How much digital, IT and tech jobs pay in South Africa

[BusinessTech]

How much digital, IT and tech jobs pay in South Africa

The workplace and workspace has changed dramatically over the past 18 months with a shift to hybrid working for many organisations.

 

[Pineapple Smurf]

Bliksem, I should have studied harder and gotten my Matric, I will never in my life see those numbers

 

[Scooby_Doo]

Bang on for my stream.

 

[B-1]

Why is a full stack engineer so much less than a front/back end one?

 

[cguy]

Why is a full stack engineer so much less than a front/back end one?

Likely, lack of data, due to bias in the types of jobs they place for. Also likely bias due to the levels of jobs they place for.

There are companies that specialize in entry level placements, and others who specialize in senior placements (more headhunting, less advertising, etc). It’s almost meaningless to see the data from one 10’s of people sized firm.

 

[PhireSide]

Bliksem, I should have studied harder and gotten my Matric, I will never in my life see those numbers

You can make a decent living off of learning to code. As long as the willingness is there, the sky's the limit.

A mate I know got his LLB, ended up bored with the work he did and two years later started as a web developer after teaching himself how to write HTML on w3schools.

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

Bliksem, I should have studied harder and gotten my Matric, I will never in my life see those numbers

If you are good, you don't need matric as you can always substitute with courses. Important thing is a commitment to life long learning.

My degree has made no difference in my employability, only in my salary at one company out of four since I graduated.

My degree has helped me in my job, so had the dozens of courses I've done. Busy right now Andela course in kotlin

 

[B-1]

Likely, lack of data, due to bias in the types of jobs they place for. Also likely bias due to the levels of jobs they place for.

There are companies that specialize in entry level placements, and others who specialize in senior placements (more headhunting, less advertising, etc). It’s almost meaningless to see the data from one 10’s of people sized firm.

After some consideration I also think its pure stats. I think there are far fewer devs that can really hold their own across the full stack and make big money vs "general" devs who work a bit here and a bit there but are pretty average on each discipline.

 

[Fulcrum29]

Almost all product managers I know earn a lot more than the 'advertised' average in the thread. Most IT managers I know earn a decent income, though it varies, but this is industry-related. Copywriters I know are earning on the low end in comparison. Then social and content managers, again, industry, and whether it is in-house or as an agency, but many I know are earning on the low-end, lovely intern position working towards possibly being recruited into team management.

From my experience.

Account managers that I know seem to go between companies, never seem to stay too long with the same company, others have been there since the very beginning, staying towards retirement.

 

[Barbarian Conan]

So glad that they listed what kind of figures are used (CTC). In the past you sometimes had no idea whether it was net or gross or whatever.

Interestingly I've seen a trend to try and match job titles across companies. In fact, at the company I work they specifically changed the job titles slightly to match most of the industry.
10 Years ago the company I worked at had Senior Software Engineer, Tech Lead, Software Architect, now I see adverts for principal software engineer and staff software engineer.

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

I got recruitment emails this week for identical React roles paying R40K - R125K pm.

There are always outliers and many factors dictating salary.

Early last year I was offered above average salary offers for a skillset and that was only six months experience. A few months later the value of that skillset went way down as my then ex-employer started retrenching engineers and flooding the market.

Half glad I did not accept offers as there is no longer a demand for it. Decided to rather cash in on my main skillset of 15 years.

 

[Dan C]

Bliksem, I should have studied harder and gotten my Matric, I will never in my life see those numbers

Luckily you don't have matric... I certainly don't won't to earn this,

 

[krycor]

Backend pays a lot because no-one wants to do it yet when it goes down you take down entire org. And every channel/medium..

Ps. I agree with the likely used to do data stuff. Data analytics etc is fun though.. backend for it when you sit with many terabytes to process is rough. While I miss the ETL backends that’s fed the data warehousing I’ll never forget the times it broke and took days to catch up. Though nowadays I guess you can pay to speed it up via allocating more resources.. back then it was actual machines.

 

[B-1]

Backend pays a lot because no-one wants to do it yet when it goes down you take down entire org. And every channel/medium..

Meh, if you are not prepared to get 200 automated sms's for systems malfunctioning are you even alive?

 

[PhireSide]

Luckily you don't have matric... I certainly don't won't to earn this,

You joke, but back in 2010 when I started as a paid 'intern', my annual salary was less than I make a month now!

It's still crazy how poorly jobs in the EC pay, compared to other regions. I see so many positions that want you to work weekends and public holidays, from 7 - 5 and then the company is an easy 30km drive from city centre and they want to pay you a grand old salary of R4500 per month.

 

[Kornhub]

You joke, but back in 2010 when I started as a paid 'intern', my annual salary was less than I make a month now!

It's still crazy how poorly jobs in the EC pay, compared to other regions. I see so many positions that want you to work weekends and public holidays, from 7 - 5 and then the company is an easy 30km drive from city centre and they want to pay you a grand old salary of R4500 per month.

Wow I could retire when I am 400000

 

[cguy]

So glad that they listed what kind of figures are used (CTC). In the past you sometimes had no idea whether it was net or gross or whatever.

Interestingly I've seen a trend to try and match job titles across companies. In fact, at the company I work they specifically changed the job titles slightly to match most of the industry.
10 Years ago the company I worked at had Senior Software Engineer, Tech Lead, Software Architect, now I see adverts for principal software engineer and staff software engineer.

I do hope that this heralds the same "dual ladder" system I (usually) see overseas, in terms of impact/compensation/influence. Eg., roughly:

• Distinguished <=> VP
• Principal <=> Director
• Staff <=> Manager

Rather than the out dated AllDevs < AllManagers business mentality.

 

[Barbarian Conan]

I do hope that this heralds the same "dual ladder" system I (usually) see overseas, in terms of impact/compensation/influence. Eg., roughly:

• Distinguished <=> VP
• Principal <=> Director
• Staff <=> Manager

Rather than the out dated AllDevs < AllManagers business mentality.

The company I work for is headquartered in the US, but yes, from a career planning presentation we saw it looked as if some engineering levels are on the same level as manager levels. I assume that counts for compensation as well.

 

[cguy]

The company I work for is headquartered in the US, but yes, from a career planning presentation we saw it looked as if some engineering levels are on the same level as manager levels. I assume that counts for compensation as well.

I expect so too. I’m hoping this spreads more in SA - there are few things more toxic to an engineering culture than the idea that one needs to move into management to progress one’s career.

 

[callvm]

So frontend devs are making on average the same or more than their backend colleagues? And fullstack devs are earning like 20% less than both? lol