Why won't these Aussie companies hire American or Canadian devs? The scene down there seems so insular. Couldn't they mitigate the "brain drain" somewhat by recruiting in countries where English is already the default language and there is talent on the ground?
US/Canadian devs are probably equally attracted to the US tech scene over Australia, no?
Anecdotally, I'm an Australian who moved to the US fresh out of college, and the salaries here were waaay higher than what I was being offered in Australia - like 150% to 200%.
Plus Australians don't have massive student debt -- we have income-contingent loans that don't count income earned overseas. So if you move to the USA ... you don't have to pay back the loan.
Every time I see people on HN bitching about "low" wages and "high" costs in the valley, I laugh bitterly. American programmers really have no idea how good they have it.
I've heard this explanation from others and it seems reasonable enough. I still wonder if they couldn't get "B" or "C" grade devs though. A lot of SV companies just won't settle for anything but "A" players, and if they can't get them (because of the incredibly competitive war for talent) many will just leave the job unfilled. That means that there are American and Canadian devs who might be willing to move to Australia to get some experience under their belt.
Why would an Australian company want to hire "B" and "C" grade devs, let alone import them?
Wow, this thread is misinformed. There's plenty of world class "A" grade talent in Sydney. Some of those people leave, some of those people stay. You just have to know where to look.
Funnily enough, not everyone wants to move to the US, because if you're not a founder of a tech company, there's very little reason to leave Sydney for SF.
I didn't say there was no A-grade talent in Sydney. Don't get defensive.
Of course I don't know much about the Australian startup scene. That's why I asked the question. It's on the other side of the Earth from the US. So the question remains unanswered. If there's plenty of startups in Australia that have no intention of leaving, why can't they hire US/Canadian devs if there isn't enough homegrown talent to go around? I for one would consider living and working in Oz.
Games companies always underpay. It's never financially worthwhile working in that field (except maybe in social gaming if you are in SV)
Taking any permanent job as a developer in Australia is almost always a bad move financially. You should be looking at contracting.
If you are prepared to work in enterprise software then rates are around $70-$90/hour for mid to high level developers (rates go higher for architect positions too). Contracts typically are 6 months, and almost always are renewed.
(These are Adelaide Java rates - East Coast rates are typically $5-10/hour higher, and I've heard Perth rates are higher still)
Sounds about right. I graduated from UQ in 2008 - I had job offers from Honeywell in Sydney ($56k) and a local Brisbane firm ($45k) but took Microsoft (US$80k). Banks and IBM were offering ~$50k. A couple friends who went to Google in Sydney were at ~$60k, those who stayed in Brisbane were generally on ~$40-$50k. 5 or 6 of us from my graduating class came over to MS that year.
Comments
Why won't these Aussie companies hire American or Canadian devs? The scene down there seems so insular. Couldn't they mitigate the "brain drain" somewhat by recruiting in countries where English is already the default language and there is talent on the ground?
US/Canadian devs are probably equally attracted to the US tech scene over Australia, no? Anecdotally, I'm an Australian who moved to the US fresh out of college, and the salaries here were waaay higher than what I was being offered in Australia - like 150% to 200%.
Plus Australians don't have massive student debt -- we have income-contingent loans that don't count income earned overseas. So if you move to the USA ... you don't have to pay back the loan.
Every time I see people on HN bitching about "low" wages and "high" costs in the valley, I laugh bitterly. American programmers really have no idea how good they have it.
I've heard this explanation from others and it seems reasonable enough. I still wonder if they couldn't get "B" or "C" grade devs though. A lot of SV companies just won't settle for anything but "A" players, and if they can't get them (because of the incredibly competitive war for talent) many will just leave the job unfilled. That means that there are American and Canadian devs who might be willing to move to Australia to get some experience under their belt.
Why would an Australian company want to hire "B" and "C" grade devs, let alone import them?
Wow, this thread is misinformed. There's plenty of world class "A" grade talent in Sydney. Some of those people leave, some of those people stay. You just have to know where to look.
Funnily enough, not everyone wants to move to the US, because if you're not a founder of a tech company, there's very little reason to leave Sydney for SF.
I didn't say there was no A-grade talent in Sydney. Don't get defensive.
Of course I don't know much about the Australian startup scene. That's why I asked the question. It's on the other side of the Earth from the US. So the question remains unanswered. If there's plenty of startups in Australia that have no intention of leaving, why can't they hire US/Canadian devs if there isn't enough homegrown talent to go around? I for one would consider living and working in Oz.
I'm curious - what was the difference in salaries?
From my experience in Brisbane (I think Melbourne is similar, Sydney is higher because of higher living costs).
Games Companies: Junior - $35k - $45k (< 5 years experience) Mid Level - $45k - 65k (3 - 8 years experience) Senior - $65k - $85k (5+ years experience)
(skill is also a factor, which is why the experience brackets aren't equal)
At a web dev company doing Javascript / PHP / Asp work it's about $10k - $15k on top of that for each level.
Working at an enterprise doing what most would class as boring work it's probably another $10k again over working at a web dev company.
There are a few high paying ($80k+) jobs for ruby devs that I've seen around too and freelancing pays pretty well but then you have to find the work.
Games companies always underpay. It's never financially worthwhile working in that field (except maybe in social gaming if you are in SV)
Taking any permanent job as a developer in Australia is almost always a bad move financially. You should be looking at contracting.
If you are prepared to work in enterprise software then rates are around $70-$90/hour for mid to high level developers (rates go higher for architect positions too). Contracts typically are 6 months, and almost always are renewed.
(These are Adelaide Java rates - East Coast rates are typically $5-10/hour higher, and I've heard Perth rates are higher still)
Sounds about right. I graduated from UQ in 2008 - I had job offers from Honeywell in Sydney ($56k) and a local Brisbane firm ($45k) but took Microsoft (US$80k). Banks and IBM were offering ~$50k. A couple friends who went to Google in Sydney were at ~$60k, those who stayed in Brisbane were generally on ~$40-$50k. 5 or 6 of us from my graduating class came over to MS that year.