What's the money like?

dazberry

needhelpguy wrote: »

With all due respect, 60k for a "senior" developer is a paltry wage. That would actually be seen as mid level in some development disciplines. As another posted pointed out, we are not talking low-barrier-to-entry jobs here, but skilled labour, in a market where demand outstrips supply.

But the problem is (depending on your technology stack etc.) that that is more or less what the market wants to pay for salaried developers in Dublin. Most everything *I* see at senior level lists as 5 years+ and 55k to 65k, a handful go higher but these are by far in the minority. Beyond that you're moving into team lead and principle levels.

Is it paltry?, I wouldn't go that far but it should be better, but you hit a ceiling and you have people getting paid similar levels whether they have 5 years or 20 years experience (all things being equal). Generally the only way around that ceiling is to go contracting.

... and at this point what you have to bring to the table today in terms of scope of experience is far more than 5, 10, 20 years ago - and all for the (relatively) same salary. That is what is paltry.

D.

dazberry

dazberry wrote: »

............

... and at this point what you have to bring to the table today in terms of scope of experience is far more than 5, 10, 20 years ago - and all for the (relatively) same salary. That is what is paltry.

D.

Supply and demand.
20 years ago ITs etc weren't churning out graduates who got good experience straight out of college though

It's the same across the board really in most engineering/science staff gigs.

14ned

Augeo wrote: »

Supply and demand.
20 years ago ITs etc weren't churning out graduates who got good experience straight out of college though

It's the same across the board really in most engineering/science staff gigs.

There's also been a great merging of US and European job markets where the US creams the top off the European skill base using much higher pay, thus eliminating the top salaried positions in Europe.

Colleagues of mine are getting a third of a million in base salary as senior engineers doing nothing particularly special. But they work in the US and were headhunted from here over to there. The more of that top talent is stripped from Europe, for obvious reasons the more less valuable work is allocated by the US multinationals to Europe. And so the level of work done over here spirals downwards.

If Trump closes the H1B door it'll help somewhat, but most of those I know were headhunted until the O-1 visa which is for "exceptional talent in the sciences" and for which the bar does not appear to be set particularly high. If he closes down the O-1 visa route too, then there is a good chance you'll see salaries rising nicely in Europe as US multinationals can no longer asset strip European engineering talent and are forced to allocate the most valuable work to be done here.

Having just said all that, average pay for senior programmers anywhere in the Western world is about US$100,000 before all taxes. If you take off the varying amounts of employer paid taxation and adjust for the number of statutory holidays, typical hours worked per week and time off for say paternity, you generally get the going wage for senior programmers in whatever country it is and that's consistent across Northern Europe and North America at least.

That suggests that local wage differences are due to local laws and taxes rather than supply and demand per se. At least at the senior programmer level. I can't myself reconcile that latter observation with the former, but I'd be interested what anyone else thinks.

Niall

moycullen14

dazberry wrote: »

But the problem is (depending on your technology stack etc.) that that is more or less what the market wants to pay for salaried developers in Dublin. Most everything *I* see at senior level lists as 5 years+ and 55k to 65k, a handful go higher but these are by far in the minority. Beyond that you're moving into team lead and principle levels.

Is it paltry?, I wouldn't go that far but it should be better, but you hit a ceiling and you have people getting paid similar levels whether they have 5 years or 20 years experience (all things being equal). Generally the only way around that ceiling is to go contracting.

... and at this point what you have to bring to the table today in terms of scope of experience is far more than 5, 10, 20 years ago - and all for the (relatively) same salary. That is what is paltry.

D.

It's the myth of the serious shortage of IT staff that I find amusing. We here this all the time but, as you say, the salaries for 'senior' developers are all pitched within a few K of each other. If there was a shortage then salaries would rise - they don't.

I would say IT is more accessible now than it was 20 years ago - at least certain areas. Couple that with out/in sourcing and you get a constant downward pressure on wages. I'm not sure that the brightest and best transferring to the US has a big effect. It happens, but not on any great scale.

