There's a cost of living in each of these countries that tends to mirrors what the dev/designer rates are.   

When a cheeseburger meal at McDonald's in Switzerland will cost you 1400 Ksh ($18), you have a good idea of why the rates are so incredibly high there.  

-- 

Erik Hersman

Ushahidi | iHub | BRCK

@WhiteAfrican

On Oct 1, 2013, at 10:18 AM, Adam Nelson <adam@varud.com> wrote:

Why?

1. Kenyan developers don't embrace higher paying skills like Python, Ruby, Go, Haskell and instead stick with commodity languages like PHP.

2. Kenyan developers don't negotiate well - and generally take the initial offer instead of pushing for 10-20% more than the offer.  Always negotiate the rate and understand the value of long term work vs short term work.  If you're good and you can demonstrate that, people will pay.

3. Kenyan developers don't write good CVs and cover letters.  A high quality application will get you much farther than submitting a resume written in Word 97 written in a bad font/layout.  Getting farther means more well-paying opportunities open up.

4. Kenyan developers don't cultivate high quality online presences (Github, etc...).  No team worth its salt will hire a developer without a Github profile.

5. Kenyan developers don't push local managers to hire other high quality developers and take the initiative to create a world class team.

6. Kenyan developers don't quit when they realize that the team/management is mediocre and then suffer because we're the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with.

--

Kili.io - OpenStack for Africa: kili.io

Musings: twitter.com/varud

About Adam: www.linkedin.com/in/adamcnelson

On Tue, Oct 1, 2013 at 10:07 AM, Evans Marindany <prosnave@gmail.com> wrote:

Why is it that Kenyan Developers/designers are among the worst paid in the universe?

 Src: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/designers-developers-salaries-worldwide/

 

Country (Currency)	Annual Salary (USD)
United States (USD)	$49,720.00
Japan (JPY)	$40,180.00
Australia (AUD)	$56,071.00
United Kingdom (GBP)	$34,828.00
Italy (EUR)	$25,820.00
Germany (EUR)	$45,791.00
France (EUR)	$24,488.00
Greece (EUR)	$17,413.00
Switzerland (CHF)	$71,202.00
Sweden (SEK)	$31,464.00
Portugal (EUR)	$48,412.00
Spain (EUR)	$30,324.00
Russia (RUB)	$14,504.00
Ireland (EUR)	$38,844.00
New Zealand (NZD)	$37,190.00
Netherlands (EUR)	$35,828.00
Denmark (DKK)	$37,398.00
Poland (PLN)	$11,859.00
Finland (EUR)	$47,217.00
Austria (EUR)	$46,522.00
Romania (RON)	$21,600.00
Belgium (EUR)	$27,330.00
Egypt (EGP)	$10,347.00
India (INR)	$4,482.00
Indonesia (IDR)	$3,301.00
Malaysia (MYR)	$13,842.00
Singapore (SGD)	$26,062.00
Ukraine (UAH)	$12,000.00
Bahrain (BHD)	Not Enough Information
Brazil (BRL)	$26,907.00
Mexico (MXN)	$16,916.00
Argentina (ARS)	$10,360.00
South Africa (ZAR)	$14,280.00
Kenya (KES)	$12,795.00
Hong Kong (HKD)	$35,558.00

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