Believe it or not, thats exactly the reason I did not immediately move to Oz. I wanted to go there with a job. I interviewed with few companies, sitting in India itself. Qantas (they were ready to hire me), WestPac (they ghosted) and then my current employer. They hired me for India but I knew I could switch team in an year.
Entering Oz job market by study or directly resets your career. I wanted to avoid it.
I can fully get what you say and can imagine your struggle if you were not willing to take those entry level roles
- Core techies or Architects are not well received. Aussie companies have already outsourced most coding work to Offshore (India & the Philippines), even if there is a rare role the pay is extremely poor. The reason is there is no innovation or FAANG like organizations, most jobs are implementing and maintaining systems. There is a small startup culture but there also the rush is to offshore the coding since most owners are aware of the lack of local tech talent.
- The demand is high for generalists, people managers and business interacting functionals.
- The Largest IT employer is the Government (Federal, State - Canadian equivalent of province & Cities - Sydney, Brisbane). Federal jobs are strictly only citizens, often even dual citizens are barred, depending on the role there is a need for clearance evaluations many of which take a few years to get, these are done by the RCMP, CSIS equivalents of Australia. The Federal projects need some techies. The others state and cities take PRs but will look for loads of local Oz experience, there most coding is done offshore. The sick part is most of these government roles are for programs which run for multiple decades at a snails pace, will need copious amount of compliance records. Both of these will make restless most of us who like getting things done. Only saving grace is the governments pay is humongous at least 50% more and often twice as private, loads of vacation 20-30 days Vacation, 10 days Sick Leave, after 5 years additional week or two of long service leave etc...
- Worldwide only in Consulting firms and big4, is one made to perform song and dance in coffee culture/wine and dine etc. before recruitment. However In Australia almost every private firm does it even for Team lead roles, and bar becomes higher for mid-management and for leadership make take months to years of such courtship. My MBA has loads of such assignments to do this greasing and lip service.
It is not a bad place if you are into their way of working and have good network of folks to grant you favors. Which means you have to willing to grant favors to others also. Work hours are shorter and less intense than USA. In Canada and USA I have seen clan favoritism which is not very common in Australia.
. But still after seeing Canada, I feel Australia point reduction due to age is much better IRCC policy, can be quickly offset with relevant experience. My doom was a combination of Age, not continuing work in area of study and foolishness of trusting employer and waiting.
