 Some self-taught programmers will never make $50,000 a year. Yes, that's right. Some self-taught developers will never make $50,000 a year. And let me explain. This video was brought to you by DigiLink Academy, the number one spot for software development, career training, and courses. You guys get access to a wide variety of courses, including resume prep, job interview questions, and answers. And you can also get access to our WordPress and Incom Blueprint Guide also. And you also get access to our community of like-minded professionals and really put yourself in the position to take your career to the next level. So let's go ahead and click the link below to get access to our free training guide so that we can really help take your career to the next level in seven easy steps. What's up, guys? Let me tell you a quick story before we get into the reasons why software developers or self-taught software developers or programmers would never make $50,000 a year. Well, first of all, guys, I have a background I have a four-year degree from Mississippi State and business information system, which is basically business and computer science consolidated into one major. I have some coding experience, but what I was programming in college is COBOL, which is different than everything else. So I really had to teach myself a lot of the modern software development stuff outside of school. So I have some level of experience being a self-taught developer. I think to a certain extent, all of us are self-taught developers after we get out of school or whatever boot camp we are because you always continually learning, but you get my drift. Now, being said, guys, I went on this tangent or this tariff just learning tutorial, tutorial, tutorial, any and everything about C-Shark coding, Microsoft SQL and all this stuff. And I was gonna get this new job at, I'm not gonna tell you the name of the company, but it's in the healthcare industry, healthcare insurance industry. And they pay well, it was a stable company and they had technology. So they had everything you need to actually position yourself for a long successful career as a software developer. Well, when I've had that interview, it was awkward guys because at the time, I didn't really value the other soft skills. I was just strictly on the cold and my ability to teach myself how to code and any and everything about code and functions and arrays and all this stuff. And don't get me wrong. I think I did decent interview at that specific time in my career. I was in my early 20s, so you can't ask for much on my earlier stages, but guys at the end of the day, I really bummed to my today standards because I really didn't communicate my value and I was just focused purely on the cold, which again, you wanna hit on the cold during the interview, but it's not all about the cold. And the surprising thing about it is these companies, they pay well, but when they can find somebody, they can come in and underpay, they will underpay you guys, so you have to understand that. And they're gonna put you under this trainee or junior developer job and a really good way to justify this, either if you're early on, you don't have any experience or you may be a self-taught developer who didn't have any previous experience before. They feel they're taking a risk on you, so they throw you in this trainee developer program or junior developer program and you're not making over $50,000 a year, you're actually in the 30s and 40s if you're lucky. So a lot of self-taught developers, unfortunately, get stuck in this particular spot, which is that's the point of my video today, guys. And we're gonna go over the reasons why you guys get stuck in this and we want to prevent this from happening. So that being said, guys, the number one reason after looking back at this, the reason I got stuck is, I made some points here, by the way, so I'll be reading off my points to make sure I cover everything. But number one is talking too much about the cold, guys, and not about my problem-solving ability. And a lot of you self-taught developers make that same problem. You go into your ability to learn cold, but you don't go into the ability to solve problems. And this really puts you at a disadvantage, especially when you're trying to get that high-paying job, you don't have no certifications, you don't have a degree, so companies feel like, hey, I don't know what I'm getting, so I have to justify that by paying them low and see if they can work their way up. The unfortunate side of guys, once you establish a salary and a value in the marketplace, it's like pulling teeth to get increases, especially at the same company. Most of the increases I ever, or significant increases I ever got at a company is when I had other offers on the table. Without those, you can't go in and ask for a 20% increase in your salary, and they're not gonna give you a new title or anything like that. It's just hard to do, unless it's extreme situations. And you coming in as a self-taught developer haven't really had that experience, that's gonna be a tough sell, guys. Let's go ahead and state the facts. So a lot of you self-taught developers, especially in these small towns, maybe if you're in a bigger town, that situation may be different where you can make more than $50,000, but even then, just say that number $75,000 in a city like DC. You're still losing because you got programming jobs that standard at 150, 140 in DC, so you coming in making, I don't know, 60, 70 grand, which sounds good for the most of us around