For example, by most every objective measure the more than 6,000 contract programmers, software testers, editors, writers and designers employed at Microsoft are software workers. The fact that most of them are tallied under Help Supply Services is a statistical sham. In addition, most of the approximately 10,000 workers in the Computer Programming Services and Computer Integrated Systems Design categories are software workers of one variety or another. Adding in 25,000 or more uncounted software workers, and their lower average wages in most cases, would reflect a significantly lower true average wage for Washington's software workers. Average pay in the prepackaged software category is tremendously skewed by Microsoft employees who cash in millions in stock options each year.
Median pay is a much better measure of what most workers in the industry make.
The thousands of solidly middle-income workers employed in the industry who are struggling to start or raise families, gain access to decent medical coverage, and find affordable housing can tell you that's not the case. Comment on this and other issues in the WashTech bulletin board . April 9, 2000. Software Pay Data Misleading WashTech News. To view 1998 median incomes for numerous software job titles in Washington state, as reported by the Washington Software Alliance, see WSA Salary Survey .