I’d personally like to see universities doing some coursework (with a practical project) on the technology stack that web-based start-ups typically use. (Something like a LAMP stack, with some nosql and cloud-based services like EC2 thrown in for good measure.) I agree fully with Tyler that it seems the typical career path in IT in SA looks something like this: Do CS at school, study Information Science at university and learn some Java, find work with a corporate. (I’d like to add “die a little inside every day for the rest of your life” to the list, but that’s my entrepreneurial bias talking.)

Let’s hope some up-and-coming devs heed Tyler’s advice. You have your entire life to earn the big bucks as a dev (and a good dev can earn the big bucks). But it’s way more rewarding to kick off your career with a start-up and do awesome things while you don’t have to worry about a spouse, children and a bond. It’ll give you a massive head-start in your career later because you learn so much more and you learn how to cope with pressure and responsibility very early on.

Looking for a job?

ooo

Having ran my own web design and development business for 3 years I experienced first hand the frustrations Tyler is talking about. However I feel the authors frustration overcomes logic in this line: ”If all you are working for is money, then I would question how happy you are in life?”. 

I feel that it is acceptable to offer an employee a less fruitful salary for a lucrative profit share or dividends in an established business with proven growth and financials. But it’s something completely different to expect a talented developer to think like an entrepreneur and take a salary which covers the basics (I am assuming little to no savings each month) on the premiss that there will be a very big financial reward at the end. 

We’ve all see the RSA Web animation which explains it’s only when you pay your employees enough to not have to worry about money, when you take money out of the equation, is when you get the most from your employees.I understand there is a balance, so my observation was merely that although working purely for money is probably not going to make you truly happy, not having to worry about ones income is a very important part of the equation.

As a young 20 year old who start-up crazy and well versed in being an uber geek, can someone point me in the direction of a couple good PHP books/tutorials for an absolute beginner. I did java at school but that was a couple years ago now.

Interesting article, definitely a topic that comes up when speaking to other entrepreneurs and techies. Makes me really glad I’m a dev!

Like you say Tyler, I can always get a comfy job, but for the past 4years I have been working for startups, huge learning curve,little sleep,lots of brain bending! But I’ve learnt a ton more by actually doing a ton more than I would have staying in corporate.

When I started PHP I just went through the official PHP manual. Having your own example application to practice with is very important, and will seem hard at first but that’s how you learn. You can also check out some of the small libraries / frameworks over at microphp.org, they might be a bit more manageable to learn and look into.

You made a great point about open source languages @tylerreed.

The fact that you’re asking that question here means that you’re not ready for a business.

Judging by the number of startups and the demand for developers these days I am really struggling to see why job security is an issue. If the startup you work for fails then you get to learn some lessons and go to another one and take that knowledge with you.  That way you get to work on more things and become more rounded as a developer.  

Its not for everyone though, I’ve met lots of really good developers who don’t want the emotional roller-coaster of being in a small business and I can respect that too.

I think this article is spot on, I can develop in many languages, Java, Python, PHP, C#, Objective C, C, C++. Modern PHP with a good framework (e.g. Yii Framework) on a good web server (e.g. Nginx) is very powerful, and can build amazing systems quickly.

Apart from language skills, I think there is a general lack of developers with good development skills in South Africa in general, sigh.

There are plenty of great open source developers in the Garden Route.

We write serious code for serious applications, yet find it hard to get contracts from companies in the large cities.

Somehow the remote and rural destination makes big city firms not take us seriously, yet they outsource to countries far far away.

Perhaps those in dire need of solid open source skills should look to the rural parts of the country. Just don’t expect us to relocate.

I currently have the best of both worlds. I work for one of the leading Microsoft development companies in South Africa and am in the process of building mobile products for my own startup when not at my day job. I agree that Microsoft licensing is not targeted at startups and therefore people building software as part of their startup strategy will use open source software to minimize costs. Microsoft does offer free software for 3 years as part of their BizSpark programme and is very worthwhile having a look at when considering technology for a startup. 

