How much do IT specialists earn in California: immigrants talked about a career in the USA

Does it make sense for a tester to move to the USA and build a career there? Is there a demand for QA? Does anyone else need manual testers? What salary can you expect? Edition DOU collected the stories of three Ukrainian testers in the US to find answers.

Photo: Shutterstock

Natalia Bondarenko, Software QA Engineer at YouTube

I studied at the National University of Water Management and Environmental Management in Rivne. Specialty: geographic information systems and technologies. After university, I tried to work in my specialty at the Visicom company in Kyiv. I didn’t like it, so I went to get an economics education and worked in the tax police in Rivne for almost 6 years. Subsequently, I realized that this type of employment does not bring anything useful into my life. I decided to radically change everything and move to the USA, to Silicon Valley. It was 2016. I had a visa for a long time because I flew here several times on vacation - traveling, visiting friends.

You say, is it possible to just pick up and go to the USA? Can. All frames are only in the head. I know a lot of stories of people who came to America with three hundred dollars in their pockets, got on their feet and built successful careers. My story is no exception. I chose San Francisco because I had friends there with whom I could stay for the first time. Next, search for housing, study, work. It was not easy at all, I even returned to Ukraine for some time. Now I understand: emigrating to the USA was the best decision of my life.

In California, it was logical to try yourself in IT. Friends advised me to start with Portnov Computer School. This is an educational institution founded more than 20 years ago by emigrants from the post-Soviet space. It trains specialists in manual and automated testing. Tuition lasts 4-6 months and costs about $ 5000 for the entire course. The school then sends students to practice, helps write a resume, and prepares for interviews. Within a month after graduating from high school and interning, I found my first job.

The employment process here occurs in several stages. First, you post your resume on all possible job search sites. In addition, every day I sent my resume with a cover letter to at least 10 companies. About three out of 10 companies called me back and scheduled a telephone interview with a recruiter. The next stage is a video interview with the manager. Next is the actual interview with all team members in the office. This interview typically lasts four to six hours and includes lunch with the team and a variety of different tasks. You are assessed not only as a specialist, but also as a person. As a result, with one company out of 10 to which I submitted my resume, I reached the final interview. This is all a huge stress. Therefore, it is important to send your resume again and again every day and continue to study, otherwise you may become disappointed in your abilities and give up. This lasted a month, then I received an offer from one company.

Silicon Valley doesn't need content viewers

The smartest developers in the world are gathered in Silicon Valley. Mostly they come on work visas at the invitation of companies. QA engineers are not given work visas, because usually the profession of QA Engineer does not meet the requirements of the migration service for the provision of an H1B visa. This profession does not require higher education in the field of information technology, and therefore is not considered special. There are, of course, exceptions. But I have never met a QA Engineer who came here on an H1B visa.

There is a demand for testers here, but no one runs down the street and catches them. Good companies are looking for experienced professionals. Many people, having heard enough of successful stories, come to schools that teach testing and just wait for the manna from heaven to fall on their heads. But it doesn't work that way. Companies in Silicon Valley don't need content viewers. They will outsource easy work in Indit or post-Soviet countries, because it is much cheaper.

The work of a QA engineer is not only testing the final product, but also interacting with the entire team at all stages: from understanding client requirements, monitoring the development process to testing the finished product. First of all, of course, the specialist must be technically savvy, well acquainted with QA and SDLC methodologies, be able to work with Linux / Unix, databases, CSS, HTML, JavaScript, have at least a basic understanding of networks, be able to read logs and look for the root of the problem . It is also very important to be sociable, active, understand the product and the market as a whole, be flexible and ready for constant changes.

Considering the number of schools that teach Quality Assurance in Silicon Valley and the United States as a whole, you understand that there is a demand. It all depends on the desire to learn and the skills acquired. For example, Apple, twice a year before major releases, recruits a huge number of testers on short contracts of two to three months to test new products. I know people who live from contract to contract and feel great. Conclusion: if a person has the necessary skills, constantly learns, improves, then he will find a job without any problems. For example, my Google employment process lasted five days. The recruiter found my resume on Indeed, scheduling all the interviews very quickly, and on the fifth day, I got an offer.

No confrontation between automated and manual testing

Each area has its own niche. Companies are driven primarily by business interests. Where automation is more cost effective, automation is used. But it is often very expensive and therefore not profitable in the long term. There may be various reasons for this. For example, the product changes frequently or the implementation of automation is difficult. Therefore, there will always be demand for manual QA.

