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African programmer here, and left the country I was born in decades ago to find somewhere that had a demand for my skills. You'll find there's a direct correla

African programmer here, and left the country I was born in decades ago to find somewhere that had a demand for my skills. You'll find there's a direct correlation between available jobs for a career and people qualified or qualifying for that career that remain there. The only places in Sub-Saharan Africa that need programmers are of the scale where they have a regional head office elsewhere in the region (ie. South Africa, where they centralise support services like IT, development, analysis etc.) Combined with the fact that the power houses of development in Africa are about as immigration friendly to other Africans as some of them would have been to people by virtue skin colour not so long ago. To clarify, "African from a poor African nation" is the new black in South Africa/Namibia/Botswana I can't speak for anywhere in Central or Northern Africa as I've not tried them.

Nanzikambe 12y ago
One other point, probably unrelated, but definitely relevant to me: Being a geek, it's hard to live somewhere where hardware, a dead hard drive for example, costs several months salary to replace. Especially when the environment (heat & frequent loss of power) is conducive to dying hardware :)
- hmsimha 12y ago
  Hard drives are generally pretty cheap nowadays, so I'd think it would be more like 1-2 weeks of pay for a minimum wage earner, perhaps even 1-2 days pay for someone doing technical work. But even still, your point is valid.
  - Nanzikambe 12y ago
    Ok, this is anecdotal, but it paints a picture I'm familiar with in a sub-Saharan African country on the lower end of the development index. A former colleague of mine, doing network hardware + infra installations presently earns $200-300 a month, and lives in a township. That's more than triple what we earned when I worked with him in the early 90s, here's his situation: 1/ After expenses he has not enough to buy even the cheapest hard-disk on the market, not when 100% duties on luxury goods (computers count as this) are imposed. So, yep, it's a project that warrants saving for. 2/ He can program in Perl, Bash, KSH and C, has a good understanding of Linux, FreeBSD + the extinct Unices (SCO, etc), the last I spoke to him he was learning several others. He has never held a job using any of those skills, and doesn't call him self a programmer. 3/ He has a computer, it's a laptop that was going to be trashed considered beyond repair that he repaired, and he leaves it at his workplace, because he can't afford to replace it and in the township theft is a certainty at some point. He arrives at work at 6am and, if he's anything like I remember, leaves at after 10pm, because that's where his computer is. 4/ He's given up trying to emigrate, because as long you intend to do things legally and you don't hold relevant university degrees, it's impossible. And none of us geeks that were in our lates teens/early twenties in that period do - there were no meaningful compsci courses. His only qualification is something to do with agriculture, which was the topic de jour of the era. Why is his story relevant? Because he's the only one of the aforementioned Afican geeks of that generation still unlucky enough to be there. The rest of us all left. And if he had the correct degrees, or was lucky enough to have an opportunity, he too would be long gone.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
meric 12y ago
Our company is going to hire an intern from South Africa soon, I'm going to be involved deciding which applicant we accept. "You'll find there's a direct correlation between available jobs for a career and people qualified or qualifying for that career that remain there." It was for this reason I told my bosses it might be hard to find someone good, but they told me we're going to do it anyway, to see for ourselves, since the company plans to open an office there next year. Do you have any advice on how to find and attract good programmers in Africa?
- Nanzikambe 12y ago
  Sure, three tips: 1/ Make your job student friendly and don't look for the usual 5+ years of experience 2/ Keep firmly in mind that the best trait in a programmer isn't necessarily qualification, but the ability to learn fast, and problem solve quickly and effectively. 3/ When multiple candidates fit the profile (above) but you're unsure, either give a final interview round with more extensive tests to clarify their abilities in those two areas. Or else hire all of them on trial basis. Make clear that at the end only one gets a job, but the other two get some paid temporary work and a really glowing letter of recommendation. It's win win, 1 gets a job, the others get invaluable work experience that's in short supply. If I had those opportunities, I might be somewhere with a far better climate and a much cheaper and stress free life style :) Edit: I just noticed you said South Africa and not Southern Africa. I don't think you'll have any trouble finding qualified programmers.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    > 2/ Keep firmly in mind that the best trait in a programmer isn't necessarily qualification, but the ability to learn fast, and problem solve quickly and effectively. This is so true. In fact, it is worth underlining that this probably holds worldwide, not just for Africa. Given the choice between someone with the qualifications but without those traits and someone that is not qualified but eager to learn and has a good ability to solve problems (even if they are non-programming problems) I'd most likely hire the latter. I love your 'glowing letter of recommendation' idea, there is a small downside to that though, which is that your letter will set expectations rather high when the person that you let go will apply somewhere else and that will lead to those recommendations being less valuable than if they are honest. Feel free to highlight the good sides of the person and simply to omit the downsides (so they can work on improving those without having them committed to a piece of paper). In my experience those are the best, they help to guide and inform rather than that they raise expectations to the unrealistic. > If I had those opportunities, I might be somewhere with a far better climate and a much cheaper and stress free life style :) There is an opportunity right here now, once every month, the 'who wants to be hired' thread. I encourage you to post there when it rolls around next month, who knows what you'll land.
nashequilibrium 12y ago
Mark Shuttleworth - Ubuntu Creator South African & sold Thawte to Verisign in the dotcom boom. Elon Musk - South African, of paypal & spacex Roelof Botha - South African, of paypal & Sequoia Emanuel Derman - South African, of Goldman Sachs Quantitative strategies Amazon Web Services - South Africa Herman Chinery-Hesse - Ghana, of SOFTtribe OffTopic - J. R. R. Tolkien - South African, Lord of the Rings There is a lot more where that came from: http://ventureburn.com/2014/03/20-kickass-african-tech-entrepreneurs-worth-your-time/ http://ventureburn.com/2014/03/20-kickass-african-tech-entre... You could go to a lot of the Compsci departments at many Universities in African countries and find a lot of good developers or potentially good devs. This is where Accenture , microsoft etc, get their devs from in Africa. EDIT: PLZ downvote this post, my challenge to u guys is to make my Karma go to zero! You can do it guys.
- Nanzikambe 12y ago
  True. However all of those are, as you point out, from either South Africa or Ghana. See my points regarding the power houses of Africa in the parent post. Outside those, the comp-sci depts. in every uni I checked with were only teaching archaic languages, even by the standards of the day, or none at all. I'll concede, that in my case, that was long ago - but given I'm just hitting middle age, I believe it's still relevant, hence the tips I later gave. TL'DR: if you're African, and not from either of those places or outright wealthy, good luck getting in. Ghana and RSA count, in most respects, as exceptions to the rule.
  - Nanzikambe 12y ago
    Just seen the full list, and there're a fair few from other countries - but given the relatively tiny number of names involved, I stand by my opinions
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- ekianjo 12y ago
  > OffTopic - J. R. R. Tolkien - South African, Lord of the Rings Born from British parents living in the Boer province of South-Africa, a British colony, so not really South-Africa per se. And he returned to the UK eventually for and after WW1.

