Although the IT industry in Nepal is not so big as compared to other countries it’s slowly being transformed. Every year Dozens of companies get registered as an IT company to the office of company registrar. Not just the companies but universities and colleges are also adding the IT related courses to their curriculum and the number of colleges teaching such courses are growing too. Various universities from outside and inside have joined the IT academics of Nepal. Although the number of IT graduates are growing at a huge rate, companies, and its workforce demand is not growing at a similar level making it harder and harder for graduate students to get the job.
In the above situation, the Salary and Pay Scale in the IT industry are not so attractive as compared to other countries, especially for freshers. Its the interest of many students as well as companies to know about the earning/pay scale of software developers. Even when I was studying at college I was so eager to know about the pay scales of developers in Nepal. I tried to ask some of my seniors but I didn’t get the clear answer I was looking for. When I completed my studies and joined the industry, only then I was able to know the pay scale of developers working on different platforms. Knowing the different pay scales helps the job seekers to enlist an appropriate salary in CV as well as get better prepared for corporate interviews. It’s also helpful for new companies to hire a developer for their project. This article is my attempt to debunk the pay scales of different types of developers and their estimated salary.
Outside Nepal, due to the availability of different websites like indeed.com knowing about salary or work culture of a company is not so difficult. We can get the review as well as pay scales of employees in these platform for almost all notable companies. In Nepal its often the secret as the companies do not even disclose the salary even in a vacancy. Furthermore, most of the peoples including your own friends/relatives also hesitate to tell about their salary. In Nepal, some of the source to find about the salary reference is either a job vacancy or friends/relatives and neither of them is a good source. Salary is an important factor to determine the stability of the workforce in a company. If the salary is low, the employees are not so interested to work in that company and they would start looking for other opportunities with better pay scales. It’s also hard for the companies to hire good candidates at low salary scale. Although the work environment, as well as work pressure, also determines the stability of employees inside a company, salary is the primary concern for everyone.
Salary of software developers depends on different factors and there’s no clear way to say it with exact accuracy. Commonly it depends on,
1. Type of company
if the company is multinational or established or running with good profitability, the salary of a developer would be good there. In startups and local companies salary is typically lower compared to other ones.
2. The skill of a developer
If the developer is full stack and also has good skills related to his work his salary would be obviously higher and it’s also possible for him/her to get promoted quickly.
3. Experience
Experience plays a huge role in determining the pay scale. It’s the major factor for employers to determine the salary for a particular employee. If the experience is good, the salary would also be good.
4. Job Position
If your position is of senior level or a managerial level your salary would be good.
5. Competitiveness and Work Force
If the platform you are working is not widely popular and the number of candidates to work on such a platform is not so large, the salary would be obviously better for you. If demand is high and supply is less, the rate is obviously going to be high as a compared opposite case (which is most common).
As till now, you might have a clear idea about the factors determining the salary of a developer. Now we’ll talk about the pay scale of Nepali developers based on different experience and skill level as well as a platform they are working in.
Some Common Facts
a. Software engineering is one of the few profession in Nepal with the fastest growth and good income potential.
b. Most of the IT companies in Nepal are located in Kathmandu valley hence expense is also significant in reference to income.
c. Employees working in multinational companies have to pay a good amount of income tax.
d. Most of the IT companies have 5 working days (Mon-Fri) with a 9-6 work schedule.
e. Most of the big companies in Nepal are based on outsourcing as a primary income source.
Based on Experience
– Due to the huge gap between the IT industry and academics in Nepal, most of the (almost 95%) IT graduates do not have a necessary skill to work in real projects. Because of that most of the company are hesitant to hire the freshers for job placement without an internship. Most of the internships are not paid in Nepal but some companies pay between 5-8k per month for an intern. If the intern is well skilled and was eligible to work in real projects he would get promoted and hired with a better salary.
– Developers with less than 1 year of income earn about 15-20k based on company and his skill set. Full Stack Developers and Mobile Developers earn more than this even with less experience.
– Developers with 1-2 years of experience earn about 30-40k per month based on the company and his skill set. If the developer has good skill on some frameworks like Laravel/ASP MVC/Django or is a full stack developer who could complete a project independently then he could earn more than this.
-Developer with 3-5 years of experience earns about 50-70k per month based on his skills and type of company he is working on.
– Senior developers earn about 80-1,20,000 per month on almost all established companies.
-Project managers earn about 80k-1,50,000 per month based on the type of company and his experience.
-Developers who are working as a freelancer or on a project basis earn the money based on the total budget of a project. Overall income is based on the number of the team needed to complete the project.
Based on the platform
– Developers working on iOS, Ruby on Rails and Django earns more as compared to other platforms with similar experience because of the small workforce.
– Mobile developers (Android and IOS) has a good salary compared to software/web developers specially in a starting phase. Mobile developers earn about 25k per month even with less than a year experience.
– Developers working on ASP.NET MVC and Django earns better compared to PHP Core Developers. Laravel developers and ASP.NET developers have a competitive pay scale based on similar experiences.
– Frontend developers earn a little bit less as compared to back end developers for a similar level.
– Database developers have a good salary in big companies but earn less as compared to backend developers.
Type of company
– Outsourcing companies pay more compared to local companies for similar positions.
– Service-based companies pay more compared to product based one.
– Startups and product based companies typically have a low pay scale.
– Established companies provide an extra allowance and services like training +health + food + travel + yearly bonus + project bonus + CIF funds etc. in addition to basic salary.
– Small companies with fewer employees pay better salary as compared to one with more employees.
Common Scenario for You
If we have to compare it with other jobs in Nepal, software development is the well-paid job with good growth potential. If you have just completed your bachelor degree you could get about 5-8k for first of your 3 months as an intern. If the company is good, the internship would be not paid as well and you should do it anyway. After that, if you get hired. you could earn about 12k-15k based on your current skills. After one year of work experience and if you are valuable to the company you could earn about 25k. After two to three year of experience, your income growth would be slow down and you will earn about 35-40k.
After having more experience than this you could earn around 50-60k but most of the developers reach income plateau here. If you lose the interest in learning new skills and not trying to improve your skill-set it is really hard to grow more than this. Most of the developers reach this intermediate phase and do not get out of it for many years. If you got stuck in it – your salary won’t grow but if you tried to master your craft and become proficient in your task you could earn more than 80k per month. It is really the difficult phase because you think that that you deserve better pay but the company is not so determined to increase your salary instead they try to hire another one with lesser demands. Keep learning and mastering the craft is the only way to move with the rapid growth and skyrocket your income potential. After having many friends and good relationships with clients you can do freelancing as well. With freelancing, you can earn good money in your free time.
All of the given figures are estimates and varies from company to company. Every company has different pay rates and different work culture. The purpose of this article is to just showcase the common scenario of developers salary on Nepali IT companies as a whole. Thanks for reading this article. Do not forget to hit like/comment/share button below. In our next article, we will talk about the highest paying programming languages in Nepal for a developer comparing different programming platforms and their pay scales. Thank You.