Average salary Junior Computer Science engineer

[Jokin]

Hello everybody here !
My name is Jokin, 25 years old, and I have an opportunity to get a job in BA, but in terms of salary expectations, I'm seeing blurry... I graduated of an equivalent of a Master's degree in Computer Science in March, and kept on working on my final project. I'm from France, and there to give an idea I could earn 28-30keuro, per year. What should I tell my employer ?

Thanks a lot for any advice !

Jokin.

 

[jp]

Are they paying local wages? Are you being hired on the basis they would hire a local argentine?

Wages for juniors aren't great. You'd do well to make half what you get in france. But at the same time, you'd live better on half the salary than you would it Paris.

See what they offer you, try get flights & rent allowance included in the package.

 

[Jokin]

Hi Jp, I replied to an offer from this company in BA, that has 50 employees there (all of them from Argentina), so I guess they'd like to provide with the same wage as for a local worker. I have a 2nd interview this afternoon with other heads of the company, I'll tell them what you recommend, kind of half what I'd earn in France, or/and flights & rent allowance.
Thank for your swift reply !

 

[BartSolBA]

A few months ago when I first arrived in BA I had 2 job offers here, one called Liquid Designers and the other called VMBC, both companies are in the Belgrano neighborhood. The first offered me an "introductory" salary of $3,000 pesos per month and said that after their 3 month "trial" period, they would consider a raise of 10-15%. Of course I turned that one down. The second, VMBC, offered $3,200 pesos per month. Just to give you some background, I have a master's degree in computer science and have been programming for more than 10 years, having worked for a large multinational company and the US government as well. While I was at the interview at VMBC I saw a girl I knew from one of the restaurants I frequent in San Telmo. She told me that the work environment is not very good there and the turnover rate is very high, programmers sometimes work for 2 or 3 weeks and then disappear and that they expect you to work unlimited hours many times well into the night. Needless to say I turned down both companies and am doing programming contract work via the internet through Elance.com and earning US dollars. I am also teaching english through a small school who got me set up with a work visa as well. The salaries these companies offer are ridiculous for a seasoned programmer, I know the cost of living here is less than in the US but they set up shop here to exploit people and not only do they pay poorly they have an office full of unhappy employees. If you are going to give your skills to a company here go for a job at a real company such as IBM or Microsoft not at these sweatshop type places that I interviewed with, or get work through the internet as there is plenty of it to go around. I sent my resume to several large corporations here who contacted me for interviews and as soon as I have my temporary residency (have the precaria for now) they would be very interested in meeting with me. Salaries for seasoned programmers in BA at major corporations are in the $6,000 to $7,000 peso per month range and can be as much as $10,000 per month if you have management experience and verifiable references.

 

[ssr]

A few months ago when I first arrived in BA I had 2 job offers here, one called Liquid Designers and the other called VMBC, both companies are in the Belgrano neighborhood. The first offered me an "introductory" salary of $3,000 pesos per month and said that after their 3 month "trial" period, they would consider a raise of 10-15%. Of course I turned that one down. The second, VMBC, offered $3,200 pesos per month. Just to give you some background, I have a master's degree in computer science and have been programming for more than 10 years, having worked for a large multinational company and the US government as well. While I was at the interview at VMBC I saw a girl I knew from one of the restaurants I frequent in San Telmo. She told me that the work environment is not very good there and the turnover rate is very high, programmers sometimes work for 2 or 3 weeks and then disappear and that they expect you to work unlimited hours many times well into the night. Needless to say I turned down both companies and am doing programming contract work via the internet through Elance.com and earning US dollars. I am also teaching english through a small school who got me set up with a work visa as well. The salaries these companies offer are ridiculous for a seasoned programmer, I know the cost of living here is less than in the US but they set up shop here to exploit people and not only do they pay poorly they have an office full of unhappy employees. If you are going to give your skills to a company here go for a job at a real company such as IBM or Microsoft not at these sweatshop type places that I interviewed with, or get work through the internet as there is plenty of it to go around. I sent my resume to several large corporations here who contacted me for interviews and as soon as I have my temporary residency (have the precaria for now) they would be very interested in meeting with me. Salaries for seasoned programmers in BA at major corporations are in the $6,000 to $7,000 peso per month range and can be as much as $10,000 per month if you have management experience and verifiable references.