here, but there's chump change in DC. Silicon Valley is the same way. New York's the same way, guys. So you have to understand that, especially as a self-taught developer, because they don't have anything to kind of really gauge your problem-solving skills on because you're just focusing on the coding. That being said, guys, number two, you have no proof of your problem-solving skills or your experience in a professional environment. You may have a coding bootcamp. Yeah, you may have done some kind of certifications, but I don't know how you're gonna be when you come in here and start coding with my team. I don't know how you're gonna be with teamwork. I don't know how you're gonna be with being around other people, talking to end users. There's a lot of unknowns there. You have to communicate those unknowns as a self-taught developer. If you don't, you're gonna end up making less, guys. Again, they're gonna find reasons to pay you less because they're taking on risk. You wanna reduce those risks as much as possible because they're gonna always try to justify paying you lower money to make sure they reduce their risk. And if there's any problems, they can go to their boss like, well, boss, I know he's cold-suck and he can't cope, but we only pay him $29,000. And then their boss gonna like, okay, I understand. Okay, as long as we don't pay him over $35, you know, we'll obviously improve his skills, but they'll never get over $35. That's what I'm talking about, guys. You don't wanna be in that position and you gotta position yourself to be successful in order for you don't be considered as a risk. You shouldn't be considered as an asset coming in, guys. You communicate through this interview. You can have two identical resumes with the same level of experience. One come in and bomb as far as just communicating that. And one does good and that pay gap can be tremendous. That pay gap can be $50,000 to $40,000. And I'm being generous, guys. So it's that important for us to do this. I see this time and time again. Somebody with some really good software development skills don't know how to communicate it and then they get underpaid or short end. We don't want that to happen, guys. You always wanna put yourself in a position to get max salary or at the very minimum have a date to say, hey, we're gonna evaluate within 60 to 90 days that we're gonna evaluate to say we're gonna get to this salary. We gotta get that in writing, guys. And again, we talk about that in my seven step guide. If you haven't already, go sign up for that free guide. Links are below, so go ahead and jump on that. And number three, guys, not made some notes here. You have coding, you have, side note, you have been in a position where you can't reach on, right? Yeah, you have the coding side down pack. Let's communicate the knowledge. Again, I talk about this in all my videos, guys. You have done the hard part. You have learned the coding fundamentals. Got you some coding skills under your belt. Really done all the hard work. Now, you are on the two yard line, just need to get over that hump so that you can make the money you want, have the lifestyle you want, and have that six figure salary that you've always been wanting. You just gotta get over that final hump of being able to communicate all the work you've done so far. And a lot of you guys struggle with that and wonder why, hey, I did everything I was supposed to, but I still can't get paid the money I want. And that's the reason why we have to figure that out, guys, we have to change that. And again, I communicate that to you guys in my courses and all that stuff because a lot of people talk about the tutorials and all the stuff you have discussed earlier, which is very important. I want you guys continue to do that. But it gets to the point where your coding tutorials don't take you up anymore. You have to start solving problems. You have to start having impact with your software and working with workflows, businesses, freelancers, and all that stuff, guys. So it's important that you guys kind of know this going in so you know how to communicate to whoever you are doing a project for. This applies for freelancers. This applies for standard software developers. This applies for self-taught developers. And this applies, if you have a software company that you providing services, it's the same thing. It's just a matter of how well you're gonna communicate. And you don't have to be great. That's the point I want you guys to know. You can just basically not suck. Not suck. You can be average and still do good because your coding skills don't do all the talking for you. You just gotta put it in a way that you don't suck. You can just be average and you're gonna be ahead of all the competition guys. So if you agree with me, let me know below. If you disagree with me, also tell me what you've done differently as a software, self-taught software developer and really put yourself in a position to win. So let's have a conversation below guys. If you haven't already, help support the channel guys. I have some goodies in the description box. Some free goodies that give you access to a lot of free stuff. So seven step guide, it also give you access to our DigiLink community. And also you get access to, if you already have access to the free stuff, check out our premium offerings too guys. We have a lot of good courses and help you guys take things to the next level. Like, subscribe to the content. If you have additional questions, comment below. I'll see you guys in the seven step guide.