By US standards, that is an unbelievably low salary for a junior programmer and an above average PhD stipend. I doubt you would find many programmers here whose incomes would increase while they were doing a PhD. They would be much more likely to take a substantial pay cut.
Well, I do work in the games industry. So on one hand I work on the biggest AAA titles that are currently in development, and it's absolutely awesome, I do what I always wanted to do, but then on the other hand, I am being paid so little it's laughable. I am not joking when I said that I have honestly considered leaving this job and doing a PhD, because it would pay more.
