Wages in IT

As far as I can tell it's a combination of a few things - an increase in the demand for IT workers, a perception that focusing on the lowest daily rate is the best way to cut costs and the easy path to PR/citizenship (457 in Australia, H1B in America). And I don't blame these individuals, if I was from a third world country and I could get a PR/citizenship in first world country by claiming to have the IT skills they say they need, I would do the same. Some cases there is a base level of skill and natural flair, although in the majority, it's outright fraud (and fumble your way through, getting by on the sympathy and kindness of co-workers).

The higher skilled locals still seem to do fine, but it's the middle of the road skilled guys who have been decimated. The same is starting to happen in the Accounting industry and other regular functions like HR.

As far as new generation wanting in I haven't seen this - and it really makes me scratch my head - it's a strong industry with good prospects. I suppose not many see a future in it, as IT executives in Australia would sooner fly in someone who wrote a Word Doc that says they have 2 years experience in XYZ (insert whatever you need here!) rather than take on and skill up a bright local IT graduate (which would be the far better choice). I haven't worked with a graduate since I was one myself 18 years ago.

 

Atlassian have been critical of government plans to scale back the 457 visa, and close off a pathway to PR, because it'll make it hard for them to deal with skills shortages.

The explanation that I've heard is that there's a lack of people who can scale a project in Australia, and they need to bring in Rock Stars from elsewhere in the world. My knee jerk reaction is that the companies are looking for a mythical, superhuman developer, and I've never run into any of these in my career. Then again, I've not worked for anyone like Google.

To be fair, two of the three projects that I've worked on in Australia have had clueless project managers, so they might have a point here.

I tend to believe that "skills shortages" means someone who is willing to work for a wage that the employer is willing to pay. Or the company won't spend time training up a junior employee.

That said, there was a big collapse in the number of students studying IT in 2000, when the tech industry imploded, and that's never really recovered.

It's also possible that new graduates are flocking to startups, which is why @Orion isn't seeing them in the more corporate world.

 

I think it depends on the company. I'm contracting as a Solution Architect as well and find there's no real difference between how hard contractors work vs. perms. For the additional pay you get as a contractor, there's no way I'd consider going perm unless I was out of options.

I have done delivery management before and hated it. I have no interest in managing budgets, resources, timelines, etc. but that's just me. Everyone is different.

Solution Architects where I am get paid about the same as all of those roles except Heads of departments. And if you were a contractor, you'd probably be earning more. Admittedly, the career path is very limited for architects. The next step up is something like Chief Architect or Head of Architecture and then maybe CTO but there's usually only 1 of each.

 

Strange. I still see lots of grads coming through the likes of Telstra and some of the big consulting firms like Deloitte and Accenture. None of them are Solution Architects though. Mostly PMO or junior PM's or junior BA's or consultants who produce really nice Powerpoint packs, i.e. brochureware

 

Most companies these days want their developers to be Subject Matter Expert on everything when it's almost impossible to keep up to date with technology these days (At least Web technologies and frameworks)and none of these companies want to invest in educating young developers either...

I've managed dev teams while keeping my position as a developer in two large companies. Pay was great but got really bored of the meetings and budgeting and so on ...

Been back to a smaller company with a smaller but decent wage for years now and would find it very hard to go back and wok for a large company unless the money is unreal.

One thing to keep in mind with higher wages too is the fact that we get taxed really hard (and can't claim much back)so the amount you work to get paid that extra 10K more that is taxed at the highest bracket might not be worth the effort at the end of the day...

 

Hence why I started throwing pretax money into super

 

Useless? I learned to draw a process flow diagram in uni and I'm still using that skill to this day! Having said that, nobody here uses anything other than rectangles and diamonds

 

As a SWE I've worked with a few large high technology company's including Microsoft. Anytime a recruiter or HR person starts going down the path of "We're looking for someone with 5 years experience with..." I politely cut them off and simply say something to the effect "Your advert said Software Engineer, not Developer. As a SWE, I use and recommend the best tool or language for the task at hand. A loop is a loop in any language and it's just syntaxic sugar. Concepts, algorithms, and seeing the big picture are key to project success."

Furthermore, when I have successfully completed interview loops, most of the times when I start in the office I'm never using the computer language requested in the job advert or the language demanded I use at the interviews. It's just all nonsense.

I remember my first true IT role fresh out of uni, and after barely passing an interview session, I turn up on my first day and a more senior colleague asks for assistance in creating and formatting a Word document. I naively help. Turns out her overseas (marine) engineering degree never required her to touch a computer. She was also frequently calling up her hubby for help who was working for MYER. It was funny at the time. It's no longer funny when I look over people's Linkedin profiles and question how they got a particular role.