Nanzikambe 12y ago

One other point, probably unrelated, but definitely relevant to me: Being a geek, it's hard to live somewhere where hardware, a dead hard drive for example, costs several months salary to replace. Especially when the environment (heat & frequent loss of power) is conducive to dying hardware :)

hmsimha 12y ago
Hard drives are generally pretty cheap nowadays, so I'd think it would be more like 1-2 weeks of pay for a minimum wage earner, perhaps even 1-2 days pay for someone doing technical work. But even still, your point is valid.
- Nanzikambe 12y ago
  Ok, this is anecdotal, but it paints a picture I'm familiar with in a sub-Saharan African country on the lower end of the development index. A former colleague of mine, doing network hardware + infra installations presently earns $200-300 a month, and lives in a township. That's more than triple what we earned when I worked with him in the early 90s, here's his situation: 1/ After expenses he has not enough to buy even the cheapest hard-disk on the market, not when 100% duties on luxury goods (computers count as this) are imposed. So, yep, it's a project that warrants saving for. 2/ He can program in Perl, Bash, KSH and C, has a good understanding of Linux, FreeBSD + the extinct Unices (SCO, etc), the last I spoke to him he was learning several others. He has never held a job using any of those skills, and doesn't call him self a programmer. 3/ He has a computer, it's a laptop that was going to be trashed considered beyond repair that he repaired, and he leaves it at his workplace, because he can't afford to replace it and in the township theft is a certainty at some point. He arrives at work at 6am and, if he's anything like I remember, leaves at after 10pm, because that's where his computer is. 4/ He's given up trying to emigrate, because as long you intend to do things legally and you don't hold relevant university degrees, it's impossible. And none of us geeks that were in our lates teens/early twenties in that period do - there were no meaningful compsci courses. His only qualification is something to do with agriculture, which was the topic de jour of the era. Why is his story relevant? Because he's the only one of the aforementioned Afican geeks of that generation still unlucky enough to be there. The rest of us all left. And if he had the correct degrees, or was lucky enough to have an opportunity, he too would be long gone.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

meric 12y ago

Our company is going to hire an intern from South Africa soon, I'm going to be involved deciding which applicant we accept. "You'll find there's a direct correlation between available jobs for a career and people qualified or qualifying for that career that remain there." It was for this reason I told my bosses it might be hard to find someone good, but they told me we're going to do it anyway, to see for ourselves, since the company plans to open an office there next year. Do you have any advice on how to find and attract good programmers in Africa?

