What salaries are for IT specialists (Senior QA Engineer) in Poland?

@dj1981

20-25k zloty is an excellent salary. typically mid/high level manager, white collar professionals, etc. make this type of salary. it may seem like a low amount by US/UK/etc standards but its a very good salary for PL.

I wouldn't totally agree. However, the business culture may be different. I have noticed in Poland many employers typically don't disclose the salary of a position openly like they do in the us. when you go on a job board most jobs will write the salary, salary range with doe, or simpy competitive. very rarely have I seen polish jobs say what the salary is on a job advert. typically they don't even release this info till they've received your resume and such and sometimes not even till the interview/offer stage.

IMO I'd say a salary slightly higher than the average for a similar position with a similar company in the same city. If it's 10k. I'd say my salary expectation is 12k, 14k to give you a better negotiating position. They'll counter with say 10k, then you can counter that's low I need at least 11k 12k whatever... Consider even putting it on hold - if they really want you they'll up their offer. Also, look for other places. You can say that you're in the market and interviewing in multiple places. I've done that before and it's helped me get higher salaries - even when I bluffed and said things along the lines 'I have a better offer but like this company and culture more, nonetheless the salary is important to me and I would take the position if the salary was at least xyz'

This may work for US but idk about Poland and how different the culture is for interviewing and such.. I've only had my own small biz ventures but never worked for anyone. I did interview with Google in Wroclaw and a norse shipping company in Gdansk but that was a while ago. both of which I was just feeling out to see the job market, what I could expect to make at that time, etc.

And you'd shoot yourself in the foot if it turns out they were prepared to offer 18k. Sorry, but an foreigner is going to have a very hard time figuring out the going rate for different positions in Poland. The published figures vary a lot, and a lot are out of date or clearly erroneous. If an employer wants you, they will eventually make a concrete offer. Just keep your cards close to your chest until they do.

True... but that's why it would pay to find out what the salary range is first at a similar company, city, etc.

For example, when I was researching salaries for sales managers like Naradowy Bank Polski (180k zloty), Oracle (250k), IBM (200k), and so on.. I'd walk in say well, Oracle offered 260k annual, so I would like to keep my salary close to that number - I like your company but ultimately salary is very important to me blah blah blah.

Out of the research Oracle had the highest salary so I'd chose that at my starting point + maybe 5%-10% or so to pretend that I negotiated that salary. It would be unlikely that say Adobe, the imagined company who's demanding that I first say my requirement, would have a figure 5% higher than Oracle's who seemed to be the market leader and to be certain an added 5-10%. It's unlikely they'd offer like 15%+ more than a position with a competitor,

Then again like I said - the business culture may be waaaay different in Poland. I've only actually got the interview phase with 2 companies in which case they actually told me the salary prior to me as soon as I sent in my resume to them.

Is Warsaw that cheap for a 2 bedroom? Jesus that's pretty damn cheap. Wouldn't this be more than range for like a low-end older apartment? I've seen 2k-2.5k as like the lowest range and like closer to 3k for a nice modern almost like gated community type of place for a 2 bedroom

@Dirk diggler

No. That's for a one-bedroom apartment, which is called a two-room apartment in Polish (2-pokojowe).

Figure on about 500 PLN more for a two-bedroom apartment.

@DominicB

Gotcha thanks.

Merged:

WHAT ARE THE SALARIES ARE FOR IT SPECIALISTS (SENIOR QA AUTOMATION ENGINEER) IN POLAND?

I am Going Gdansk,Polland as a Senior QA Automation Engineer with my wife and company is offering 10000 PLN/month but i asked for 14000 PLN/Month. This is software testing job with programming in java.

My wife is also a senior QA automation engineer but she does not have job offer from Poland and she is working in India.

Can she find a same profile job here inGdansk ??

And is 12000 a good salary because i know i should pay 40% taxes on this amount which will leave me a few PLNin hand.

What should i do ????

@vishrocks21

For that amount of money, it would be best if you came alone and left your wife at home to continue working there. You'll have enough to cover your living expenses, but you won't be able to save much if your wife comes along.

Also, it's very unlikely that your wife will find a job in Poland after she arrives. If she wants to work in Poland, too, then make sure she has a job BEFORE she leaves India,

@DominicB

They have settled for 12000 PLN/Month now.

What is the tax rate there for 12000?

how much i will get after tax deduction and how much i can save ?