 

I'm finding that the issue that @paulF raises is a big issue when dealing with recruitment agencies.

I had a chat with one this morning about a role at a bank via a consultancy company. They wanted an Android developer with Oracle database experience.

The trouble is that an Android app should be hitting the database through something like a webservice, thereby decoupling the system. So your average mobile dev isn't going to touch Oracle.

The net result is that the consultancy is turning everyone down...

Oh, and because the job is via an agent and a consultancy, the rate is being clipped, and probably $200 per day lower than market.

As for getting into architecture roles, I'm too far out of touch with the enterprise and cloud side to qualify for any of those sorts of roles. I probably would have to get back into JEE to qualify.

 

Ahhh, recruitment agencies -- most useless people ever.

@Simon Hampel Yes, no, maybe? Good employers will try and keep talented people and provide the environment to allow them to upskill or cross-skill.. as the right person and attitude can be more important that what they know right now - as they'll be able to pick up other languages or technologies quite easily. I guess in large business they see less that way.

But agree on always learning!

 

Hi, @Graeme @TheRayTracer what do you think is a good rate for a senior solution architect per hour?

 

@gman65 as a contractor I have regular dealings with them. The conversation frequently seems to involve asking me to take a rate cut.

The trouble with learning is that a client will request X years of experience in <hot technology>, and I'm not sure that a bit of reading Stackoverflow will get you past the gatekeepers.

@Mcube I'm not a solutions architect, but I've seen roles advertised on Seek paying up to $1200 or $1300 per day.

 

The reality of the situation today is that the employment market is depressed by the (company sponsored) influx of offshore labour on short / long term visas. The labour hire market is benchmarked against this in terms of rate cards and that is why it is so flat. Of course, large corporates should be accessing the local market first (labour market testing) but this is not the case - illegal but not enforced.

Not all countries are the same - Singapore has cracked down:

Stricter rules for Employment Pass approval

You can't bring in offshore labour easily in Singapore now.

Structural wage stagnation

 

Those rates do exist but they're definitely not the norm. Most of the senior solution architect roles I've seen (and get contacted by recruiters about) pay about $1000 / day.

I have seen rates as high as $1400-1500 a day where people contract to a tier 1 consulting firm which then charges out the resource as part of an SOW at around $2K a day to the client. However, that's again very rare and typically only if the client has requested a specific resource (e.g. to get around an internal hiring freeze) or skillset.

 

The going rate for a senior developer isn't that far off, being around $800 or $900 per day, though there's always a lot of downwards pressure on that.

How much detail do architects go into? I see the adverts calling for a vast amount of knowledge of programming languages, AWS, and other hot technologies, but I get the impression that they're not that hands on in terms of coding.

I'm curious because I tend to work in more of an agency environment, so don't tend to run into them. (The last time I dealt with a BA was eight or nine years ago!)

 

I think it depends largely on the company and the specific role. I've had recent solution architect roles at Telstra and NBN and neither of them required extremely detailed technical knowledge. Just a solid understanding of the fundamentals, concepts and good design principles and, most importantly, some common sense. I haven't had to read or write a line of code since 2008 when I was a developer myself. With the big corporations, most of the actual development is outsourced (and offshored) to vendors like Infosys, Accenture, TCS, HCL, etc.

 

Thanks @jyeung80.

I was just looking at the advert for a Digital Architect contract, and I suspect that it's something I could do. (Though my knowledge of CRM is limited, and I'd need to study TOGAF.)

 

I've been put forward for a contract role into a bank via a consultancy company. Naturally because there are several layers between myself and the client, the rate is a couple of hundred dollars lower than it should be. That's already putting me off.

Then there's a coding test.

I don't know if these are a fixture in other sectors, and would be interested to know if they are, but about 80% or 90% of Android contracts will ask you to complete one. I've attached the PDF to this document.

The problem is that writing an app to do what they want from scratch will take a couple of days, maybe longer, depending on requirements. After that there's no guarantee of an interview or job.

For example, a couple of weeks ago I spent fifteen hours or so on one, and the client said that they wanted to do a phone interview. The designated hour came and went without a call, so I dropped an email to the agent. He got back a week later telling me that the team leader role had been cancelled, but I could be considered for a more junior position paying 25% less...

I'm tempted to reply saying that the test has an incomplete specification (e.g. no JSON definitions), and that means the project is likely to run into problems, therefore I'm not starting until they supply me with everything I need.