The South African market for software developers
Software developers are in high demand in South Africa, yet both the job search and candidate search experience are poorly developed for the South African market. General job search portals such as CareerJunction or Careers24 fail to fit the needs of employers and job-seekers, and both these parties often turn to sites like Facebook and even Gumtree in desperation. Recruiters struggle to find and attract developers in a consistent way.
The current job search experience
Programmers must separate real software development opportunities from IT roles such as ‘technician’ or ‘business development’ on sites like Careers24. It is also not possible to easily search for jobs by technology – developers may strongly prefer to work with a certain technology stack, and these sites to not allow users to easily search for jobs using terms like ‘Python’ or ‘C#’.
Another weakness of these sites is that they do not highlight the perks of a working environment of a particular company. In many cases, the company offering a job is hidden as these adverts are listed by recruiters, who purposefully hide this information. Developers are hence unable to find information on a company as a whole, the perks they offer (something a developer in SA is probably already enjoying in their current role), and what type of technologies the company works with as a whole. A tech startup in the Cape is a very different environment to an established financial institution, and top developers want to know who they are working for.
Other than job listing sites, a developer can turn to recruitment firms. Speaking from my own personal experience of looking for software-related jobs in both the UK and SA, this can be a perplexing experience. Having worked and spoken with a range of recruiters, it is clear that many struggle to understand the technologies in the market, and who can blame them in such a fast-paced field? They are also unsure how the roles they are hiring for relate to my past experience and future goals, or just what exactly the difference between, say, Java and Javascript is.
The search for developers
Software is a part of your business, no matter the industry you operate in. South African firms are increasingly seeking out developers who can work with the latest technologies – be it Django, Python, or AWS. Finding these developers can be a challenge when so few institutions in the country train Django developers, and when only a handful of students graduate from our universities each year with Computer Science or software development-related qualifications.
Finding, entering, or building developer communities in South Africa would be a full-time job, and something that is next to impossible for non-technical folk.
The solution
Hyperion Careers , launched in early 2016, is SA’s first dedicated job search and application website for software developers. Integrated into a community of over 8500 programmers in the country, it allows developers to search for jobs by specific technology and for companies and recruiters to list jobs in a way that gets the attention of top talent.
Hyperion Development,a Google-backed SA startup, is the company behind this Careers website and since 2012 has run online services and communities that have organically drawn thousands of developers into their network. The largest of these services is an online course platform that has allowed Hyperion to become the largest trainer of Python and Django in the region. Graduates from every Computer Science department in the country and hundreds of software developers already working in industry learn the latest technologies on Hyperion’s platform.
Founded by a technical team, Hyperion has seen impressive growth in their offerings in the last year and a recent partnership with Google is sure to see their reach into developer communities continue to grow at a rapid rate.
Interested in listing a job advert or using Hyperion Careers to find your next job? Check out careers.hyperiondev.com or drop our team an email on contact@hyperiondev.com
Author: Riaz Moola
Date originally published: 16/02/16
