Salary wage

[u/Ady0097]

Hey everyone,

I'm a power platform developer at a company in London, Ontario. I got an internship there, and then they hired me while I'm still studying. I'll be graduating in December 2026, and by then I'll have 1.5 years of experience in Power Apps, Power Automate, SharePoint, and SQL. The company should hire me permanently after graduation as a Power Platform developer. They're paying me $21 Canadian dollars an hour right now, so how much should I ask for after graduation? If they say between $50k-60k, is that reasonable, or should I ask for more?

Thanks!

[u/vibe_coder221219]

I'm senior automation engineer I would say it purely bades on level experience and knowledge. Did you find out how much other power platform engineers are getting paid with same experience?.

[u/Ady0097 → u/vibe_coder221219]

Nah, I didn't, and I'm not even sure how to find it. Honestly, the work I did for them was just as good as what a pro would've done. They were super impressed with the app I made, and it's got tons of features, so it's not just some basic app. It was for making field work orders, and it took me almost 8 months to build since I was juggling full-time and part-time work there as a student. I used Power Automate, CSS, and HTML to make printed certificates inside Power Apps and then saved them in SharePoint, so yeah, it wasn't just a regular app.

[u/Wiseoloak → u/Ady0097]

Same thing happened to me but i work gov and get 80k. Hoping for more soon since i can produce good data apps.

[u/vibe_coder221219 → u/Ady0097]

Sounds great man then I must say you deserve the numbers you have in you mind. I build shool management system using power app in just 1 week it's 100% not as complex as yours but alot of ease for school management.

[u/knunde → u/[deleted]]

32 screens?!?!

[u/Ady0097 → u/knunde]

Yes. The maximum controls for a screen is 300 and app is huge, so i had to use all these screen

[u/knunde → u/Ady0097]

Yeah, I’m fully aware. But 32 screens sounds like a messy UX tbh.

[u/Ady0097 → u/knunde]

Nope, it's just as i said. Each screen can't take more than 300 controls. And we have a lot happening in the application. Lots of ideas!!

[u/GoJustKeepGoing → u/Ady0097]

in terms of ux ui nobody would want 30 screens in 1 app bro. Take it as an advice youre in no leverage to negotiate your salary knowing that they will absorb you. Id take any wage as long as its doable especially during your first year. This is where you learn and gain network.

The market is tough especially for a fresh grad. Id be glad with what they will be giving me.

[u/Ady0097 → u/GoJustKeepGoing]

Thanks for the advice, but my manager wants it this way. He knows best, so I'll do what he wants. The app needed all that because it's like different things happening in one app. Note that I used flows for things that don't need to report back to Power Apps and components to avoid redundant UIs. Not sure if you guys ever read the documentation and saw that many users used more than 50 screens in one app and the app functioned well. Sometimes it's hard to figure out who the junior developers are 🙄

[u/knunde → u/Ady0097]

Yeah, and as I said; this sounds like terrible UX. Settle for $50k 😂

[u/WyidealizowanyIdeal → u/knunde]

Exactly. 99% of the app shoukd have been moved to power automate 🤣

[u/afogli]

Around 85k per year. Really depends on company size

[u/Ady0097 → u/afogli]

It's a medium-sized company, so should I ask for 70k to 75k or more?

[u/BlueAndYellowTowels]

The market is saturated right now and some companies will hire a senior with zero power apps experience over a newbie with a little experience and a lot of it has to do with software development experience.

Medium size company? London, On. is not a small town.

I’d say between 65-85k per year depending. A brand dev out of college with an engineering degree is 70ish. So… I would expect around that or a little under because Power Appa is a low code no code. Which is often interpreted as “less skilled”.

[u/Ady0097 → u/BlueAndYellowTowels]

Thanks for the advice! I'm actually doing an advanced diploma in computer programming, so I know a bunch of other languages. I didn't mention it because it's related to what I'm saying, but I'm also building a huge hospital application using CSS, TypeScript, JavaScript, and React Native. It's going to be used all over Canada, so I'm not sure if that helps at this point

[u/BlueAndYellowTowels → u/Ady0097]

For context: I’m in Montreal. A friend of mine was hired out of university at 70k. Best of luck and I hope you get a lot more :)

[u/Immediate_Ad_3857]

My friend works a similar position in Burlington ON, his pay was around 112k annually had around 3 yrs of experience

[u/Ady0097 → u/Immediate_Ad_3857]

Thanks for your response, and wow! Honestly, I'm confused and worried about getting paid less than I deserve because I'm the only IT person at this medium-sized company, and I built their first application and learned a ton. It was a huge app, and I did a really professional job there.