About 8000 PLN a month. If you come alone, you could theoretically save up to 3000 PLN a month if you are frugal, and even 4000 PLN a month if you live like a monk on potatoes and cabbage in a studio apartment.

If you bring your wife, then savings are not going to be very much. Count on less than 1000 PLN a month, and possibly nothing at all if one of you has to go back to India for a funeral or something like that.

If serious saving is a priority for you, then Poland the countries in the eastern half of the EU are not good countries for you. Try the richer countries like German, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and the United Kingdom, or the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

@DominicB

I have done final discussion with company and they have offered 12,000 per month gross to my wife and 10,000 gross per month to me which is 8,000 per month NET to my wife and 7,000 per month NET to me.

Currently we both are saving 2,000 Euros in India.

Should i come to Gdasnk , Poland with these figures ????

Can i save more then 2,000 Euros in Poland ???

I also have a offer in berlin where they are offering 55,000 Euros per year in which i have no idea about the taxes but in Berlin , only i have this job offer. My wife does not.

I am very confused what to do.

Please help me out.... :(

The German offer on pure financial terms is going to work out less given cost of living in Germany. As for saving 2000 euros, thats around 8500zl per month, leaving a spend of 6500zl per month on yourselves. You could probably squeeze a saving of another 100-200 euros on top of the 2000 but it won't be much fun living on less than 5000zl/m as Gdansk isn't cheap given its seaside location.

@vishrocks21

The choice is between keeping your jobs in India with being able to save 2000 Euros a month, and between taking those jobs in Poland with being able to save the same amount of money, not more.

It all depends on what you hope to gain by taking those jobs in Poland. And how much you stand to lose by giving up your home court advantage by leaving your jobs in India. There is no immediate purely financial advantage in moving to Poland.

If you are able to save 2000 Euro a month in India, that means that you are quite wealthy by Indian standards. The quality of life you have now is enviable.

In Poland, to save 2000 Euro a month, you would have to live on 6500 PLN a month. That is reasonably comfortable, if you are careful, but it's not the high life that you probably now take for granted in India.

You are not going to get a much better savings potential unless you and your wife both get much better paying jobs in a richer country. The one job you mentioned in Germany is going to pay about 3000 Euro net, which, taking into account the cost of living, is going to work out less in terms of savings than your jobs in India or those jobs in Poland.

Personally, I would stick with your jobs in India for the moment and concentrate on building your personal networks so that you can both find good jobs in a richer country. The best jobs are advertised person to person, face to face in the real world. You find them not by dealing with HR departments or recruiters, or by relying on internet sites, but by getting in direct contact with the hiring manager. Concentrate on adding colleagues who work, or have worked, in richer countries to your network. They have the best idea about how to find work there and can tell you how to get in direct contact with hiring managers.

Good luck!

@polishinvestor

So should i go for Berlin in this case????

Can my wife search and work in Berlin on dependent visa ??

@DominicB

Thanks for this great information. I am really thankful to you.

So what would be the best offer in Berlin that i should ask for if we both are going and can my wife search job on dependent visa ?

Do you know the tax rate also in Berlin ??

@vishrocks21

He said that the job in Berlin is going to work out LESS, so no, he did not recommend you take the job in Berlin. Nor would I.

Your wife finding a job AFTER she arrives will generally be harder than her finding a job BEFORE she arrives, so going to Berlin on the assumption that your wife will find a job there is rather risky. Wait until you both have good offers BEFORE you leave your current jobs.

@DominicB

Do you know the tax rate also in Berlin ??

And if i chose Gdasnk, Poland and apply for blue card , Can i switch in other EU countries like swiss , Germany which pay more ??

And what do you mean by richer countries in EU ?

Oh, and no, your wife cannot work on a dependent visa in Germany, and it is unlikely that anyone would hire her. She would have to get her own work visa and residence permit. You would be treated as two separate unrelated people as far as working is concerned.

Like I said, wait until you BOTH have GREAT offers in a RICH country BEFORE you come.

Does anyone know about the cost of living in berlin for two people.

I finally have the offer of 60000 euros in berlin and want to know the living and food expenses for two.

Company is providing transportation for me only.

@vishrocks21

Berlin is not in Poland. This is a Polish forum. Ask on a German forum.

Hello Polishforums users...