In Silicon Valley, for example, after-school QA internships pay an average of $15-25 per hour. Junior Manual QA earns $30-40 per hour. Senior Manual QA has over $100k per year. The highest salary that one of my familiar manual testers receives is $75 per hour, which is approximately $150 thousand per year. This person has 5 years of experience and works for a California startup. But this is rare. This is basically the salary of an experienced Automation QA. In other states, QA salaries are on average 20-25% lower. Of course, taxes still need to be paid from these amounts, 20-30% of income.

Let me note that the average income of an ordinary American is about $50 thousand dollars a year. That is, even working as a Manual QA, a person receives a salary that significantly exceeds the average income in the United States. In addition to the actual salary, companies also provide employees with a package of bonuses, for example, health insurance, pension programs, free food, money for training, discounts to fitness clubs, tickets, and the like.

QA gives you endless possibilities

In general, you need to understand where your soul lies and move in that direction. You can become a QA manager if you have leadership skills, or study some programming language and choose Automation. If you prefer to manage the process, become a project manager. If you communicate with customers and make decisions about products - a product manager. The QA profession is perhaps the easiest way into the world of IT, which provides endless opportunities.

Until recently, the US economy was growing, so, of course, more positions appeared. Wages also rose gradually. But in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the situation has changed. After four weeks of the pandemic in the United States, there are 20 million more unemployed in the American labor market. This is the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression. So far, this has not greatly influenced IT, but it must be understood that IT companies serve different types of business, and this will ultimately affect the tech industry as well.

For those looking to better understand QA, there are many YouTube videos about training, job search, demand for testers. At one time, these videos helped me decide where to go. There are even courses of lectures. For example, SiliconValleyVoice, Portnovschool, Alexander Hvastovich, Dmitry Shyshkin, JobEasy. To improve my skills, I am currently using online courses on Udemy, Coursera, Codeacademy.

On the subject: 'Work, work, work, die': a programmer from Ukraine talked about moving to Silicon Valley and working at Netflix

Yuri Sitar, Principal QA Engineer at Xevo

At one time, I worked as a system administrator at the Lvov Inspectorate of the State Technical Supervision Authority of Ukraine. Work, as they say, don’t hit someone when you’re down – set up the Internet and play Counter-Strike all day. By chance, I learned about the profession of a tester: you “break” software, and you also get paid for it. For me it was a winning story. Subsequently, I saw a vacancy at SoftServe: I went and took it. And two years later I was attracted to GlobalLogic. I worked there for about 10 years - half of that time in the company's US office in Texas. Now I'm 35 years old. In total, I have 15 years of experience in IT. I currently live in Seattle, Washington.

I never planned to move to the USA, but then GlobalLogic started a relocation program. I had no children, no family, nothing really kept me, but in my heart there was a love of travel. I thought: why not? Sold the car, sorted things out. I was sent to Kansas on an L-1 visa. According to the rules of this visa, you are not allowed to work for any other company in the United States. Probably, often at such jobs, employees are not given a salary increase, knowing that they will not run away anyway. But this is not my story. In total in the USA I worked in Kansas, Texas and now in Washington.

Conditions vary greatly depending on the state in which you live. The more companies there are, the higher the demand. However, when demand appears (for example, a new company is actively recruiting people), we immediately see a large supply on the market in the form of cheap, unskilled labor. According to my observations, then supply very quickly begins to exceed demand. This was the case recently in California, but this ratio is changing - it all depends on the market.

Manual testing is dying, and automators are not needed everywhere

They say that manual testing is dying - and it is. It's a shame when they say that this is not so. The world is automating. It's easier, cheaper and faster. And this is a logical step in the evolution of software testing. Unlike Ukraine, in the USA this is already quite critical. It is also a myth, in my opinion, that the world only needs automation specialists. This is not entirely true. I've noticed that in recent years in the US there hasn't been much search for QA Automation on Glassdoor or LinkedIn. They are looking for SDET - Software Developer Engineer in Test, that is, developers who can test. SDETs have the same salary as developers.

In our company, most of the specialists previously worked at Microsoft and Amazon. From their experience, they say that in global companies, a developer has long been obliged to test his own code and give it to testers for final user testing. Also in my company. When I worked in Ukraine, developers gave out builds that might not even start. For this in the United States they are fired immediately, it is considered irresponsible behavior.

