Anyone know of some ridiculously well paying IT jobs?
Kudos if its easily upskillable through Tafe/free courses.
Surely theres some niche programing languages out there people will pay contractors a motza to use.
Best Paying IT Jobs
mavis30551 on 29/07/2022 - 15:53
Last edited 29/07/2022 - 15:58 by 1 other user
Last edited 29/07/2022 - 15:58 by 1 other user
Comments
Pretty much applies to any profession really.
You might of misread…OP is not interested in university or really even a lengthy tafe course. He wants a free udemy he can complete in an afternoon.
Sales pays well, but is cut throat. Been in it for 20ish years
Average salary on OZB is like 250k, what do you class ridiculously well paying?
$250k is so 2021. I thought it's over $300k now
Weekly….
rent? :D
He needs to go to whirlpool forums
Typical WP thread - Hi guys, I'm 21 currently making 350k with 200k super and 200k in savings. I'm looking to retire by 30. Any advice?
If I sell my 6 porsche will I get more money now or sell them later
… and we're still chasing Enloop deals! XD
Google was paying over a million per year for Q# programmers a while ago ;)
You can't have high paying job with low entry barrier, that's a common sense.
Influencer?
You need looks for that and that's not cheap.
Is that code word for OF
It's possible, but they are arbitraged away very quickly.
Youtuber
Tiktokr
Only*Less than 1% of those are successful and less than 1% of that 1% are making some decent money. You're grossly underestimating number of participants.
i think the trick to running your own business is to know when to pivot when you need to pivot.
doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome is insanity.
For a lot of IT jobs, especially programming, there are some natural aptitudes.
If you don't have these, you'll struggle. If you do have them, you can be successful without any accreditations.If I was seeking high pay, a rosy future and ability to get there with free courses/self study, I'd probably learn Rust as a trendy language on the way up. If you are interested in mobile apps, Swift and (I guess) Kotlin.
There is plenty of material online to self study. Write some programmes, when they are up to a good standard, apply for some jobs. Show hirers what you can do. If you want to show some experience on your resume, contribute to some open source projects.
All this is stuff you can do in evenings and weekends to develop a new career.
While it used to be true that you had to have natural aptitudes (or just love it a lot) I do not believe that is the case anymore. I believe lots of people go in it now because you get a lot of money out of it (and that is fine).
Heck, when I got interested in it I had no idea about money, I did not know anybody that worked in IT, there were just a few IT jobs in my whole country.
You still need natural aptitudes to succeed. People might go into it for money, but to actually obtain the skills and fluency requires more than just raw effort. This applies to just about everything, from programming to athletics. You can get a million people to practice day in and day out for the 100m sprint, but only a few will break 10.5 seconds.
I don't think its fair to compare athletics to programming. athletics seems especially dependent on genetics when we watch the olympics but thats because its literally the top dozen people. if you look at top 1% of athletes instead of top 0.01% of athletes I'm fairly certain that there is a lot more genetic diversity. so natural aptitude plays a part but in my opinion really only matters at the absolute top level. when it comes to programming though you don't need to be top 0.01% you just need to be top 1% or top 5% and you'll be in the top bracket for earning money.
in addition to that i believe that learning to program is more like learning another language in that you don't actually need to be super intelligent, you just need to put in the time. if you look at a group of students learning math, yeah there are some that just don't seem to get it. and there are those that seem to get it immediately, but for the vast majority of students they just need to spend 5-10 minutes to understand the concept. its just a matter of time, and then at the end of the day can they solve the problem… most of them yes. so basically im saying the human brain is a lot more pliable than the human body. I know that most people will never be able to run sub 10 seconds in a sprint, but I believe you can teach programming skills to a level where they are useful to the majority of people who have made it into uni.
if you don't believe me, just remember they can teach birds to diagnose cancer better than a professional doctor. but they never taught a bird to throw a javelin. so basically the potential of your brain even if you think you are stupid is essentially limitless in my opinion. but the body has very clear limits.
@Michael074: The potential of your brain being limitless is completely untrue, unless you don't believe in biological reality. At the end of the day, the brain is still a product of genetics and the environment. It's still a biological construct, with a limitation of neurons and other connections. There's established variance in average brain size by race, and in specific lobes. A bird detecting cancer is possible due to the fact that the bird possesses a different set of sensory abilities compared to a person. It's not because the bird is "smarter" than any doctor, it already has the senses to detect it. You just need to make it care and teach it to relay the info to the human. Same thing with police dogs that pick up peoples' scents and track them. The dogs innately possess the ability, they just needed a human to tell train them for information relay. You're not going to train a dog to be a astrophysicist. And in this instance, we're not just talking about any old programming, but at a skill high enough to get a (in the words of OP) "ridiculously well paying job." That suggests a skillset not possessed by just any of the millions coming out of coding camps and uni courses.
