Mass-Peculiarities: An Employers Guide to Wage & Hour Law in the Bay State 2022 Edition

110 | Massachusetts Wage & Hour Peculiarities, 2022 ed. © 2022 Seyfarth Shaw LLP To qualify for the computer professional exemption, an employee must meet the following requirements: 1. The employee must be compensated either on a salary or fee basis at a rate not less than $684.00 per week, or, if compensated on an hourly basis, at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour. 2. The employee’s primary duty must consist of: • The application of systems analysis techniques and procedures, including consulting with users, to determine hardware, software, or system functional specifications • Design, development, documentation, analysis, creation, testing, or modification of computer systems or programs, including prototypes, based on and related to user or system design specifications • The design, documentation, testing, creation, or modification of the computer programs related to machine operating systems • A combination of the aforementioned duties, the performance of which requires the same level of skills 602 Job titles vary widely in the computer industry and thus are not determinative of whether an employee’s job duties qualify him or her as an exempt computer professional. 603 Instead, courts look to whether the employee’s primary job duty falls within the criteria specified by the regulation. 604 The computer professional exemption does not include employees whose primary duty is the manufacture or repair of computer hardware and related equipment. 605 In addition, employees whose work is highly dependent upon, or facilitated by, the use of computers and computer software programs (such as engineers, drafters, and other employees skilled in computer-aided design software), but who are not primarily engaged in computer systems analysis and programming or other similarly skilled computer-related occupations identified in the primary duties test described above, are not exempt. 606 Finally, mere maintenance and installation of computer systems will not meet the standards for exemption. 607 602 29 C.F.R. § 541.400. 603 Id. 604 DOL Wage & Hour Opinion Let ter FLSA2006-42 (Oct . 26, 2006). 605 29 C.F.R. § 541.401. 606 Id . 607 DOL Wage & Hour Opinion Let ter FLSA2006-42 (Oct . 26, 2006).