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How much is my worth?
Hi guys,
Serious replies please.
I am 33. Employed at a UK agency and working from home in Sri Lanka.
I do:
WordPress or other platform like Magento/Opencart site/plugin development, debugging and fixes/addons
Any php/ruby site maintenance fixes, CSS/bootsrap/jquery/JS -- Expert level
Sysadmin work L3 level
System engineer (plain linux servers or AWS), redundant systems etc.. galera.. moderate level
In a nutshell, I do bit of everything.
I have 11 years or programming experience and 4 years of system admin / engineering experience.
I am the senior most engineer here.
We are a small agency.
How much my monthly remuneration could be?
The pay is nice (2260USD pm) but I need more, Need to start building a home.
Thank you
ps: boss please dont be angry if you see this. 
Comments
7$
$10
You've already decided you're worth more than what you're getting, so you've answered your own question. Ask for a raise if you like where you work, maybe an inflationary rise is a good place to start which is backed up by something tangible, but not sure how much "more" you want.
20% more than what you make right now is a good start and keep doing it every year.
How much does it cost to build a house in Sri Lanka?
An average one, since we dont plan making kids... Around 50K usd for the land and the house.
To whom? To me, pretty much nothing because we are not in web "development".
To some brit companies possibly +50% of what you earn now - if you are good.
Why not plan ahead? One day, you might want a kid, plan accordingly, versus starting from 0 again.
If you're working 40 hours per week, you're getting really poor pay. Although, if the company was specifically looking for someone in a foreign country to get lower costs then that may be all they want to spend. On the other hand, if you've been working with them a long time and proved your value to the company, then they should have no problem paying you a fair pay regardless of your location. You should be able to get at least 2X what you're being paid now. $60k/yr is totally fair for a senior dev that's doing so many jobs, you probably generate the company 4X that amount in profits.
Use your job to get a UK visa, and move to UK. It takes like 5 years of working in the UK to get residency.
Then use your opportunity to land a better job in the UK, and stop positioning yourself as a Sri Lankan sys admin because all of these foreign companies (US, UK, CA, AU, NZ, etc.) are globalizing and intentionally taking advantage of the fact you're from a developing country, therefore, they can pay you less.
@gwnd1989 all people living in developed countries will find that you are being underpaid but anybody from a developing country will find that you are being paid good. Cost of living in developing countries is much less than developed countries.
It's unlikely you will find a remote job that pays you more unless you are able to offer that others are not able to offer.
As @SirFoxy suggested you can migrate to UK or any other developed nation and you will get at least 2x of what you are being paid now, but your cost of living will go as high as 2x-3x or may be even more. But you will even get more opportunities.
I can easily find a Good L3 Admin + dev ops in India and some other developing nations as well, who will gladly work for even less. It's not exploiting because for them even this salary is very good and can help them improve their over all standard of living as cost of living is much less in developing nations. And for companies to be competitive they need to keep their expenses low so this is one of the way to achieve it and it helps both.
But still I would suggest if you are happy with your current employer and if you have worked with them long term, just ask them for a raise, if you are giving value to the company they may give you some raise.
I would echo pretty much what @thane stated above.
However, here's some food for thought:
$2,260/month * 12 = $27,120 (GBP is ≈£21,400).
The UK's National Living Wage as of right now is £10.42/hour for those aged 23 and over.
£10.42 * 40 (providing you're doing 40 hours per week) = £416.80.
£416.80 * 52 = £21,673.60.
Note: in April 2024, the UK's NLW for those aged 21 and over is rising to £11.44 per hour which would put those working 40 hours per week at £23,795.20 per year.
In addition, according to Indeed; the UK average base salary for a 'web developer' is £33,086 per year.
Note: I am not accounting for any sort of taxation – the above is just an example to help OP gauge where his pay is at vs. the UK's minimum, etc.
@yoursunny $10 zyra outbidding
bin:$12.69
Start you own agency.
