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Agony of an African programmer

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Re: Agony of an African programmer

#41

Post by atmosx »

mtct wrote: post #5
cliveowen wrote: post #3

"A web and software developer in Africa earns from $10,000 to $20,000 dollars per annum whereas their colleagues in Europe and the US earns at least $100,000 dollars per year." I don't think this is factually true. That said, the article really makes you think how much easy we have it in the developed world, yet we always find the time to complain about everything.

I, in Italy, as a junior software developer, earn €17000/year. And genuinely I'm not complaining.

First of, congrats. Out of curiosity, what technologies are you paid to use? Rails/ObjC (ios)?

Junior 17k in Italy? That sounds a little bit wild...

NOTE: Sorry, I understood 17k per MONTH. Scratch the comment (keep the congrats! :-P )

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#42

Post by atmosx »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #12
mtct wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, in Italy, as a junior software developer, earn €17000/year. And genuinely I'm not complaining.

Doesn't sound like much. What lifestyle do you afford on this? Any improvement prospects?

I'm not sure you know what you're talking about, 17k in Italy as junior-anything, is EXTREMELY well!

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#44

Post by deathanatos »

gamegoblin wrote: post #6
cliveowen wrote: post #3

"A web and software developer in Africa earns from $10,000 to $20,000 dollars per annum whereas their colleagues in Europe and the US earns at least $100,000 dollars per year." I don't think this is factually true. That said, the article really makes you think how much easy we have it in the developed world, yet we always find the time to complain about everything.

In the Midwest, 60K/yr is not uncommon. I know a dev with 7 years experience making ~50K. But the cost of living here is nothing. I spend under 20K/yr and I eat out plenty, live in a 1000 sq ft apartment, etc. My friend making 50K supports his wife and kid easily in the new house they just got. Cost of living is huge factor when taking into account salary and location. 10K in the vast majority of African countries pu…

> Cost of living is huge factor when taking into account salary and location.

To add to this comment, I live in Silicon Valley, and spend ~20k/yr on rent alone, for a 600 sq. ft. apartment. I'm also not in the worst areas, price-wise. Of course, salaries tend to be higher here.

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#45

Post by batoure »

jonahx wrote: post #40
batoure wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure the perspective is probably skewed, however the salaries listed are generous. I did some consulting in west Africa in the last 5 years and the majority of people working in tech and making 10 or 12k a year are only doing so if they are killing it. The only people making more are working directly for foreign entities or governments and that is a very small community of people. In reality most people I worked with…

What type of work were they doing? Because even in the dirt cheap, cut throat markets of sites like vworker and odesk, a good web developer can make significantly more than that.

they are doing basic programming and database work for small banks and businesses. The thing that is important that he said is...

>Add to that, a good number of African countries have been blacklisted from PayPal.

I actually tried to set some friends up doing work on odesk and elancer. It is simply not possible this part of the world(west africa, cote d'ivoire, ghana, togo, benin, nigeria) is basically cut off from international money transfers unless you are part of a high income elite that qualifies for real banking. So they could do work, but would never be able to get the money.

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#46

Post by atmosx »

wallzz wrote: post #37

I think the article is plein of cliché about the africa: electricity, internet price ?!! seriously these things have been improved in most of african countries especially in the north of Africa (Ghana has the fastest internet speed in africa ), and now its much more an advantage than of disadvantage for tech companies.especially for salaries and low fees. The question that I looked for an answer for in the article is…

I wonder if creating the environment is enough. The thing that valley has and you can't find around is investors: From seed money to angels. Every region has 2 or 3 but that's about it. The culture is different and you can't change that overnight. Not to mention that Europeans are way more skeptical/prudent when it comes investments anyway compared to USA.

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#48

Post by jonahx »

batoure wrote: post #45
jonahx wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What type of work were they doing? Because even in the dirt cheap, cut throat markets of sites like vworker and odesk, a good web developer can make significantly more than that.

they are doing basic programming and database work for small banks and businesses. The thing that is important that he said is... >Add to that, a good number of African countries have been blacklisted from PayPal. I actually tried to set some friends up doing work on odesk and elancer. It is simply not possible this part of the world(west africa, cote d'ivoire, ghana, togo, benin, nigeria) is basically cut off from i…

That makes sense... I wonder if there's an opportunity there for someone who is part of that elite to act as a go-between of sorts. I could imagine they have their payments sent to a PayPal in US or UK, etc, and then the account holder wires money to someone with an actual bank account in one of the countries you listed, who dispenses the money back in cash to the workers. I doubt there would be much money in it for the middle man, but the numbers you are quoting are right then that person would be having a major impact of the lives of those programmers.

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#49

Post by null_ptr »

AdrianRossouw wrote: post #29
chestnut-tree wrote: post #17

The patchy and expensive internet access that many people around the world experience really emphasises the importance of offline or native apps. There's a relentless (and in my view unnecesary) push by many technology companies to run everything online as if it's some natural progression we should all be moving towards. Some of us, even with broadband access, don't want to run apps in the cloud, (where everything we…

I'm the opposite. I'm south african, but I don't want to have to download your native application to get locked into yet another walled garden. Most of the apps I want to use don't make sense without internet access anyway.

How do native applications lock you into a walled garden and web applications don't? It's the opposite.

Native applications mean you own the data you work with instead of surrendering it to a remote server you have no control over. It means you will be able to use that data even after the provider decides that the application is not profitable any more and they take it offline.

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#50

Post by mtct »

atmosx wrote: post #41
mtct wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, in Italy, as a junior software developer, earn €17000/year. And genuinely I'm not complaining.

First of, congrats. Out of curiosity, what technologies are you paid to use? Rails/ObjC (ios)? Junior 17k in Italy? That sounds a little bit wild... NOTE: Sorry, I understood 17k per MONTH. Scratch the comment (keep the congrats! :-P )

I work in C#, sometime javascript if needed.

For a small IT consulting firm.

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