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Agony of an African programmer

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Re: Agony of an African programmer

#111

Post by leaveyou »

leaveyou wrote: post #28
guard-of-terra wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can totally relate to this, but it gets better, doesn't it? Today Internet is often faster and cheaper in the eastern europe than in the west. We no longer need computer books so much. As for brain drain, it's more of an opportunity if you're a developer. On the other hand, we have every piece of software available in the pirated form and had no shame of using that. Haven't we?

he's very probably exaggerating the electricity thing and yes the internet is better today in romania (where he left from) than in many other west european countries mostly due to brand new communication infrastructure and a booming IT sector.

sorry for the ambiguity, I was replying to #guard-of-terra who was replying to #randunel who was complaining that eastern europe is a lot like africa in the sense that there are frequent electricity blackouts and bad internet, which to me is difficult to believe (he's was very unlucky).

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#112

Post by thisone »

lgleason wrote: post #76
mattmanser wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK, outside of London the average salary is roughly £40k for an experienced programmer ($66k). It does seem to be climbing rapidly though, 3 years ago £35k was more the avg, now I'm getting recruiter emails claiming up to £45k. So unsurprisingly it's just a sliding scale depending on your local GDP, there's not some universal pay grade.

Which languages? From what I understand you could earn that in South Africa and have a much better standard of living. Given the cost of things in the UK that is crazy....

I've seen c#, Ruby, and the odd PhP with a decent salary up North.

C and C++ also has a calling up here, but more specialized to the particular company (think Ubisoft).

Recently saw a posting for a Linux kernel dev.

I haven't really seen calling for more niche languages, but I'm also only looking at the postings that come into my email.

Re the comment about management salary, I have been given that as a reason during salary negotiation as to why they can't pay what I'm asking.

The salaries I've been seeing have risen quite a bit in the past 2 years (after dropping suddenly, recession and all).

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#113

Post by buyx »

graemian wrote: post #85
limpon wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, it seems like you don't really know what you're talking about. It's not easy to move away if you're born and grew up in Africa. It's not like renting a U-Haul, pack your stuff and drive across the country. You need a visa. But it's impossible to get a visa to work in US/Europe unless you have a job. And even trying and applying for a visa costs more than most people's monthly salary. And there is no money-back g…

I was born in Africa and I'm trying to get out right now. It's not easy, but it's not impossible. I didn't get as good a deal in the birthplace lottery as Steve Jobs and others born in Silicon Valley, but I'll be damned if I'll use that as an excuse for a life of mediocrity. Frankly, if the factors you describe are really what's stopping you from reaching your goals, you're likely to fail anyway.

I was born in Africa and I'm trying to get out right now. It's not easy, but it's not impossible.

I am also working at emigrating, and it is a painful process. Huge amounts of bureaucracy. I have to shell out for English exams (despite English being my first language). I then have to shell out more for my work experience and degree to be assessed by the Australian Computer Society. Getting letters from ex-colleagues has proven to be challenging, because the letters need to be notarised - hopefully these will be acceptable- no guarantees.

I then lose an arbitrary two years of work experience points (at least) because I didn't study in Australia. Finally, assuming that I have enough points, and there isn't a revision to the Skilled Occupation List, and I am invited to apply for a Visa, there is another small fortune to be spent on visas. Any small oversight or error, and my money is gone. If I don't have enough points, I have to spend the same amount to have my experience assessed again in six months.

Fortunately, I have enough saved up enough money to play the emigration game, the same probably applies to you. Most people have not.

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#114

Post by disputin »

paolomaffei wrote: post #96
KhalPanda wrote: post #92

> 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. "at least $100,000 dollars per year" ..."at least $100,000 dollars per year" Where can I find one of these mythical minimum-100k-salary programming jobs, without having 10+ years of experience and working for a massive tech company? Source: UK…

In London with 5 years experience that's a reasonable estimation for web developers, especially if you are contracting

Last few places I've worked, in London, devs with 10+ years were getting around $70 000.

