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Ask HN: Why is pay so much higher in the US? (or is it?)

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Re: Ask HN: Why is pay so much higher in the US? (or is it?)

#11

Post by ochoseis »

mousetree wrote: post #4
trinovantes wrote: post #3

I think it's mostly culture. Compared to other regions, US favors innovation/risk taking and sees software developers as value creators rather than cost centers. There's also the fact that USD is the global reserve currency which makes it much easier to raise capital.

> USD is the global reserve currency which makes it much easier to raise capital. Could you explain more?

Because it's the global reserve currency it generally means:

1. There's more people around the world with USD who are interested in putting it to work.

2. The US government can easily print and borrow money denominated in USD, which leads to more USD floating around, which ends up in the hands of people from #1.

Re: Ask HN: Why is pay so much higher in the US? (or is it?)

#12

Post by gigatexal »

Mandatum wrote: post #5

Because that’s where all the money is. Seriously look at global GDP, maybe American citizens aren’t the wealthiest but the country and the businesses that run it sure as shit is.

Haha pay is higher in the US because, sure, it's the world's largest economy. Though there are more millionares being minted in China than in the US every year. Nevertheless I'd sure as shit not want to build my business in China.

I used to think this was because of relatively higher taxes in the EU than in the US but at the top end the highest wage earners are taxed rather heavily. A 500k salary is not 500k takehome.

At least for me, I find the EU (Germany in particular), is hurting for talent enough that my mediocre skills (working on skilling up) are in demand and I'm relatively well paid >80k eur/yr.

Re: Ask HN: Why is pay so much higher in the US? (or is it?)

#13

Post by phphphphp »

BeenChilling wrote: post #6

What are the best ways to get hired in the US as a software engineer from the UK? I’ll be graduating with a masters in CS from a top university in 2023.

Find a job with a US company that has a UK presence (a multinational like Google, Facebook etc.) and get promoted enough (e.g: to Engineering Manager) to be eligible for an L1 visa, then request to transfer from the UK to the US. The L1 visa process is the easiest, and has a path to citizenship.

https://www.nnuimmigration.com/l1-visa-to-green-card/

(UK salaries are competitive enough nowadays that it's not really worth it for financial reasons, given the financial risks associated with the US. If you want to go for non-financial reasons, have at it.)

Re: Ask HN: Why is pay so much higher in the US? (or is it?)

#14

Post by sixhobbits »

Compared to Europe there is more upside and downside risk in the US. You can earn more but you are more likely to be financially wiped out if you get cancer or have an accident (high medical costs). Most countries in Europe have more social support built in at every level, not just healthcare, so its unusual to go from living comfortably to being on the street. Some argue the US way is good (more downward mobility is necessary for a lot of upward mobility) but it also leads to a lot of survivorship bias. The people who fall off do not get talked about much

Re: Ask HN: Why is pay so much higher in the US? (or is it?)

#15

Post by viraptor »

Things to keep in mind in comparisons like that:

- Where in the us? SV will have absurd salaries, but also absurd cost of living.

- What do you pay for in your country? How much is your health insurance? GP visits? Family education?

- What's the environment like compared to a $random_us_location. For example do you need to own a car to survive and do you spend lots on daily driving?

- What are your benefits? I've got twenty something days off and take even more. Had a paid months of leave as a parent. This is not common in the us.

Re: Ask HN: Why is pay so much higher in the US? (or is it?)

#16

Post by gwbas1c »

It's because the areas around the US that employ software developers are expensive to live. Software developer salaries are similar to what doctors and many other middle class people make.

What pushes salaries into the higher part of middle class is demand and value: It's very hard to find good, trustworthy software engineers who can work without lots of supervision, and the overall value of the work to the company.

I tend to point out that software is an "economic force multiplier." The value of what software implements (automates) is often many multiples of what the engineer is paid; so why would a software engineer accept a low pay to work on low value work?

Re: Ask HN: Why is pay so much higher in the US? (or is it?)

#17

Post by gnz11 »

trinovantes wrote: post #3

I think it's mostly culture. Compared to other regions, US favors innovation/risk taking and sees software developers as value creators rather than cost centers. There's also the fact that USD is the global reserve currency which makes it much easier to raise capital.

Unless you are at a FAANG or similar company, programmers in the US are still seen as cost centers by c-suite people.

Re: Ask HN: Why is pay so much higher in the US? (or is it?)

#18

Post by jleyank »

The us is more of an individualistic than social country. And it’s only for certain jobs in certain areas. Some things, however, are the responsibility of the individual rather than “society” and I suspect raising children is one such area. There’s more to life than money, so consider all aspects of any transition to/from the us carefully.

Edit: there are good comments on this thread. Props to the HN community on this one.

Edit2: cars. City centres, for the most part, are not anywhere near as liveable as elsewhere. If you’re used to living on foot or on a bike, and shopping for food on the way home, etc, it’s not there.

Re: Ask HN: Why is pay so much higher in the US? (or is it?)

#19

Post by bantunes »

When real estate is at such a premium in big cities (even with recent slides)[1], good schools free from teachers having to pay for their own materials expensive[2], and going to the emergency room potentially costing you thousands of dollars[3], you need a lot of money to attract and retain people.

Also, profits are higher because companies pay less tax[4], so even with higher salaries it's still good business to pay more to attract higher talent.

[1]: https://www.redfin.com/city/17151/CA/San-Francisco/housing-m...

[2]: https://newsdirect.com/news/teachers-spending-more-out-of-po...

[3]: https://www.talktomira.com/post/how-much-does-an-er-visit-co...

[4]: https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-do-us-taxe...

Re: Ask HN: Why is pay so much higher in the US? (or is it?)

#20

Post by fxtentacle »

BeenChilling wrote: post #6

What are the best ways to get hired in the US as a software engineer from the UK? I’ll be graduating with a masters in CS from a top university in 2023.

Do some cool open source stuff. Since August 9th, I received about 50 job offers mentioning this repo: https://github.com/DeutscheKI/tevr-asr-tool Most of them were senior engineer or AI researcher, with a few CTO / co-founder offers sprinkled in. I'm not in the market and this was a bit unexpected to me, but those emails sounded like they would pay well. And most was remote for US companies.
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