I was just playing around these Nigerian job portals when i saw this Job Ad:

We seek to appoint a junior Web Developer/Designer with a high degree of technical competency that will focus on frontend and backend development. The ideal person will be able to work with Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress and Concrete5is added advantage.

• Applicant must have 2-3 years as Webmaster, Content Developer, Graphics Design, and Website design.
• Strong database skills.
• A very good knowledge in the following is a plus: PHP/Microsoft.Net (C#), CMS, .NET 2.0 Skills, CSS, Coldfusion, Adobe Suites and MYSQL/SQL, HTML, Javascript, AJAX and related development technologies.

Salary: N30, 000 – N45, 000/month.

Now, something that makes my heart beat faster is the Salary. I don't know the standard monthly income for web development professionals in Nigeria but if this is within the standard, then It is really poor.  Or is it fair to anybody who has experience in all these technologies they requested to be earning even 60,000 Naira monthly?

funny enough i know this person in question, he doesnt really have a solid base. for real, since then (about 2months now) he hasnt found one.

Call me to do it for you.08060865496 Gabriel.

OP:
It might be low in your neck of the woods but maybe not in Nigeria.  It's all relative, as they say:

1) As I tell people where I am, whereas it costs $15 or roughly N2250 (on average) for a haircut, in Nigeria, same haircut is N50 (again, on average).  At 60K, dropping 2K on a haircut would be considered outrageous.  N50 is more manageable.  This is why I am the first to jump up when someone says, "they earn only $3 a month". Sure $3 a month is nothing in America but you can't say that for other parts of the world.  You have to go by what the $3 can buy.

2) The price range is probably what the market can tolerate

3) High unemployment which means that if you don't go for the job, 100K other people will.  Do you remember the photo of job applicants (more like a mob scene) at that MTN building several years ago? 

4) In my neck of the woods, in order to remain competitive, you pretty much have to know a little of everything as well.  Why? You don't want to limit yourself when searching for jobs.  A typical job application might say, "JSP is preferred but ASP is considered a plus".  Such applications among others serves to limit applicants and (IMHO) to reinforce the fact that programming isn't all about actual coding but your ability to think and how you think, in order to come up with a solution.  Though I know YUI, jQuery, MooTools and DOJO, I stick with jQuery.  The others are "good to haves", in case all the jobs at the time I am applying don't want jQuery.  If you divide the amount of money they pay by the time I have spent studying all these things, it isn't worth it.  Again, I learn them to remain competitive.

5) That salary range might not include other benefits (fun fridays, team outings, commissions, etc).  Browsing many of the top web dev companies in Nigeria, I am seeing (to my delight) that many are indulging in the "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" concept. . . and this a good thing.  In fact, some people consider this to be more than the money they are making.  After all, if they die due to stress, who is the one that suffers?

Again, it's all relative, IMHO

Maybe we should first start by asking, how much is the web industry worth in Nigeria? How much revenue can web development firms make? How does the Nigeria business elite see web business? Hopefully, if we can answer these questions or even more then we would be able to what is worth it and what is not.

By the way @yawa-ti-de i sent u an YIM request, u might want 2 check that out. It just professional networking that all

fluxdon, excellent points.

Per your YIM, I will check it out when I log on to meebo. No vex say I no respond yet o. Just a lil busy, that's all

bouzymill,

You shall know that "Website Design or Website Development" is a borrow to Nigeria. from origin, our occupation in Nigeria is buying and selling. so, do not expect illiterates entrepreneurs to rules over the interest for Website development.

imagine, the presentation for the advertised - one person for all this listed skill for N30K. this is madness !.,

bra get size.

instinctg:

funny enough i know this person in question, he doesnt really have a solid base. for real, since then (about 2months now) he hasnt found one.

oh I see. I can't really remember anymore. I just saw it randomly. but I think what prompted me to actually make it a thread topic was because it was a job ad from "Dealfish" (Now I'm not very sure.)

yawa-ti-de:


OP:
It might be low in your neck of the woods but maybe not in Nigeria.  It's all relative, as they say:

1) As I tell people where I am, whereas it costs $15 or roughly N2250 (on average) for a haircut, in Nigeria, same haircut is N50 (again, on average).  At 60K, dropping 2K on a haircut would be considered outrageous.  N50 is more manageable.  This is why I am the first to jump up when someone says, "they earn only $3 a month". Sure $3 a month is nothing in America but you can't say that for other parts of the world.  You have to go by what the $3 can buy.

I think I perfectly understand your point with the different country perspective. It makes alot of sense. But I could have just overlooked the whole ad if it was just an ad from any company with an "IT Department" or whatever they call it in 9ja. I can't really remember where I got it, like I said, but I think it was a and from "dealfish" or a company that generates its income from this particular department. As such, I thought the salary should be a bit more attractive to make this people comfortable.

yawa-ti-de:

2) The price range is probably what the market can tolerate

4) In my neck of the woods, in order to remain competitive, you pretty much have to know a little of everything as well.  Why? You don't want to limit yourself when searching for jobs.  A typical job application might say, "JSP is preferred but ASP is considered a plus".  Such applications among others serves to limit applicants and (IMHO) to reinforce the fact that programming isn't all about actual coding but your ability to think and how you think, in order to come up with a solution.  Though I know YUI, jQuery, MooTools and DOJO, I stick with jQuery.  The others are "good to haves", in case all the jobs at the time I am applying don't want jQuery.  If you divide the amount of money they pay by the time I have spent studying all these things, it isn't worth it.  Again, I learn them to remain competitive.

