I'm working as a full-time (40 hours/week) full stack web developer and I make a little under 2500€/month. I feel that it's less than I should get. I work in a small company (less than 15 employees, single office) in Finland. I'd like to hear some opinions if I'm crazy or if it's really too little.
I have experience of my field from over 10 years time, but most of that time I've worked independently through my own business (worth noting that the business was very minimal, I mostly have that business set up to sell photos).
The company designated me as junior web developer when I took the job back in 2020. That irked me a little, since I have a lot of experience but none from working for a third party company. Last fall there were some big changes in my life which impacted my performance at work and I was talked to about it. They told me my work effort wasn't sustainable, that I was costing the company. I agree that I didn't produce much, I worked on a single customer project for more than a month and had low motivation, focus and energy due to sleeping only 3 hours a night. Since then I've improved a lot, and been working on more customer projects lately.
Because this is a small company, what they told me made me think that my pay is dependent upon how much money I make the company from the work that I do. However, when I look up online the average salary for my profession, it's over 3000€/month. Even my previous partner had a higher starting salary (same level of education, but in medical science) than I still do. I feel undervalued and can barely keep up with bills because of past bad financial decisions. Now that everything is getting more expensive, I can barely even drive (yes I have a car), since gas is like 2.20€/liter. I take the bus to work, but I feel like every action I take has to be evaluated if I can actually afford to do it, like use my computer at home which increases the electric bill.
I want to know if I should be paid more, and if this company not paying me more means I should find work elsewhere.