Salary/Hourly Rate Question For Certified NAV Developers

smethwickman

All:

On behalf of one of my clients in the USA, I am currently recruiting certified, MSFT Dynamics NAV 4.0 developers for their operations in Germany and Sweden. These are Permanent, non-consulting roles and, therefore, require no travel to/from client sites. In this regard, I have the following question.

Within the German and Swedish labor markets, respectively, what salary [in Euros] could a certified, NAV 4.0 developer - with at least 2+ years experience - command on an annual salary basis? By contrast, what would a Road Warrior consultant be able to charge, per hour/per day, excluding travel and entertainment expenses?

Many thanks in advance for your assistance.

David Parkes
=============================
David Parkes
DISYS Corporation
Email: david.parkes@disys.com

matttrax

I currently make 65-70k working for an end user doing development and have slightly less than two years experience, but I am certified.

People I know in the field with 3+ years, uncertified, are making more than 80k + Commission working for a solution center.

Some consultants I know charge anywhere from $35/hr and up.

Not in Euros, but it should at least give you an idea.

cnicola

OK ... I cannot help it: 35$/hour ????!!!!!!!!! :evil:
For someone with actual Navision experience?

idiot

Gosh
That more than what I'm getting...in a currency smaller than USD...
Time to talk to my boss...

kine

It seems that post your rates is not a good way. We will be angry... many of us have just x/10 of your wages and with much more experiences. US wages compared with European (mainly East Eruope) are "from another planet" for us.

Many of us are somewhere around $10/hour and less.

David_Cox

kine wrote:

It seems that post your rates is not a good way. We will be angry... many of us have just x/10 of your wages and with much more experiences. US wages compared with European (mainly East Eruope) are "from another planet" for us.

Many of us are somewhere around $10/hour and less.

I am a UK Contractor with 10 years+ and there is a lot of hype about contracting, you have so many other factors, from 365 days, a contractor could max out at about 220 days, after taking away holidays, public and 4 weeks vacation, if we are off sick we do not get paid, we often cover some of our own expenses, we are not employed when there is little work so we do not have that safety net, our chargability percentage is often higher, and our work rate is also expected to be higher, we are called on at short notice with no lead in time, often when the project has not gone the way the reseller or end user expected, so the phrase "fire fighting" comes to mind, yes we have good rates, we get a good level of respect, but country to country be it Dollar, Pound or Euro, we are not that far in front of the permenant employee.

Also you should not compare rates from different countries, as you will get the local going rate if you work in the country for a local reseller, the same goes for contractors coming to the UK, you will get the rate, but you living costs will also be high, if I moved from UK to Cyprus I would get about half my current rate, but the cost of living would be a lot less, so you need to look at the whole picture.

Us poor contractors

ssingla

Kine Wrote

It seems that post your rates is not a good way. We will be angry... many of us have just x/10 of your wages and with much more experiences. US wages compared with European (mainly East Eruope) are "from another planet" for us.

Many of us are somewhere around $10/hour and less.

I don't agree to this. If it would have been true then I would have been unemployed and lot of my country man too. I charge more than this, making good bussiness and I am much less experienced then you great people ........ or
Asian Economy is booming \:D/ \:D/ \:D/

Miklos_Hollender

UK averages: http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/na ... veloper.do

Damn low if you ask me, if we compare it to the fact that every Java code monkey earns above £50K ($100K) even though the schools are releasing thousands and thousands of them every year.

matttrax

On Salary.com, at least for my area of the United States, I am actually making slightly less than the average for what is says ERP programmers with 2 years experience should make.

Also, you'll find that the salary for ERP programmers is 20-25% higher than that of a Java/.NET programmer with the same experience level. Knowing in demand, less common languages like C/AL you should be making this much, in my opinion.

From what I've seen there is a shortage a Navision developers, even in the US. I was the only local candidate who applied for my job in a city of 4 million + people so I could pretty much command whatever salary I wanted.

Maybe the US is just higher paying in general, but look around for jobs. You never know if you might stumble into something great like I did.

jlandeen

I think there are a number of factors that affect the quality and the going rate for experienced Navision Developers and Analysts. The most import thing to recognize is that they are NOT interchangable with .Net, Java, SQL or other developers as a good Navision Developer must be able to write good C/AL code, understand the existing base application code from Microsoft, know the external tools and technologies that can be used AND have experience on many varied projects.

