Australian software company tier list
Disclaimer
This is purely educational to help people decide on their next job and an over simplification of reality, factors such as the roadmap, projects and team are far more important. If you care about what looks shiny on your resume and what you deserve to be paid then this might help.
I understand this could have a negative impact where it strokes some people's egos and hurts others, at the end of the day we are all in the same boat and broke regardless of which company we work for.
Tier list
Australian company tier list by TC, reputation and liquidity of TC. Numbers are the average starting TC for 3 yoe (junior - mid level) from levels. Some will be misleading due to lack of data.
Tier -1
- Inheritance
Tier 0
- Google | 215k
- Apple | 300k
- Databricks
- Optiver | 332K
Tier 1
- Atlassian | 220K
- IMC | 300k
- Canva | 200k
- Andruil | 315k
- AWS | 226K
Tier 2
- Rokt | 250k
- Safety Culture | 200k
- The Trade Desk | 220k
- Microsoft | 170K
- Block | 210K
- Tiktok | 166k
- MongoDB | 200k
Tier 3
- Easygo | 170k
- Qantas | 200k
- eBay | 170k
- Dovetail
- Susquehanna | 200k
Tier 4
- Xero | 111K
- Bupa
- WooliesX | 150k
- Freelancer.com | 120k
- REA Group | 140k
- Macquarie Group | 140k
- Commonwealth Bank | 130k
Tier 5
- Most startups
- Consulting
- Servian | 100k
- Telstra | 100k
- Accenture | 80k
How did I come up with this
Mainly based on personal conversations I have had with others where they describe their experience working in a given company and why they left. Also asked my peers for feedback on the list as well so its not completely biased. Reputation is also something difficult to measure, e.g. AWS is a leader in software development (most companies use their SDKs and compute) but they are infamous for their PIP.
Other factors to consider
As mentioned in my disclaimer there are far more important aspects than this tier list that are not covered which depend on the individual. Some people like remote work, other people don't, some people like a competitive culture some don't. But there are certain attributes that I think most of us want
- Good compensation
- Smart co-workers
- Creating industry-leading software
- Impactful work and I would wager the probability of that is greater at the top end of the list verse the bottom end.
Patterns in compensation
Big tech tends to pay junior and mid levels less and pay senior+ more with more variance across companies. Trading firms pay junior and mid levels more but senior roles are the same compared to big tech. It is also important to consider open roles, there are far more in Australian headquartered companies like Atlassian and Canva than international companies like Databricks and Apple.
Conclusion
You should expect 200k TC for your next job to be inline with leading companies in Australia. Startups can be fun but usually don't pay much because they don't make money and run by inexperienced founders. Consultancy is another rough industry with barely any money there, long hours and poor technology. Also most companies reward you the longer you stay e.g. +20k each year, so after 5 years there won't be a company in Aus that will want to match.