I usually google the median wage for the occupation for where I am working for. I also work remotely and I do get more than the minimum wage but I have a feeling I get less than what I would if I were living where the work was at by perhaps 30% less - I would love to get than 30% more but probably not to have to drive to work everyday - I hate driving because I did this for 15 years spending 4 hours per day on the road. Anyways, I also make about twice that of the minimum wage there which keeps me content and also looking at having to compete on a freelance market - having the remote work is much better as in stable pay - worked for freelance and there would be months before I could get a gig
So factor those things in as well. From what you mentioned though, you do have the potential to make more but it's demand and supply and WP doesn't help that from what I see in general unless you find an employer that is genuine about caring for your well being vs getting back deal on you.
Lots of employers (not all but lots) have a black Friday mentality when it comes to pay
He's not working in the UK, he's working in Sri Lanka.
Why should he get web dev base pay you quoted, he doesn't have to pay 600+ GBP a month for a single bed in greater London. Or pay UK elec, gas water prices, council tax, road tax and/or huge cost of public transport.
There is no way, someone working remotely, paying local food prices should get the same wages as someone who has to live in the UK and commute.
Also unless he has an NI number, he is a freelancer and not paying UK income tax, or national insurance in the UK, not contributing. Living wage is not law, but a recommendation for people living in the UK, not elsewhere.
People don't usually see it but technically this could be considered discrimination against a country or race if you really go far with it. But the world does it anyways and chooses to ignore it. A standard salary for a specific job should be applied to all employees whether location or race - that is what equal opportunity is about
Anyways don't kill the messenger
If you lived in the US I’d casually say $150k/year. Give or take, depending on which skill set you leaned more heavily on for a role. All I know is US and a little India though.
It’s usually somewhat based on the cost of living where you’re at as well. Even if hired by a US company. You wouldn’t hire someone in a place with the lowest cost of living and pay them a San Francisco salary, they’d leave you after a year because they bought their country and became a warlord.
Honestly, excel in your job and you will get a huge bonus from your employer!
$150k is a lot - I don't make even half of that working for a US based organization as a full stack developer but I figure it's the big fortune companies one would have to work for to earn that or live in Silicon Valley?
The easiest way to know is to ask the market, go apply for jobs and interview, After a few offers you will have your answer.
$13
I'm 100% ok with that, but it works both ways.
If someone gets equal pay, in a diffent location, then I want equal PPP, If i don't get equal PPP ( purchasing power parity) then the person getting equal wages in a less expensive location is richer.
Pay parity is the practice of paying people equitably. This means that those in the same job and location receive fair pay relative to each other regardless of their race, gender, sexuality, or any other identity. https://www.hibob.com/hr-glossary/pay-parity/
I want to pay Sri Lankan prices for goods, services and property, otherwise it's discrimination.
If he worked in the UK, paying UK taxes he is due equal wages to any man, woman, not dependent on race, creed or any other factor. But he is not!
I'm frankly a bit shocked. For one by the widespread "liberal" anything goes, Brit, Chinese, Indian, German, French, Srilankan, all the same (as in "equal outcome"). For a start, "equal outcome" is a moronic dreamer "principle" - as opposed to "equal opportunity" which of course is not hip.
But also because having nothing but some guys self-estimation large numbers are thrown around.
Being in Sri Lanka also means cumbersome, not always reliable and sometimes difficult communication, also during a time of day possibly outside of NA or EU business hours. And it also means (potentially very) major differences in cultural, educational, etc. background.
IF someone really is good and can demonstrate that I don't care about where (s)he's from. But I most certainly would not even consider someone from whoknowswhere based only on how he himself thinks about himself.
Also, like it or not, it's not us responsible for or in charge of the opportunities in someone else's country. It's their government's job. Plus: why should I employ someone from whoknowswhere when plenty of my country's own people do need (possibly extra) income?
Plus, pardon me, if that sounds harsh: Of bloody course many (most?) companies giving/outsourcing job to cheap labour countries do that to make more or save money ~ not paying well. I also don't like that (because people should earn money first, not companies, especially not large one) but hell, that's the way it is.
