How to Become a Highly Paid Corporate Programmer

To make it to the top of the pay scale, you have to establish your worth to your company. It's that simple. Unfortunately, the savvy that is most crucial to programming advancement is often just the kind of savvy that programmers or aspiring programmers don't have. This book will teach you what you must know to succeed as a highly paid, corporate programmer.

What does it take to get better? What does it take to make it to the top? What does it take to earn elite programming status--the highest title, the best compensation, the most responsibility, authority, and respect? Paul Harkin has watched--and helped--young trainee programmers capitalize on their talents to earn major success in corporate programming or go beyond programming to become software or consulting entrepreneurs. Along the way, four or five of those he watched and helped became millionaires. What gave them their edge was a willingness to focus intensely, to develop a career plan, and to employ the techniques laid out in this book. You too can make it to the top with the advice in this book.

Paul Harkin draws from more than 40 years of mentoring and watching programmers. He answers the questions programmers ask and need to ask to be successful, highly paid, corporate programmers. He will teach you how to know the territory, how to get noticed by your manager, how to keep your manager looking good to his or her management, how to glean what you can from the mistakes of others, how to get paid more than the average for a particular job, and much more.

This incredible book will teach you:

• How to make the right decisions in your career as a programmer
• How to manage the interview process
• Tips for coding for success
• What you should focus on
• How to find and cultivate a mentor
• How to manage coming into a new job
• How to develop a career as a programming consultant
• How to know just what your boss expects of you (most programmers are clueless)
• How a company's technical interviewer judges programming candidates
• How to avert disaster by piloting your programs before they go live
• How to double your productivity
• How to deal with a bad boss
• The risks and rewards of striking out on your own