Hi
I really wonder your answers.
In WDM book, Oney wrote:
" The sad truth is that WDM driver programming is pretty hard, and only experienced (and “expensive”!) programmers are capable of doing it well"
In general, how much does a driver programmer earn? How expensive is this?
Please don’t get me wrong. I have no job experience. I just want to get an idea.
Thanks.
Please check the posting rules - IIRC, we are prohibited from discussing rates here. Therefore, if we start speaking about it, there is a good chance that Peter will turn up AT LEAST with his “children,…” warning
(or, probably, right with a whip without any warnings)…
Anton Bassov
OK. I read it:
“No discussions of salaries or consulting rates are allowed on the lists.”
thanks for warning.
It is right not to allow of such a “discussion”
But i didn’t ask for discussion. Not for specific company not for specific developer.
As i said, just in general to get an idea.
If this is prohibited too, ignore this thread.
Thanks.
Hmmm I don’t know why should this topic be so tabu . We all work for money right and we earn (almost all the time) according to our qualification level. From what I’ve heard and I hope I do not offend anyone an average driver dev job is paid at about 5000 $ , but I said fluctuation may interfere. Correct me if I am wrong please 
xxxxx@gmail.com wrote:
Hmmm I don’t know why should this topic be so tabu .
Even if we don’t understand why some rule exists on this list, it likely
had been set for a reason. So we’d better obey it.
Regards,
–PA
Sure, I agree, I just wanted to freely talk about this subject which hope does not offend anyone. I surely wanna obey the rules on the list in the same time
The rule exists and if you contemplate it for a moment, you will understand the reasons why. One of the biggest issues I see is: "Where?"
"How much does/should a driver programmer earn?" -> "WHERE?"
Hmmm I don't know why should this topic be so tabu . We all work for money
right and we earn (almost all the time) according to our qualification
level. From what I've heard and I hope I do not offend anyone an average
driver dev job is paid at about 5000 $ , but I said fluctuation may interfere.
Not sure, but I suppose some driver devs in [put your favorite outsourcing location here] may have been offended by that. Why? Well, because their wage is most likely considerably lower than the mentioned account, but it is still above average for the living standard there.
Just leave the topic or take it off list.
Thanks,
DDKWizard and DDKBUILD: http:</http:>
I see what you mean. Again I feel really sorry if I my post offended anyone.
Thank you, Mr. Bassov, for helpfully pointing out the rules to Mr. Ercan. And thanks to Pavel A for his support as well.
Don’t play word games. “No discussion” means just what it says. In case you wonder, it means: No use of the list whatsoever to discuss salaries, contract rates, wages, prices, or anything else related to what people get paid, charge, or make.
It’s one of the fundamental principals of the list. This has ALWAYS been the rule on this list. It will remain the rule.
Then freely take the discussion to one of the other lists where you can freely discuss this topic.
AS TO WHY this rule exists, there are a number of reasons. Note that we’re NOT going to discuss this either. I am (somewhat against my better judgment) providing information.
The rule exists to avoid ANY possibility of charges of “price fixing” that could potentially result from such discussions. See wikipedia if you don’t know what “price fixing” means.
The rule exists because, as soon as we allow a discussion of contract rates or salaries, no matter how hard we try, the list could easily take a turn into people subtly advertising their contract services or their availability for work (“GEE! I’ll do the job for HALF that!”). We have a “help wanted” board for full-time jobs on OSR Online. NUMEROUS people have found jobs through that mechanism.
The rule exists because this is a world-wide list and salaries are VERY diverse across the globe. Discussing the salaries in Qingdao versus Chicago or Kiev versus Brasilia or Bucharest versus Berlin doesn’t make a huge amount of sense.
Thus: No discussions of salaries or consulting rates are allowed on the lists. And again: NO discussion about whether this is or is not a good rule, please, or whether the above 3 reasons make sense, are sufficient, or displease you.
Thank you all for your cooperation, and thanks AGAIN to the members who have helpfully reminded our colleagues about the rules.
Peter
OSR
(I REALLY need to figure out a way to lock topics on this list from further discussion)
Thanks also to Oliver Schneider for his help/support in clarifying the rule… Oliver’s post and mine crossed in the mail. I didn’t leave him out intentionally!
