Offerzen article about high earning developers

[cguy]

https://www.offerzen.com/blog/developer-salaries-why-some-earn-more

I expect that this will become a multi page thread.

It is interesting that C/C++ isn’t even on the list. It shows how different the markets are in different countries.

 

[Archie1]

I'm a C++ developer. Don't earn the average amount on that graph (4-6 years exp). But then I am based in Durban...

 

[Hamster]

ie. banks pay "senior developers" a lot of money and throw a lot of benefits at them so that they just won't leave.

 

[Hamster]

Interesting graph that. Companies like BBD, DVT and "the one we do not speak of for fear of their general manager being touched on his codebase again"lect will fit into the "Medium" range: 500+ employees all mostly developers.

When you are young/starting out (or a solutions architect after 4 years of coding experience at the company we shall not mentionlect) they're great to work for because of the exposure and experience. But because they are body shops (and they are, no matter what they say) you soon become too expensive for them to be cost effective and your salary just stalls.

 

[Polymathic]

oh that's what Offerzen is, been getting emails from them and not opening them thinking it some sort of groupon thing, even forgot registered on it

 

[Messugga]

Interesting graph that. Companies like BBD, DVT and "the one we do not speak of for fear of their general manager being touched on his codebase again"lect will fit into the "Medium" range: 500+ employees all mostly developers.

When you are young/starting out (or a solutions architect after 4 years of coding experience at the company we shall not mentionlect) they're great to work for because of the exposure and experience. But because they are body shops (and they are, no matter what they say) you soon become too expensive for them to be cost effective and your salary just stalls.

It's less about cost in my opinion. There is plenty of money to go around to cover even expensive developers, believe me. I think it's more about people realising that doing the body shop thing has a shelf life or that's it's way more profitable to go the contract route, if you're not going to get the benefits of being a permanent employee at a client anyway.

 

[Hamster]

oh that's what Offerzen is, been getting emails from them and not opening them thinking it some sort of groupon thing, even forgot registered on it

Offerzen is a T-Shirt company

 

[Hamster]

It's less about cost in my opinion. There is plenty of money to go around to cover even expensive developers, believe me. I think it's more about people realising that doing the body shop thing has a shelf life or that's it's way more profitable to go the contract route, if you're not going to get the benefits of being a permanent employee at a client anyway.

If you're contracting out to the Vodacom and Standard Banks of this world and you have an intermediate dev costing you R45k pm, he is probably sitting at the client for R600 per hour or more. A senior dev at R60+ sits there at R800-R900 or more.

Now if that senior dev starts asking R90k pm, the rate at which you have to let him sit there to be profitable is so high that it's hardly worth it for the client. He may ask for one senior and a couple of intermediates/juniors but he isn't going to ask for 5 seniors to come sit there for R1200 ph.


But I like your point considering I also left a "body shop". After 7+ years of that type of work you get over it

 

[Messugga]

If you're contracting out to the Vodacom and Standard Banks of this world and you have an intermediate dev costing you R45k pm, he is probably sitting at the client for R600 per hour or more. A senior dev at R60+ sits there at R800-R900 or more.

Now if that senior dev starts asking R90k pm, the rate at which you have to let him sit there to be profitable is so high that it's hardly worth it for the client. He may ask for one senior and a couple of intermediates/juniors but he isn't going to ask for 5 seniors to come sit there for R1200 ph.


But I like your point considering I also left a "body shop". After 7+ years of that type of work you get over it

Well aware how this costing works - I sign enough of these invoices on a monthly basis

You find a lot of cross-subsidization where juniors pay for seniors. Hell, I've billed out seniors at below cost, purely because it was required for a specific period. Juniors and the long-term benefits at the client made it worth while.
Also, you'd be surprised how little you can pay for really competent devs. It's getting harder to find them, sure, but you definitely don't need to pay them R90k per month.

 

[Hamster]

Well aware how this costing works - I sign enough of these invoices on a monthly basis

My bad, I didn't check the username I was replying to

You find a lot of cross-subsidization where juniors pay for seniors. Hell, I've billed out seniors at below cost, purely because it was required for a specific period. Juniors and the long-term benefits at the client made it worth while.
Also, you'd be surprised how little you can pay for really competent devs. It's getting harder to find them, sure, but you definitely don't need to pay them R90k per month.

This is true

 

[Messugga]

This is true

I think a big part of the problem is that it's actually too easy to become a "developer". Guys do a C# tutorial and call themselves junior devs. After a year of work, they think they are intermediate. After three years, they start calling themselves senior developers. It's not linked to actual skill as much as it should be, and this is carrying over the companies' hiring practices.
I'm surrounded by people who can code (myself included), but there are only a handful of true software developers (and I'm not one of those) that I'm working with, yet there are a bunch of so-called senior and intermediate developers.
It's really frustrating.

 

[rorz0r]

I think a big part of the problem is that it's actually too easy to become a "developer". Guys do a C# tutorial and call themselves junior devs. After a year of work, they think they are intermediate. After three years, they start calling themselves senior developers. It's not linked to actual skill as much as it should be, and this is carrying over the companies' hiring practices.
I'm surrounded by people who can code (myself included), but there are only a handful of true software developers (and I'm not one of those) that I'm working with, yet there are a bunch of so-called senior and intermediate developers.
It's really frustrating.

