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Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

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Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#151

Post by trcollinson »

foogazi wrote: post #71
trcollinson wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make pretty good money as a consultant. Last year I had 180 hours of saved vacation time (4.5 weeks). I gave up 115.5 hours of that on January 1 because I didn't use it. I expect I will lose a similar amount on next January 1st. I did get 6 federal holidays off. I used a bit of vacation to also take the day after Thanksgiving, the day before Christmas, and New Year's Eve off. I paid $8400 in insurance premiums for…

I don’t get this. As a consultant do you get time off? If so why didn’t you use your vacation time? Why not take December off? Did working those extra weeks mean more value to you?

I am a W2 employee for a consulting firm. They pay me a salary with some benefits and some vacation time and bill be out to clients.

I'd say it's a cultural thing why we don't use it. Working hard and making big money is the dream. I'm not saying my company forces me to not take the vacation time. Heck they try to tell us all to use it more! (PTO is a liability on the books, FYI). But culturally, it's just not a priority (as in our countries culture, not the company itself). I realize it makes no sense. I need to make it more of a priority. My original point is my friends who are ex-pats on the EU seem to have a culture of using that time being more important than working.

Edit: I'm not sure why I'm being down voted. I'm mostly sharing what I see and feel. Your milage definitely may vary and I hope it does!

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#152

Post by betaby »

arcticbull wrote: post #126
betaby wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call Canadian (or Fr or Se) wealth inequality 'low'. 'Why I can't afford a house', again is more a problem in Fr/De/Se than in US, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_owne...

Inequality in Canada is substantially lower than in America (and is on par with Australia, and between Fr and Se). This is evidenced in their Gini coefficients. [1] - Gini for SE is 0.25 - Gini for FR is 0.31 - Gini for CA is 0.33 - Gini for US is 0.48 - Gini for ZA is 0.65 I've also included South Africa for comparison, one of the least equal societies on earth. A photo of what a 0.65 Gini country looks like is here…

From your link, GINI of Canada and Tajikistan is the same or Finland and Azerbaijan. Totalitarian states like Belarus or Kazakhstan have one of the lowest GINIs in the world, now I question gini usefulness even more.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#153

Post by arcticbull »

aaomidi wrote: post #138
arcticbull wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of folks here are calling out the lower pay for SWEs in Europe and Canada as a failure - but also praise the low wealth inequality and low income inequality in Europe and Canada. You can't have low inequality by definition if you decide to start paying one group a ton of money. Well, this is a lot like the housing conversation in the US. "I want my house to go up in value, and be a great investment!" Also: "Why…

The salaries aren't low because of equality though. You're just shifting the high earners from the people doing the work to the managers of the people doing the work.

No, the other way around. Inequality is low because the distribution of salaries across roles, across industries is tightly clustered. I suspect it's true of the managers too. The point is there aren't high earners.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#154

Post by pietrovismara »

alkonaut wrote: post #55

I got my higher education for free. I expect to save nothing for my children or their education. I expect to have to put aside very little for retirement. The thing is, I just can’t find an argument why I should be able to get very rich doing my job. It’s a comfortable job. It pays a good salary. I got here by taking no risk at all. I wouldn’t want to switch jobs just to drive up my pay even if I could. I have other…

I really appreciate your honesty, awareness and most of all dignity. Thank you.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#155

Post by paxys »

aaomidi wrote: post #140
messe wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One option is to emigrate to the United States Not an easy feat. Most would be reliant on the H1B program.

Which is not an issue for people immigrating from Europe.

Why is it not an issue? They have to compete for the same ~65K visas/year as everyone else.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#156

Post by nackerhewz »

arcticbull wrote: post #83
nickpp wrote: post #57

Just like anything worthwhile is done: through free market competition. Build a successful startup, make some nice money and attract the best in the business to work for you by making them eye-popping offers. This will make your competitors react by raising their pay and with it the whole market. It’s how Silicon Valley reached those salaries after all...

I mean, it's not a great way to raise the salaries of retail and restaurant workers. It's also a terrible way of providing healthcare. Ultimately it's more a question of supply and demand as to why US SWEs are paid so much.