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#115

Post by wobbleblob »

graemian wrote: post #106
kamaal wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Frankly, if the factors you describe are really what's stopping you from reaching your goals, you're likely to fail anyway. A very narrow perspective of the world. Though I hope not, but some day if you fail for reasons beyond your control despite your best efforts may be you will see for yourself why not all failure happens due to a individual's short comings. The world is full of examples of people who work heroi…

Exactly! You're more likely to fail for reasons beyond your control (like no electricity, bad Internet) in African than in San Francisco. But those things ARE actually under your control. Just move to San Francisco :-)

Spoken like someone who has never lived or worked abroad, and n ever met anyone who has. You can't just move to another country and expect people to let you in.

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#116

Post by BenoitEssiambre »

graemian wrote: post #78

Get out of Africa. Africa will steal your life. If you choose to stay in Africa and have your potential limited by silly things like bad Internet and no electricity, then make that choice consciously, and for good reasons, like wanting to be near family. If you stay because you feel some deeper connection to Africa because you were born there, get over it. Get out of your comfort zone, live your own life. Consider ca…

That would be a mistake. Economically speaking, Africa is one of the last place on earth that is widely underdeveloped and has huge economy wide upside potential.

If you ask me, winds are blowing the right way for Africa. It's a good time to be there.

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#117

Post by danmaz74 »

MichaelGG wrote: post #69
mtct wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes

That's like what, 22K before tax?

Much more - you should consider that under "taxes" in Italy we also consider medical coverage (which is actually part of the taxes) and a retirement plan (which is not actually a tax, but practically it's almost the same). The retirement plan for full time, normal employees, runs at an incredibly high 33% of your salary. In my personal opinion, this is the REAL problem here, more than taxes.

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#118

Post by ekwogefee »

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…

Shameless plug... I'm African. Cameroonian to be more precise. I grew frustrated with slow download speeds over the "cloud" and the recent obsession over "syncing". I personally prefer normal file transfers over syncing. I created my own tool that does file and folder transfers over a LAN... without Internet. My solution is P2P (no servers), has faster download speeds compared to the Internet, can work even with ad-hoc Wi-Fi hotspots, and is cross-platform (Windows Desktop, Linux, Mac OSX, iOS, Android, Windows Phone 8) . You should try Feem. http://tryfeem.com

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#119

Post by vanderZwan »

ekwogefee wrote: post #118
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…

Shameless plug... I'm African. Cameroonian to be more precise. I grew frustrated with slow download speeds over the "cloud" and the recent obsession over "syncing". I personally prefer normal file transfers over syncing. I created my own tool that does file and folder transfers over a LAN... without Internet. My solution is P2P (no servers), has faster download speeds compared to the Internet, can work even with ad-h…

I guess the ehm... how to put it nicely... "Eurocentricness" (?) of the screenshots are a deliberate choice and a real life example of the things you have to put up with as an African programmer?

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#120

Post by buyx »

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #116
graemian wrote: post #78

Get out of Africa. Africa will steal your life. If you choose to stay in Africa and have your potential limited by silly things like bad Internet and no electricity, then make that choice consciously, and for good reasons, like wanting to be near family. If you stay because you feel some deeper connection to Africa because you were born there, get over it. Get out of your comfort zone, live your own life. Consider ca…

That would be a mistake. Economically speaking, Africa is one of the last place on earth that is widely underdeveloped and has huge economy wide upside potential. If you ask me, winds are blowing the right way for Africa. It's a good time to be there.

Much of Africa is indeed the land of opportunity (with the exception of South Africa, which has serious structural and political issues, and is in a sort of terminal malaise).

The calculus changes once children enter the picture though. The continent (a huge place to generalise about) isn't exactly the sort of place to risk raising a family, unless you are rich enough to be able to maintain a ready escape plan for them, and to educate them privately. You don't want to risk having them complaining in 20 years about the same things the OP talks about and being stuck here.

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