You can certainly hit AUD 200k (including superannuation) as a senior software engineer at one of the big australian banks. To go much higher you probably have to stop being an IC and start being an engineering manager. Or stop being a permie and start being a contractor.

Some US-based well funded companies that hire software engineers in Australia are willing to bid substantially higher for senior engineers (i.e. ~ AUD 300k comp + stock).

Can you say any company names? I’m an ex-FAANG eng in Sydney currently considering options.

Day-rate contracting can get you very close if the last minute renewals are something you can deal with. The telcos are currently going through a hiring period and I’ve seen 1250/day plus super offered a few times recently. For perm roles, it’s certainly much harder, and I’ve only seen one IC role offered in market at over $220k at the firms I’ve worked at, but the flip side is I’ve seen a few higher ones offered to recommended candidates off market.

The old adage still applies, the jobs you want aren’t advertised and the candidates you’re looking for aren’t on job boards looking.

> The old adage still applies, the jobs you want aren’t advertised and the candidates you’re looking for aren’t on job boards looking.

For someone new-ish to Sydney without much of a network, where should I be looking, if not the usual job boards?

If it's anything like Europe, presenting at meetups and contributing to industry-relevant open source software opens doors both for hiring and being hired.

It's a lot of work though.

As sibling comment says, meetups and conferences are a great way to get your name out there. Working closely with vendors when the opportunity comes up in your organisation can also help build a relationship and reputation if managed properly. Anything to establish yourself as a person of some authority in the area such that when a need is identified, your name comes up as a ‘we should see if x is looking around’

Job boards can still give decent results? They just don't give you the best possible results and have a lot of real trash (sorry, employers, but offering 70k for someone with 4 YOE in software is a not-so-amusing joke and I shudder to think of what working for you is like).

Canva, Square, AWS, Atlassian, Palantir, Google.

If you’re senior ex-FAANG you can easily get $250+

$300+ is probably staff level and above.

Surprised to see Square and Canva in the list there. I’m currently staff level elsewhere but semi-regularly get approached by them with offers lower than $200k for senior roles. Would you say the salaries mentioned are fairly common there or fairly niche?

They would be very rare unless he’s talking total compensation (inc. super, stocks, bonuses) at the larger companies. Even then I’d expect the average to be low $200k for a senior depending on how they define senior.

What does super mean in this context? Thanks

In Australia, we have compulsory employer contributions to a retirement account called superannuation. Similar to the American concept of a 401k but mandatory.

Depends which section of the industry you end up in, but in the big banks which are some of the largest java shops, a cadet/intern will end up around $45k, a junior around $55-65k, an ordinary dev around $80-90k, and a senior anywhere from $115-$150k but weighted toward the lower end. Then of course there’s the rest of the buzzword fleet, DevOps engineers are a bit of a premium on those figures, architects the same.

I am seeing interns joining at 90k+ atm and you can extrapolate but on a <45deg angle from there. I even know a junior (<2yr experience) at 140k, not any kind of superstar but lucky I guess. Are you talking Aussie market? Maybe for entrenched big java teams that are reluctant to restructure their compensation for the whole team. I’d advise anyone to look at newer teams that can accommodate market rates easier.

I ran a bunch of interviews over the last couple of years, in some (reasonably rare) cases I saw quite junior candidates with only a year or two experience who scored very strongly on our technical interviews -- not at a senior level but as a solid intermediate level hire. I suspect if that candidate gets a junior or intermediate grade offer for salary may depend quite a bit on how strong their negotiating position is.

Yep Australian market. The numbers I’ve talked about above are what I’d classify as ‘normal’, there are of course always exceptions, and I’ve been fortunate enough to exist outside these ranges for most of my career, but ultimately I left the banks a few years ago for better prospects.

Just to be clear, are we talking about AUD$ or USD$? (Asking as an ex-FAANG who is preparing for job hunting in Sydney)

$AUD. These numbers are your run of the mill salaries seen around the industry, someone with specialised experience such as an ex-FAANG engineer might be more likely to end up at the higher end, but in general outside of a few local unicorns the salaries aren’t that impressive save for a few exceptions for top talent. It’s a real shame since everything else in Sydney is so expensive…