Move To Lagos, Forget Remote Work, Be A Senior – The State Of Developer Jobs In Nigeria

An overwhelming 91 percent of developer jobs in Nigeria are straight out of Lagos, coincidentally Africa’s most-populated city and centre for some of the maddest traffic jams that anyone can find. Yet one of the biggest commercial hubs on the continent and apparently, one of the hottest spots for tech startups and consequently, developers.

The information above is from the State of Code Jobs report put together by Devecenter which was released today.

Devcenter, a technology product and talent company that came into existence in 2016, studied over 3000 developer jobs posted on Gigson, its jobs platform, and compiled data on what employers look out for when hiring developers in Nigeria.

As gleaned from the report, developers who are based in Nigeria should take three things into account: Lagos is the place to be, remote work hardly exists, and it’s a lot better if you are a senior developer.

The report has it that 91 percent of job postings are in Lagos, which shows an overwhelming need for Nigerian developers seeking opportunities to be in Lagos.

Also, as much as the conversation around the subject of remote work is growing, tech employers are still not exactly enchanted by the idea. Gigson’s report records remote work postings at 9 percent while only 14 percent are remote-friendly.

This indicates that the entire concept of remote work is, at best, still something a lot of people like to talk about in developer circles even though it hardly exists.

According to the data, more than half of jobs employers post requires physical presence at the office, so Nigerian developers have to show up at the office more often than not.

One would expect Lagos-based employers to buy into the idea of remote work given that the city is notorious for insane traffic jams that lead to huge man-hour losses. But it appears this is not the case. The hesitance of employers when it comes to remote work is thought to border on both the structural and the psychological.

As would be expected for a work area where a premium is placed on skill, experience is king. And as such, there is a high demand for highly-skilled and experienced personnel.

The report found that senior-level and mid-level developer jobs are the most available, implying a high demand for individuals in that class. Mid-level developer roles make up 63 percent of all jobs according to the report, while 10 percent are for junior developers. Senior developer roles make up 27 percent of jobs.

A few months back, Andela — the Lagos-based outsourcing firm for software developers — closed its junior developer (D0) programs in 3 African countries, blaming it on higher market demand for senior developers and the fact that it had taken on more juniors than it could place.

And the findings from the Gigson’s report, with respect to what developer jobs are available, appear to be consistent with what the folks at Andela explained.

Furthermore, the report found that nearly one in three jobs posted on the Gigson site was for a back-end developer, those who work on the server-side of web products.

Requests for front-end developers and full-stack developers comprise 24 percent and 20 percent respectively. For mobile developers, the figure is 22 percent while 3 percent of openings are listed as internships and other types of jobs.

On the subject of compensation for developers, information was hard to come by as most employers are predictably coy on this subject.

But it was learned from a few employers who were gracious enough to be open about this that the typical offer to junior developers ranges from NGN 80 K (USD 219.00) to NGN 150 K (USD 410.00) a month. Salary offers above NGN 300 K (USD 827.00) is typically the stuff of senior developers.

Also, Devcenter gathered its Gigson platform that a new trend is taking shape in the form of increased relevance and/or appreciation for designers, who are thought to be the artists of the tech world.