The difference between the USA and Ukraine is that in the USA they hire people for their practical experience and skills. That is, specific examples of projects are needed. In Ukraine, in my opinion, they are for theory. Got some training, completed several certifications - that's it, you're cool.

To know what to teach, you need to understand what happened 10 years ago

Mobile testing is a popular direction. DevOps and people with experience in cloud technologies are highly valued. Nowadays everything in IT is going to the cloud, especially after the coronavirus pandemic. To understand what will be trending, you need to look at what happened 10 years ago and what is trending now. For example, we had telephones and we only used them to make calls. Now the phone means everything - from banking to photography. Or a car. Until recently, it was just a means of transportation, but with the release of Tesla, everyone realized that a car could be intelligent. If earlier everyone wanted a Ferrari with a w12 engine, now they want a car with autopilot. Because while she's driving, the person can be watching Netflix, playing games, or holding a Zoom conference. This way, users have a vision of what they want in the future.

In my opinion, the markets of the future are Automotive, Entertainment, Cloud Services, Data Science and AI. This is something without which it is impossible to imagine the world. Therefore, testers need to rely on learning programming languages ​​such as C++, Java, C#, Python.

How to achieve your goal? For example, you like DevOps, start learning AWS, become an Amazon Cloud specialist. You don’t just need to take an online course, but do something in practice. Only when you try to solve a problem does knowledge remain forever. The main thing is to choose your direction and move in it. I know a person who made accessories, bought a Raspberry Pi on Amazon, did something with it, and two years later he got a job at Samsung. This is the result. You can always just make money. But to grow, you need to look for opportunities.

Salaries depend on the state, this applies not only to IT. For QA, the least is $50 per year. In California, the average QA salary is $000 per year.

If you lasted here for a year, that's good.

When I moved to the United States, the most difficult period of my life began. People think that every day you hang out in cafes, swim on the beaches of California. In fact, everything is different: you sit and work day and night. This is yet another fundamental difference between the United States and Ukraine. In Ukraine, it happens like this: I quickly finished my work, went with a girl in the center to sit somewhere. And so every day. Here in the US, the working day is from 8 to 17, but this is for McDonald's workers and the service industry in general. Testers and everyone else who wants to achieve something and have jobs in good companies, in fact, work irregularly.

Moreover, due to the influx of cheap labor from India and China, the labor market here is very competitive and it is not so easy to find a job right away. You must have good experience and bring additional value to the company. Messages have been arriving in the mail since 5 am. When you go on vacation, you take your laptop with you, it’s not even discussed. I remember my wife and I were on vacation in Vegas. 8 am, I tell my wife and children to run to the pool, and I promise to come up soon after a small meeting. I was free at lunchtime. And my entire vacation went like this. Considering the experience of your friends, if you lasted here for a year, that’s good. One couple said that they had no friends here and missed their family. Others didn't like the work they were doing. There are many reasons to leave.

One day I came to Lviv on vacation and met with colleagues from GlobalLogic. They said: “Yura, why don’t you want to come back? You work there for ridiculous money.” And this is true. In Ukraine you don't earn as much compared to the US, but the purchasing power is obviously much greater. If in Ukraine you pay basically 5% tax, then in the USA it is about 30%. For $1000 in Lviv you can rent a good apartment. In California, a room will cost $3-4 thousand. My Lviv friend is a project manager, he has already bought two apartments and is building a third. According to his capabilities, he earns more than me, and he is right when he says that in Ukraine I can afford more. But for some reason I never wanted to go back. It's hard in the States, but there's something about it. I'm not sure I can explain. This is probably an understanding of great perspective.

I remember in Lviv my friends and I tried to create startups. Because of the bureaucracy it was easy. And here everything is done by clicking. If you want to be an entrepreneur, you signed two pieces of paper, if you want to open a store, here’s your license online. This opportunity is captivating.

On the subject: How to create a successful startup and move to Silicon Valley: tips from an investor

Bogdan Vovk, Senior QA Analyst at MentorMate

I have been working in the field of software quality assurance for over 5 years. He lived in the USA for 4 years. It all started in 2014. I was 22, and I studied at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute at the Faculty of Electronics, and at the same time worked as an engineer for the maintenance of ATM and other banking software products. I decided to try myself in testing on the recommendation of a classmate who at that time got a job as an intern at Cogniance. Since then I have been working in this field.