I refuse to accept that 60K is a great wage. It's not. Maybe it's all you are going to get but that's a different argument.

The main problem seems to be that there is a upper limit on salary for developers - whether that's at 60 or 70K may change over over time. There seems to be no recognised step beyond 'senior' developer. I think that's a huge problem with career development in IT. You get to this point after 5-10 years (realistically in your early 30s) and then where do you go?

Contracting, niche specialisation, management or startup seem to be the choices.

14ned

moycullen14 wrote: »

It's the myth of the serious shortage of IT staff that I find amusing. We here this all the time but, as you say, the salaries for 'senior' developers are all pitched within a few K of each other. If there was a shortage then salaries would rise - they don't.

On this point I couldn't agree more. It gets my goat every time when they bleat about not being able to fill vacant positions "no matter how hard they try", and thus justifying importing cheaper talent from other countries on visas. Try adding 50% to the salary offered, and you'll fill it in no time.

Regarding the invisible salary cap though, I have noticed that Finance pays slightly more than other industries, so for example working in Finance might pay perhaps 10-15% more than working for Google, even if the role is pretty similar. So there is some supply and demand working here, it's just not very well.

moycullen14 wrote: »

The main problem seems to be that there is a upper limit on salary for developers - whether that's at 60 or 70K may change over over time. There seems to be no recognised step beyond 'senior' developer. I think that's a huge problem with career development in IT. You get to this point after 5-10 years (realistically in your early 30s) and then where do you go?

In North America they claim to have a "technical track" for technical specialists which matches the management track, so you can get promoted right up to similar pay, stock options and seniority in tech as in management. You get these positions after senior engineer like "Staff Engineer" and "Senior Staff Engineer" and "Principle Staff Engineer" and so on.

The fact those don't really exist over here in Europe hints at that asset stripping of the senior talent from Europe to the US I mentioned. It's basically unstated over here that if you want to rise on a technical track, you need to relocate to the US.

Niall

srsly78

US multinationals in Ireland offer such a technical track.

A problem with multinationals however is they usually offer a "one size fits all" package worldwide, without taking into account vagaries of the irish tax system etc. Thus => keep contracting.

Raging_Ninja

ILikeBoats wrote: »

Maybe even try a pre-IPO company that will be big...you could become very rich overnight

Did that, after pay being weeks late and being owed over a grand for a calendar year as soon as the next round of investment came through i walked.

While I second-guessed myself for a few months, I heard that they ran out of money again by the end of 2015 and staff had to get solicitors involved to get paid. They were all let go in the end.

TLDR: There's no way to tell what a rising star is until after its made it.

beauf

moycullen14 wrote: »

It's the myth of the serious shortage of IT staff that I find amusing. ...

Same here. They want the top 20% of developers at the mid to low wages.

I know a few people who quit IT to go run a small business, cafe or such, or take up some manual job, DIY, handyman as it actually paid more than IT was for them. Especially at the mid level IT roles. They seem to be better off financially. I wonder will that be true as they get older.

I know a few older IT people with good in demand (recent) qualifications and experience who struggled to get jobs. Our conclusion was it was their age, 40+ because their was an expectation they'd have to paid more.

beauf

Raging_Ninja wrote: »

Did that, after pay being weeks late and being owed over a grand for a calendar year as soon as the next round of investment came through i walked.

While I second-guessed myself for a few months, I heard that they ran out of money again by the end of 2015 and had to get solicitors involved to get paid. They were all let go in the end.

TLDR: There's no way to tell what a rising star is until after its made it.

I did something similar, no pay issue, but issue around the working hours. Young family, made it clear I wouldn't be able to do crazy hours, was assured there wouldn't be any. But Working 9am~9pm often later, and weekends became normal. Only because it was poorly managed. no need for it really. I went back to contracting.

needhelpguy

14ned wrote: »

There are more things to a good life than raw income. So I return to my original advice, if you're into the top 10% of income in Ireland, I really advise don't sweat it, kick back, be a salaryman and enjoy life as best you can. You've made it.