Finally (as some suggested): If someone doesn't make the step to come and live in e.g. britland, why the f#ck should (s)he earn a brit salary?
Besides, I wouldn't trust that guy anyway because he actually seems to have dabbled a bit in web scripting but says he has x years programming experience.
Also: You can't even throw a test task at him because who knows who'd really complete it.
Nuh, thanks no.
(P.S. before some now rage against me: I actually DID help quite a few people on their way into or in the business, no matter which sex, colour, etc.)
I think you might be conflating liberalism with communism. Liberalism as in - allowing people the freedom to express themselves and live their lives without any government interference - doesn't mean equal pay for everyone worldwide.
I'm of somewhat left liberal leaning views but I agree with you here: OP lives in a developing country and can't require developed county wages. Wish for, perhaps. But ultimately unless OP moves to UK/US/other developed country, wage expectations should be lower - that $2.2k will go a lot further there than it does in the US or UK.
At the end of the day OP is worth what someone is willing to pay, and if companies aren't willing to pay premium wages for a remote worker in a developing country: he has his answer.
Over a decade ago I got a job in Sheffield UK, on the last day of training, the owner of the company came in for a motivational speech.
He said something long the lines of;
"We are so glad to welcome you all to the company, and we chose Sheffield as the location because if we hired at our headquarters in London we'd have to pay you all £35,000+"
We ere getting £18,000. I walked out and never went back. Bad speech, but he was telling the truth.
You're missing the point of my post entirely:
I'm WELL aware the geezer is in Sri Lanka as per their post (believe it or not, I actually read posts in their entirety) – on the subject of reading posts in their entirety, did you see the little 'note' at the bottom of mine?
I simply gave some numbers to set a baseline of what someone over here in a similar job role would typically be looking at, vs. what the minimum wage someone would get, within the UK – I don't want to venture into UK vs. Sri Lanka and their respective costs of living, nor do I want to assume the OP's tax situation.
Just to bring you up to speed on NLW vs. Minimum Wage within the UK:
If you are an employee aged 23 and over and not in the first year of your apprenticeship, you are legally entitled to at least the National Living Wage of £10.42 an hour - it would be illegal for your employer to pay you less than on the national living wage.
If you are an employee under the age of 23, you are legally entitled to at least the national minimum wage applicable to your age group.
tl;dr: National Living Wage replaced National Minimum Wage in April 2016 for those (at the time) aged 25 or older, 23 or older as of now and 21 or older from April 2024, it is no longer a 'recommendation' but mandatory for those aged 23 and above.
You are getting paid very good for the work you do imho (if you look at through a sri lankan lens and what others around you are getting paid instead of what your coworkers in the UK are getting paid)
I wasn't talking about the textbook definition but about real-world, i.e. nowadays usually exaggerated to the extreme "liberalism". That's why I put it in '"'.
You might be surprised but I'm not because I'm somewhat left leaning too.
A slightly different slant on this is that I as a UK-based senior programmer am currently running my own company and contracting myself out to a US-based company. I priced myself at below what they pay their normal permanent staff, but that rate was more than most contracts I'd find in the UK.
They're really happy because they're getting a senior with a lot of experience, but I'm cheaper than their regular guys and so they treat me really well. If I physically moved to that part of the US, I could easily get 50% more in salary, but my living expenses would also go up massively too. So, I'm happy staying where I am in the UK - my quality of life is pretty good and I think, overall, I'm better off than if I'd moved to the US.
So, if you think you're making a good wage compared to people around you, then don't worry too much about the fact that you could be making more if this or that... Keep doing what you're doing, make yourself indispensable to the team, and then ask for a pay rise.
And don't just approach it that you want a pay rise because it's a bigger number so obviously better. Figure out how much you're worth to the company, find out how much your impact has brought to the company, and pitch it to them. If you're not happy doing that, build up your CV with experience you gained in this position, and show that you were working for a UK-based company with UK-clients. You can probably use it as a stepping stone to something else that offers remote work with better pay.