I had no plans to move to the USA. But one day my wife won a green card. And since it affects the whole family, this is how my American story began. I went there primarily for life, not because of my career. By that time, I was still working remotely in one of the grocery companies in Ukraine. The job search process in the United States took 6 months. I was looking for it myself. These were regular job sites like Monster. com. I saw few reviews there, and employers very rarely wrote. Therefore, I switched to LinkedIn, it works much better in this regard.

Job should be sought through recruiting agencies

In my opinion, this is the most optimal way. You communicate with a professional who can represent you to the company in the best possible way. In addition, agencies have databases of vacancies, and therefore they more accurately select what you need. I worked with Talener Technology Staffing and private recruiters. How does the process work? You come to them, then there’s an introductory interview. There they test your knowledge, what you expect, and so on. That’s why they offer vacancies and, after choosing them, connect you with the company. It is free for applicants. If you are eventually hired, the employer pays a commission to the recruiters.

I worked as a tester for a startup (in the field of restaurant optimization). I was not a co-founder, but I had a stake. We sold the startup a year and a half ago. After that, I decided to take a break from my career to understand what I want. Therefore, the next year he traveled the world. A few months ago I returned to Ukraine and work remotely with MentorMate, which develops software. Main offices in Bulgaria, partly in the States.

In the United States, a year before leaving, I also taught QA courses. It all started like this: one day I stumbled upon courses for migrant engineers. It was a retraining program for Ukrainian, Polish QA or other countries for the American market. This is how the courses positioned themselves, although the specifics of teaching or materials did not differ in any way from how it happens in other courses. But only migrants could get on these. The courses were at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York State. By the way, state ones. There are many such programs throughout the country.

I thought it would be great to share my experience with others and help them adapt. At first I wanted to volunteer as a teaching assistant. They took me. Subsequently, one of the teachers I knew asked if I would like to try myself as a mentor, but in private courses, that is, from the company. I agreed. We had two different classes. The first is manual testing. There I taught the basics, which partly concerned entry into automation: what it is and where you can develop. The second class is automation using the Selenium WebDriver + Java technical stack, which is popular in the market.

The main mistake is the wrong choice of profession

The main mistake that the students of the courses made was not knowledge or skills, but banal, wrong choice of profession. Because of the hype of a low threshold for entering IT, people overestimate their capabilities. In my experience, a person may or may not work in IT. It seems obvious. After communication, learning the basics of testing, you can immediately tell what will come of it.

The main character trait needed to work in this field is curiosity. Many of the course participants thought that they would quickly complete this training and immediately go to work for big money. But the reality is not quite like that. You need to constantly develop and be interested in what you do.

Salary in the USA is a very individual thing that depends more on the person looking for a job, his knowledge and skills, than on the company. The salary ceiling in manual testing is about $95, Junior Automation QA receives from $000-90 thousand to $110-200 thousand, for example, at Google.

I don't think testers have little prospects. If we take Google, Facebook as an example, the most paid position in the software development field is SDET.

How to develop in your profession if you are already in IT? A tester is a cross-functional role. A good test engineer should know the entire product at the level of a business analyst, programmer, and in some cases can even write code and take responsibility for the entire process. Therefore, there is an option to move into business analytics, development, or a combination. Or develop in QA in the future and go into management, become a team lead or QA lead. There are many ways.

To go or not to go to the USA? One thing I have learned for sure: if you cannot find yourself, it will be difficult in any country. There is no need to look for answers in external factors. If you wish, you can develop in any market.

Read also on ForumDaily:

First place in the AppStore: how Ukrainians created an application that Ilon Musk uses

The 5 biggest and most costly tech startup failures

California raised $ 140 for children doing their homework in the parking lot due to free WiFi

'IPhone owners should worry': Pavel Durov filed a complaint against Apple

Do you want more important and interesting news about life in the USA and immigration to America? — support us donate! Also subscribe to our page Facebook. Select the “Priority in display” option and read us first. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our РєР ° РЅР ° Р »РІ Telegram  and Instagram- there is a lot of interesting things there. And join thousands of readers ForumDaily New York — there you will find a lot of interesting and positive information about life in the metropolis.