Salary Range for Experienced Programmer in Malaysia

5000 RM

Thanks for your information.

I was offered RM 4000 from an IT company, could I say it's too small for me? They said RM 4000 is already belong to malaysian standard.

I also would like to know how much the average monthly living expense in malaysia (or specifically in petaling jaya, selangor), assumed I will live in a place very near to the office so no need for transportation.

hi johmi, this question has been asked several times on this blog. check out various threads. i have made some posts too about monthly expenses. simple answer is dont go below 8k. if they can get a local to do a job, then why they looking at expats?

Hi carlyle1979,

Thanks for your input. So for a single expats living here, RM 7000 is the minimum, right?

I heard not many malaysian interested to become a programmer, probably that's why they like to hire expats.

8000 is the minimum. There is a shortage of programmers here and companies do not want to pay high salaries for western expats, I would assume. That's why the influx of more cost-friendly Indian expats. Read between the lines ;-) Good luck!

Well, I'm indonesian actually. I saw in other threads, it seems most of expats in malaysia for IT roles are indians. Probably because their english is better than us.

After I saw some threads about cost living in malaysia, it seems RM 2000 is the minimum number of the monthly expense. If I got RM 5000 salary, do you think it's enough for a single living person like me?

Who told you Indians are better than Indonesians in english?? that's totally absurd.. Its all about how you negotiate..

My opinion it all depends on the skill and capability of the particular person,in this case programming skill.Salary depends on skill possessed so i dont think it is easy to judge how much salary a programmer should get.

For example,average skilled fresh graduate programmer will not get salary more than 3k while some other fresh grad get much more because more skillful.So the best way  is to apply for the job,and go for interview,test and so on to get to know how much the companies could offer the salary.

Crikey 5000 RM = 1000 pounds. I remember year 2000 when web testers got 6,000 pounds PER DAY. Programmers got more.

I hired IT staff in Malaysia and no one would come to Malaysia for <30k a month. How low can salaries go? Local programmers back then were cheap 2k max but quality very low.

Globalisation has destroyed many jobs!

hi johmi, it has nothing to do with english. i could bet that ur english is good enough to get the job done :-) but 4k is a really low package in my opinion. people with 6-8 years of experience get bout 8k. tough to give u advice here. there r locals living on 4k i hear, but youll have to count every penny or ringgit.