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Salary for experienced PHP developers

Posted: Sun May 27, 2007 1:26 am
by thaimo
Hi,

First of all, Mod, if this is not the right forum for this then I apologize. Feel free to move it to a forum you consider more appropriate.

The company I work for is in the process of finalizing a business plan for a large project. As part of this project we are looking to hire 3-4 PHP experienced programmers.

The project is unlikely to start before the end of year, so this is not an offer (although if any of you are interested I'd be happy to receive your resume). Rather I am doing some research to find out what our salary costs will be and as such I would like to ask if you could give me an idea of what you think an experienced (PHP 5, strong OOP skills, coding with security and server load in mind, etc) PHP would request as salary.

To give a bit more background. The development time has been estimated at 15 months, but that is just for the initial version. It is highly likely that all developers will be kept on to continue development as well as handle bug fixes.
The development team will be located in Bangkok, Thailand.

The PHP part of the project will be write the admin backend dealing with users being signed up, reporting, etc., as well as handling all the communication between the windows based front end programs and the server (database, file server). Communication will be using XML over HTTP.

We are looking for 1 team leader / senior PHP developer, 2 PHP developer and one person to handle the database and file access (we will almost certainly require more than 1 server for the database, 1 write, n read servers). I have to admit that I am seriously out of my depth for that aspect having never dealt with anything busy enough to require more than 1 server to run it all.

Anyway, as mentioned, we are looking to find out what such people will cost us. We know what local Thai 'PHP developers' cost, but unfortunately the vast majority are not even close to the kind of people we are looking for. Hence, we are likely to end up hiring from outside of Thailand.

When quoting salary figures, please keep in mind that the cost of living in BKK is obviously a lot lower than the West (decent studios start at ~$150 / month, 1-bedroom apartments at ~$250-300; food & groceries will likely run you less than $400 / month and that is with eating out daily).

Thanks in advance.

Mo

Posted: Sun May 27, 2007 5:24 am
by Ollie Saunders
As I live in the UK I can only advise about the market rates in the UK. Unless there are people on here from Bangkok who know about these things I don't think you going to get the answers you seek.

Have you tried searching recruitment agency sites such as the one I just linked to?

Posted: Sun May 27, 2007 5:33 am
by thaimo
Hi,

I had found that site already, but thanks anyway.

Maybe I wasn't fully clear. I do not really want to find out what the rates are in Bangkok, I know them. The problem is that I seriously doubt we'll be able to find the kind of people we need in Thailand. I am therefore looking to find out how much western PHP programmers would be looking to earn if they were to come work for us in Bangkok.

Mo

Posted: Sun May 27, 2007 5:37 am
by Ollie Saunders
I imagine most people would probably only be prepared to move if I could earn significantly more than I can in the country they currently reside. Personally I wouldn't even consider it, the only countries I would ever consider going to work in are Canada and Japan.

Posted: Sun May 27, 2007 6:27 am
by thaimo
Thailand is a bit different :)
Plenty of people here who took a serious reduction in pay to come work here.

I do get your point though.

Mo

Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 11:47 pm
by Trenchant
I currently live in Canada. If I was to consider an offer it wouldn't be below $400 / day. Even then I would be a little weary about moving to a new country. There's a lot of expenses involved in that.

Also, If I were to move to another country it would be to make more money and then move back. So moving to a country where everything is cheaper wouldn't exactly be ideal.

Right now in the city I live in you can't find a house under $100, 000 and its starting to become hard to even rent appartements.

Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 1:17 pm
by inova
Different areas we are talking about :)
Thailand and London is two different things

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 4:40 am
by Gordman
I think you are wrong about Bangkok, if you have enough patience you will be surprised to see very devoted people doing a very good job. Asian people have the sense of commitment and they perform very well in such jobs.

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 4:44 am
by onion2k
Web Dummy wrote:Right now in the city I live in you can't find a house under $100, 000 and its starting to become hard to even rent appartements.
Aww man. I *wish* there were CA$100,000 places around here. That's GB£46,763. The very cheapest places around here start at about GB£150,000 (CA$320,740). Buying a house in the UK is pretty much impossible if you're single.

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:25 am
by thaimo
Gordman wrote:I think you are wrong about Bangkok, if you have enough patience you will be surprised to see very devoted people doing a very good job. Asian people have the sense of commitment and they perform very well in such jobs.
I'm sorry, but I disagree. I've been in the IT business here for almost 10 years and in that time have met virtually no people who I would consider decent programmers, none I would consider good (including myself :) ). I find that Thais in general lack the logic skills to be good programmers. Add lousy education and the result is not great :(
I am certain there are good programmers around in BKK, but they are few and hard to find. If anybody knows any feel free to let them contact me.

Mo

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 7:22 pm
by RobertGonzalez
Job market in the US for experienced PHP programmers range from $60,000 per year to $150,000 per year.

And we need every bit of it, especially in Silicon Valley. The home I am renting right now (for $1800 per month) was built in 1962. Market rates for the 3 and 4 bedroom homes in my area that are over 30 years old are between $800,000 and $1,200,000. talk about impossible to buy a house.

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 8:44 pm
by alex.barylski
Everah wrote:Job market in the US for experienced PHP programmers range from $60,000 per year to $150,000 per year.

And we need every bit of it, especially in Silicon Valley. The home I am renting right now (for $1800 per month) was built in 1962. Market rates for the 3 and 4 bedroom homes in my area that are over 30 years old are between $800,000 and $1,200,000. talk about impossible to buy a house.
I watch that show 'flip that house' or whatever on TLC. It's crazy how much those buggers buy crumbling houses for and it's even crazier when they turn around and flip the house for twice that value.

The real estate market everywhere has jumped though, even my city, 5 or so years ago you could have bought a small 2 bedroom for 40-50K now that same house will cost 100K+ easy.

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 8:55 pm
by Benjamin
2 Bedroom New Apartment in Chicago with all hardwood floors, jacuzzi and all granite/quartz counter tops convection oven and all stainless appliances + 1 car garage = $1,850 per month
2 Bedroom New Townhouse in Springfield, MO, carpet and all new appliances + 1 car garage = $598 per month.

Last I heard, PHP Programmer salaries ranged from something like $53,000 to $113,000.

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 9:38 pm
by feyd
My salary went as high as $500K (for a single client.)

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 2:50 pm
by Benjamin
We aren't talking about Pesos here feyd.