5) That salary range might not include other benefits (fun fridays, team outings, commissions, etc).  Browsing many of the top web dev companies in Nigeria, I am seeing (to my delight) that many are indulging in the "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" concept. . . and this a good thing.  In fact, some people consider this to be more than the money they are making.  After all, if they die due to stress, who is the one that suffers?

Again, it's all relative, IMHO

I guess your point about being a basic salary might be the case. But what I found out after reading the topic myself,  again is that all these job specs, sometimes, these employers don't really know what they are talking about. they usually do copy and paste from other related job ad. I have seen that so well, even on Behance where a job ad says they need a "UX Designer" and the job spec goes like HTML/CSS, Jquery (These to me are a must, even if he won't necessarily work with them) but it's outrageous to ask "UX Designer" to be well grounded in "Ruby on Rails" (and this I have seen). So, I gues this is where the confusion comes in about the salary range.

fluxdon:

Maybe we should first start by asking, how much is the web industry worth in Nigeria? How much revenue can web development firms make? How does the Nigeria business elite see web business? Hopefully, if we can answer these questions or even more then we would be able to what is worth it and what is not.

guess i didn't consider all these before my anger at the ad but I believe by now the industry should be in a more comfortable zone in Nigeria. I may be wrong . . .  I don't know how it is in Naija anyway.

bouzy:
I agree with you about some of the job posters not knowing what they want: Back in 2000 or so, when ASP (original ASP, not .net) was just 1 year old, I recall stumbling upon an ad for an ASP developer. Requirement? 10 years of ASP experience. I laff wan die that day

As to your responses to my other comments:
This is why I feel very reluctant to work with people from Nigeria who contact me. I have even gotten the experience from a commissioner or 2. They want the world but want to pay peanuts. It also doesn't help that many of these requests are not necessarily for regular websites but clones of code-intensive web apps (SMS, shopping carts, Social networking etc)

My time is money. I can't spend 100 hours on a project and get paid say 60K or N600 (roughly $4) per hour. Sorry.

yawa-ti-de:

bouzy:
I agree with you about some of the job posters not knowing what they want: Back in 2000 or so, when ASP (original ASP, not .net) was just 1 year old, I recall stumbling upon an ad for an ASP developer. Requirement? 10 years of ASP experience. I laff wan die that day

As to your responses to my other comments:
This is why I feel very reluctant to work with people from Nigeria who contact me. I have even gotten the experience from a commissioner or 2. They want the world but want to pay peanuts. It also doesn't help that many of these requests are not necessarily for regular websites but clones of code-intensive web apps (SMS, shopping carts, Social networking etc)

My time is money. I can't spend 100 hours on a project and get paid say 60K or N600 (roughly $4) per hour. Sorry.

Lol @ that 10 years ASP experience. . . They were trying to be funky

There's really alot to do in terms of Web Development in Nigeria. And seriously, not to knock Nigeria off, even outside Nigeria, the client issue is another 4 year course I swear. because by default, they want everything to be on their website. before they tell you the project sef, you start hearing things like "i want it to be very interactive please". they shout interactive. . . interactive and yet they are the crops of people who are using Internet Explorer 6. Reason I usually prefer dealing with agency than straight clients.

He he, I hear the same too. Next time they ask you for an interactive website, just ask what they mean. The last time I heard that, it turns out the person just wanted a contact us page with a form on it

Always nail down the requirements up front and follow up such discussions with either a written document or an email where you ask them to approve. You can then use it against them in the future ("If you recall, in that email I sent you, you specifically said. . ."

Thats so poor, someone with such experience in South Africa earns nothing less than 15k South African Rands, which in Naira is more than 300k Naira.to design an E-commerce website there cost between 5k-8k Rands (thats 100k-160k naira).Then an extra 300 Rands ( In naira is about 6,400 Naira) will be charged per hour if the owner needs some updates.I guess the problem is points to how many companies in Nigeria actually own a website? You could visit www.jobmail.co.za and search for website design, you would understand that there are so many Jobs, without people applying for them.If y'all doubt what am saying

in the same vein, see this job ad

1) What is the unemployment rate in south africa?
2) Can you speak for all web jobs and web dev guys in south africa, with respect to price?
3) How long has Nigeria been in the web biz, compared to south africa? Could it be that they have had enough time to "mature"?
4) I would personally say 160K for an ecommerce website is low (this is why I don't do them - ppl don't understand what goes into it)

This vacancy advert is just the comedy of the century. All the mentioned skills for 30 to 45k. Let the advertiser continue to search, he will find someone in the 19th century. lol.