Peter
OSR
> as soon as we allow a discussion of contract rates or salaries, no matter how hard we try, the list
could easily take a turn into people subtly advertising their contract services or their availability for work
…
We have a “help wanted” board for full-time jobs on OSR Online.
For example, one of the adds down there clearly states that “BIOS is the future of computing”. Now imagine if they start advertising their jobs with the statements like that on this list - it would hardly contribute to the technical correctness of this list, don’t you think…
Anton Bassov
Even if it were not against the “rules” it would surely be in very bad form
to discuss something like this here.
However, an interesting related topic might be if you were looking at
becoming an expert in driver development to get paid more. I would suggest
that, unless you plan on being a consultant, don’t waste your time.
Software managers, and this appears to be a world wide problem, view all
software developers, be they first year jscript developers with some
elementary education or driver developers with masters degrees from well
respected institutions of higher learning, as interchangeable cogs. I see
this in the vast majority of companies I work for and deal with on a
contract basis.
See, you have to have some idea of what development entails to be able to
rightly judge what makes one task more difficult than another. As most
managers over software these days either never had to code or forgot what it
was like, they have no basis for making this judgement. Then it falls to
other things, like are you in your seat at 8:00 everyday, (we all know that
is important to gettting software shipped), or do you pay homage to the
right upper managers that sort of really important and revenue generating
stuff. That really does put jscript kiddies and Windows device driver
developers all into one pool. Thus why the salaries are typically all in
the same ranges.
There is no way that a .NET developer *should* make in the ballpark of what
a Windows device driver developer makes, but in all companies I have been
involved with that have both, there is no rank or monetary distinction. The
only advantage to the driver developer is that the field of competitors is
much smaller. The major disadvantage is most driver jobs are on the coasts
in the US anyway, .NET jobs are everywhere.
Bill M.
wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> Hi
>
> I really wonder your answers.
> In WDM book, Oney wrote:
> " The sad truth is that WDM driver programming is pretty hard, and only
> experienced (and “expensive”!) programmers are capable of doing it well"
>
> In general, how much does a driver programmer earn? How expensive is this?
>
> Please don’t get me wrong. I have no job experience. I just want to get an
> idea.
> Thanks.
>
>
> I would suggest that, unless you plan on being a consultant, don’t waste your time.
Wonderful advice…
The problem is that there are not that many companies in the world that can offer you a full-time driver development job, although quite a few companies may need a driver writer *for some specific project*. Therefore, if you want to become a driver writer you should consider working as a consultant on per-project basis (unless you are lucky enough to be located *in the right place* in the US -AFAIK, all driver jobs are mainly done in a few specific areas)…
Software managers, and this appears to be a world wide problem, view all software developers,
be they first year jscript developers with some elementary education or driver developers
with masters degrees from well respected institutions of higher learning, as interchangeable cogs.
Well, taking into consideration the fact that holders of " masters degrees from well respected institutions of higher learning" may turn out to be unable to program in anything, apart from Java/.NET/etc, let alone to explain the difference between a spinlock and a semaphore, I would say they have a good reason for this…
Anton Bassov
Have you ever heard these: “No news is a good news”. “Late news is no news”.
But there is a missing transitivity. So Late news does not mean good
news …
You are simply iterating tautology !. Why?
-pro
Bill McKenzie wrote:
Even if it were not against the “rules” it would surely be in very bad form
to discuss something like this here.However, an interesting related topic might be if you were looking at
becoming an expert in driver development to get paid more. I would suggest
that, unless you plan on being a consultant, don’t waste your time.
Software managers, and this appears to be a world wide problem, view all
software developers, be they first year jscript developers with some
elementary education or driver developers with masters degrees from well
respected institutions of higher learning, as interchangeable cogs. I see
this in the vast majority of companies I work for and deal with on a
contract basis.See, you have to have some idea of what development entails to be able to
rightly judge what makes one task more difficult than another. As most
managers over software these days either never had to code or forgot what it
was like, they have no basis for making this judgement. Then it falls to
other things, like are you in your seat at 8:00 everyday, (we all know that
is important to gettting software shipped), or do you pay homage to the
right upper managers that sort of really important and revenue generating
stuff. That really does put jscript kiddies and Windows device driver
developers all into one pool. Thus why the salaries are typically all in
the same ranges.There is no way that a .NET developer *should* make in the ballpark of what
a Windows device driver developer makes, but in all companies I have been
involved with that have both, there is no rank or monetary distinction. The
only advantage to the driver developer is that the field of competitors is
much smaller. The major disadvantage is most driver jobs are on the coasts
in the US anyway, .NET jobs are everywhere.Bill M.
wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>
>> Hi
>>
>> I really wonder your answers.