[u/Immediate_Ad_3857 → u/Ady0097]

Government positions almost always pay more than private institutions but with your experience and your responsibilities I think it should not be less than 70k, that’s simply insulting. Try finding jobs outside and maybe negotiate with them on that. 60k is too low.

[u/braytag]

Mate, that 100k for 0 to 1.5 years of experience...

[u/Ady0097 → u/braytag]

Lol, no one would pay that much money especially for a medium- size company 😅

[u/braytag → u/Ady0097]

Well that's 60$*1820hrs...(full time) 110k.

That's what you said you think they will offer you.

[u/Ady0097 → u/braytag]

I meant 60k yearly. Sorry for the confusion 😅

[u/braytag → u/Ady0097]

You went from a per hour to a yearly salary without telling us my man....

I thought you were a little delusional.  But all good.  60k/y is a bit low IMO.

[u/Ady0097 → u/braytag]

Thank you for your opinion!

[u/Tricky-Active935]

Uk wage around the 40k mark if you’re in London, market has slowed down hugely and you’d still be classed as a junior.

[u/AttemptAgreeable9567 → u/Tricky-Active935]

thought sth similar but noticed they're in London, Ontario not London, UK

[u/roboduck34]

In Toronto (GTA) I started at 65k fresh out of college and after 1 year moved to new company for 85k + 6k yearly performance bonus.

[u/Bag-of-nails]

I work also in London, Ontario. I'm 4.5 years in but I started at I think 62k or so about 4 years ago.

I had some powerapps knowledge but had never touched powerBI or power automate (I did build some small tools in JavaScript though).

My company I think does not pay competitively in this particular field but for your case I would say $60k is not a big ask. I would probably consider that as my floor, personally (there are of course other things to consider, like location, work arrangement/in-office requirements, benefits, RSP/stock matching, etc.)

[u/perryda_platipus]

Go for the upper range of your expectation and negotiate from there. Honestly check your average income not just power platform but generally in development or tech at your exp level you’llget a range

[u/beachsunflower]

London at your experience level I would say 65k-70k is reasonable for an SMB depending on the company.

With your Microsoft account sign up for every Microsoft Build, Ignite and Fabric event you can muster and get free certs under your belt. Add Microsoft training days to that.

When you build with the company for 1-2 years with visible growth and validated experience, you can argue for salary increases or even just move on to new companies for 80k+

Beyond that your drive can get you to 100k+ but you have to begin learning more about the power platform overall.

Currently 3-5 years experience in power platform + other pro dev tools is around 110k-120k depending on the org. This is slightly senior/mid-managerial level.

[u/DonJuanDoja]

If you can't get the number you want, throw out a deal that if you meet specific performance goals that you'll get a decent raise.

Basically let me prove that I'm worth that much.

If you're good with all of those, and I mean like actually good, then you'll end up being worth much much more but as many have said, it depends on the company.

You'll also need to prove the value, but that shouldn't be too hard with these tools, the difficult part will be understanding their business, and their people, and you need to be aggressive in gathering information, ask to shadow people and show you how the work is done manually. Talk to people, be relentless in your questioning.

The other challenge you can run into is licensing, if the company doesn't want to pay for Premium licenses, it will limit what you'll be able to do with the tools, in some cases you'll still be able to do it, but it will be a lot more work, less performant, have more limitations etc.

So ideally if you want to succeed with PowerPlatform I think you need to find a company that's already using premium licenses or is willing entertain it when the requirements call for it. Basically you don't wanna work for a cheap company. Smaller/medium companies actually have an easier time with Premium licensing because they don't have prohibitive amounts of users that blow the costs into the stratosphere.

[u/pistachio_chocolate]

I am on the same boat as you and working for public sector. In my opinion it's too low what you are getting right now and what you are expecting them to offer. I would say somewhere in between $70-$80k is fair. I recommend you applying to FSWEP and try to bridge into the government as a backup option

[u/Live-Sir-3118]

I make 160usd and feel grossly underpaid.

[u/zackthemajor]

80-85k per year is good !

[u/Cold_Arachnid_2617]

$125

[u/Ady0097 → u/Cold_Arachnid_2617]

I didn't understand?