There is a surging demand for software developers, specifically those experienced in writing code in programming languages like Python or more modern ones like Go. In general, software engineers are in huge demand in South Africa and the world over.
“With the world moving more and more into automation and digitisation, the need for people who can build, modify, secure and run software products is at an all-time high,” says Sipho van der Putten, chief technology officer at Invictus Capital.
But companies often lose their developers and not just for a bump in salary.
“Companies face the challenge of a high turnover of developers who leave for self-actualisation reasons, to start their own business, to move to a different country for better career opportunities to work with exciting new tech or just general improvements of quality of life. Yes, salary can be a motivator but it is mostly considered a “hygiene-factor”; the pay should be good enough to live comfortably while job satisfaction is a much larger deterministic factor,” says van der Putten.
Also, local companies tend to be relatively rigid, risk-averse and punitive rather than agile, enterprising and encouraging. Van der Putten believes that if companies can change their mindset to the latter, it would be more conducive to keeping and developing high-impact software engineering teams and retaining top development talent.
Many developers are lost to move abroad as international companies are open to recruiting developers from South Africa because of the relatively good quality of tertiary education.
“Especially nowadays when working from home or remotely is more accepted, it is very attractive for international companies to hire South African developers, engineers and data scientists,” he says.
He adds that while there is a growing tech-startup scene emerging in Cape Town specifically, the majority of the technology jobs in South Africa are in the corporate sector. Large corporations are not known for innovation while startups will be more agile, flexible and innovative. Other places in the world have a much more vibrant entrepreneurial culture and scene (Silicon Valley, Berlin, Amsterdam etc.); they pay more, have better work/life balance and are more attractive to talented developers.
Invictus Capital, a global leader in alternative investments and developers of the first tokenised cryptocurrency index fund in 2017, is always seeking new talent. Its current priority is to find, hire and retain software engineers interested in working with exciting new technologies like blockchain and writing code in Python, Go and other languages/technologies related to the blockchain and cryptocurrency.
To keep their developers, they ensure that they are engaged and offer on-the-job training and have autonomy and flexibility to develop their skills. Furthermore, Invictus operates in a transformative and paradigm-shifting space like the blockchain, which keeps people interested and motivated.
“We find that this works well because people are in control of their own destiny so to speak. Also, because of the entrepreneurial nature of what we do, we offer an employee equity scheme and various bonuses directly linked to performance. But what sets us apart from the other companies is that we operate on the bleeding edge of technology and constantly incorporate the latest developments in the blockchain and software engineering space into what we do.” concludes van der Putten.