The WTF...err...WFH Issue
We can hear the faint yet persistent voice of years past requiring their employees come back to the office….or else.
Thank you to some of the best and brightest tech talent in London for taking the time to discuss the local market, your views and opinions on the Sydney tech scene and the viability of relocation, it was a pleasure.
Disclaimer — these are my opinions based on circa 400–500 interactions with engineers, designers, product managers and tech leaders in London and having operated in Talent Acquisition within Sydney tech companies for the past 4 years.
To summarise;
First, some noticeable observations;
As I approached professionals at London’s leading companies from startups to corporates I was eager to know what they knew or who they knew in the Sydney tech scene.
Ruling out those that had previously lived in our beautiful city there were a lot of blank faces. A hint on the collaboration software they use prompted a few “oh yeah, Atlassian” with some following up with “oh I thought they were American” (they are listed on the Nasdaq after all).
Very little mention of the market darling Canva, even less awareness of Freelancer, Finder or Airtasker with their advertising plastered all over the major underground stations and London buses. (I’ve left out B2B as you’d need to be industry specific to know them.)
So should we be surprised?
No. The alarming part isn’t the lack of awareness of specific Australian tech companies (although we do need to address this), it is more that Sydney is just not considered or viewed as a viable destination to progress your career in the tech industry.
Whilst the lure of beaches, sunshine and well, who doesn’t love the aussie folk, there is just no awareness of the opportunity to relocate for what I would describe as “the best of both worlds”. Work for innovative tech companies competing on the global stage whilst enjoying a quality of life that only Sydney can offer (I realise having lived here for a decade that it isn’t perfect but we’re very lucky on a global comparison).
There were very few misinformed remarks, isolated cases of “do they work in Agile?” and “are they working with cloud technologies?” but to dispel the image of a kangaroo prodding a server with a didgeridoo I talked through the growth in automation, containerisation in the cloud, highly scalable distributed systems, functional programming, to name a few and we certainly aren’t behind when it comes to how products are built.
I wouldn’t expect the vast majority of tech professionals in Sydney to name the rising stars of the London scene but if asked “is there a career opportunity there?”, they would know purely by reputation that there is. A reputation we don’t yet have!
2. Message to the Government — The time is now!
With Brexit reaching boiling point and Trump busy building walls the timing has never been better to present migrants a new destination to fulfill their hopes and dreams…BUT.
We aren’t making it easy for the best tech talent around the world to move to Sydney with visa timelines and restrictions, and we certainly aren’t making it easy for companies to hire from overseas either. Due to our geographical location the vast majority won’t have visited Sydney before, unlike Europe where you can fly to another country and back in a day, it just isn’t feasible with Sydney, so there is already a huge barrier to overcome without visa related obstacles.
The visa system changed July 1st 2018 (457 out 482 visa in) and as far as I’m aware there wasn’t a global campaign by the Australian Government to update the world’s best talent and if they had, it wouldn’t have been a simple one either.
3. Challenges overseas talent face in relocating:
4. Challenges companies face hiring in overseas talent:
Can you see why people and companies might put this into the too hard basket?
Unfortunately the GTS hasn’t had the impact required, too many companies don’t know about it and those that do utilise loopholes, like hiring Product Managers as ICT Business Analysts rather than going through the rigmarole of justifying why they need a Product Manager.
So what are the consequences if we don’t take action?
Follow TechLifeSydney on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and all will be revealed when I explore the repercussions and potential solutions, spoiler alert - there is no silver bullet!
We can hear the faint yet persistent voice of years past requiring their employees come back to the office….or else.
Australia is establishing itself as a major player in the global tech game
We’re not writing this to inform you that there are plenty of vacancies right now, you already know that! We’re simply here to pick out some of our favourite opportunities that are being overlooked right now.