba/Networking,System programming, drivers, etc..
> 2. C/Unix/Windows/GUI/Plain Java/Swing/Web-HTML-CGI/Porting work ..
> 3. Database stuff, oracle/sybase etc../system admin work, scripts
> 4. VB, word, backoffice, all other MS boring stuff.
> 5. Ada/real-time/embeded programming/defense work
> 

Again, speculation only.

> (notice no one cares about design and software engineering in the real
> world, that is why this skill is not listed, no one ever asked me about
> those skills, they only ask how many years of C++ I have).
> 
> 
> Kevin


Perhaps the places doing C++ don't care about design and software
engineering (why I am I not supprised) but I find the ones using 
Ada do care and are willing to pay for it.


Jerry

-- 
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=  Jerry Petrey - Consultant Software Engineer  - Member Team Ada   =
=                 Lockheed Martin                 Member Team Forth =
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