Navision Salary Jobs

NavStudent

Hello
I'm fresh out of college and I've been offered a job for a solution center. The solution center implements Dynamics NAV. I searched around for salary for a new developer for navision, but haven't found any info. I would like to know also what a Dynamics Developer/Consultant will make in 4-5 years from now. So the best place to do is to actually ask the people who make a living right now. I'm particular interested in Canada area. Also US would be helpfull because, I might move there in 4-5 years from now. I know it's something nobody wants to disclose, but you can private msg me. This info will help other people as well.

This website has info but only for UK

http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/navision.do

and salary for a developer Salary: £35,000 to £45,000

which is 71500 CAD to 92000 CAD.
63000 USD to 81 891 USD

DenSter

No for sure those are not correct starting salaries for an inexperienced fresh out of college NAV developer. If you think you're going to make that kind of money right away you are dreaming .

NavStudent

That range is after I get 4-6 years of experience. And I'm a fast learner. I have C++, Java, and .NET experience, and I have taken a lot of accounting classes. Are Navision (ERP) jobs higher than normal development jobs?

Marije_Brummel

Please, do not forget programmin NAV is different from other development jobs.

To change ERP processes you need to know some of the functional impact you are creating.

This is why it is hard to find good NAV engineers, and if you are succesfull, the wages are good.

NavStudent

Mark Brummel wrote:

Please, do not forget programmin NAV is different from other development jobs.

To change ERP processes you need to know some of the functional impact you are creating.

This is why it is hard to find good NAV engineers, and if you are succesfull, the wages are good.

Good means the range that was on UK website? Is this the highest you can make if you become realy realy good?

Miklos_Hollender

When I was on a job interview in the UK, I was told that 45K is a top-manager pay and Navision consultancy/development is rather between 25-35K. 25 for beginner, 35 for a veteran. It surprised me because I saw Java ads for 50K but maybe there is too much of us or something

DenSter

I don't know how NAV development salaries weigh up against other types of development. I happen to love my job so I'm not looking. The money is very good, more than I would make in Holland (which also has to do with that taxes here are lower), where I grew up.

Money is probably the least important part of why I like my job. If you only go where the money is, then prepare yourself for a sad unhappy life. Do what you think is cool, what you like to do, what you have passion for. Become good at what you do and you will become sought after, and that comes with better pay.

NavStudent

DenSter wrote:

Money is probably the least important part of why I like my job. If you only go where the money is, then prepare yourself for a sad unhappy life. Do what you think is cool, what you like to do, what you have passion for. Become good at what you do and you will become sought after, and that comes with better pay.

I love programming, and I love the thrill of learning and programming a solution. The environment where I'm doing it is very important to me. If the moral of solution center is bad and the people work 60 hours a day, then there is no fun doing it. The other thing that I hope doesn't happen is getting bored at work. Doing the same thing after 6 years will get tiring. From what I've been told, basically you work on a project, get the requirements and program the requirements and you are off to the next project. The only exciting thing I guess will be learning the new business that client is in. And ofcourse getting more money for what you do always helps. Looking over Dynamics ERP systems, Axapta developer salary look higher. What is the cause of that?

As Miklos mentioned are there a lot Dynamics Nav Developers?

I know 6 years from now I will be settling down and pay morgage and have kids, and the extra money will definetly make a difference.

From the answers I got so far, I guess I won't get any numbers.

DenSter

I would say for a senior level developer your numbers are realistic in the US, of course that depends a lot on your skills, both as a developer and as a person dealing with your customers. Depending if you'll want to go into a management role there might even be room to grow from there.

Miklos_Hollender

I don't know whether there is a lot of us or not, but the figures strangely seem lower than that of mainstream Java etc. developers, even though it's a lot harder job, because one usually does not get nice longs specs, because the pace of projects are a lot faster, and therefore one usually has to understand business as well as tech and figure out what business goal the client might have had in mind when making a requirement and often offer a different route to reach that.

As for doing it for the money or doing it for passion... it's a complicated thing.

Being halfway between a business consultant and a programmer is clearly lot more exciting than dumbly coding specs made by somebody else in Java. And Navision's flexibility is also often a source of great joy - sometimes you can send people off to a coffee break during a training and when they came back, the functionality they complained about is already changed (of course, only in a testing database), and then they just say WOW.

On the other hand... there are some less pleasant parts of it. One of them is Microsoft itself, their ethically questionable business tactics, such as trying to achieve vendor lock-in... and there are other ethical questions as well... somebody wrote on the Navision forum that they asked MS why cost adjustment does not work with BOM Journals, they were told to buy Manufacturing AND charged for this support incident... Imagine asking a car vendor after you figure out your shiny new car has no transmission gear and he says "Oh, it's only in the Deluxe version" AND charging you for telling it.... such things are plain ridiculous. Still, they seem to get away with it and I don't like it. Therefore I often feel that working in a purely Open Source environment would be better for my ethical wellness... but Open Source ERP systems are not yet widespread and not even half as easy to develop as Navision... so I will have to stay with Navision until that changes, which if take the current speed of their development as a basis, will be at least 10 years.

There are also quality problems. Before just a couple years ago, 90% of Navision sales was trough those big solution centers who built huge add-ons and used very little from the standard functionalities: usually only the financial ones. Therefore Navision A/S was not forced to provide good quality standard functionality, Navision was mostly regarded as but a development environment, financial posting back-end and common brand name for add-ons...

Now with Microsoft it seems to change, for sure, but slowly, I don't know how long will it take until f.e. somebody takes those horrible, user-hostile TESTFIELD function calls out that violate every possible good practice for proper user interaction design. And it's just one example.

Still, if you are the type who takes great passion and pride in building really high quality solutions, Navision is still the best possible option and will remain for a long time I think, because it's development environment allows to build whole new "modules" in 5-15 days. Going with another ERP system and still having customers who cannot pay more than that would mean we either have to provide bad quality or lose the sale.

As for money... it's an interesting question. Clearly big houses and big cars make nobody happy. But the idea of saving enough to retire at 35-45 and then work on your pet Open Source projects with complete financial indepence is a juicy one, I think...

Alex_Chow

Yeah, but getting a salary comparison from the internet is completely bogus. Salaries from the internet seems inflated to me.

kriki

deadlizard wrote:

Yeah, but getting a salary comparison from the internet is completely bogus. Salaries from the internet seems inflated to me.

Not necessary, they also depend on a lot of other things.
Example high/low taxes and high/low social security and so on.

Alex_Chow

I say that is because it gives a false impression of the salaries for the job.

Take lawyers for example, some lawyers make multi-millions, while some lawyers only make 50k. The average of these 2 will give you a skewed number.