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cool companies in melbourne?
Hi,
anyone here from melbourne, AU?
A family member is marrying an australian guy and I'd like to move there for a year to visit and escape the gloom of Boston.
Are there any "cool" companies there who might be up for hiring a contractor? I can do anything to some degree and am looking for some personal tips on what companies a melbourne person would want to work for, rather than just doing a melbourne search on monster (although i'll probably be doing that, also).
not so worried about high pay, mostly looking for a fun place to work.
globetrotter
Friday, November 14, 2003
have a quick search of http://it.seek.com.au/ to locate some IT jobs in Melbourne
Matthew Lock
Friday, November 14, 2003
SitePoint ( http://www.sitepoint.com ) is based in Melbourne.
David
Friday, November 14, 2003
i think the guys who created Final Builder are also down under.
Prakash S
Friday, November 14, 2003
The IT scene is dead in Melbourne unless you have high-level, enterprise sort of experience (e.g. SAP, JD Edwards, etc. bleah).
Things are up a little right now but it will be dying again for the Christmas/New Year break. There are a few contracts around but the money is hopeless and the work about the same.
Sorry to rain on your parade but I wouldn't recommend anyone come here *expecting* to find a job. By all means, come over to have a good time and if you find a job, consider that a plus.
Taka
Friday, November 14, 2003
No I am in Seattle.
yoyomama
Friday, November 14, 2003
globetrotter, try McDonalds. Contracting is dead. IT is dead. Uni departments are sacking CS lecturers. Telstra's been sacking people for some time.
Friday, November 14, 2003
ThoughtWork's Australian base is in Melbourne.
My understand is that the IT labour market in Sydney is much larger than that in Melbourne. When I left Sydney in August this year I definitely noticed that the job market there was picking up after a lull beginning in late 2000.
Another point of comparison in the Melbourne vs. Sydney debate is that Melbourne is generally regarded to be a more laid-back friendly place than Sydney - many Sydneysiders say this themselves - but Sydney is a very beautiful (in more ways than one) city with a certain buzz to it.
My experience was that the best site for IT jobs in Australia (at least Sydney) is JobNet - http://www.jobnet.com.au/ - pretty much every agency uses JobNet especially since Monster withdrew from the Australian market.
Walter Rumsby
Saturday, November 15, 2003
thanks folks. i might just see how long i can survive doing nothing before having to get another job. :) my sis' fiance has a house on the beach about 30min out from melbourne, so maybe i can just get my surfing skills down.
globetrotter
Saturday, November 15, 2003
Don't assume that because Melbourne is in Australia, it must have good weather. It doesn't.
For some weird reason non-Aussies seem to think that the climate over the entire country is the same (always sunny, etc.). In fact it ranges from tropical rainforest to snowfields.
Australia is only slighty smaller than the USA; but nobody thinks that the weather in Boston is the same as in Florida!
Ask away if you want more info.
Spider
Saturday, November 15, 2003
Perhaps by Australian standards, Melbourne doesn't have good weather. However, I can assure you that the weather is better than Boston's.
aussie
Saturday, November 15, 2003
There ain't no surfin' here neither :-)
You have to go out of town for that.
Taka
Saturday, November 15, 2003
You do realize that to work legally you'll need a working visa don't you? And that to get one you'll first have to find an employer willing to sponsor you? And that you'll almost certainly need a lawyer?
Anonymous Coward
Saturday, November 15, 2003
Check to see if American's qualify for a Working Holiday, a lot of Brits and Japanese are in Australia on those visas.
Matthew Lock
Saturday, November 15, 2003
Find some telecommuting work, and work anywhere. I've heard that it's as easy to find as it sounds. :)
Arron Bates
Sunday, November 16, 2003
> Check to see if American's qualify for a Working Holiday, a lot of Brits and Japanese are in Australia on those visas.
Where are they working and what are their names?
Australian Immigration Department
Sunday, November 16, 2003
Melbourne weather is usually described as having all four seasons in one day.
While filming 'On the beach', Ava Gardner said Melbourne was the perfect place for it. Locals were unimpressed.
(for the uninitiated, it's a novel by Neville Shute. WWIII has just happened, and the radioactive fallout will arrive in about 3 hours. A rather bleak outlook all round!)
Jerry Seinfeld also described it as the arse end of the world. Again, the locals were unimpressed.
Despite that, it's not a bad place. Except for unemployed IT workers, of course.