On the flip side, I know several people who have started companies that do work for clients in the US, Canada and Europe down here and, of course, they take advantage of the low-cost labor. They're not doing anything sinister (that I know of); just hiring designers and developers at market-rates here in Argentina, which are obviously far below the US, Canada and Europe.

@Jokin:

Trying to come to Buenos Aires and simply find a job, while there are a great many Argentines trying to do the same and willing to work for not very much at all, seems like a pretty tough way to go. If you can do freelance/contract work via the internet (like BartSolBA mentioned above; I do this as well) you'd be far better off (financially, at least).

 

[BartSolBA]

Ssr, I totally get your drift, you are right there are many qualified Argentines with high levels of programming skill, but they often do not have the language (english) skills to attend a UI meeting, communicate in English with clients on a technical level, or understand the work style of clients in the US. That is why these small companies are desperate to get US natives to work at their companies. They advertise daily on craigslist, just landed.com, and many other websites as well. And since they bill clients only in the US they are evading taxes for work done in Argentina. For that reason these companies are not really doing anybody a favor by being here in Argentina except the owners. Many times they say they are looking for "interns" which is a total farse because there are strict labor laws that govern how interns can work in terms of hours, compensation, etc. And labor laws here apply to EVERYBODY no matter what their nationality is. These companies try to get extremely cheap labor and give very little (and sometimes nothing, in the case of interns) in return. Just not good karma. The best thing to do for professionals is to submit your resume to large companies or employment agencies here and if you are qualified they will call you and offer you a more fair salary if they are interested. I am not saying that salaries here are by any means high, however large companies here will pay a professional about 1/3 of what they would make in the US, however companies like VMBC or Liquid designers will offer about 1/10th of what you would make in the US or possibly Europe.

 

[Jokin]

Ok guys, sorry for the late response. Thank you very much for sharing your experience. I understood I do not have any guarantee of good working conditions, even more for a Junior. The company is an international one, into games programming. Eventually I got another interview with the heads from the States, and I decided not to take the job. I had the feeling that it was a very tough in time job, without any good compensation, and evolution in terms of position, with a sort of salary up to the work one actually provides. As I am especially focused on programming for graphical applications, image synthesis and processing, I guess it's quite hard to find something I'd do via the internet.
I'm still keeping Argentina in my mind, but as for now, I'll search for positions in Europe.
Many thanks for your replies, it helps !

Jokin.

 

[ElQueso]

On the flip side, I know several people who have started companies that do work for clients in the US, Canada and Europe down here and, of course, they take advantage of the low-cost labor. They're not doing anything sinister (that I know of); just hiring designers and developers at market-rates here in Argentina, which are obviously far below the US, Canada and Europe.

Just FYI:

I'm one of those guys. I used to work with a company here that leased programmers, paid them very low rates (U$S 5 to U$S 15 roughly), and charged them out to foreign companies at about 1/2 to 2/3 price those companies could get in their respective countries for the same level of developer. The workers were not happy and there was a high turnover rate as workers changed companies to get another couple of pesos an hour and try for better working conditions.

I find that it's much better to deal with people directly (best if they work through Monotributo so you don't have to worry about too much of the red tape yourself here) and pay them well above market rates, which is still very cheap here. The IT market here can be very competitive for local companies and one problem with paying market rates is that you will have a high level of turnover unless you have something else to offer them that they can't find here normally.

If you can make it well worth their while, they will often work regular hours (you can usually get 40 hours a week, or close, out of them, but holidays and weekends, when needed, are still very hit and miss) and they will be much more devoted to you.

I know this wasn't quite within the subject of the thread, but thought I would make a comment for someone else that might read this.

 

[ElQueso]

I know male escorts here that make much more than that.

And I'm sure they don't pay taxes either

Female escorts here can make pretty easily between 6000 and 10000 pesos a month. There are many "amatuer" escorts who only work on the weekends to augment their earnings, or maybe once a month to make the rent or pay bills when needed.

Prostitution is legal here, just not "organized" prostitution. From article 19 of the constitution:

"‘private actions that in no way offend order and public morals or do damage to a third party are reserved to be judged by God and fall outside the competence of judges’"

Of course, there are a ton of "privados", which often fall under the "brothel" or organized scenario, but are not bothered as long as they pay off the necessary folk.

Heh.