gozu

I'm a senior CS student without significant programming experience and I was wondering what kind of pay I should expect for a job doing white box quality testing.

I live in South east florida if it makes any difference.

Any further information is welcome.

SMurf

I'm not American but if the market really is free then the answer is not much. Testing is bottom-rung stuff in the career of a programmer (okay, if you want to be a godlike testing fiend then you'll do well. but...).

I'll leave it to someone that thinks in dollars to give you a value.

prog-bman

I would say about maybe 9-12 an hour

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Daved

That low? Not for a full time job I would imagine. In California you might get at least $40,000-50,000 a year, which would be $20-25 an hour. Eight years ago as a CS student without significant programming experience I was offered $54,000 just for technical support job (lower than QA). The industry has changed since then but I doubt it has changed that much. While the difference between California and Florida might be significant, I doubt it would be that significant.

I would check available job listings for the area you are looking at. Monster.com and stuff like that. See what salaries they post. If you search a little, you might be able to find a site with entry level salary estimates as well.

Govtcheez

Eight years ago it was 1999, making any tech-related salary comparisons essentially useless, especially for tech support. Since then the bubble has burst and you've got outsourcing-madness for support

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Daved

As I said, I doubt it has changed that much such that a QA position would be earning $24,000 a year or less.

I did a quick look on monster.com last night for fun and most of the QA jobs in Florida were for people with experience, but they paid at least $50,000. So I still think $35,000-$45,000 at the least is what you can expect.

gozu

I was offered a part time at $18/h . If you convert it to full time, it comes out to about $34,500 / year which corresponds to the low-end of your estimate.

Govtcheez

> As I said, I doubt it has changed that much such that a QA position would be earning $24,000 a year or less.

I wasn't talking about QA - I was just saying that the example you posted wouldn't be relevant today, especially outside of California

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Daved

It's relevant in the context with which it was given.

Perspective

Not really, 1999 was an entirely different industry... after the bust everything shifted drastically. Going from $50,000 / year to $00,000 / year was not uncommon.

On a positive note, we're starting another boom cycle... this one should be pretty good given the continuing rise in number of jobs and continuing decline in CS enrollement (bad for the field but good for the paycheck).

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