Nigerian devs may never earn like their global counterparts. This is just the absolute truth. How many firms will pay their devs 500/600K/M
As seen on Twitter. Comments? How much have you seen?
I remember when the gold average was 120k. It probably still is, outside of the mainstream tech community.
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600k is rather the norm for middle cadre devs in banks. Managers (upper management) in Infotech can earn 1m+ per month the only snag is that you would have grown some white hair and a pot belly by then
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I think the average is increasing, maybe a decent company would pay in the range of 200-ish K a month.
The truth is (rant ahead), outside of multinationals (like oil companies) and banks, many fields, not just developers, donāt pay anything near 500-600k for anyone with less than 5+ years experience. Hell, even banks. Their tactic is to just not promote you for a long, long time, so that they can get as much out of you for as little as possible. I mean, I was an entry-level dev in a bank for 3 1/2 years and no one even contemplated promoting most of us till we dropped resignation letters out of frustration.
Thereās also this terrible thing happening where IT companies/startups canāt AFFORD to pay devs well, so every other month theyāre replacing decently experienced people with cheap interns. What that results in is an excess of experienced devs who have to take whatever they can wherever they can.
It would be nice if everyone in the industry could have a non-negotiable standard but this country is too full of hungry people who would happily take 120k a month. And I canāt blame them. The average dev graduate salary Iāve seen in the US is about $50-60,000. Good luck finding any local company, no matter how large that will pay even the dev with 10 years experience N1m a month.
But really, I think a lot of it comes down to the cost of living. This is the sad reality. Itās easy to sit here and compare our pay-checks with foreigners, but here I could get an okay-ish flat for say N500k a year. In somewhere like London, or San Francisco that would be impossible. Itās cheaper to live in Lagos than either of those places. Not to mention that a lot of them have student debt. If I was earning N1m a month, or something near the equivalent of an entry level American dev, I could BUILD or own a pretty decent house in 2 years, which is not happening in those places.
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@onyeka spelt it out completely.
@onyeka well said
And @onyeka ends the thread. Iām going home.
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Hmm. Well put but I have another take. Are Nigerian developers worth much more money than they are paid? I was talking to one guy who complained that a lot of developers donāt really know what they are doing but they want a lot of money.
I know your a developer and might be a bit offended but please letās get your honest opinion.
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Its actually sad that i have to wait 8-10yrs to BUILD/ own a house in these parts. Many of this early grads earning $50-60K will certainly pay up their loans in recon time.
Aside that figure, they still get benefits, bonuses and even stock in their respective companies. With such a figure which is subject to increment based on regular appraisals they can easily plan a life, have kids, pay fees and plan their retirement.
What iām trying to say is one cant simply continue to rent an okay-ish flat for 500K/yr, get married, have children, pay fees and plan for retirement with the way most Nigerian firms pay devs. This is why many devs arenāt loyal in the end.
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But isnāt that the case with most professions not just devs?
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Secondly, which business are Nigerian businesses donāt that they are writing 500k cheques? The money has to come from somewhere no?
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Yes, this certainly applies to most professions not only devs. I only wish there could be some sort of law/rules that make sure employees are well appraised, promoted and paid well.
A very good number of software houses in this country are certainly seeing upwards of 15-20M a year in revenue, some others 5x to 10x that figure. Aside from overhead costs, a major portion of this amount goes into the pocket of the CEO/Founder and maybe senior management while junior employees are left out. In other cases it goes to the bank and then later used for āemergencyā purposes.
I dunno. You make it sound like companies are being intentionally stingy to developers. That might be true in many cases. But if you zoomed out, took a macro perspective and asked whether the tech industry actually generates enough revenues to support N500k/mo salaries, would your opinion still be the same? Is it a question of whether they will pay or whether then can pay? Or maybe you are asking startups to raise millions of dollars so they can afford the N1m/mo baseline? Because then we should all quit and go and work for Konga. Thereās only a few sectors in Nigeria that can support that kind of insane burn rate. Banking, oil and gas and maybe consulting companies.
A developer worth that much would probably be better off starting their own company (and they would be unlikely to pay themselves that much, because now they are making the damn sausage themselves, priorities), or going abroad to work in economies that reward them commensurate to their value. Of course itās not the outcome that I would want, but it is what it is. Whatever the case, weāre going to have to be proactively patient with our industry, instead of lamenting what should be when it clearly canāt.
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Well, sigh. Good points by @onyeka. But then, itās easy to think employers would choose to lose high value staff just so they donāt pay high value wages. Thatās plain silly.