As I've said in the past it's not just about making modifications to Navision code...it's about making the RIGHT modifications (or suggesting the right modifications to analysts), and I think the amount of project experience that a developer has seen in the past really contributes to how well they can architect & implement changes to Navision. There are also market conditions that affect this as well - there are not as many Navision Developers out there who have experience, and there are not a lot of schools that have courses on Navision so it's not something your typical university/college grad has any experience with. Thus there's a much smaller talent pool...and with increasing demand for experienced Navision staff (as the product is increasing it's market share), the usual laws of supply & demand dicate their value is going up. So I think experience, skills required and size of talent pool can add a premium to the salary of a Navision developt to a .Net/Java developer.

So in summary...if you're just looking for Navision Developers to do simple/basic modifications that are well specified by analysts then you can pay a lower rate and select a more junior candidate who has their certification (maybe 40,000 to 70,000 USD depending on 2 or so years of experience). If your client requires someone with more experience who can function with less specific requirements then you will have to pay more for that and in this cas I think experience trumps certifications (as anyone can score well on the multiple choice computer based tests). For these experience resources I wouldn't be surprised to see an annual salary of anywhere from 80,000 USD to 150,000 USD (this would probably be that road warrior).

I know these rates are based on US values, but you should be able to adjust them to Germany (or anywhere else) based on cost of living differences between the US & any other specific country.

Savatage

Many of us are somewhere around $10/hour and less.

Wow, you guys deserve so much more!!!

I pretty sure I can get $10/hr at McDonalds.

jlandeen

Yeah I completely agree...10$/hr isn't alot in the north american market. But maybe in some of the other countries it's worth more when adjusted their cost of living.

And before those of you in other countries get angry about the rates posted here (this if for you kine)...remember Navision skills are globally transferable, get a passport, find another NSC that you like and see another part of the world. I did...it's been great!

Yaroslav_Gaponov

jlandeen wrote:

Yeah I completely agree...10$/hr isn't alot in the north american market. But maybe in some of the other countries it's worth more when adjusted their cost of living.

And before those of you in other countries get angry about the rates posted here (this if for you kine)...remember Navision skills are globally transferable, get a passport, find another NSC that you like and see another part of the world. I did...it's been great!

Ehhh, of course if you have a passport EU, USA etc .... but with my passport... :roll:

About 10$/hr - is a huge salary really :oops:

jlandeen

Some alternatives to EU/USA could be Canada, Australia, New Zeland - they may have less restrictive immigration policies.

Yaroslav_Gaponov

jlandeen wrote:

Some alternatives to EU/USA could be Canada, Australia, New Zeland - they may have less restrictive immigration policies.

If this will be so simply - here will be empty

Steve

Not sure where you have been looking, but I have all the certifications and experience from the 1.x versions of Navision (i.e. about 8 years or so).

I currently consult at $65.00 - $125.00 per hour and have many, many offers well into the 6 figure range for full time programming careers.

Many of the large Navi centers will pay for above average Navi programmers that have billable weekly hours over 35. When I worked for a local solution center (and before a family) I easily could bill into the 40+ range and collect additional bonus $$.

The best advice I can offer is lose the stigmatism that you are nothing more then a guy that writes code. Begin to position yourself as a solution delivery expert or business process specialist. These titles offer more to companies then just a guy that writes code and demonstrates that you not only can write the code, but you can redesign the process to improve company operations.

Current consulting jobs start with me sitting listening to a group of executives complain about a process which consists of 90% of the job. Listen to the top for corporate vision, strategy, ROI and especially personalities within the project. The next 9% is learning the process, people and how the company culture works and lastly the smallest 1% is the actual code. If you remember this it's easy to see why corporate America doesn't want to pay the guy that writes code.

In no way am I minimizing the work of the coder (as I am one myself), but more attempting to give you a game plan to approach higher salaries.

I apologize if this is offensive, but it's just what I have experience in the last 10 years of so.

ssingla

Steve words gives some consolation to me, the situation in other parts of the world is not as good I use to thought as compared to India.

I was always uncomfortable at the stage when I learnt Navision quickly and delivered more than expected and my employer tried to push me in project management and presale activity.

I wanted to learn more functionalities of Navision, wanted to go deeper in features & development of verticals & a profile of functional consultant only. I believed that if I would have been in Europe or US, I would have done specialization in functional part.

See due to the insufficent job satisfaction in multiple profiles I have ended up opening my own company, earning handsomely but still far away from a expert functional consultant.