Looking for a tech startup job in SA? Here’s all you need to know today

The tech scene in South Africa is a hot spot for opportunities. Don’t believe me? That’s okay because the kind folks over at jobs platform Adzuna have sent Ventureburn their latest report, this one on job specifics in technology startups in South Africa — so you can believe them. The report looks at current vacancies, the skills in demand, the locations of the startups, and the industry the product or service is in, to determine an overall view of the startup job climate in South Africa.

The research was conducted in November 2013, and analysed over 65 000 jobs on the Adzuna database, and studied the hiring behaviour of over 200 companies across SA. From that data the top 40 startups were determined and extracted for deeper analysis.

Here’s the overview: startups across South Africa are currently recruiting over 451 open positions, which is an increase of 28% in the last six months. Cape Town has been named the top hiring city in the country, with over 50% of the country’s startup jobs based there. Johannesburg comes in second with 34%, and Pretoria is a distant third with just over 5% of all startup roles.

Top industries and products: ecommerce has 23% of the jobs, followed by marketing (20%) and financial technology at 17%. Education and social cap off the top five with 8% a piece.

The most in-demand skill: drum roll please, 40% of vacancies are looking for developers — web developers and software engineers respectively. Operations roles (account management, customer support & others) account for 23% of the jobs, while designers (14%), marketing (13%) and sales (10%) round off the rest of vacancies.

Salary or equity: Startups often pay less than corporates, so by way of compensation they often offer equity packages — around one-third of developer jobs surveyed offered some kind of equity deal.

In terms of the top hiring companies, Zando is the hottest startup on Adzuna’s list, with 15 vacancies open, Pricecheck comes in second with 11 positions available, followed by Cerebra with ten openings.

Here’s a fun stat: the people placing jobs have had to become more creative, and specific in their job advert language, perhaps to exude that fun, quirky startup culture, or just to find the right kind of candidates? Whatever the reasons might be, 13 companies are looking for ‘Wizards’, four need to hire a ‘Legend’, and 84 are desperately looking for a technology ‘Guru’. If that doesn’t sound like you, then perhaps you should apply to one of the 10 jobs seeking ‘Ninjas’, one of the five looking for ‘Rockstars’ or maybe you’re one of the two desired ‘Super Heroes’.

Gabriel Puliatti, Country Manager South Africa at Adzuna has this to say about the findings:

“These new figures clearly show that, while still in its infancy, the South African tech startup ecosystem is maturing and creating more jobs, with well-funded and profitable companies emerging, with a need for top talent and the financial clout to take on big tech companies. It will be great to see the improvement and surge in vitality in the job market as grassroot startup businesses keep growing and hiring more South Africans.”