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0 pointsnostrademons2y ago0 comments

What does tech pay in Australia? AU$80/hour = AU$160K/year which I think is ~US$110K/year. Big Tech TC starts at about $200K/year for straight out of college and quickly goes up to around $450K/year by mid-career. Plus you don't need to do physical labor or risk your health hauling stuff.

I think construction is an underrated profession by a lot of folks in the U.S, but it doesn't really compare to software for effort vs. reward. It's a favorable alternative for folks who would otherwise work retail or push paper around in non-tech office jobs.

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7 comments · 3 top-level

gtvwill2y ago· 3 in thread

Yeah there's bugger all of the work actually there though and the competition to get it is pretty high. I went through a bunch of interviews over the last year for a mix of systems engineer through to lvl1 support (beggars can't be choosers).

Most offers peaked at 85k. I did a half dozen interviews and had a few offers. Got a good mate who is a data analyst with a fair wack of experience, he struggles to find much available at 120k per annum let alone higher.

Job security in IT hasn't been great to me either. Prior to starting my own company I never had a role last >12 months due to some external factor deleting my job(e.g. company loses support contract). Meanwhile the whole time I've had constant offers to get back into construction. I'm not ticketed or anything I'm just reliable and turn up.

pygar2y ago

The lowish tech wages in Australia are in part explained by our economy being pretty unsophisticated. A data analyst (already of dubious utility at the best of times) is going to find getting work hard in a country with a population of 25M that moves very slowly and doesn't actually make anything. The same goes for most engineering roles. A lot of us just become glorified PMs.

IT is even worse, I work for a company that has >10K employees and we have 50 external IT staff which seems to be enough. The cattle side has won over in the "Pet vs cattle" analogy. After the initial setup, most SMEs will have a guy who comes in once a week.

raffraffraff2y ago

My brother in law runs a small construction firm and said that his single hardest problem is finding decent reliable workers. The only reliable ones aren't decent (highschool dropouts with alcohol problems, couldn't be trusted to do act on their own initiative). The decent ones all think they can run their own construction company after a few months, so they disappear, never to succeed, because they don't realise how much more there is to running a company (particularly construction).

mywittyname2y ago

The American tech industry is far more generous than in other countries, and Americans tend to forget this fact.

tiew9Vii2y ago· 1 in thread

$160k AUD is the going rate for senior/principal roles in Australia.

$200k AUD roles are rare in Australia. They do exist but hard to come by.

Most $200k+ AUD devs I know will be working at Atlassian, Amazon, Goggle, not many options in AU, tech is quite narrow, not much variety. It’s also the RSU’s that push them in to the $200k+ bracket.

jcparkyn2y ago

(Not saying anything in your comment is wrong, just an additional data point)

For "big tech" in Australia, ~$160k is pretty much the starting compensation for graduate/entry level SWEs.

red-iron-pine2y ago

and you're not doing fly-in, fly-out to remote mining sites or hanging out in the ass-end of the world. 200k USD, and in a big city, with lots of perks.

I've done outside work in Australia and Canada, -40C and +40C, and remote IT not only pays better but means I live in a city and am walking distance from 4+ coffee shops and lunch options.

That said, if I could make IT wages bartending I'd totally be slinging drinks. Hard work, margins on booze are better than food but still tight, and brutal on your liver...

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