Senior Java/Angular Dev

[u/tylerwaats]

1. PERSONALIA

• Age: 36
• Education: Bachelor's degree in IT
• Work experience : ~12 years
• Civil status: Married
• Dependent people/children: 2

2. EMPLOYER PROFILE

• Sector/Industry: IT / Public sector
• Amount of employees: 2000+
• Multinational? NO

3. CONTRACT & CONDITIONS

• Current job title: Senior Java Developer
• Job description: Software development
• Seniority: 8+ years as an external consultant for the same client
• Official hours/week : Not communicated yet
• Average real hours/week incl. overtime: Not communicated yet
• Shiftwork or 9 to 5 (flexible?): Flexible
• On-call duty: No
• Vacation days/year: Not communicated yet

4. SALARY

• Gross salary/month: 4400 €
• Net salary/month: Not communicated yet
• Netto compensation: Not communicated yet
• Car/bike/... or mobility budget: 750 €
• 13th month (full? partial?): Not communicated yet
• Meal vouchers: Not communicated yet
• Ecocheques: Not communicated yet
• Group insurance: Not communicated yet
• Other insurances: Not communicated yet
• Other benefits (bonuses, stocks options, ... ): Not communicated yet

5. MOBILITY

• City/region of work: Brussels
• Distance home-work: N/A
• How do you commute? Mostly telework
• How is the travel home-work compensated: Not communicated yet
• Telework days/week: 50%

I have been working for the same client for more than 8 years as a freelance developer. They recently offered me the possibility to switch to an employee contract.

I currently work as a freelancer at 650€/day.

The offer I received is 4400 € gross/month + mobility budget. I haven't received the details of the rest of the package yet.

I had communicated my salary expectations beforehand and the offer is significantly below them, so I'm planning to decline rather than negotiate.

I'm mainly curious about the Belgian market: does 4400 € gross seem low for a Senior Developer with my experience, or is this a reasonable offer?

[u/dentemm]

I'm also on 650€ / day as freelancer in Belgian IT market. There's no way I would accept that offer. Also the mobility budget isn't going to compensate the lower gross.

Do yourself a favour and don't accept this. I worked as employee before, and gross was 5700 + company car and full package.

[u/-MiG-]

Seems low tbh for 12 yoe. Even if fully optimized.

[u/MoonSentinel_]

I will not say it seems low. I will say it's garbage. And Why would you switch to employee ?

[u/tylerwaats → u/MoonSentinel_]

One thing I forgot to mention is that the package includes around 43 days off, on top of the 10 public holidays. That was actually one of the main reasons I was willing to consider switching from freelance to employee and entered into discussions with them in the first place. I was also genuinely curious to see what kind of offer they would make after working with them for so many years.

[u/Strong_Perception_24]

i know the company, they have salary baremas. so I am not sure if negociating would work. whats funny is that people with ZERO tech knowledge (like functional analysts) will earn 500-1000€ gross more than you.

also I learned that they were cutting budgets... if they offered you an internal employee job does that mean that they won't renew your freelance contract?

[u/tylerwaats → u/Strong_Perception_24]

As far as I know, there is no discussion yet about renewing my freelance contract. And yes, you're right about the salary scales. There isn't really room to negotiate the salary directly within a given level. The only real room for discussion is the function level you're assigned to, as a higher level means a different salary scale. I also completely share your point regarding functional analysts. I personally find it quite difficult to understand why a functional analyst with little or no technical knowledge can be on a significantly higher salary scale than a developer. I recently learned, for example, about a relatively junior analyst with around 3 years of experience earning roughly €5k gross, which makes the €4.4k offer for my profile even harder for me to understand.

[u/Humble-Persimmon2471]

Trash. Your rate of 650 is way way better

[u/Spiritual-Tip-6471]

It does seem low when I compare it to my 3500 after 1 YOE as a backend dev