Why donāt we ask the business owners what their pay scale progression has looked like, over say, last 5 years?
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Exactly. I am employed as CTO at Delivery Science and one of the important things we stand for is hiring quality developers and paying their saltās worth. However, we cannot satisfactorily do this without a commensurate amount in inflow. While it is easy to read up on SV salaries and wonder why you arenāt paid the same here, you forget that the Nigerian startup you work with has probably just raised $20k from some angel and no matter how much you want it, that hefty salary isnāt coming to you even if youāre the only engineer. Why? The business has to factor in a lot, including continuity.
Letās look at @CaptSpacelyās hypothetical company with upwards of 15-20M in annual revenue for instance and give them three developers earning 500k monthly. Trust me, they would not be able to keep the lights on within months.
In the end, I think itās a market thing - you know, the whole demand supply thing. The technology-dependent corporations with deep pockets will most likely source their solutions from outside the country (or maybe the well established local ones) while the local software shops, if lucky, get to implement some minor module, or build a website for scraps. As such, there has been little demand for talent but developers who think they can make a website or couple shit together to make something āusefulā are everywhere. Of course they all canāt work in Banking, Oil and Gas, Konga, unfortunately. Compare this with SV where demand for top quality software is high, not just from within the country, but from around the world, and you see why the developers hired by the shops we hear about get to take home interesting salaries.
At Delivery Science, we are doing our part in changing that making our developers happy. Even if it means taking up consulting gigs that are in line with our core product (which can easily have the downside of increasing your time to market), and occasionally having executives defer their pay.
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Sorry sir, with an $100k per year salary in Silicon Valley, you canāt comfortably start a family and pay off the loans as suggested, by the time you take the tax and rent off the table, youāll be left with little to save.
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This is not a Nigerian thing. Itās everywhere. Why do you think most people in the West have mortgages? The dev in SV making 70k is losing a chunk of that to loans, bills, rent and taxes. Housing in any metropolitan area is expensive. The ideal scenario is making SV money while living in a less urban area, but then what you gain in a cheaper environment you might lose in the commute.
You mention something about a software company making N20m in revenue. That would not get a company with more than 2/3 people the salaries weāre campaigning for. See the problem? You canāt pay what youāre not making.
Iām not saying what we get paid here is fair by any stretch, but itās not so black-and-white.
Some companies are, especiallyāironicallyāthe ones that can afford it. Again, Iām not really trying to villify honest business owners. Something I wanted to write in my original response was that the appreciation for the field isnāt there, because honestly itās not just that viable yet. People āgetā banking and oil because those comps rake in billions a year. People āgetā startups abroad because some of them are raking in cash. How many, if any, local startups or software companies are doing those kind of figures?
Like @xolubi said, theyāre barely getting by. tl:dr our environment sucks.
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Someone tried to do a comparison once http://techpoint.ng/nigerian-developers-are-underpaid/
My take on this issue is looking at others fuels greed. Always consider your own situation. For the cost of living in Nigeria, 200K per month I think is fair for a person (0-3yrs exp) without family. I spend about 150k on rent alone per month in London which is a miracle. Comparing your salary with Silicon Valley is not wise at all.
Now, if you agreed with the company (as Iāve learnt) to get x amount, whatās your business with what another man is paid. If suddenly the pay is too small for you, your experience/role/responsibilities ask for the raise. If they canāt raise you at that point, you either cut back on your expenses, find another stream of income or join another company.
Businesses will always try to reduce overhead costs and will certainly offer you the lowest in their range for the role, itās up to you to negotiate what you can sleep at night with.
BTW If anyone knows a front end developer looking for a job, let me know! Thanks.
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Ah. Well, two things here:
First, I donāt think a business is a communist endeavor. Except thereās a profit-sharing arrangement in place, owners are not obliged to increase pay when times are good. After all, theyāre the ones that sign the loans etc, definitely not junior staff.
But āfairnessā aside (and this is another really long discussion), I think thereās a lot of misconceptions as to how much money is actually available to local companies. Some make a ton and as such, can (and probably should) pay a ton.
The vast majority are ājust okā and these dream salaries areā¦ well dreams. Apart from the uber-funded startups here, which company is offering any developers 500k upwards? I donāt think itās because they donāt want to; after all, who wants to lose a good team member, esp because of pay? I think they would want to (I know I would) but canāt. At least yet.
Youāre comparing companies that are bootstrapping in a harsh, expensive environment to those companies where $1m is considered a seed round. Make you know carry Orijin money dey price champagne bros. You go wound!
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LMAO. @seyitaylor you go kill me with laughter!!!
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