Some good points Niall, I would agree with you in principle but it shouldn't be at the behest of a decent salary increase if you are worth considerably more. 5-10k at the higher end if you're already in a good company with good benefits? Yeah don't sweat it. But don't be working for 50k when you should be on 70+, if you catch my drift (I know someone in this exact position, and the company won't increase anyone else's salary on the team as this person has 12+ years experience!)

dazberry wrote: »

But the problem is (depending on your technology stack etc.) that that is more or less what the market wants to pay for salaried developers in Dublin. Most everything *I* see at senior level lists as 5 years+ and 55k to 65k, a handful go higher but these are by far in the minority. Beyond that you're moving into team lead and principle levels.

Is it paltry?, I wouldn't go that far but it should be better, but you hit a ceiling and you have people getting paid similar levels whether they have 5 years or 20 years experience (all things being equal). Generally the only way around that ceiling is to go contracting.

... and at this point what you have to bring to the table today in terms of scope of experience is far more than 5, 10, 20 years ago - and all for the (relatively) same salary. That is what is paltry.

D.

moycullen14 wrote: »

It's the myth of the serious shortage of IT staff that I find amusing. We here this all the time but, as you say, the salaries for 'senior' developers are all pitched within a few K of each other. If there was a shortage then salaries would rise - they don't.

I would say IT is more accessible now than it was 20 years ago - at least certain areas. Couple that with out/in sourcing and you get a constant downward pressure on wages. I'm not sure that the brightest and best transferring to the US has a big effect. It happens, but not on any great scale.

I refuse to accept that 60K is a great wage. It's not. Maybe it's all you are going to get but that's a different argument.

The main problem seems to be that there is a upper limit on salary for developers - whether that's at 60 or 70K may change over over time. There seems to be no recognised step beyond 'senior' developer. I think that's a huge problem with career development in IT. You get to this point after 5-10 years (realistically in your early 30s) and then where do you go?

Contracting, niche specialisation, management or startup seem to be the choices.

Absolutely agree with the above. A lot of roles advertised at those ranges. I've actually seen a fair number of job postings looking for "senior" developers at 40-45k. There seems to be a constant downward pressure on wages with companies looking for the best talent at the lowest possible rates. But I've also heard how frustrating it is trying to get good technical people, with interviews seemingly filled with chancers and incompetent people. A friend in a software house recently regiled me with tales of what a complete waste of time their last few interview rounds were for SQL developers. Company is urgently looking and can't get anyone. I never asked the wage though. One would wonder, if they're paying peanuts, they'll get monkeys.

As for the technical track, frustratingly I've never seen this in Ireland. What if you don't want to move into management? You've no where to go, in reality. It's one of the bugbears of the profession for me. But then they would have to start paying higher wages to devs in line with management, which would be laughable to many a company here.

professore

14ned wrote: »

It's pure luck, honestly. I have an Economics degree as well as compsci and I used to teach Economics to Adult Ed at UCC, so I am up to date on the Irish economy in detail until around 2009, including the crisis. Since then I've not kept up, no time sadly, but even at the peak of the Celtic Tiger the average Irish person was surprisingly poor and still remains so. It wasn't hard to ferret out some sources.

Didn't you hear? "We all partied" /s

professore

moycullen14 wrote: »

It's the myth of the serious shortage of IT staff that I find amusing. We here this all the time but, as you say, the salaries for 'senior' developers are all pitched within a few K of each other. If there was a shortage then salaries would rise - they don't.

I would say IT is more accessible now than it was 20 years ago - at least certain areas. Couple that with out/in sourcing and you get a constant downward pressure on wages. I'm not sure that the brightest and best transferring to the US has a big effect. It happens, but not on any great scale.

I refuse to accept that 60K is a great wage. It's not. Maybe it's all you are going to get but that's a different argument.

The main problem seems to be that there is a upper limit on salary for developers - whether that's at 60 or 70K may change over over time. There seems to be no recognised step beyond 'senior' developer. I think that's a huge problem with career development in IT. You get to this point after 5-10 years (realistically in your early 30s) and then where do you go?

