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Comment by ryanwaggoner | Hacker News Reader

Maybe you haven't heard, but at least 1 in 10 people in the US can't find work right now.

How many of those 10% are unemployed coders who would be glad to take work for $2 / hr? I'm guessing zero.

Sorry, but $200 for two weeks of work is less than minimum wage. If that's all you can make as a programmer in the US, you're either not looking in the right places or you're not much of a programmer. I know enough programmers (myself included) who charge more than an order of magnitude more than that and turn down work constantly to think otherwise. And I'm no rockstar. A good friend of mine who does PHP web development landed a good telecommute software developer job last year making $80k / yr. He lives in the Midwest and has been coding for like 3 years.

So maybe I'm not living in the same country as you.

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A good friend of mine who does PHP web development landed a good telecommute software developer job last year making $80k / yr. He lives in the Midwest and has been coding for like 3 years.

I just graduated from a great school, but live in Cincinnati for family reasons, and can't find a damn thing job wise that's looking for anything but "senior" level, and places won't even consider the 3 years I spent interning at a place in Rochester, they just see the graduation date and think "bottom level"... So if your friend can clue me on where to find that 80k telecommute, I would be eternally thankful....

Learn Drupal. There's customer demand, and a shortage of coders who really understand it.

this

Honestly, if I were you, I'd stop looking for a job, or at least stop looking just for a job. Put together a portfolio of work you've done, some references, and start looking for contract work. Making $25 - 50 / hr should be no problem depending on your skills and portfolio. Once you've done this for a year or two and you have a solid body of work, no one will care where you went to school or when you graduated.

How did he find that job?

I like the city I'm in but the tech industry is very homogeneous here. I would love to find a telecommuting full-time software development position that pays well and where I can work on an interesting project. I have more experience than your friend and have experience working from home. I'd be interested in knowing more about how he came across the position.

Edit: $80k is almost at the ceiling of what a top software developer could expect in my city so this has really peaked my interest.

It was a contract-to-hire position...I think he may have actually found it on Craigslist, though I'm sure that's not the best place to look.

So - the challenge is, that companies are not looking for $20/Hour developers (Adjust $20/Hour California Wages for wherever you live). They are looking for $50-$70/hour developers, and all that happens, is the $20/Hour developer doesn't get a job.

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