>> In WDM book, Oney wrote:
>> " The sad truth is that WDM driver programming is pretty hard, and only
>> experienced (and “expensive”!) programmers are capable of doing it well"
>>
>> In general, how much does a driver programmer earn? How expensive is this?
>>
>> Please don’t get me wrong. I have no job experience. I just want to get an
>> idea.
>> Thanks.
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> —
> NTDEV is sponsored by OSR
>
> For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
> http://www.osr.com/seminars
>
> To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer
>
>
Not sure what tautology you speak of…but then again don’t really care.
Bill M.
“Prokash Sinha” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> Have you ever heard these: “No news is a good news”. “Late news is no
> news”.
>
> But there is a missing transitivity. So Late news does not mean good news
> …
>
> You are simply iterating tautology !. Why?
>
> -pro
>
> Bill McKenzie wrote:
>> Even if it were not against the “rules” it would surely be in very bad
>> form to discuss something like this here.
>>
>> However, an interesting related topic might be if you were looking at
>> becoming an expert in driver development to get paid more. I would
>> suggest that, unless you plan on being a consultant, don’t waste your
>> time. Software managers, and this appears to be a world wide problem,
>> view all software developers, be they first year jscript developers with
>> some elementary education or driver developers with masters degrees from
>> well respected institutions of higher learning, as interchangeable cogs.
>> I see this in the vast majority of companies I work for and deal with on
>> a contract basis.
>>
>> See, you have to have some idea of what development entails to be able to
>> rightly judge what makes one task more difficult than another. As most
>> managers over software these days either never had to code or forgot what
>> it was like, they have no basis for making this judgement. Then it falls
>> to other things, like are you in your seat at 8:00 everyday, (we all know
>> that is important to gettting software shipped), or do you pay homage to
>> the right upper managers that sort of really important and revenue
>> generating stuff. That really does put jscript kiddies and Windows
>> device driver developers all into one pool. Thus why the salaries are
>> typically all in the same ranges.
>>
>> There is no way that a .NET developer should make in the ballpark of
>> what a Windows device driver developer makes, but in all companies I have
>> been involved with that have both, there is no rank or monetary
>> distinction. The only advantage to the driver developer is that the
>> field of competitors is much smaller. The major disadvantage is most
>> driver jobs are on the coasts in the US anyway, .NET jobs are everywhere.
>>
>> Bill M.
>>
>>
>> wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>>
>>> Hi
>>>
>>> I really wonder your answers.
>>> In WDM book, Oney wrote:
>>> " The sad truth is that WDM driver programming is pretty hard, and only
>>> experienced (and “expensive”!) programmers are capable of doing it well"
>>>
>>> In general, how much does a driver programmer earn? How expensive is
>>> this?
>>>
>>> Please don’t get me wrong. I have no job experience. I just want to get
>>> an idea.
>>> Thanks.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> —
>> NTDEV is sponsored by OSR
>>
>> For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
>> http://www.osr.com/seminars
>>
>> To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at
>> http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer
>>
>>
>
>
Geeze, always have to explain the blatantly obvious. Okay lets consider
ONLY contract work. It’s not like these moron managers see any difference
between experienced kernel developers or first year script kiddies for
contracts either.
Well, taking into consideration the fact that holders of " masters degrees
from well respected institutions of higher learning" may turn out to be
unable to program in anything, apart from Java/.NET/etc, let alone to
explain the difference between a spinlock and a semaphore, I would say
they have a good reason for this…
You have obviously never worked with a masters degree graduate from a
respected institution…they are usually a cut above the average dev. At
least that is my experience. But, you have completely sidestepped my
point, which I suspect you already know. That is that experienced kernel
devs are drastically under appreciated. But feel free to help the wrong
side of this argument!