@OzBarAnon: I think the kind of genius you're talking about is getting paid 500k-1mm+ a year, in this thread its more so people saying 250k+ is a "ridiculously well paying job."
For a lot of IT jobs, especially programming, there are some natural aptitudes.
Yep, +1 to this.
If you can't, then you can't. I'm scratching my head why are people trying to force STEM into their kids' brains if you don't get it, you just don't get it.
It isn't until you try to teach this stuff at tertiary level that you realise that there are just some things that some people will never be able to do, no matter how much time you dedicate toward teaching/tutoring them. I used to believe the old soyjack Redditor adage of "Nah man they're just not motivated enough, anyone can do anything they put their mind to! Stop being ableist!" but the real world is very quick to correct this rose-coloured thinking.
You can teach yourself programming and all, but I wouldn't say you can 'easily' or 'ethically' (as in no BS) climb up the ladder into the high pay jobs without some good mentorship.
Be prepared to get into a junior role for a few years under a good mentor & be ready to be a team player. The younger companies are less likely to be ageist.
The days of a single programmer doing anything significant alone is pretty much long gone
(although sometimes people can make a gem in isolation - that's rare though).
There are many great paying roles but most require experience, multi domain knowledge or ideally both. Australia has forecast a significant gap in IT skills for the coming years so plenty of runway in the industry. Top earners also tend to have sector expertise eg Finance/Fintech or Education, so the ability to combine industry knowledge with your technical skills. Security is a safe bet atm, along with aligning to any of the major vendors; AWS, GCP, ServiceNow for devops, consulting & sales.
Functional, Sol Arch and Programme Mangers/ Directors are top of the IT food chain!
Yeah my job pays well….. in IT but it took me many years to get here. Do what you like, do not look for a job based on the best pay but avoid ones that don’t pay well unless it is a lifestyle decision.
The field of IT is like looking at a job in “health”, it is a huge market and the label IT does not really help with career direction….. though to everyone else if you are “in” IT then you can fix their phone, popcorn maker, smart TV blah blah just because you “do” IT.
Become a project manager. Everyone will likely hate you, but the exec will pay you very well until they eventually give you the boot when they need to de-blame themselves for some colossal fustercluck of their own making.
Contract Project Manager, that way, you get paid stupid money by the hour. You get to f-off to a different company where you get paid stupid money by the hour, and not having to worry about fixing the problems in the previous place.
Tricky part is you need to be good at what you do, as your reputation is key.
100% If you dont have a need to be liked, dont mind having to talk about topics that are out of your depth, can understand what the bosses are looking for.. you can navigate colossal (profanity) while clearing between 150k and 250k a year. The next level up which is program directors (250k to 500k) is largely determined by how white you are, and whether you went to the right schools and hang out in the right suburbs.
High paying I.T jobs:
- Devops
- Secops
- Security Architect
- Cloud Architect
- Network Architect
- ProgrammerYeah, except you don't become an architect overnight, and knowledge spans across multiple domains rather than just a single thing.
Like the Zscaler tech I was talking with the other day, he doesn't just know his own stuff but also his competitors' kit. It was an eye opener - even some of my client's tech leads/managers didn't know what they were using as well as this tech.
A simple certificate at some random local tafe isnt going to get you the big $. Years of experience is wat is in demand, not doing some 4month course to “upskill”
Kudos if its easily upskillable through Tafe/free courses
Sure 🫡.
I see people like this in industry and thats what ruins the whole industry or the role itself. i.e. people that are in it for the money but got no skills or passion about it
I was in this business because I had the passion. But the politics and inefficiency put out the fire. The other way around I think.
You could also be a IT business analyst. No need for any formal certifications or programming knowledge. Just need to understand what the business wants and then you tell the programmers what to build. Pays about $1000 a day for an experienced BA.
But you aren't going to become an experienced BA with a free or short course.
You want to have studied computer science, with classes like human computer interaction where you'll learn about user stories and such, and have an idea how to draw diagrams and the different sort of diagrams, state diagrams, domain diagrams etc. You might not have to understand the finer details of how software is programmed or compiled but you have to have a general idea how to build software. A random person off the street wouldn't be able to do it
I don't have a degree or formal qualifications for a BA.. been doing contracting BA work (and occasionally dabbling as a consultant) for a while and my daily rate is at the very top end for govt IT projects.
