I program for a credit union. This is my first programming job, I've only been here a year, and I went from 28k (starting) to almost 50k. Some of the other people here make around 60-65k.
The politics here are pretty bad, like any company, but you don't need to get upset about them. Who cares? As long as you have work, ignore what they do with your program.
This work IS chalanging though. Basically, I hack our vender's code (yes, we have source! It's an interpreted language), try to figure out what they're doing, then I patch/modify/attach code to make it do what they want. All without any documentation.

One of the best things about working here is the job security. We have a rule about not firing anyone. One guy in my department got mad at a QA guy, grabbed the job folder and threw it across the room. Then he swore at him for a while. (That job had been returned several times because it STILL wasn't working right.)
Our boss was very upset over his behavior and tried to get him fired. He had us all write down the times he's lost his temper and anything else we could think of. He had a BIG list after that. My boss took all this to HR and tried to get him fired but HR wouldn't let him. Instead, he got put on probation and refered to an anger management phone number. It's been several months now and he's still working here.

The people here, for the most part, are very nice to work with. It's a very layed back job.

All of my game programming I do, I do at home or on my down time. I don't, of course, do anything that would bring attention to my computer though. I mostly work on parts of my vector based engine which doesn't look that impressive is you're just seeing a few splines moving on the screen.
(I also browse the web on our T3 connection! )

E:cb woof!

Edited by - dog135 on 2/1/00 5:09:53 PM

Edited by - dog135 on 2/1/00 5:10:15 PM