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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?

#651

Post by throwawayzRUU6f »

eloisant wrote: post #533
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 get it, and I would completely agree if the salary gap was the same for managers, HR, etc. So the question is: why are managers, HR, etc. paid so much more than SWE in Europe? They bring less value to the company.

Pretty much every professionals' pay is proportionately lower.

Doctors are paid around a 1/3 of what doctors get in the US

Nurses around half

Lawyers vary, but quick googling suggests it's around half to third

Finance, insurance and real estate pays waaaay less

Store managers at Walmart get about twice as much store managers at Lidl Europe

The skew in upper management pay is even higher

and on and on...

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

#652

Post by newswasboring »

passerby1 wrote: post #590
newswasboring wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, its a fundamental mistake to assume that a Government can provide effective social services without having a strong economy. Strong economies require successful businesses. Umm... I would say the social services in european countries are pretty successful.

It can depend on what to compare them to (and for what class, which changes a lot in terms on access to commercial clinics, etc.). What countries are you comparing to?

I can get into the nuances of it, but honestly even on surface level, just the single point that my Health care is not linked with my job gives me infinitely more control over my life.

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

#653

Post by alkonaut »

kgwgk wrote: post #642
alkonaut wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rather the minimum they feel they can get away with. I completely agree. I certainly would accept more pay. But I wouldn't switch jobs just to get it . There are several reasons, most importantly that interesting jobs in my niche are scarce. So my employer has a resource that is perhaps scarcer than myself!. Second (and this is the part where it becomes self-fulfilling), because there are no super high salaries, I'…

> If marginal taxes are 50% (..) that's a net 25% pay rise Only if you’re not paying any taxes currently :-)

Yeah that's probably the wrong way to express it (hadn't had coffee). If I get $N pay rise, it's only a $0.5N net pay rise, which makes it much less attractive.

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

#654

Post by overscore »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #625
overscore wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Ireland, software developers with similar levels of experience earn significantly more than doctors, lawyers, management consultants and most bankers. There's only a tiny number of footballers, celebrities, bankers, and non-software consultants who earn more than the software developers as a class.

Except I wasn't talking about Ireland which has low taxes and high wages for sw devs compared to continental Europe.

Ireland does not have low taxes for individuals compared to continental Europe.

Even compared to Sweden, personal taxation is comparable for high-earners, although Ireland's much more progressive and redistributive scheme results in lower taxes for low-earners, and thus a smaller tax base.

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

#655

Post by dgellow »

seppel wrote: post #635
f6v wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100k puts you in 1% of the earners, you can get that money as a CTO. Definitely not as a software engineer.

You can easily get into that range as a principal software engineer in Germany. E.g, finance and car industry will pay that, depending on the niche even in a startup if you negotiate properly. 100k will also not put you in the 1% of the earners if you consider the cities where the high paying jobs are.

You mean in Munich, right? Anywhere outside of Munich €100k is a really high salary for a software engineer. Not impossible to get, I know of a few companies that offer that kind of compensation or even higher and are located in Berlin (though all of them have their HQ in the US), but that's very high income compared to the rest of the market.

In any case, the point is that with €100k/year you can really have way more than a decent life. More like a very, very comfortable life.

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

#656

Post by willeh »

pashamur wrote: post #235

Other reasons for the U.S. salaries not mentioned yet: 0) Banning of non-competes in Silicon Valley (!!) and ease of incorporation / listing on markets back in the 90's and before 1) Foreign investment in the U.S. (Saudi, Chinese, Russian money due to favorable treatment, anonymity (!)) and presence of U.S. dollar worldwide as a reserve currency - lots of that money ended up in Silicon Valley (Softbank etc). This esp…

3) Is largely not true, the EU is largely heterogeneous when it comes to personal bankruptcy laws. The fact that unsecured consumer loans are as cheap as secured consumer loans (e.g. car loans), in many EU countries, shows that it is very to get rid of debt permanently. In the country I know best a personal bankruptcy means that you have to keep paying your debts for a period of 5 years before they are forgiven. During this time you must live on $500 per month (excl. rent) the rest goes to the creditors.

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

#657

Post by qwytw »

sverhagen wrote: post #621
piva00 wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with this take, being in the upper 10% of salaries in Sweden gave me perspective on how wide of a gap there is between myself, some friends working other office jobs (accountants, architects) and some in more blue collar work. I don't feel like I deserve a much higher salary than what I have for this society, I'll be honest and say that sometimes I feel ashamed of earning so much more than some friends given th…

Being from the Netherlands, I recognize this shame. High positions in the workforce are often shamed, talked about as "easy money", as if it's inherently corrupt, people don't acknowledge their risks and responsibilities. Whether that warrants those high salaries or not, I'm not commenting on that debate. Public functions or private organizations in which the government invests, must cap salaries at what the prime mi…

And yet Netherlands has the highest wealth inequality in the world (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_eq...) so one could interpret this cap and the cultural attitude you described as pretty much a scam by the capital owning class to maximize their returns.

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

#659

Post by distances »

ff232fffffrt wrote: post #327
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If hypothetically every engineer at Apple hired in 2017 got $100k/yr https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Apple&track=Software%20Engin... ICT2: $165k ICT3: $214k ICT4: $315k ICT5: $440k ICT6: $681k Point: $100k/yr total comp is pretty low for Apple's standards.

I am a software developer for 15 years and I don't know a single developer who make more than 100K$ a year in Germany (I only talk about regular employment and not about freelancers, because freelancers can work overtime and get bills from other countries including USA).

Just a minor FYI: you absolutely don't need to work overtime to get over 100k€ from German customers as a freelancer.

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

#660

Post by leto_ii »

My impression is that in Europe software development tends more often to be considered a cost center, rather than a profit center.

At its core I suspect this difference comes from the fact that after WW2 Europe lost its place at the cutting edge of scientific and technological development. There are still companies and universities pushing the boundaries, just fewer than before (due to the massive brain-drain caused by the war). In turn, European companies often tend to play catch-up and they more often need competent executants rather than independent innovative thinkers. Competent executants are cheaper as they do less significant work.

To this you of course have to add the social security, shorter office hours, longer holidays etc. that you get in Europe, but maybe not so much in the US.

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