More jobs, less candidates, higher salaries. Nothing else.
Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?
681–690 of 974 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?
#682Asking: Do European tech companies just offer lower salary, or do they also offer less equity? In the US, most people I know made a significant chunk of their wealth from their equity growth, especially as equity grants grow much more than salary, as people get promoted.
I can confirm the other commenter: in general European companies don't offer equity, at all. There are exceptions especially in managerial positions but that's the general rule. I know exactly one developer who has part of their compensation in equity.
Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?
#683Warning, this post is a bit cynical. Okay, it is a LOT cynical. Sorry. I suppose this is obvious but the traditional way of increasing prices is to lower the supply. If you want SWE's to get more money, first pass a rule that a SWE has to have some EU certification, and make the certification something reasonably expensive and not easy to get, say a certificate than can only be granted by accredited authorities after…
> I suppose this is obvious but the traditional way of increasing prices is to lower the supply.
I've been thinking about this recently and it feels like the current culture in software engineering is to increase the supply. I see people who code and offer free coding lessons to their friends. Pre-covid there has been multiple meetups where I live in themed like "programming for no programmers" or "build your first app".
At the same time when I look at other high impact jobs, like lawyers or doctors, they seem to be keen on building moats around their profession. There are no "six week law bootcamps" that would give you useful skills or anything like that. I'm getting a feeling that engineers are unwittingly cutting the branch they sit on, but they will only realize this years from now when it's too late.
Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?
#684Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Because you can't save, you are entirely dependent, in a broader sense, on the government's stability Do not bet on your money when your government goes down. In the current situation (China raises, switching of federal reserves from the Dollar to a more diverse bucket, a US Capitol invaded), the dollar went down from its 100% safety in the 90s to a shaky 90% currently. And that can spiral quickly when something ra…
I’m curious to read more about this currency safety metric. Where do you find this?
Well, there is plenty of material on the federal reserves. The capability of the dollar to be so untouchable is because of that.
And to the fact that a currency is only stable as long as the country is: Well, I would say that 80% of the world population has experienced radical changes to their currencies and assets (inflation, complete devaluation, rebranding, coupling to other currencies, stock market crashes, ...) within their lifetime (for whatever reasons). Having a multi-generation-stable currency is the privilege of only a very few countries like the US, Canada, France or Germany. Looking at the history of a country will easily reveal a significant event in the last 50 years which included something destabilizing.
Even the mighty UK was crashed by a single investor (the infamous George Soros).
And again, my argument is limited to the following element: currency stability > country stability.
Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?
#685Earlier quoted context omitted.
Europe doesn't value property ownership like the UK/USA/AU does - it's perfectly normal to rent for your entire life, and owning your own home is not seen as a requirement for a good life or even a wealthy one.
Europe is not homogeneous. Renting your whole life in Berlin? Yeah, maybe. But most of the Belgians are buying houses. I also heard Italians say it's crucial for them to own a house/apartment.
This is true, but even then it's not the same cult of home ownership == wealth as the Anglo culture has.
Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?
#686Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I got here by taking no risk at all. This is the most European thing I've ever heard. Most people would not like to take risks and would not even think about stepping outside of their comfort zone. Personally, I think this is the reason why there are less startups in Europe compared to US. No one would like to take a risk unless it's absolutely necessary. > I have worked 20 years in the same job and so have my coll…
I can see what you mean, it does however assume that staying in a job is the same as being stuck in a job, doing the exact same thing you were doing 20 years ago - perhaps this assumption is a reflection of US work culture (you tell me, I don't know)? If you have a good job with a stimulating environment, colleagues, and decent pay, then the perception of being stuck does not exist. Over time the role will change to…
> Over time the role will change to reflect the changing organisation and role.
> perhaps this assumption is a reflection of US work culture (you tell me, I don't know)?
I do not know anything about US work culture from first hand experience. I'm a software engineer from Sri Lanka working in Germany as a software engineer. It was my personal opinion and as I've said everyone has their own preference.
> Over time the role will change to reflect the changing organisation and role.
If the role has evolved, then it will not be the same job you did 'x' number of years ago. But according to original post, OP says "I have worked 20 years in the same job". Maybe I understood it incorrectly, but it seems like the role hasn't evolved or changed at all.
Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?
#687Plenty of good points but don’t forget that the fully loaded cost to an employer of a European employee is anywhere from 1.5-2x of what it is in the US. This alone is a major driving factor since it doesn’t matter how much of your salary you take home, it matters how much you cost the employer.
Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?
#688Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yep. I also never understood why Europeans focus so much on income inequality ("OMG, programmers and managers get paid too much, tax them more!") and not wealth inequality where old, established families can keep rolling their wealth from generation to generation nearly tax-free and see their assets apreciate substantially while the working class bares the brunt of taxation and are getting squeezed every year more and more by wage stagnation and inflating real-estate prices.
It's a real mystery to me why people aren't up in arms about wealth inequality instead but I guess as long as the working class is provided with a minimum of comfort (food, shelter, healthcare, education, sex) and are kept busy with the ratrace for the next big career move during the day and with an endless stream of available entertainment and consumerism in the evening, they're too busy to notice, care or bother to do anything about it.
Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?
#689There are a few reasons why they're lower, which other commentators have addressed, such as: different tax regimes; the welfare state; and the scale of the European market.
As an aside I think it's also important to point out while there is a difference, it's not quite as large as you think when you factor in the pay of contractors being around the 500euro mark. These people give up the right to sick leave, workplace security, and supposedly career advancement. Personally, I only contract in the UK because there is little career advancement beyond being a senior engineer anyway, and the rate more than makes up for it. I'm a fairly middling engineer in London, I'm 24 and I made 120GBP last year (I just have to be content I'll never make anything more than that).
You're right in attributing the difference in pay to corporate culture in the USA. In the USA where a senior engineer at a Silicon Valley style company will be seen as a key part of building the product, as if they were a product manager.
At nearly all the companies I've worked for in London, engineering has played a subordinate role to product managers (who also stand the most to gain from a successful project). This subordinate nature often takes the form of siloed access to business data: where I frequently have to fight to run queries on PowerBI; or to sit in client meetings.
Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?
#690Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, in the UK, your marginal rate at that income would be 42% (40% income + 2% National Insurance).
If you have children, you lose out on child benefit between 60k and 70k, which adds an equivalent 10% in that margin. Between 100 and 120k there is also the loss of personal allowance, which results in a marginal tax rate of 62% in that bracket. If you have children between the ages of 3 and 4, you also lose out on 15 hours/week childcare, resulting in that marginal tax rate hitting 89%
The marginal rate in a small bracket isn't that relevant to the effective rate though.