As some people said earlier, having the aptitude counts for a lot .. you know the biggest comment I always get? BAs thinking they know best and don't LISTEN to what business wants …
That's why I get top rate .. I describe my role as relationship building and ability to understand what business wants
Also, being curious how systems work aka playing around with an app end to end in a dev or test env.
Works for me but your mileage may vary
You could pickup data analytics/science as there’s plenty of demand. Only issue you’ll have is getting a crack externally.
If you work for a company you could try reskilling into an area.
Go learn the Microsoft Power Platform, and get some certifications: https://query.prod.cms.rt.microsoft.com/cms/api/am/binary/RE….
They are not that hard and there are plenty of MS free courses online. Get a free trial for D365 and Dataverse & Sharepoint and play around with it as much as you can during the trial. Get another trial afterward.
Get some easy projects that do not pay a lot on a website like this: https://www.freelancer.com.au/jobs/power-automate/ . This is NOT for the money, it is NOT worth it. You should not care about the price, it is just for you to get real world experience to learn. It does not matter if you do not get the job… even getting the requirements is interesting. What you want is to learn.
Congrats in 6 months you should be able to land a job for around 140k. https://www.seek.com.au/power-automate-jobs
Use that job to look into Logic Apps, Data Factory etc…PS: you will be looked down on by "developers", but you will be able to do what they do 80% of the time (and do it in 20% of the time too). The business users will love you because you will deliver a report in 1 day.
I wouldn't wish powerapps as a career on anyone. Clunky, slow, and just a pain in the arse to do anything remotely advanced. Constantly fighting the tool, rather than it working for you.
I agree with you regarding power apps, however, power automated flows are not bad. PowerBi is the same, it is a decent tool from what I saw. Overall very easy entry point and it pays well enough. OP did not look like he cares about anything except money.
Would I tell a dev to move to Power Platform…. nope.
Overall it is just a tool in your arsenal. Would I do it all day… no… but I know other things.
Well, keep in mind that D365 CE/CRM is part of the platform, and it's quite good and as such is being implemented all over government departments
Yeah, well, I don't think half a year part time experience would land a 140k job. That being said, it's easy to get there in just a few years
Combination of powerbi, pythonl/R, and sql
So a BI analyst? Far from the highest paying role
Genuine answer
D365 Azure, devops and powerbi.
I've done plenty of SAP installations as a functional person in my early 20s. Now D365.
But just be hungry for experience not your day rTe. Tenure wins as well as delivery. Too many flippant consultants and will move along for an extra $200 p day but not actually know why they are doing.
To be honest, it's pretty clear they're doing it for the money.
None of these high paying jobs come through TAFE. TAFE is basically useless when you're looking for a job. Employers want experience on the job with the knowledge, tafe does not provide adequate knowledge or experience for you to get into the work force. Anything you learn at tafe can be learned on your own easily by youtube/internet resources.
Cert IV's are useless, they are there to make tafe money, not to skill you to get into the workforce.
Diploma is basically just as useless, just more of a waste of time than a 6 month Cert IV.Uni is a waste of money but more useful than the previous TAFE courses.
I disagree. I thought I was pretty good with computers, then I did a 6-month Cert. IV and most of what I learned was new to me. Majority of the content was quite useful and prepared me well for the workplace. It even included some Microsoft Fundamentals courses which looked good on the resume.
Landed a job not even a month out of TAFE. Went up to 60k after a year at age 20 and have been jumping to higher salaries since. Mates have completed bachelor's degrees and have only just landed entry level, slightly above minimum wage helpdesk roles.
Something related to product development or security are good options.
It’s a multi year journey with a degree, but relatively guaranteed to be on a high wicket.
Short course or TAFE can work for developers (front end in particular), but it’s an exceptionally long road as you really need to prove yourself. Also can be hard getting into prestigious orgs without a proven track record.
If you’re interested in tech, just do a degree and make bank later. Most people fail to make big bucks as they’re too impatient. Don’t be that person.
U won’t even get an interview let alone job.
Why's that?
The nicher the market the more experienced the dinasora with 50yrars experience ur competing with. They will eat you alive.
The more niche something is the less opportunities there are and you're competing for less opportunities with the hopes that the ones available have big payoffs. In some context this can be lucrative however if you're just starting out I would not niche up so quickly. Pick something with a healthy amount of devs and opportunities and community.