I interview a lot of "senior" developers. Most recently one where the conversation went a bit like this:

"What is a constructor?" (it's the first programming technical question ok)
"Ummmm... errr... it's when you have a method with the same name as the class it's in..."
"Um, ok so what would that methods responsibilities be?"
"Ummmm, you can have like different parameters to it..."

That guy had no less than THREE "Senior Developer" jobs. Doesn't say a whole lot for the companies that employed him as such.



I've been that bodyshopped senior guy at a client, where I know what the rate is and know what my salary is and can multiply billable hours by a rate and work out it's not (directly) profitable... Much prefer where I am now.

 

[schuits]

I interview a lot of "senior" developers. Most recently one where the conversation went a bit like this:

"What is a constructor?" (it's the first programming technical question ok)
"Ummmm... errr... it's when you have a method with the same name as the class it's in..."
"Um, ok so what would that methods responsibilities be?"
"Ummmm, you can have like different parameters to it..."

That guy had no less than THREE "Senior Developer" jobs. Doesn't say a whole lot for the companies that employed him as such.



I've been that bodyshopped senior guy at a client, where I know what the rate is and know what my salary is and can multiply billable hours by a rate and work out it's not (directly) profitable... Much prefer where I am now.

To be fair not everyone interviews well.
I've been in the business for 18 or so years, but still won't be able to tell you what polymorphism is. Yet I probably implement it every day. If I wanted to go for interviews I'd have to study my theoretical knowledge and take practice interviews.

 

[Messugga]

I've been that bodyshopped senior guy at a client, where I know what the rate is and know what my salary is and can multiply billable hours by a rate and work out it's not (directly) profitable... Much prefer where I am now.

Yep, I don't know why people do it to themselves to go work for a bodyshop. It can be pretty good to gain initial experience, but after a few years, it makes little sense for guys to continue doing it.

 

[Pho3nix]

To be fair not everyone interviews well.
I've been in the business for 18 or so years, but still won't be able to tell you what polymorphism is. Yet I probably implement it every day. If I wanted to go for interviews I'd have to study my theoretical knowledge and take practice interviews.

My exact problem

 

[Pho3nix]

Yep, I don't know why people do it to themselves to go work for a bodyshop. It can be pretty good to gain initial experience, but after a few years, it makes little sense for guys to continue doing it.

Honestly after working with juniors at a corporate, it makes better sense to start at a body shop. You'll cry because they want delivery and you'll be better for it, while some at corporates are getting big chunks of have never written decent code.
Majority of devs at the corporates are grad's who never left and can't get the salary they deserve elsewhere, that's why most body shops devs are still running the "important" systems in those companies.

 

[ArtyLoop]

To be fair not everyone interviews well.
I've been in the business for 18 or so years, but still won't be able to tell you what polymorphism is. Yet I probably implement it every day. If I wanted to go for interviews I'd have to study my theoretical knowledge and take practice interviews.

I cannot explain what those things are either. But I know I implement them, every day.
As for the constructor question: Did one yesterday but I cannot explain what it really is.
Also don't ask me to explain lambda / anonymous functions or abstract functions. I don't focus on the academic bullshyte baffles brains. I code, I do it, make sure it works, and its solid, and makes money.

 

[rorz0r]

To be fair not everyone interviews well.
I've been in the business for 18 or so years, but still won't be able to tell you what polymorphism is. Yet I probably implement it every day. If I wanted to go for interviews I'd have to study my theoretical knowledge and take practice interviews.

There's quite a few questions, depending on how it's going I'll skip some easy ones or leave out some harder ones (possibly "harder" because most people don't deal with every day etc). At the end of the day it's really just a judgement about whether you are familiar with the concepts of software development in general, C# specifically and a little bit of the basic components found in the .NET framework (basic enough that they are in .NET Standard 1.0). While it won't hurt to brush up it's definitely not a requirement. It's not like we "mark" and say "ok the candidate scored 10/20 and the pass mark is 15 so no dice". The same process and questions apply to junior to senior devs, but the end result is an answer of where you lie on that scale, which determines a yes/no when compared with your salary expectations.

The technical questions part is also just one of many components of the interview process.

Prioritised above the technical knowledge is attitude, "fit", do we want to work with this person, would they contribute positively to the team.

 

[Hamster]

To be fair not everyone interviews well.
I've been in the business for 18 or so years, but still won't be able to tell you what polymorphism is. Yet I probably implement it every day. If I wanted to go for interviews I'd have to study my theoretical knowledge and take practice interviews.

Can you explain what an interface, inheritance and method overriding is?

 

[Hamster]

I cannot explain what those things are either. But I know I implement them, every day.
As for the constructor question: Did one yesterday but I cannot explain what it really is.
Also don't ask me to explain lambda / anonymous functions or abstract functions. I don't focus on the academic bullshyte baffles brains. I code, I do it, make sure it works, and its solid, and makes money.

Constructors, lambdas, abstract functions.... they're about as academic as a for loop.