Legal Question in Employment Law in California

It is not how much you earn that determines whether you are exempt but rather what your job duties are. As an IT programmer, the category that may apply to you is covered under California Labor Code section 515.5. You may wish to read it to see if the exemption in that code section applies to your job.

Mr. Kirschbaum is correct. I would add that you must be paid a salary, rather than hourly wages, in order to be exempt from overtime in any job. That means your pay must be calculated in units of a day or more, not hourly. That means that even if you have a pay rate of $22,000 per month, if you only get paid $750 for a day you work six hours, and you get paid the full $1,000 for a day you work eight hours, you would be entitled to overtime when you work overtime.