Contracting, niche specialisation, management or startup seem to be the choices.

When you consider people like teachers, gardai, nurses, social workers etc etc (all of which are forever complaining at how poorly paid they are) and luas drivers all earn 60K or more with overtime (par for the course in IT) and allowances, not forgetting a gold plated pension which you will not have, and how difficult it is to be a good developer, then it is really quite a poor wage.

mloc123

14ned wrote: »

Colleagues of mine are getting a third of a million in base salary as senior engineers doing nothing particularly special. But they work in the US and were headhunted from here over to there. The more of that top talent is stripped from Europe, for obvious reasons the more less valuable work is allocated by the US multinationals to Europe. And so the level of work done over here spirals downwards.

I assume these are located in the bay area tho? Cost of living is so inflated that even on 300k your standard of living is probably similar to somebody here on half that money.

I do agree that most Irish/European companies seem to have a cap of about 70k on senior engineers here. I was stuck at that threshold for a couple of years with no scope for promotion or additional money until I moved to a US company based here.

I started well above that and have had a number of revisions since. As other people have mentioned there are two career paths.. management or technical (principle engineer).

mloc123

professore wrote: »

When you consider people like teachers, gardai, nurses, social workers etc etc (all of which are forever complaining at how poorly paid they are) and luas drivers all earn 60K or more with overtime (par for the course in IT) and allowances, not forgetting a gold plated pension which you will not have, and how difficult it is to be a good developer, then it is really quite a poor wage.

It will take a teacher probably 25years to get to 60k

BrokenArrows

professore wrote: »

When you consider people like teachers, gardai, nurses, social workers etc etc (all of which are forever complaining at how poorly paid they are) and luas drivers all earn 60K or more with overtime (par for the course in IT) and allowances, not forgetting a gold plated pension which you will not have, and how difficult it is to be a good developer, then it is really quite a poor wage.

I find it hard to believe gardai, nurses, social workers get anywhere near 60k until they have been working in their role for a long long time.

Nurses have a hell of a job and their complaints are justified. Their first few years they get paid sweet **** all and work insane hours.
Gardai i think their current salaries are justified up to a point but then the higher ups are way overpaid.
Social Workers, really doubt they get paid much at all.

Luas workers deserve little more than minimum wage. They are locked in their cabin and dont deal with he public and dont have to deal with much traffic. Dublin bus drivers deserve every penny they get. Having to deal with the dublin public all day and night. Wouldnt wish it on my worst enemy.

I think the point is that as an engineer you very quickly ramp up to your top salary in <10 years and management seems to be the only place to go.

beauf

needhelpguy wrote: »

....But I've also heard how frustrating it is trying to get good technical people, with interviews seemingly filled with chancers and incompetent people. A friend in a software house recently regiled me with tales of what a complete waste of time their last few interview rounds were for SQL developers. Company is urgently looking and can't get anyone. I never asked the wage though.....

They (or the agency) will also often set a minimum of a 2.1 in the degree or a very specific tech, or a spec of two roles into one, Developer/DBA which will eliminate some very experienced people, but recent graduates will get to interview but have limited experience. or they will get people who have very broad experience but not deep in anything.

Its like soccer where they only take the best players, don't nurture those who are only learning. Attrition on the best players narrows the pool and there's no reserve in place because everyone else has stopped playing discouraged.
Roll on 10yrs and there is a vast a amount of adult 5 a side football going on.

In a world where technology is like a third hand for kids. The is a disconnect somewhere. That said I don't believe most people have any interest in coding. Its just not interesting to them.

um7y1h83ge06nx

What I have seen recently is an attempt to flatten organisations, cutting some management. In one case many middle management were asked to become scrum masters or take redundancy.

This creates issues too for people's career plans, making a move to management more difficult.

