Survey Results

Years ago, when I worked in private industry, my employer would pay for me to attend at least one developer conference each year. Working on government contracts, developer conferences were factored into the overhead budget as continuing education.

Now, I work for a charitable organization. We are partially funded by the State of Texas. Our budget and actual expenses, by category, are open for public review. As a charitable organization, our pay scale is very weak. Very limited budgets, plus public review of expense categories, minimizes the "frills" and other benefits we can offer our employees. Employer-paid continuing education, whether in the class room or at conferences, is out of the question. The double whammie for our licensed staff is that to maintain their license, they need to earn specific continuing education credits each year — a significant expense on a limited paycheck.

I know, there are among my readers, those who are asking why I am working here if I am dissatisfied with the pay and benefits. My answer has two parts: location and age. My wife and I are also ranchers living in, obviously, a rural area. In this part of Texas, few full-time opportunities exist for software developers. At my age (I am almost a living fossil ), most companies refuse to even acknowledge that they received my application and resume, much less consider it.