Dear Ari:
Oh, these kinds of inquiries make me so sad. There's a good basic rule in this--You Get What You Pay For. Museums need to make some very basic decisions about either committing to paying what the market requires, or simply outsourcing, what you want done. These kids coming right out of school might have the right skill set but they aren't going to be happy if they are paid less than their buddies who go into the commercial world. They come in wanting to get a foot in the door but soon realize that museums expect 24/7 service for not a lot of pay. [Imagine the talk at the bar on Saturday nights, particularly in Boston. "You accepted a job for how much?" Followed by much laughter.] Nor will they be willing to stick around long, so what you've originally gained in getting someone quickly you will ultimately lose in turn-over. And you ultimately risk turning your museum over to Bob the I.T. Guy, who's great, but has his own issues http://musematic.net/?p=37. My advice, if you are going to do it, do it right. Decide exactly what you want the person to do and pony up the dollars for the best you can afford. Holly Witchey Director, New Media Initiatives The Cleveland Museum of Art 11150 East Blvd. Cleveland, Ohio 44106 Phone: 216-707-2653 Fax: 216-721-4176 Email: hwitchey at clevelandart.org www.clevelandart.org www.museumattic.org (blog) www.musematic.net -----Original Message----- From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ari Davidow Sent: Friday, February 02, 2007 10:33 AM To: mcn-l at mcn.edu Subject: [MCN-L] programmer salaries We're having a bit of an argument here about appropriate salaries for programming staff. We are considering hiring our first developer. The internal argument goes something like, "this person is just out of school and we can't pay him as much as someone with a Masters" - ie, we can't pay as much as we pay our starting humanities graduates. The reality is that we could then be offering someone in the very low $30k range, which is, by my quick glance at Boston salaries, about 10k (or more) lower than such people get outside of our field. For those people who have hired staff developers, what do you pay for what skills at what level? -- I imagine paying less for PHP developers than Java developers, for instance. Where are there some salary tables that I can look at to get a sense of what an expensive city (Boston) pays for these skills in the non-profit world (recognizing that most non-profits do not hire staff developers). ari _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
