How did you get a job as a professional programmer?

I finally get a job as a full-time Ruby on Rails developer for the first time, but my salary is less than what I got when I was a PHP programmer. Am I unfortunate?

• I decided to leave PHP and started to learn Ruby for about a year. Ruby (especially Rails) has been my passion since then. I always dreamed of being a Ruby programmer and recently I made it happen. The job market as a Ruby programmer is very limited in my country and the number of Ruby programmers are not as many PHP programmers. I don't know whether I should go back as a PHP programmer to get a higher salary and make my family happy.

• Answer:

  I don't know. The main question I would ask myself is "Am I happy?" Edit: Most of us have to make compromises between what we like and what pays - I would suggest keeping up your Ruby/Rails if you like that, there's nothing stopping you getting work in PHP to pay the bills.