Options regarding in-house programming position with no education

Question

I'm in a sort of predicament at my place of employment, but first the background. Currently, I'm working as a computer specialist making about $29k a year at a local school district in the tri-state area. My jobs include managing the phone system, a few servers, two schools with about 70 teachers, and programming small applications.

Recently, I took the initiative to create an application drawn from the districts desire for a specific piece of software. My initial work on this application took place during my spare time at work and at home. About a year later, I presented my unfinished project to the key people at the district. Needless to say, they were very enthusiastic about the application I was creating and wanted me to continue my work full-time.

Things went fairly quickly after my initial presentation. The wheels got moving to fill my technology specialist position temporarily in order for me to work full-time. I met with the Director of the Business Office and my boss regarding how things would work moving forward. The Director basically asked me to give him a number of what I wanted to be paid. I talked to a few of my buddies and figured out what I feel I should be paid initially. I felt that based on what the application entailed that $80k would be a reasonable amount per-year (plus benefits).

Once I gave the Director my number, he expressed to me that once the application was fully-functional, then he would be able to present my new position proposal to the board. It felt kind of odd, but I was okay with it since I was excited to program every day. I assumed he took this route because of how I expressed my vision for the application. The vision I expressed entailed a "never-done" approach, by adding features incrementally, the work would continue way after the applications initial release. Since then, I've been pulled in and out of my old position as a technology specialist because of the temporary hires. Thus giving me a huge whiplash of playing catch up with the technology department and figuring out where I was at in my programming.

Here is my main question for the community:

Am I being too passive about this whole deal? I feel like I should be paid at my requested rate (if not somewhere close to there) if I'm creating the application. I'm mainly being passive right now because I know it's a public school district and not a business.

Some quick background:

1. I only have a 1-year of college under my belt and a high school diploma
2. I've created a few other applications for the district
3. The superintendent and a few other educational administrators are very interested in what I'm creating
4. The solution I'm creating is very unique to the district; there isn't any off-the-shelf equivalent at the moment

Any helpful advice would be appreciated!

Thanks,

Answer 1

I think it's pretty likely they aren't actually prepared to pay you $80k. I feel like $80k may even possibly be a bit high, but of course pay rates are highly dependent on location.

But also, $80k is nearing the median salary of a school principal (~$88k according to Google) and much higher than the median teacher's salary.

I don't recommend doing work way outside the scope of your current position only for promises of a promotion. People deserve to be fairly compensated for their work, and it's all too easy for promises to fall through, only then people will have the expectation that you'll do dev work for an unfairly cheap price.

I'd insist on getting proper compensation for any additional work it takes to finish, and if they refuse, start looking for reasonably compensated dev jobs.

Answer 2

I don't want to be pessimistic, but a company pays a developer 80k, because they can sell the software for 240k. A school is not in the software-selling business though. Your 80k income means whatever your application does, it must generate at least 120k revenue or be able to replace 5-6 full-time jobs - annually!

The end result will be an offer to purchase your fully-functional software ("It's better than nothing after all the time you've invested for the software, isn't it?"), with a small raise for maintaining it.

Sorry.

Answer 3

Your salary expectations should take into account:

Your lack of degree

Unfortunately, regardless of your skills, unless you have a convincing track record, the lack of a Computer Science or Software Engineering degree means your market rate will be lower than that of those who do.

Government pays less than private sector

Not much to say here, it's just true. (Edit: though keep in mind benefits which are often higher with government jobs.)

So if 80K is what private firms pay programmers with degrees in your area, you won't be able to negotiate for that much. Another consideration is that even if you can provide a certain level of skill or value, the school may not have the budget or need for that level of output.

My recommendation:

Negotiate for a modest increase in salary. Developing custom software that is used in production by end users for moderate to important tasks certainly has value and should be compensated more than system administration of COTS software for a similar number of users.

Alternatively, ask if you can develop software for them on a contract/consultant basis in addition to your normal duties.

When you have several years of experience developing and maintaining production quality software, you can apply for development jobs and use these applications as your portfolio. See if you can create a demo and code samples of the software you've written for prospective employers (making sure that you don't violate your contract with your current employer, or their copyrights or compromise confidential information).

If you already have such experience you may be ready to leave this job.

Also consider talking to developers in your area to see if your estimate of your own skill level is accurate.

Answer 4

Something that may be more appropriate in your case is to negotiate with the district now, that even though they are going to pay you to develop this, you want to retain ownership and copyrights. This will allow you to take the code with you when you leave and even sell it to other districts for personal profit.

This is a tricky concept and may not fly, but it's very unlikely you will get paid reasonably for this, given all the arguments others have given. So it's worth a shot. This way when you finish it up, you can leave for a better job and take this app with you and sell it to others or negotiate support contracts with the district. They may be far more likely to pay a nice hourly support rate compared to a full time salary.

Answer 5

I hate to burst your bubble, but your enthusiasm and dreams of a big paycheck might have clouded your judgement.

First off, it is highly doubtful you will get $80K a year. The average 1st year programmer who graduated with a programming degree is $50K right now. One has to have a lot of years and experience to make $80K annually, which you dont have.

The following is a huge red flag for me:

he expressed to me that once the application was fully-functional, then he would be able to present my new position proposal to the board.

This basically says, we will take your work and there is no guarantee you will get any compensation. What if the board rejects the proposal? To make matters worse, it seems like you have already agreed to do the work for them, with no provisions. You might have already given away your legal rights to this software.

A this point you need to decide how you want to pursue this. You might even want to consult a lawyer.

Answer 6

Several good answers already, but I'd like to add something to think about which can make a huge difference. I'm with everyone else thinking that 80 k is probably unrealistic (although possible).

But whichever way it pans out, making sure you retain ownership of the software could easily make you a lot more in terms of resale value and maintenance. If your product is unique enough and in demand you could well end up living well off it.

In that case you can look at this as an opportunity to invest in your own future while the day to day living expenses are being taken care of by others. I have done several jobs at a break even cost or worse, only because I saw resale value and steady maintenance fees if I retained ownership. Your basically being paid to develop something for yourself.

So my advice is bring that factor into your thinking on the whole matter. If you have a solid, proven, mature product, no one cares about your qualifications. I left school at 14.