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Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

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Re: Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

#101

Post by cylinder »

sremani wrote: post #77
sigi45 wrote: post #55

I don't really care how much someone in USA earns. As a software engineere in germany you are earning good money. There are no killings in cities, affordable health care, high quality living standards, university costs 150$ for 6 month, no donald trump, 30 days real holiday (i take them, everyone does, every year), seldom over hours, parental leave. Btw. IT is more than google, apple, facebook and twitter. And no we…

>> university costs 150$ for 6 month. This is not a German miracle, its simple demographics, most of the Germans are in their productive years of 40s and 50s and their population in teens and 20s is tiny, so their investments are low even though at per-capita level they look tremendous. This is the reason why Germany's hope is automation. They are demographically not in a great place. of course, this will come home t…

Or maybe they figured out that relying on population growth to drive the economy is a Ponzi scheme. Eventually you can't add more population so you have to reckon with aging one day, might as well solve the problem ASAP. Automation combined with exports allows you to grow your economy without adding humans.

If they still wanted to, they could turn on the migration spigot at anytime. Plenty of brilliant engineers and scientists to pick off out of Eastern Europe, Iran, etc. Labor has already come in on its own.

Re: Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

#102

Post by sokoloff »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #59
CamMacFarlane wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>[USA] has the highest GDP per capita in the world Not quite, it has the 18th highest. Below Hong Kong, Switzerland, and Ireland all who pay less for engineering. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

The US does have the highest GDP for any major country, though. The ones above it there are all quite small.

Switzerland, Singapore, Norway, Hong Kong and UAE don't match my definition of "quite small". Each of them has several million inhabitants.

Re: Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

#103

Post by miguelrochefort »

thinkloop wrote: post #90

The way to calculate pay is: (monthly salary + equity) - (studio apartment rent + tax + health care + 30 cappuccinos + 8 steaks + 50 lbs of tomatoes) edit: times 12

(4000 + 0) - (800 + 1000 + 0 + 150 + 150 + 150) = $1750 CAD = $1336 USD

Re: Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

#104

Post by synicalx »

sigi45 wrote: post #55

I don't really care how much someone in USA earns. As a software engineere in germany you are earning good money. There are no killings in cities, affordable health care, high quality living standards, university costs 150$ for 6 month, no donald trump, 30 days real holiday (i take them, everyone does, every year), seldom over hours, parental leave. Btw. IT is more than google, apple, facebook and twitter. And no we…

> There are no killings in cities

I mean yeah if you ignore all the people shooting up malls, attacking people with machetes, driving trucks into crowds etc, Germany's a really peaceful place.

Re: Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

#105

Post by jrmurad »

ted_dunning wrote: post #92
jrmurad wrote: post #74

Everyone throwing around "free" healthcare as a valid explanation for this wage gap needs to account for taxation levels too. using estimates via Google: "average programmer salary usa" -> $84,360 "average programmer salary in sweden" -> $54,264 According to http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/10/focus-4 , average effective taxes in the USA (including social security) are 25%... but 35% in Sweden. Even…

The averages don't work well when you divide. You need to look to medians for the income and then compute average tax rate for that* income.

That's true. I didn't look into how exactly Swedish rates are computed. A 25% effective rate sounded about right to me for a single-filer US salary in that range in most states which have income taxes on top of the federal+FICA. A Nordic country having 10+% higher effective rates likewise seemed reasonable but I certainly don't know for sure.

Re: Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

#106

Post by thinkloop »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #103
thinkloop wrote: post #90

The way to calculate pay is: (monthly salary + equity) - (studio apartment rent + tax + health care + 30 cappuccinos + 8 steaks + 50 lbs of tomatoes) edit: times 12

(4000 + 0) - (800 + 1000 + 0 + 150 + 150 + 150) = $1750 CAD = $1336 USD

Times 12 is $16,032 - sad face - need to triple the $4k.

Re: Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

#107

Post by cylinder »

nasalgoat wrote: post #99
omouse wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is more free floating capital . There are VCs in the US who are willing to invest in all sorts of things and willing to take chances. There are few VCs or banks in Canada that would take a chance on Facebook, Twitter, SnapChat or Uber. Brain-drain is a problem but the bigger problem is lack of capital. Also, its in the employers best interest to keep salaries down and convince their employees that living in Can…

Raising money for an internet startup in Canada is effectively impossible. You might get some minor Series A angel investors (dentists and vets are your best bet), but once you start getting into the Series B rounds where you need real money, you won't find anyone willing to risk it. All they're interested in is gas/oil/mining. Very risk adverse. We've had to resort to roadshows down in California and New York to try…

It's not about risk aversion. There's just not enough money going around. US is a big country so obviously if 1% of your capital will be allocated to high risk VC it's going to be a much more substantial amount.

Re: Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

#108

Post by luan42 »

synicalx wrote: post #104
sigi45 wrote: post #55

I don't really care how much someone in USA earns. As a software engineere in germany you are earning good money. There are no killings in cities, affordable health care, high quality living standards, university costs 150$ for 6 month, no donald trump, 30 days real holiday (i take them, everyone does, every year), seldom over hours, parental leave. Btw. IT is more than google, apple, facebook and twitter. And no we…

> There are no killings in cities I mean yeah if you ignore all the people shooting up malls, attacking people with machetes, driving trucks into crowds etc, Germany's a really peaceful place.

That is just not true. Look at the numbers, and not on your feeling you get from the news. For I stance start with the number of bullets fired by police!

Re: Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

#109

Post by YZF »

kat wrote: post #72
YZF wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Canadian dollar went from ~parity to It's a lot of the same companies, e.g. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, so I don't think we can say the can't pay as much. Other than that it's market forces.

If you're living in Canada on a savings account that is in USD, then yes, you're ahead by 30%. Otherwise you're making cdn dollars and spending cdn dollars, so you don't see the 30% difference in cost of living. And as far as I know the big companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, do pay more than market salary in Canada. Their Canadian offices are not nearly as large though, they don't influence the wages/benefits…

My point is the cost of living didn't go up 30% with the currency. I.e. there wasn't 30% inflation over those 4 years. While your salary is down 30% vs. the US$ due to currency exchange rates your cost of living is mostly unchanged. You have to keep that in mind when you compare salaries between the US and Canada. If you work for a US company and have equity as part of your compensation you just got a 30% raise in CDN$ out of that as well. ;)

So in "real" terms, e.g. purchase power of your salary, Canadians are paid reasonably well compared to their US peers while at the same time it seems there's a lot less inequality. Throw in free health, free education, vacation, severance, etc. and it's not such a bad deal for Canadians employees. At the same time their employers get all sorts of benefits for operating here. SRED and other programs. A more reasonable immigration system. Win-win.

Re: Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

#110

Post by synicalx »

luan42 wrote: post #108
synicalx wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are no killings in cities I mean yeah if you ignore all the people shooting up malls, attacking people with machetes, driving trucks into crowds etc, Germany's a really peaceful place.

That is just not true. Look at the numbers, and not on your feeling you get from the news. For I stance start with the number of bullets fired by police!

The statement was "There are no killings in cities", which is clearly not true - there ARE killings in cities. There are probably less overall than in America, but I really don't care enough to check.
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