Nanzikambe 12y ago
Sure, three tips: 1/ Make your job student friendly and don't look for the usual 5+ years of experience 2/ Keep firmly in mind that the best trait in a programmer isn't necessarily qualification, but the ability to learn fast, and problem solve quickly and effectively. 3/ When multiple candidates fit the profile (above) but you're unsure, either give a final interview round with more extensive tests to clarify their abilities in those two areas. Or else hire all of them on trial basis. Make clear that at the end only one gets a job, but the other two get some paid temporary work and a really glowing letter of recommendation. It's win win, 1 gets a job, the others get invaluable work experience that's in short supply. If I had those opportunities, I might be somewhere with a far better climate and a much cheaper and stress free life style :) Edit: I just noticed you said South Africa and not Southern Africa. I don't think you'll have any trouble finding qualified programmers.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  > 2/ Keep firmly in mind that the best trait in a programmer isn't necessarily qualification, but the ability to learn fast, and problem solve quickly and effectively. This is so true. In fact, it is worth underlining that this probably holds worldwide, not just for Africa. Given the choice between someone with the qualifications but without those traits and someone that is not qualified but eager to learn and has a good ability to solve problems (even if they are non-programming problems) I'd most likely hire the latter. I love your 'glowing letter of recommendation' idea, there is a small downside to that though, which is that your letter will set expectations rather high when the person that you let go will apply somewhere else and that will lead to those recommendations being less valuable than if they are honest. Feel free to highlight the good sides of the person and simply to omit the downsides (so they can work on improving those without having them committed to a piece of paper). In my experience those are the best, they help to guide and inform rather than that they raise expectations to the unrealistic. > If I had those opportunities, I might be somewhere with a far better climate and a much cheaper and stress free life style :) There is an opportunity right here now, once every month, the 'who wants to be hired' thread. I encourage you to post there when it rolls around next month, who knows what you'll land.

nashequilibrium 12y ago

Mark Shuttleworth - Ubuntu Creator South African & sold Thawte to Verisign in the dotcom boom. Elon Musk - South African, of paypal & spacex Roelof Botha - South African, of paypal & Sequoia Emanuel Derman - South African, of Goldman Sachs Quantitative strategies Amazon Web Services - South Africa Herman Chinery-Hesse - Ghana, of SOFTtribe OffTopic - J. R. R. Tolkien - South African, Lord of the Rings There is a lot more where that came from: http://ventureburn.com/2014/03/20-kickass-african-tech-entrepreneurs-worth-your-time/ http://ventureburn.com/2014/03/20-kickass-african-tech-entre... You could go to a lot of the Compsci departments at many Universities in African countries and find a lot of good developers or potentially good devs. This is where Accenture , microsoft etc, get their devs from in Africa. EDIT: PLZ downvote this post, my challenge to u guys is to make my Karma go to zero! You can do it guys.

Nanzikambe 12y ago
True. However all of those are, as you point out, from either South Africa or Ghana. See my points regarding the power houses of Africa in the parent post. Outside those, the comp-sci depts. in every uni I checked with were only teaching archaic languages, even by the standards of the day, or none at all. I'll concede, that in my case, that was long ago - but given I'm just hitting middle age, I believe it's still relevant, hence the tips I later gave. TL'DR: if you're African, and not from either of those places or outright wealthy, good luck getting in. Ghana and RSA count, in most respects, as exceptions to the rule.
- Nanzikambe 12y ago
  Just seen the full list, and there're a fair few from other countries - but given the relatively tiny number of names involved, I stand by my opinions
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
ekianjo 12y ago
> OffTopic - J. R. R. Tolkien - South African, Lord of the Rings Born from British parents living in the Boer province of South-Africa, a British colony, so not really South-Africa per se. And he returned to the UK eventually for and after WW1.