The SWEs will buy more stuff and eat out more, increasing the demand for retail and restaurant workers. It does trickle down, but due to continuous influx (because qualification requirements are low) of new potential retail and restaurant workers you don't notice on an individual level but on a globalized level it matters because those new retail/restaurant workers have improved themselves.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#157

Post by username90 »

lrossi wrote: post #97
username90 wrote: post #58

Join Google and move to Switzerland. It isn't that easy to join Google Switzerland but it pays like Silicon Valley.

This strategy doesn’t scale.

Salaries are only raised when workers are chasing the money, why else would companies raise salaries? All threads about salaries in Europe are full of people telling us how happy they are with what they got, that is the wrong attitude if you want things to change.

Edit: To expand further, think like this: The easier it is for companies like Google to hire good talent in Europe the more they will hire talent in Europe and the more development they will do in Europe. They already do quite a lot of development here as is, there is no reason that couldn't be expanded.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#158

Post by arcticbull »

betaby wrote: post #152
arcticbull wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inequality in Canada is substantially lower than in America (and is on par with Australia, and between Fr and Se). This is evidenced in their Gini coefficients. [1] - Gini for SE is 0.25 - Gini for FR is 0.31 - Gini for CA is 0.33 - Gini for US is 0.48 - Gini for ZA is 0.65 I've also included South Africa for comparison, one of the least equal societies on earth. A photo of what a 0.65 Gini country looks like is here…

From your link, GINI of Canada and Tajikistan is the same or Finland and Azerbaijan. Totalitarian states like Belarus or Kazakhstan have one of the lowest GINIs in the world, now I question gini usefulness even more.

I assumed you realized we were constraining ourselves to places with a High or Very High HDI.

If nobody has any money at all, would you not say inequality is low? If everyone in Tajikistan has $5 except the president, Emomali Rahmon, is inequality not low?

I suspect you are looking for a pairing of HDI and Gini, which factors in both the development (and hence the standard of living) and the inequality.

Sweden: (Gini: 0.25, HDI: 0.933), France: (Gini: 0.31, HDI: 0.901), Canada: (Gini: 0.33, HDI: 0.926), USA: (Gini: 0.48, HDI: 0.924), South Africa: (Gini: 0.65, HDI: 0.709).

Now, Tajikistan has an HDI of 0.66 ("medium"), and Azerbaijan 0.756 ("high").

Kazakhstan might surprise you, the HDI is 0.817 ("very high"). The standard of living there is actually good, in spite of what you may have seen on Borat - incidentally filmed in Romania. Almaty's been on my list of places to visit for a long time :) [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaty

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#159

Post by paxys »

Competition. The only way a company will pay you more is if you threaten to go work for the one across the street. European labor laws actually work against the interest of employees in this case, since everyone there has longer term contracts, long notice periods and strict non-compete agreements.

I also don't agree with your second point. Salaries of software engineers in the US aren't "skewed" or "inflated". If anything they are underpaid. Up until recently there was a lot of illegal anti-poaching collusion happening among the big tech companies which kept salaries low.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#160

Post by jldugger »

kingaillas wrote: post #135
iso1631 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$200k is £146k I've seen mid-level tech jobs in London banks for £146k which come with 34 days off including state holidays like new years day, christmas, etc £146k for a full time contractor on 226 days a year isn't that much at all - £650 a day, which is in the "Senior developer" range [0] With 30% tax in the US and the cost of health insurance, that would be $68,400 For a staff employee on £146k (which is quite ac…

>No idea what a HSA account is, I guess some form of pension plan? I think the OP meant Health Savings Account, which lets you put money in pre-tax for certain medical expenditures. There is a limit and IIRC you lose what you don't spend. It's good if you have predictable costs, or you're saving to do an expensive procedure (friends have done this for lasik), etc. You pay the bill then submit a receipt to get reimbur…

No, FSA and HSA are similar but different. They both exist, the use-it-or-lose it variety you're talking about is called an FSA. HSAs, on the other hand, can carry over year to year, and doubles as a source of income in retirement.

The downside is you must have high deductible plan to contribute to an HSA -- the idea is that you put aside enough money to cover the high deductible just in case, but are now motivated to price comparison shop for MRIs and whatnot, since any unspent money is now yours to keep.

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