It’s easy to find data on what average application development pros make, but finding out what the very best of the best earn is a little more challenging. According to recruiter Janet Miller at TechnicalJobs.com, Java developers are some of the best paid. “Companies that are hiring cleared developers for government work pay the highest,” she added. “These would be major government consulting firms. Lifestyle polygraph candidates get paid more for the same skill set.”
However, the very best paid developers (not including those who might work for the Russian mafia) may be those who work on Wall Street. A Reuters report said that programmer Sergey Aleynikov earned $400,000 working for Goldman Sachs and was offered three times as much to move to Teza Technologies. However, Aleynikov got caught trying to take proprietary code with him to his new job and got arrested before he could start earning his big paycheck.