Fintech like anaplan, IBM TM1 analytics
Consultant salaries for these type of developers with in house experience is massive as it combines the solution design and build as well as knowing the code. Not just a standard Java/C# kinda gig.
IT PM roles are also high paying but generally you need to have done many years at consultant level first to know the answer to everything
You just need youtube and a zeal to learn. Get on with webflux (or any reactive programming framework/tech) grpc with protobuf/avro etc - understand how microservices deploy to openshift and how kubernetes works. Stick on some kafka training to it and Bob's your uncle. Create a few sample projects and check in your stuff to gitlab. Share that link on your resume. You will easily make 300k as a contractor.
I'd say DevOps or DBA would pay the most. Right now I am a system engineer for a large mining company and previously i did MDM engineering, both jobs pay pretty well and i didn't go to tafe or uni. The real way to get the big bucks is by doing as many certs as you can.
I would say CIO, Enterprise Architect, Infrastructure Architect, CISO etc would pay there most. However can the OP achieve these straight after doing a TAFE course? I doubt it.
No chance.
Which certs?
So no training no experience..
Sales! Or account management. If you are prepared to travel it's a great way to get into a specific niche and move into a more technical role over time..
It's how I started close to 20 years ago and have since worked in a range of roles to now being in management in a government role(no it's not cushy)
As someone who has worked in the IT industry for over 20 years and is now moving to another industry, can I say that you should look at doing whatever you are passionate about and learn the best way to make money from that. Chasing money will never give you happiness, you will waste precious time doing it and perhaps not be happy. Money although allows us certain luxuries, will not always equal happiness.
This is the real answer
Tying yours and your families livelihood to a passion (that may become less of a passion when you're required to do it for 8+ hours a day) is a dangerous game to play. The ability to even attempt to do it also comes from a place of privilege (curious to know if the 20 years you'd spent in IT set you up to be able to take the leap). You're spot on about money not equalling happiness, but it's not as black-and-white a decision as it might seem.
Experience and soft skills are what are going to make you stand out. Coding skills and certs are a dime a dozen.
Pennywise
I don’t think Australia has any underground sewer/drainage system big enough for OP to fit inside (at least not comfortably) to lure in naive kids on a rainy day. OP may have to move to the U.S or UK to chase after his big paying IT gig.
I would say in Australia Cyber security or Data Engineering/analytics make the biggest bucks now. If you are in the US, top Software Engs (any language) make top $$
Founder of a tech unicorn - $Billions$$$s 😂😂
Seriously speaking, software engineering or visualisation specialists make good $$$s.
Architects and senior project managers
Cyber security most of those so called cyber security experts are graduates with no experience and not really worth the pay they get.
Many Cloud ops people know far better than these cyber security ppls
Rough contract rates in Melb:
- Programmers (React, Python, Node) - $900-1200 per day
- Architects (Solution/Network) - $1000-1300 per day
- Security Architect - $1000-1400 per day
- Project Mgr - $1000/day (ish, I've not done this one)
- Cloud Engineer/DevOps/DevSecOps - $800-1200 per dayAll contract rates. All with a minimum of 2 work from home days.
I'm currently in a DevSecOps role, complete WFH. Rolling 6month contract (2.5 years and going).
If you're contracting, work off a 44 to 46 week year (depending on how much sick leave you usually take).
At $1,100 per day, it's roughly $242k (44 weeks, includes super) for a very comfortable job that can also make a significant difference because you can leverage code (free to replicate/install)
(Note: if you go PAYG through the recruiter, they'll take a fee, usually 1%ish for PI/PL insurance)Highly recommend this as a career choice.
Question is how to do get that role what skills you trained on? I'm in cloud ops not devops you would need to know a lot of programming CI CD pipeline and all that Infrastructure as code stuff. In addition security too??
It’s more down to experience. Every role I had, I found ways to integrate the next step of my career into what I do today. In my exp, DevOpsSec does need a little coding knowledge and training cert is useful for your learning development (but bruit experience is what counts).
The best part about high demand roles is you can heavily influence WFH conditions. Somewhere between fully remote or once a month in office is common.
To be honest, you pick a target then train toward it. Once you understand the underlying concepts, pick a framework/language and run with it.
Once you've implemented it once, it's just a sales pitch for another role at a much higher rate.
Agreed. Have been contracting as a dev for about a year now and don't see myself going back to a permanent full time role any time soon. The market is just so lucrative right now and I imagine it will stay that way for at least the next couple of years.