Downward pressure of salaries is another thing as people have already mentioned. It would appear that in the future, we here in Ireland need to become more customer facing rather than just coding in order to compete with cheaper locations. Sure people can say that the quality isn't there in places like India but they are catching up and there is definitely good quality in Russia and Eastern Europe. Also sometimes a company doesn't need superstars just people that are "good enough".

14ned

needhelpguy wrote: »

But I've also heard how frustrating it is trying to get good technical people, with interviews seemingly filled with chancers and incompetent people. A friend in a software house recently regiled me with tales of what a complete waste of time their last few interview rounds were for SQL developers. Company is urgently looking and can't get anyone. I never asked the wage though. One would wonder, if they're paying peanuts, they'll get monkeys.

The other thing which gets my goat about companies "urgently looking and can't get anyone" is that they always assume it's not their fault they can't find anyone.

Here are Niall's 100% guaranteed tips on filling a position with a quality candidate and without wasting time on interviews:

1. Don't use recruitment agencies which are mostly paid by filling the position. They'll just spam as many candidates as possible and send as many as possible to you for interview because for them it's a pure numbers game. You will waste your time interviewing because your inconvenience is not important to them landing placement bonuses in aggregate. You're just a number to them.

Specialist recruiters who actually invest significant due diligence in scanning candidates are much more expensive, but they can cut your interview overheads to ideally low. After all, your staff time and morale is also valuable.


2. Consider being more flexible in whom you hire and where they are located. Some types of software development really do require all bodies to be physically colocated, but most in truth do not. Widening the hiring pool very significant ups the calibre available, I've been on hiring committees hiring a remote worker from the global talent pool and every single interview we came away very impressed, often indeed wondering if the candidate was too capable for our not particularly demanding role, and therefore worried they might up and leave through boredom. Going global is the ultimate step but comes with costs such as timezone issues, but certainly allowing some remote but staying within the same timezone can make a lot of sense.

Another area woefully underutilised is part time work. There is an army of female programmers out there who can't work full time, but would work half time for half their going rate if they could find it. You could fill your vacancies with two half time workers at half the cost if you were willing to be more flexible. Add remote working in there too and you can find exceptional talent for bargain basement prices if you can live with half time.


3. Bringing in external expert consultants to temporarily help out or provide training is woefully underutilised in Europe. It's getting better no doubt as more people realise the benefit to cost ratio, but what is standard practice in the US still remains to properly catch on here. External consultants don't just provide technical advice, they can also upskill a team, provide access to a global network of other talent, give you a very different perspective on solving your problems, and even the fact you've hired them can cause others to apply to work with you simply through fame. For example, Facebook hired a very famous engineer called Andrei Alexandrescu a while back on a temporary contract at a vast cost, but hiring him and the fact he accepted caused dozens of quality C++ talent to consider joining Facebook at all. Facebook now has a world class C++ team, coming from nothing a few years ago.


There is no skills shortage in Ireland in software development except just after the crisis when a lot of people had to leave. What there is is a severe mismatch between what conditions employers impose and what available workers are able to work with. I suggest most of the "skills shortage" is actually employers being intransigent and inflexible first, and miserly thereafter.

Niall

rainbow kirby

14ned wrote: »

Another area woefully underutilised is part time work. There is an army of female programmers out there who can't work full time, but would work half time for half their going rate if they could find it. You could fill your vacancies with two half time workers at half the cost if you were willing to be more flexible. Add remote working in there too and you can find exceptional talent for bargain basement prices if you can live with half time.

+1000 as a female developer and mother of an 11 month old.

I'd *love* to work part time, but the lack of part time work in software engineering is absolutely ridiculous. At one point it was literally just Google and one start-up in Brighton that were specifically hiring for PT in the entire south-east of England.

beauf

Somewhere like the Civil/Public service might have better policies for part time working/Job sharing etc.

purpleisafruit

beauf wrote: »

Somewhere like the Civil/Public service might have better policies for part time working/Job sharing etc.

Salary for IT related roles in civil service is woefully low compared to industry standards though.

Seth Brundle

BrokenArrows wrote: »

I find it hard to believe gardai, nurses, social workers get anywhere near 60k until they have been working in their role for a long long time.

