In Malaysia, the cap on programmer's salary is pretty low compared to other countries. You'd have to move on to management to increase your salary cap. Granted, there are SOME companies that pay well for seniors with good skills, but that is not the average.

If you calculate pay/hour, then the numbers are even more depressing because of the long hours with no OT involve. A common trait for programmers. I have a few x-colleagues as well that switched profession to become financial planners, chefs, etc.

As someone pointed out, you really really have to have interest. If you're just in it for the money, then either switch profession or quickly get to management level (which does not necessary require good programming skills).

That is a niche job. In general the more popular languages like .net and java programmers, which gets taught in unis as well, are not.

That doesn't necessarily mean it has a good future. How far do you think you can go as a programmer without switching to management? In Malaysia, the norm is programmers, even senior programmers have a salary cap which you wont be able to exceed unless you cross over to become a manager.

What's the ratio of programmer to managers? It is definitely not 1:1. Lets pick a number, lets say it is 5:1. So your probability of becoming a manager, assuming all the 5 programmers are equals, is 1/5. If you dont make it, you salary is flat-lined and wont increase anymore and you have to wait for the next opportunity.

You say you are living comfortably now, so? Do you have a wife and kids? Do you have a household to maintain? Even if you do, do you think the cost will not increase? When your kids grow, cost for food, leisure, education increases. You want your paycheck to grow. But in Malaysia programmers salary are capped.

In some MNCs (and countries), they dont cap technical positions by non-technical positions, but that is NOT the norm.

Do not confuse opportunity of employment with salary advancement limit. Just because there's a big market for the job, does not mean the salary advancement limit is high (and dont confuse salary advancement limit to opportunity). Salary advancement opportunity in the IT industry in Malaysia is high, but the limit/cap is low compared to other white collar professions based on hourly work to pay ratio.

When you talk about future, you want to take ALL of these into consideration. A lot of ppl switch profession, not because they cannot find another job, in fact they get tons of offer. Most of my friends that quit IT, is because they realize the amount of work they put in is not worth it, since the cap on the pay is just too low, and the chance to leap to management is not that easy.

Some ppl are lucky, most are NOT.

Heh I see salary and career advancement to be more significant to the Future than job demand. Job demands are ephemeral, they can be a million opportunities today and zero tomorrow. You can hardly say a profession has bright future based on that. That is why I tend to look at it from the perspective of salary and career advancement.

In Malaysia, it does not bode well. As I said, a lot of companies practice capping technical positions with managerial ones. So you can only progress so far in a technical position like IT. This what I base my points on. I've worked in a couple of companies in the US as a software developer, they do NOT cap their technical salary advancements with managerial ones. In one project that I was in, my team lead earned more than my manager because he had a lot more years of experience. Try finding that in Malaysia, it is not the norm.

In PJ, you can try ebworx in Menara Merais at section 19 or Scope International (Standard Chartered Bank) in Menara Axis opposite Armada Hotel. I heard they are looking for IT interns, although so far they have exclusively recruited from some local Unis instead of advertising for it.

That doesnt mean a thing. If you plot the pay rise for most programmers over 30 years, it is not a straight upward line, rather it is curved and starts to slow down after you hit close to 10K.

You have to Look at the salary cap to talk about FUTURE. As the more you project your career to the Future, the closer it gets to the cap. Like I said before, unless the person makes the jump to become a Manager, the salary cap for a programmer is not adequate to sustain a person when they get older and have grown up kids to provide for.

Ask yourself, what is the ratio of Manager to Programmer. If every programmer sticks to being a programmer for 30 years, how many of those will become a Manager and get pass the salary cap of a programmer. Do you think that number is good? I would say it is not.

Sorry, if you think RM10k is more than adequate then I dont agree with you. RM10k for a 20-30 year old is a lot yes. But for someone who is 40-50, with a few kids to put thru college, housing loan to pay off, food for a family, and potentially cost for sustaining their parents, it is definitely not enough. We are projecting to the FUTURE here, do not think the RM10K although enough for most of us young ppl are enough to sustain your whole life.

Wrong. Only in technical professions. There are many non technical prositions, like lawyers, doctors, lecturers, sales, etc that are not absolutely capped by managerial positions.

Of course it depends on a lot of factors. That doesnt null out the IF statement, the IF is only one possible scenario out of a lot. However, whatever permutation you like to apply, it still doesnt void the fact that on average the ratio of manager will be less than programmers.

If you are at a crossroad and have a chance to choose a profession, neither interest you as much, where the probability is 1 for salary advancement above an acceptable level assuming all other factors are in place (hard work, skill, determination) and being a programmer where the probability is less than 1 (you've reach the cap, and the only way to advance is crossing to a managerial position) assuming again all other factors are in place, which would you choose?

It depends on company. Thats the problem with the industry here in Malaysia, I'm not sure about other countries, but there is absolutely no industry standards in determining the wage of a software developer.

Heck even the titles are not standardized. A system analyst in one company can have a totally different role and job scope in another. Totally. As in nothing even remotely related.

Whats worse, is that some small companies let their own employee make up the title, i've been in one like this before. Funny part is the HR or hiring ppl for the IT industry seem to be oblivious to this and treats former job title as an absolute yardstick to measure someone's worth. The industry is a mess.