As a developer I really enjoy open source technologies and agree with the author that joining a startup will give you the freedom to explore these technologies as big corporates will only consider enterprise dev tools with a proven track record because they are thinking of the next 5 to 10 years whereas startups are able to quickly leverage and adapt different technologies to their needs as they go and we can see this by the amount of new dev tools that have spawned over the last few years.

Job security is a myth in the development world as big companies will always look to trim their dev teams first to cut costs and go into maintenance mode during tough times and developers are often the first to go when retrenchments are imminent. Sure a startup can go belly up but developers are very lucky in that they are in high demand and have many options of employment at their disposal. I have been a consultant, contractor and permanently employed with various companies in SA and have never felt that I am not able to find work or use my knowledge to generate income if I find myself without a job.

Software engineers should take risks and find what suits them. If you have been working in a corporate, move to a startup and get an opinion and vice versa. I really dont think their is too much risk in doing so.

As for salaries you will always earn more up front with a corporate but what if you join a startup and they make it big. You will then be considered a founding member and reap huge rewards later on. You just need to decide if the product(s) you are working on will make it big?

Interesting read. People are quite misinformed when it comes to
Microsoft products. I know this has been an issue in the past, but MS has come an extremely long way with their open source MVC framework. Elegant simple and so powerful. Anyway I digress. My main point is, learn Javascript

I personally hired several developers during my time at Naspers that earned 600k p/a. Thats decent.

Sure, quality of life is better when you freelance and manage your own hours. But then you have to deal with client bull shit all day.. whereas in corporate life 9 times out of 10 you have an account manager buffer. 

As a developer for a start-up, another big pitfall, If the start-up fails, is that the equity you receive instead of a big salary ends up being worth nothing.  This takes away a bit of the  lure of the equity sharing.  

I have worked on 3 start-ups and not one of them had sufficient personal , so you in for long hours, including work that is not even in your field, and a lot of after-hour support that there is very little chance of being reimbursed for. So I can easily see why you would seek the safety of a higher paying corporate firm with allot of job security. 

But I think these might be some contributing factors for the difficulty the start-ups experience to recruit good dev’s. 

But it is not all doom and gloom there are positives as-well working for a Startup.   

If we design our startups to have a stronger focus on paid consulting work might be less reason to have to take a reduced salary. Maybe we need a different focus / strategy than we get fed by the rest of the world.

Lots of chatter from the dev skills perspective, which is interesting. Let me way in from the founder perspective. We NEED to have this debate. And I NEED to meet more bloody developers.

So, recently been through a scoping and costing exercise for RealTimeWine.co.za as it moves towards becoming a proper startup, not a Twitterblog on steroids. Here was my maths. Let’s say I do an angel round of 500k (pretty average for concept investment in SA).

It’s a mobile play, so I need web, mobi and apps. Of course, web devs aren’t usually great at mobi and vica versa. iOS devs don’t do Nokia. Nokia don’t do Blackberry. Precious few do Android.

1 Web/Mobi dev = R30k/month (if I’m LUCKY, prob more)
1 Designer/UX = R25k/month
2 App Devs = R60k/month
ME = thank god I charge for speaking

Burn rate on staff upwards of R100k/m. I can do 5 months at the angel level to get to some form of prototype.

OR

What I’m probably going to end up doing is outsourcing to an agency (in this case Prezence). I can get further on much lower risk for a similar cost.

Now I know everyone says, hell no, don’t touch agencies when it comes to startup prototypes (alphas/betas) – but I don’t see a way around it in this situation, given that
a) I’m prob not the best dev manager out there – increases risk
b) lack of skills 
c) price of skills

I’m almost determined to prove that early stage startups can be done – if you pick the right agency. 

Yes, there’s code documentation, eventual handover etc etc. But what are the risks and time lag of trying to find those 3-4 resources and plonking out anyway?

Interesting times…

PS Will whore for developers. Call me. For v2.0

Great article. We looked for quotes for a website for our start-up in 2010 and the the lowest we got was R110K. Ended up outsourcing to India for R35K. 
I would love a similar article titled “The Start-up Capital Crunch in South Africa!”