Perks for me are:
- higher salary
- able to choose what tech you want to work with if moving between contracts
- able to take longer vacations
- no guilt or pressure from HR about sick days (as I won't get paid otherwise)
- there's a deadline to your contract if you don't like the company/team so no awkward resignation phaseWhat qualifications/ exp is typically required for these roles? Is a degree necessary?
Vast majority require it. As mentioned earlier, with a proven track record you can get around this, but it’s a very long road.
It helps a lot in the earlier years. Not necessarily mandatory, but it helps a lot.
Not so much now.
Genuine Question.
How much annual salary would you (or anyone raking such daily rates in the IT world) be willing to go full time salaried? As it comes with paid public holidays, sick and annual leave?
People earning 800-900 a day.. how much annual salary would lure people like that to a full time role?To give you some idea of my thinking:
My rates vary, but usually 1100-1200 since COVID inflation hit. (I don't manage anyone and I don't want to)At 1150 (midpoint) on a 45 week year (I average 47, but work off 45) - that's roughly $259k.
(Note: Take 4 weeks off for Annual Leave, another 4 weeks for sick leave and you get to 44weeks. But who ever uses the full sick leave entitlement?)Given I have my own entity doing payroll/insurance, my cost base is:
- Accounting (outsourced), software, quarterly submissions etc: $3.5k
- PI/PL insurance $1.5kThese expenses are shared between me and one other person, so my share is $2500 (5k/2)
There are marginal GST benefits when claiming stuff, but let's put that aside. So my before tax income is ~$256k
The equivalent role full time pays a max $200k on market. I ask for $230k package as a minimum (including super and 50% of 'bonus' figures quoted) and full work from home if I choose to. Nobody gets to that point for a tech only role (with the exception of some security architects I think, but I can't say for sure), so the conversation dies fairly quickly.
I realise I'm trading perceived security for higher rates of pay. But I've done so for a while (12+years, contracting straight out of uni) and have been 'unemployed' for 1 day. There's just not enough supply… And when you're a comptetent person in an incompetent world, you're rewarded handsomely.
To be honest, I'd be more inclined to move toward a fixed price model rather than salaried/full time.
Thanks for sharing. Nice to see how office side of things work…
From having worked as a contractor for a number of years (and speaking about this openly with other contractors) and also having been in salaried roles one of which i'm in currently, typically you want to be making 30%+ more as a contractor to justify it over a salary.
Full time benefits:
- potentially having equity as part of the package
- leave
- career development opportunities driven by your employer (you need to own this yourself as a contractor)Different life stages and personal situations can suit each option.
Thanks. Fair enough.
Are these avg IT contracting rates including super or excluding?
I don't know if they're averages. Just the rates that have been shown to me when discussing roles.
But I'm including super in those figures.
https://oliver-uploads-aus.s3.amazonaws.com/2022/08/08/04/29…
This is the peoplebank salary index too. It has Low/Mid/High values for each role, by state. For both contract and perm.
Thanks for this. Will share with my kids..
From my experience cyber security and data science/engineers are very sort after and on the skill shortage list meaning you may be able to get a heavily subsidised (commonwealth supported placement) uni degree for a foot in the door.
A lot of people talking about Dev roles here, but something you may want to consider is something that is "Dev adjacent".
If you're more of a "people person" and can talk business while also being technically minded you can make an absolute killing as well.
Roles like Business Analysts, Product Owner/Manager, etc. are not particularly difficult to move into. It certainly helps to have a degree but if you get your foot in the door you can move pretty quickly. Low-mid 100 in under 5 years in Brissy. More in Syd/Melb and even more if you're good. Not unreasonable to expect a Senior Product Manager to be nearing 200k before they're 30.
The biggest difference you will find with these roles is being able to talk to the "other side" of the role. For example, a developer who can talk to people, understand the business and customer needs and a PO or BA with a solid technical understanding (i.e. understands core programming principles).
You either do that or become insanely good at your field (genuine "rock star" developers or POs with super successful products behind them).
Just some food for thought
Time to get my 77 year old father back in the workforce as a COBOL programmer.
As a teenager, watching him use a Windows machine (and his favourite app, Realplayer) used to have me question whether he knew what he was doing and or if he just went to TAFE course in the early 90's on how to use a computer and winged it from there.
However, after watching him code in COBOL and use UNIX machines my eyes were opened. He is a whole different person in front of a CLI. He did after all teach me how to use DOS when I was 4 years old.
I will pass on the good news about his antiquated skill set still being relevant.
Completely agree. There are a lot of IT disciplines that will pay quite well eventually. Just don't expect a well paying role straight out of the gate.