Bill M.
wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>> I would suggest that, unless you plan on being a consultant, don’t waste
>> your time.
>
> Wonderful advice…
>
> The problem is that there are not that many companies in the world that
> can offer you a full-time driver development job, although quite a few
> companies may need a driver writer for some specific project. Therefore,
> if you want to become a driver writer you should consider working as a
> consultant on per-project basis (unless you are lucky enough to be located
> in the right place in the US -AFAIK, all driver jobs are mainly done in
> a few specific areas)…
>
>
>
>> Software managers, and this appears to be a world wide problem, view all
>> software developers,
>> be they first year jscript developers with some elementary education or
>> driver developers
>> with masters degrees from well respected institutions of higher learning,
>> as interchangeable cogs.
>
> Well, taking into consideration the fact that holders of " masters degrees
> from well respected institutions of higher learning" may turn out to be
> unable to program in anything, apart from Java/.NET/etc, let alone to
> explain the difference between a spinlock and a semaphore, I would say
> they have a good reason for this…
>
> Anton Bassov
>
Woow. This is what i wanted to read.
I just try to compare kernel guys salary with application developers and web developers. Not comparing among driver developers.
Today, right now i may apply for application developer. But i have been waiting to learn every detail of low level programming to be kernel guy. Why did i choose this? Because
1 To work in the first class company
2 Expensive Prices (assumed high rates)
But I am frustrated now.
1 Because as you said there are few jobs outside US(It really surprised me) and i am not living there.
2 Some web developers earn what kernel guys earn., If the prices are right in general.
Web develpers? They don’t even know what pointer is. And i didn’t know too. But i studied a lot learn
win32, MFC, Com and now WDM.
But now i see it didn’t change anything. Maybe it will in the future. But now it didn’t. So why did i learn so many thing, wasted so many time? Is it worth?
I hope it will worth to wait.
I think my question should be: Is it worth to wait to learn kernel mode programming.
Thanks
xxxxx@gmail.com wrote:
Is it worth to wait to learn kernel mode programming.
Wait for what? Windows kernel driver programming is an extremely complex
matter. If you want to do this properly, better start today. Also plan
to be learning for several months/years.
If you want to learn about kernel mode programming in general, however,
I’d suggest to participate in the development of one of the many smaller
open-source operating systems like Haiku, Syllable or KolibriOS.
IMO these are better for learning general principles because (a) you
have source code access and can see how the “in-box” drivers were made,
(b) they are much smaller than a commercially-used OS, and (c) they
don’t need to be compatible with applications that are twenty years old
(like Windows does). In short, there’s much less “fluff” to learn, and
you can focus on the kernel device driver principles.
It sounds like you are much in it for the money which leads me to think you
are betting on the wrong horse. Kernel development is not a gamble and it
takes a lot of time to mature. Once I was earning a multitude of what I am
earning now, writing database applications for market research and such. But
it didn’t weigh up to the satisfaction I receive from being a self-employed
kernel developer. I believe in being happy with what I have got but never to
be happy with what I am, that also stops me from worrying and allows me to
concentrate on my job.
//Daniel
wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> But I am frustrated now.
> 1 Because as you said there are few jobs outside US(It really surprised
> me) and i am not living there.
> 2 Some web developers earn what kernel guys earn., If the prices are right
> in general.
>
> Web develpers? They don’t even know what pointer is. And i didn’t know
> too. But i studied a lot learn
> win32, MFC, Com and now WDM.
>
> But now i see it didn’t change anything. Maybe it will in the future. But
> now it didn’t. So why did i learn so many thing, wasted so many time? Is
> it worth?
>
> I hope it will worth to wait.
> I think my question should be: Is it worth to wait to learn kernel mode
> programming.
> Thanks
>
>
> It’s not like these moron managers see any difference between experienced kernel developers
or first year script kiddies for contracts either.
Sorry, but this is just a bullshit…
They know perfectly well how much experienced kernel developers charge for their services. Therefore, if they start offering script kiddies’s prices/rates to the kernel developers, they will just never find anyone to work on the project in question - as simple as that…
Certainly, they may try some cheaper option, but the final result is obvious to anyone who reads this NG on regular basis…
Anton Bassov