What's the scene like?

[Remy Bach]

Hi all,

So just as an introduction and to give you a bit of background: I'm a South African originally from a little town called Vanderbijlpark (the very south of Gauteng) currently living and working as a contract Front End Dev in London (UK) and have suddenly found myself in the situation where I might have to move back to SA very soon (** insert long, boring story here **). I'm a senior front end dev with a lot of solid experience (you can see my CV online here if you're curious).

Given my situation, if we have to move back my choice is definitely to go to beautiful CT (it's always held a piece of my heart), and as such I was wondering if you guys could help shed some light on what the Front End scene is like there? I've chatted to some people, but figured I'd get a broader view here.

My experience before I left SA was that I was a front end-ey Java dev, and everything I came across was naturally very corporate - my first concern is whether this is the case here (one person I spoke to says by their experience it's not). What can I say? I like wearing shorts to work!

Second is about salary... obviously coming from the UK, I'm used to the salaries being pretty decent so as a senior front ender, is R35k the upper limit for a permanent position? Having done a bit of Googling, this is what I've found and it just seems quite low to me (it equates to more or less what a junior's salary is here). Am I being unrealistic in my expectations given the nascent nature of front end work in SA?

I've also found this old thread from this group which naturally gets me excited, but how sustainable is contract/freelance work? I know there's always a risk to contracting which is why contractors get paid more, but just to get an idea would help. I have no doubt I could land the jobs and do the work, but I obviously need these jobs to be available before I can do that! :P

In an absolutely ideal world, I'd still use some of my contacts here and work remotely and earn some valuable £, but I'm not quite sure that option is viable.

Anyway... I fully appreciate any input you guys could give me.

Thanks!

// Rémy