I have recently got an extensive outsourcing  industry study, conducted this year by CEEOA. The research based on the data collected from 246 companies, working in 16 CEE (Central and Eastern Europe) countries. That is very long document with lot of useful information and today I write about what’s going on with rates.

The research notes, that rates declined a little during the end of 2008 – begin of 2009 as a response to GFC and a measure to retain old clients and win new contract in very hard economic situation, but later on start to gradually grow again.

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In couple weeks I will move to Melbourne, Australia. I will study in Melbourne Business School for 2 years, obtain MBA degree.

I invested significant efforts and money to that venture and hope that it worth my endeavours. My family will movve with me, 2 years is to long time to live apart.

So I am very exited about my life in Australia, it should be fun

The cost is not always #1 factor in IT business, but of cause it is important. Below I will provide the short summary of salary expenses in such area as software development using Microsoft .Net technology.
So what salary expenses you should expect if you open office in Ukraine and employ the developers to work full time (do not forget that we are talking now only about the salary, that in reality just a part of expenses when you employ people – taxes, social security, vacations, sickness, etc)?

There are several factors that will affect the compensations and main 3 are:

- location. Kiev has the highest salaries; compensation in Kharkov, Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Lvov and other big cities are lower, and what you pay in smaller cities is the lowest. That is the rule, but of cause it has some exclusions;

- qualification level and experience. Quite clear, the bigger the experience – the higher the salary

- position you need to fill. Related with previous but not directly. Team leader, senior developer get more than junior programmer

The very rough digits show the next picture:

- for the whole Ukraine salary for .Net developers starts from as low as $200 and finishes at $4000 as top margin. The median salary is $900

- if we take just Kiev we get a bit other digits: $250-$1200-$4000

Figures are monthly wages, after tax in US dollars.

I would say that it is hardly possible to find any decent candidate orienting on the bottom margin, I suspect that reporting bottom level salary may be possible in some internships for people without any experience only and for very reputable companies. If you want to find experienced candidate and do it fast you should offer salary higher than median.

Sources of information: different job and IT sites and own experience

What are year 2007 trends ? Where are we go?

Recently I took part in the outsourcing industry conference. Beside other interesting things, I attended two speeches, dedicated to IT job market situation in year 2007 in Ukraine. Both reports were done by representatives of recruiting agencies, but the content differ quite significantly.

First lady, that represent IT department of big recruiting company working across former Soviet Union stated that salary growth was quite insignificant (in compare with previous years boom), she said 10%-20%. The idea of her report was that now, the other than salary factors become more and more important and quite often candidates prefer positions with lower salary but better other factors combination (like interesting project, carrier growth prospects, comfortable working conditions, etc). Also she stressed the such situation when current employer counter offer more and more often is accepted and candidate remains in the company where he/she already works. So in many cases the purpose of interviews for candidates is just re-evaluate his/her market price and make ground for negotiation with employer.

Second report, also from IT department head of quite big recruiting agency confirms the tendency of growing importance of non-salary factors, but at her point of view salary proceed to hike, having around 50% growth rate in 2007.

So where is the true? How big the growth was?

In my opinion the average tendency is closer to 1-st lady report, obviously salary continue to grow, but rarely so fast as 50% in year. Probably new players, that just entered the market and have to create the team fast have to offer higher than market salaries, but that is not the whole market. I would say that growth of salaries was around 20-30% in whole. Of cause for some positions it maybe higher, but not for all. I would conclude it from my own experience and taking in account available statistic.