AJS
Sunday, November 16, 2003
I considered the 'work in software in Australia' for a bit a while ago, though never really seriously.
Americans don't qualify for working holiday visas. There are 14 countries which do, including Canada-- see here:
http://www.immi.gov.au/facts/49whm.htm
mb
Sunday, November 16, 2003
About two years ago, the Australian government and the US government were negotiating the terms of a possible working holiday visa agreement. Apparently nothing came of it though.
The reason Americans are not eligable for a working holiday visa in Australia is because there is no equivilent, reciprocal scheme for Aussies in the US. There is a visa that allows students from Australia (and other nations) to work in the US during vacations, but it is an extremely limited scheme with very strict conditions, unlike Australian/Canadian/British type working holiday visas.
I understand temporary visas (for workers) are one of the many items on the agenda for the free trade agreement between Australia and the US. Whether anything comes of this remains to be seen, but it's something you might want to keep an eye on.
burninator
Sunday, November 16, 2003
Working Holiday visas are basically for members of the British Commonwealth countries (and possibly a few other places). Perhaps if you have some Commonwealth lineage you might qualify.
I have a couple of friends from Northern California living in Sydney, one via marriage to a New Zealander (New Zealand and Australia are roughly speaking a common market and travel, eligibility to work in either country is fairly free with some conditions) and one via a student visa.
Walter Rumsby
Sunday, November 16, 2003
I've been in Melbourne this year and I spent most of the last decade in Boston.
Melbourne is a really nice city. It has much better weather than Boston, more and better streetlife, really nice parks, tons of events - Australian Open tennis, Formula One, Comedy Festival - something is always on. And, people are actually friendly, upbeat, and easygoing. The weather is indeed, variable. Mid-winter is about like Boston in March or April, but not quite so drizzly; I got by with what I consider a light coat. It was actually fun to see people come in to work when it's in the low-40s and complain about the cold. They have no idea what cold is around here.
The software scene is a bit grim. Oct-Nov and Mar-Apr are hiring seasons. We just saw a fair amount of staff leave recently, but they had been looking for a long time. Most staff are now looking to make it through the holidays and pick things up again in March. (I do not work at a pleasant and well-run company - people come here reluctantly and leave as soon as they can.)
I've been on a contract with a US firm, which has taken care of Visa issues. From what I understand it's about AUD 20,000 plus legal fees to get a work visa, but I don't know for sure. If you have any TIBCO or WebMethods experience, drop me an e-mail and I might be able to help you out. (Don't worry, it would not be at this particular client.)
I'm back in the US next month, and will always have very fond memories of my time here in Melbourne. If you can't line anything up from the US, just come down, look around and see what happens.
Jim S.
Sunday, November 16, 2003
"It was actually fun to see people come in to work when it's in the low-40s"
The low 40s is bloody hot mate. ;)
Seriously though, the IT scene in Australia in general is crap. Real crap. Pretty much dead at the moment, and what jobs are available are ones that aren't stuff I'd want to take.
One place I interviewed with in Melbourne said they got about a thousand resumes a month and hired about 2 people a month. That doesn't sound like a healthy industry to me.
Stay in the US if you want to work. As bleak as people say it is over there, it's got to be more promising than over here.
Sum Dum Gai
Sunday, November 16, 2003
When he talks about the low-40's, he's probably talking Fahrenheit. I can't see anyone in Australia describing the low 40's (Celsius) as cold.
It's true about IT jobs in Australia. Australia has never really had a strong IT industry, and we certainly don't now. Good work, John Howard.
echidna
Sunday, November 16, 2003
>> When he talks about the low-40's, he's probably talking Fahrenheit. I can't see anyone in Australia describing the low 40's (Celsius) as cold.
Nope, sarcasm isn't lost on you at all is it ?
Damian
Sunday, November 16, 2003
I run a software company in Melbourne and yes its fair to say IT scene is not so good. The market is pretty small down here.
Mind you, we have been advertising for programmers for the last few weeks and have had a very poor response. This is a worsening trend normal among the undergrad/recently grad audience we advertise to - there is a huge number of very average CS, IS and Eng students out there. Other companies can hire them, but we aren't interested.
Anyhow if you are looking for work also look around at local user groups. I know that the Delphi user group in Australia has a mailing list for Delphi jobs, and I'm sure there are heaps of other groups out there with similar boards/lists.
Oh, and '30 mins from the beach' probably means a beach on the bay. Nice, but not exactly a surfing beach with waves about 1-2 feet :-)
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