Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

news.ycombinator.com

921–930 of 974 posts

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

#921
post #848

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking more about the possibility, not average. It's much easier to achieve 500k/year in Bay Area than in Europe. 500k/year can be achieved by being a senior engineer at one of the successful companies for a few years. The stock growth should take care of that, easily. There are probably like 100 of successful companies in Bay Area between 2010 to 2020. There are thousands of people achieving this in Bay Area. I…

> There are thousands of people achieving this in Bay Area. thousands ? out of how many ? seems like a tiny fraction

Sure, but it's more attainable/possible when compared to other occupations, say, doctors, lawyers, footballers, and etc.

Way more attainable.

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

#923

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pretty great way to provide healthcare, actually. My understanding is that european countries have pretty significant income taxes.

The US spends more per capita on Healthcare than many countries with a full public health system, for worse outcomes. It's actually impressive if you look at it from a certain angle.

Well, yeah. The US doesn't have the same systems or levels of income tax in place.

But if a country did, it seems that they would want higher salaries so that they would have more resources to fund these systems.

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

#924

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If everyone in Tajikistan has $5 except the president That distribution will yield a very high gini coefficient of very close to 1.

>> If everyone in Tajikistan has $5 except the president > That distribution will yield a very high gini coefficient of very close to 1. It yields (n-1)|5-p|/(2n(5(n-1)+p)) which is about p/(5n+p). So it depends on whether the president (p) has $10 or $n^2.

indeed. If everyone in tajikistan has $5 except the president, who has $1, the gini coefficient will be different.

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

#925

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not insane - it's pretty common in most developed countries. The US is a major outlier.

In many developed countries, 42% tax would cover healthcare, a pension you can actually live off of, and fully-paid education for all of your children. Californians get none of those things, and I don't really understand what it is that they get over (e.g.) Washingtonians for the extra ~30% in taxes.

30% ? The difference is 9% and is probably made up through other taxes. I know Washington has the highest alcohol and cigarette taxes for example

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

#926

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, in the UK, your marginal rate at that income would be 42% (40% income + 2% National Insurance).

+9% if you’re still repaying student loans, which is common until 40s. Student loans operate like a tax in the U.K., taking 9% of your pre-tax income above 15 or 25k directly from your payslip.

If you hit 100k by the time your 30 you won't be paying it off into your 40's... Tech / consulting etc, not too hard to hit that number.

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

#927

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument literally defeats itself. You were born into the tribe, and stayed there your entire life. Also there were no laws on hunting, setting traps, etc.

Golly, if hunter-gathering means I'm stuck in whatever group I was born in, and that other more organized groups can keep us off their turf, then maybe hunter-gathering just isn't that great.

We've banned this account for using HN primarily (exclusively? I skimmed your history and didn't see a single exception) for political and ideological battle. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for, so we ban accounts that do it regardless of which side they're battling for.

You've also broken the site guidelines frequently with snark and attacks on other users. Not cool.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#928
post #274

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…

Paying laborers more does not lead to the kind of inequality we see. "You can't have low inequality by definition if you decide to start paying one group a ton of money." Very few of even FAANG-level salaries are high enough to put them in the same bucket as the people who wield power through their wealth. Paying the entire field of SWE laborers even 50% more salary is not going to appreciably change the inequality g…

It does lead to gentrification, instant conflicts between newcomers and old residents, pushes up prices, etc.

Plus having that more money means one can invest a bit, and a generation later dad can give a big gift to help seed the kid's startup.

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

#929
post #839
post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not my experience that their chosen field makes them miserable. Would you mind illuminating your point? My experience is anecdotal and not very helpful.

Most people do not have the necessary personality type/abilities/interest to do well in STEM. Doing a STEM degree is not enough on its own to get the STEM payoff. To be clear, I am not saying that STEM makes people miserable by default, just that a minority of the population enjoys such things. However the low percentage of STEM degrees can also be explained by the fact that the college lifestyle is an institution of…

> To be clear, I am not saying that STEM makes people miserable by default, just that a minority of the population enjoys such things.

Ah! Thanks for the clarification. I agree completely

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

#930

Earlier quoted context omitted.

divorce, for example, is one major risk

I don’t think this is any different than with stock market wealth.

you can divide stock between 2 parties, maybe fair, maybe unfair, but that's it. A house will be up for sale when neither can afford it on their own, and a lot of money gets lost just in the process
Post reply on HN