Sorry to raise this thread from the dead, but I have a very similar question. I'm interviewing for a junior QA engineer (programming automatic tests and tools, at least the announcement doesn't mention any manual testing) position in Warsaw and don't really know what to aim for in terms of salary if it gets to that point. I have ~1yr experience in a similar position from before moving here, but it's quite old (~5 yrs) due to a temporary career change. I was applying mostly for junior developer jobs and hoping for a salary in the range of 6k-8k gross for those, but have little success with that - understandable, with the gap. QA is usually paid less than dev, there's my resume gap, and the company works in the games sector, where I've always heard that employees are worked harder and paid less compared to enterprise/banking/insurance/etc IT jobs. Is 5500-6500 gross unrealistic? I don't have any dependents or debt, but I want to start saving so I can do the whole marriage and kids thing with my girlfriend :) sooner rather than later, so salary matters here, even if it would be more interesting working in this industry than for some bank. Looking on nofluffjobs I see some mid-level QA engineer positions in Warsaw with salaries ranging wildly from ~6k-12k, but there aren't any junior positions to compare with at the moment. Am I hoping for too much here?

Thanks in advance!

Yes you are. In the world of IT, if your experience in a technology is more than two years ago, then it really doesn't count, except in rare cases. Do you have a relevant degree? Anyway, you're very much a junior as you have negligible industry experience, so 4,000 gross would be more realistic. And yes, the games sector pays the least and offers the fewest opportunities for career progression, also be prepared to work weekends when they're trying to meet a deadline - they always fall behind on projects.

I have a bachelor's in computer science (from a good school in another country, not this 3-year bachelor's thing - not to rag on those, just weird for me as a foreigner and seems to undervalue masters' as grad school when, de facto, most people will go for one). I've heard the horror stories of games industry crunch time. As far as career progression goes, well it's at least writing automatic tests and tools. Hopefully with time it could lead into higher QA positions, if not dev. A bit more googling after posting this led to this nofluffjobs.com/blog/zarobki-testerow-oprogramowania-w-2017-roku/ which puts median salary for such junior QA positions at 4700. I'll revise my hopes accordingly but also let them make the first offer and see where it goes, always better not to be the first to talk in a negotiation... Worst case scenario, it's a foot in the door and working there for a while would make my resume less of an instant-delete for IT, better than hunting for an English teaching/editing job. Well, worst worst case scenario, at least it's more interview practice. Thanks for your fast reply and frankness.

However they will ask you what your salary expectations are, they always do in Poland.


Exactly, that's the spirit :)) Try to do two years in that first job and brush up on a programming language or other skills in your own time to beef up your CV. If you want to start developing try to contribute something however small to open source. You need more on your CV than just what you did in your day job.

Do they also generally push for you to name a number first even if you try to ask them to make an offer and get things started? At least I have some idea of a starting point for negotiation now I've got this median junior QA engineer salary number.

And yeah, I've had some small programming projects for personal use and more recently some from happy clients during freelance English editing who needed some coding done, during my time away from professional IT. But I should get on doing something publicly visible/verifiable on some open source projects.

Not exactly but if the salary you request is too high they will tell you so quite directly and will also tell you the max they are prepared to go to. If they don't you can just ask them. The best thing you can do is search job sites that allow you to search within a given salary parameter. Then you'll know in advance what the max is likely to be and you can state that figure or a bit below. But you're not in a great negotiating position because of your lack of experience. One thing against you for example is lack of experience of working in teams so see if you can waffle about anything that might be a transferrable skill or could be seen to compensate for that in some way or indicate that team work wouldn't be a problem for you.

Bluntly stating the hard max would be fine with me, it's the whole song and dance negotiating bit I'm worried about, because I'm used to negotiations in an Anglo or Middle Eastern culture, not slavic, and want to avoid giving offense or shooting myself in the foot.

My previous experience was working in a QA team, and thankfully my tech-unrelated experience was also working in teams and at one point directing a team of a fair number of people. Thanks for the advice - I'm a natural at jargonese bullshit so I'm not too worried about soft skills stuff and making myself sound good in that regard. I can understand that old experience isn't too important for the tech stuff because it's always changing, and so HR types will completely ignore it because the tech guys tell them to, but at least as soft skills stuff goes it isn't like the office updated to SocialRelationships 1.73 beta after humans got patched ;P

Don't worry. Poles are very thick skinned :))