I’m netting < $10 an hour doing part-time full stack dev at an ultra-small organization for a few years post-BSCS.
Fear of resume gaps and the current job market have me afraid to renegotiate. In fact, they’re going to cut my hours soon, which makes it seem like they can only afford ~$150 a week.
I’m getting worse at programming and there’s no one to learn from.
What do you think I should do?
Yeah I totally agree, I have mixed feelings about the competition part (which is obviously true especially when looking into the valley). Being passionate really counts (in the form of (not just) trying to achieve high quality open source software).
But if it’s just about getting a good pay-check I think it’s not too difficult to get a relatively well-paid job if it’s not in the “hot” zone (i.e. boring jobs are ok).
No idea on the current market myself. You should absolutely start looking at the rate you are being paid right now though. Just don’t get discouraged about the resume gap, it’s a rare field where you can make your own backfill for those gaps.