The OH is a teacher.
It's fairly crap money for the hours (she could easily be working until 11 or 12 at night), never mind the crap that comes with the job.
http://www.into.ie/pay/PayScales/

BrokenArrows

kbannon wrote: »

The OH is a teacher.
It's fairly crap money for the hours (she could easily be working until 11 or 12 at night), never mind the crap that comes with the job.
http://www.into.ie/pay/PayScales/

Ya i lived with teachers before. Shocking hours, its a bit of a joke.
There is no way any teacher can perform their expected duties inside of a normal working day.
Anyone who becomes a teacher is a fool in my opinion. They could be spending their time in much better ways.
At the very least they should be looking to teach 3rd level.

beauf

purpleisafruit wrote: »

Salary for IT related roles in civil service is woefully low compared to industry standards though.

The alternative was not working as there were no PT roles available.

There was also this...

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=102877877&postcount=80

purpleisafruit

beauf wrote: »

The alternative was not working as there were no PT roles available.

There was also this...

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=102877877&postcount=80

Ah good old "positive" discrimination

moycullen14

I know it's unpopular but am I the only one who thinks remote and part-time working doesn't, well, work very well?

Fine if you can work in isolation but, in my experience, that is rare enough. Development is a collaborative, team activity and for that you need effective communication. Anything that gets in the way of that communication - not being on-site, not being available - decreases the efficiency of a team.

I've experienced Scrum/Agile where the team was NOT colocated and it was a mess (although there were other reasons for that).

If one person works remotely then there is a tendency for others to want to. You can't allow one person and refuse another - even if it is inappropriate. If you're not careful you end up with half your team not present at any given time.

I guess the real reason I am against it, though, is that it makes my life more difficult. Coimmunication via IM & email is a PITA. It can be extremely time-consuming, especially when trying to explain/understand tricky tech or business issues.

Bring on the abuse!

beauf

That said I wouldn't advise anyone on a decent wage to switch to the CS/PS. Unless working in the private sector wasn't working out.

jester77

moycullen14 wrote: »

I know it's unpopular but am I the only one who thinks remote and part-time working doesn't, well, work very well?

Fine if you can work in isolation but, in my experience, that is rare enough. Development is a collaborative, team activity and for that you need effective communication. Anything that gets in the way of that communication - not being on-site, not being available - decreases the efficiency of a team.

I've experienced Scrum/Agile where the team was NOT colocated and it was a mess (although there were other reasons for that).

If one person works remotely then there is a tendency for others to want to. You can't allow one person and refuse another - even if it is inappropriate. If you're not careful you end up with half your team not present at any given time.

I guess the real reason I am against it, though, is that it makes my life more difficult. Coimmunication via IM & email is a PITA. It can be extremely time-consuming, especially when trying to explain/understand tricky tech or business issues.

Bring on the abuse!

I've not experienced that, worked with lots of co-located teams, still do and it's not a problem. Could be an issue with the tools? We have hipchat, slack and cisco for keeping teams in sync. JIRA for agile process, github enterprise for code/issues. All meetings happens as planned, everyone dials in. We also have a few Double Robotics that float around so you can login and drive over to someones desk if really needed.

guylikeme

Agree with moycullen lad, there really is no substitute for co-location of teams. Even when guys from India would visit, they learn more in a week of sitting with than on the im/email/phone. Yes they dial into meetings, but you need the human contact for the intangible benefits of "getting each other"

dazberry

I've worked ~PT a couple of times - basically 3 or 4 day weeks - but only in contractor roles and only after I became established - not from the get go.

On the salaried side I know a couple of people availing of the parental leave - where they both work one day less a week, they both seemed to have to go through hoops to avail of it.

I did come across a situation in a financial where the middle manager was being particularly inflexible - to the point of bullying - yet we discovered a whole raft of work/life balance policies that SHE conveniently ignored. I've never worked in Uber or the likes, but where I have seen women treated particularly badly - it has always by other women - but that's for another thread.

D.