This won’t last long, not if someone like @unicodeveloper has anything to say about it. A developer’s journey from a novice that can happily collect N20k to a master that can’t even manage N1m is being fast-tracked by efforts of people like Prosper, such that the novice devs will outgrow you before you finish signing the first couple N20k checks. This has happened to me severally. This isn’t corporate ladder that takes decades to advance. There are people who couldn’t even launch Sublime text 12 months, that are coding fire right now!
Like Chief @asemota said, it is a supply and demand problem. Our best chance at combating this is to:
a) engage more aggressively with Computer Science departments in Nigerian tertiary institutions, see if we can have students can at least graduate as intermediate level devs, who are market ready. The injection of that much competent devs will improve the developer pool for everyone and hopefully a reasonable pay can get you competent dev, that can help build and maintain our many many CRUD applications. Hopefully too, the company grows with the benefit of a good dev. No amounts of Andelas can compare to a Government initiative if can get them to put hand. Think CCHUB re:learn (2 centers) vs Lagos state CodeLagos (500 centers).
b) If we can’t do a) above, then the internship programs that @mark runs at Hotels is the next best thing. Having senior devs breath into beginner devs, at scale across many companies.
If medicine allows doctors to work remotely and give them the same opportunity developers have in terms of working for developed countries, while in Nigeria, trust me medical doctors in the country will begin to compare their earnings with foreign counterparts.
What you don’t get, is that this is a free market. Don’t call Mr A saint and Mr B sinner until you expose both of them to same opportunity
Nigerian developers don’t have good rating on Upwork is a totally wrong metric to use. India is a very large population. The number of developers in India might be half the population of Nigeria. Supply is higher than demand over there. So developer price is bound to fall because employers have lots of option. Developers in Nigeria are few. Good ones might be 10% of the developers in Nigeria. You don’t expect that 10% to be in Upwork when demand in country is high enough. Developer salary will drop when we have more developers.
Now you know why I said we should start small. When employer can get good developer outside with lots of people to choose from. Why would the employer look around few people in Nigeria.
Nigerian developer should focus on building a brand however how small your fees is also don’t think of what others earn in other countries.
A developer with at least 3 to 5 years experience if an employer offer your N250k even N150k you better take it ooooooo cos no job and most importantly think about the value you will create in the company and what you will get in the future
Iroko
Page
Paystack
Hotels.ng
Etc
I am sure not all their developer earn N250k some pay way less than that.
Disagree with the your assumption that there is no job. There is no job for a junior dev but a dev with 3 to 5 years experience has lots of option. Until demand vs supply change, N250k is not good enough for that level of experience! Again, like I said before, other things count aside money. How may hours per week, time frame for deliverables, equity/stock option. There are many ways to get the salary lower. I will take a 400k work that allows me some freedom (note I will still do my work well) over 1m work that won’t let me rest. I will gladly take pay cut to work for entrepreneur that understand the values of a developer in the modern world. You still think you are doing favors to developers by paying N250k. That is the fundamental problem we have with Nigerian Entrepreneurs.
When you are starting a business then you will understand how to estimate your wage bill. What is the minimum wage in Nigeria today?
Demand for Nigerian developers is low junior or senior or chief senior give it any name you like so don’t even expect much money from startup or even 5 year old brand.
I see lots of news hype around startup in Nigeria. Let me ask you how many of them generate revenue of 10 Million to 20 Million Naira monthly that you expect them to pay 1 developer N500k to N1m
Funny equity and stock options really Nigerian like to compare themselves with other countries. Your stock option is worthless if the start is not profitable in 5 to 7 years… and how much for you think a company should generate in year 3 to 5 with the ever ongoing economic instability in Nigeria.
It’s not about favour it’s about a realistic business life.
So you think 3 to 5 year is senior enough anyway amount of years does not even matter most times…
I don’t quite agree with this
Fine, junior devs will improve. But will the senior devs just stay there, remaining stagnant and not improving?
Also there’s no amount of teaching you want to do. If I’ve realized anything is that sheer will, that ability to constantly try to improve yourself is really what separates good from excellent. Nobody can teach you this.
That’s a dicey assessment.
If no one else is interested in saying anything, should he refrain from airing his views so long as they do not violate any rules?
You are entitled to either be enlightened or not. It might not make sense to you now. But would when you get your next job offer. And whatever you are offered you only have 3 choices
If you feel that strongly about it, write a blog post or start your own thread and be done with it. Turning a thread you didn’t start into your personal monologue isn’t respectful of the conversation. It is a bad experience for everyone else if they to have to wade through multiple comments you make just because you want to respond to every comment directed at you.
Having to make a comment like this also detracts from the thread’s original purpose and I hate to do it. The first was friendly advice. Consider this an official warning.