@yawa-ti-de, exactly d points i was driving at.

To all web pros i feel ur pain but u ve 2 understand dat
Everything in business is abt d forces of demand n supply. Take d music industry for an example, if 2face comes out to say he once collected N500 to perform on stage a lot ppl wont believe. The truth is, business pple started seeing prospect and stepped in, and then d media took it 4rm there. 2day artist collect millions 2 perform. The fact here is dat our business elite dnt see d financial returns in havin a website. Hw many of our millionires in nigeria makes their money online. It is nw dat our eductional institutions see d financial viablity in using a sch portal 4 student reg. The media is nt talkn abt d web industry cos there is no money. Nigerians go online quite alrite bt whch site do thy vist? Facebook, google, yahoo. We hv nt done anythng as nigerian web developers dat hs captured d masses. So hw cn we start puttn price tag wen we dnt draw attention? D dealfish we r talkn abt is runnin at a loss, afterall, who goes thr 2 buy anythng? So We dat r in this industry hve 2 fnd ways 2 get the attention of d top shots in d society and these guys talk money, demand, population or watever prospect d web business has 2 offer or else we'll get worse job ad dat intend 2 rubbish our profession.

One luv

Chux A (fluxdon)

@fluxdon, u talk well my guy!!!!

We should also look at the internet penetration in Nigeria- this is very low!

How many companies in Nigeria have internet facilities? How many of them use system to do business? Come to talk of e-business.

Nigerian govt. is not providing enabling environment for E-business to strive.

CBN is planning to introduce cashless economy and some people are against it with the believe that Nigeria is not ripe for it.

Introducing cashless economy will avail us the opportunities to employ other platform for doing business/payment including E-business.

For discussion on cbn's cashless policy, view this thread https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-755734.0.html

From the point of view of an applicant, d pay is small. However, if you look at the situation from d point of view of an entrepreneur in a poor economy, its understandable.

In a country where a startup has to:
pay marketers,
pay customer support staff,
pay for retainership (lawyer),
pay consulting accountant,
pay Corporate affairs,
pay FIRS,
pay State IRS,
pay rent,
pay phcn,
pay LASAA for signage,
Pay LAWMA,
Pay Local govts for several permits,
Keep pre-funded company phone lines,
pay service charge for cleaners, security, e.t.c
spend thousands on generator fuel,
pay broadband internet in your office,
buy laptops/desktop for marketers, cusomer care and programmers,
get printers, projector, dispenser, furniture and other fittings.

How much will u be able to pay developers?
Nigeria is not easy for small businesses and we need to face it, we can't pay more than we earn.
No be me get that advert but i think i know how it feels in this part of the world.

lojik:

From the point of view of an applicant, d pay is small. However, if you look at the situation from d point of view of an entrepreneur in a poor economy, its understandable.

In a country where a startup has to:
pay marketers,
pay customer support staff,
pay for retainership (lawyer),
pay consulting accountant,
pay Corporate affairs,
pay FIRS,
pay State IRS,
pay rent,
pay phcn,
pay LASAA for signage,
Pay LAWMA,
Pay Local govts for several permits,
Keep pre-funded company phone lines,
pay service charge for cleaners, security, e.t.c
spend thousands on generator fuel,
pay broadband internet in your office,
buy laptops/desktop for marketers, cusomer care and programmers,
get printers, projector, dispenser, furniture and other fittings.

How much will u be able to pay developers?
Nigeria is not easy for small businesses and we need to face it, we can't pay more than we earn.
No be me get that advert but i think i know how it feels in this part of the world.

thats just it

That pay is just too low if really is true.

I do think you have to get your budget up say N150, 000 to get a qualify candidate.
Think about their standard of living as a Professional.

honestly this pay is too low..when i see some job applications and all the technology they expect the applicant to know i begin to wonder that can they ever find such person and if they do can they pay him close to N500k in a month? lets be honest with our self webdesign is very different from webdevelopment, but this companies just pack the two together, they even add graphics to it. imagine a prospective applicant must know html,php,asp,jsp,ajax,json,drupal,perl,css,jquery all in one single head and all you can pay is 30k? infact if you want to employ me as a web developer alone and no serious designing i cant take less than N180k per month.

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bouzymill:


Lol @ that 10 years ASP experience. . . They were trying to be funky

There's really alot to do in terms of Web Development in Nigeria. And seriously, not to knock Nigeria off, even outside Nigeria, the client issue is another 4 year course I swear. because by default, they want everything to be on their website. before they tell you the project sef, you start hearing things like "i want it to be very interactive please". they shout interactive. . . interactive and yet they are the crops of people who are using Internet Explorer 6. Reason[b] I usually prefer dealing with agency[[] than straight clients.

Pls can u the names of the agencies

hy fella i gat a blog and a social network site for sale at www.twixti..com and.www.layne.yooco.org if interested pin mua 08146747524 or mail@dozie921@gmail.com

This is really seerious,

I can gladly say as of now 2019, ict is profitable and will continue to...

Too bad

Really poor