The starting salary for developers is 60 million won… Tears in IT startup’war of money’

View larger-“These days, when developers ask for an interview, I get scared. As big companies raise their salaries one after another, interviews are continuing.” (Han Startup CEO)

In the game and information technology (IT) industry’s’salary increase battle’ to preoccupy developers, the manpower shortage of start-ups and small and medium-sized IT companies is increasing. With the opening of the era of 60 million won for new developers, small and medium-sized companies and startups that are being pushed back in the’war of money’ are optimistic that they will be stolen from existing developers rather than securing talent. Experts agree that the’A-class developer training system’ should be prepared as soon as possible.

According to the IT industry on the 28th, the real estate brokerage platform company’Jikbang’ recently raised the annual salaries of employees in the development group by 20 million won. For the recruitment of new developers, he placed an exceptional condition of 60 million won per initial salary. Krafton, the developer of the famous game’Battleground’, recently raised an annual salary of 20 million won for the developer and guaranteed 60 million won for the initial salary for the developer. Coupang and the People of Delivery are fiercely offering a starting salary of 60 million won for developers, and the war to attract talent is heating up.

On the other hand, small and medium-sized IT companies and start-ups are considering outflow of talent. It is difficult to find a’A-class developer’, which is already directly connected to the company’s competitiveness, because the subtraction of existing personnel is becoming a reality. In fact, in a recent live commerce-related startup, several video-related developers have moved to large e-commerce companies at once. This large e-commerce company recently started a live sales broadcast and scouted a large number of IT industry developers. The narrower the pool of experts such as vision and voice recognition and big data is, the more likely it is to seek out A-class developers as’picking the stars in the sky’, so the more likely they are to take out career jobs. A CEO of a startup who has been in the field of big data for five years said, “Developers with practical experience in majors are already high in ransom and difficult to hire. They dictate the level of the program, and there are many cases in which the development was stopped because the talents who had barely raised a job left during the project.” The biggest cause of the startup labor shortage is that the supply of developers is small, but the demand is exploding. “There are so many areas for developers to go to,” said one IT industry executive. They are taking the advantage of their strength in the salary negotiations, so an increase in salary is inevitable.”

In order to secure high-quality human resources to small and medium-sized IT companies and start-ups, there is a strong voice that the developer training system must be improved. Regulations that prevented the free increase of the number of departments in universities in the metropolitan area are holding back. The current system, which relies on university’s theoretical education, is also considered an improvement target. SNU AI researcher Jang Byung-tak said, “The number of human resources produced by the department of computer engineering at Seoul National University has remained at 55 for more than 10 years. I said.

Some of the lesser companies are directly working to resolve the manpower shortage. The Grace Brothers, a national operator of delivery, have been running the’Elegant Tech Course’, which fosters developers since 2019. Kakao Chairman Kim Beom-soo recently announced that he will use donations to create an’artificial intelligence (AI) campus’ that fosters developers.

Some argue that the environment needs to be improved to attract global talent. US and Chinese companies are attracting developers with exceptional treatment. On the other hand, in Korea, strict visa conditions are holding back.

Talents in the information and communication technology (ICT) field are required to obtain a specific activity (E7) work visa, but the government’s requirements for attracting outstanding talents are different from reality, such as one year or more of professional work experience at one of the world’s top 500 companies, and a degree holder in the world’s 200 top universities There is an opinion.

Reporter Kim Seong-mo [email protected]·Shin Dong-jin