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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?

#951

Post by marcus_holmes »

littlestymaar wrote: post #732
marcus_holmes wrote: post #530

Earlier 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 doesn't value property ownership like the UK/USA/AU does It's funny, because my father in law (French, but who spent quite some times living in the US) often says the opposite: “Americans don't value property ownership. That's because they have wooden houses that last for a few decades and get replaced, while in Europe we buy stone that last for centuries”. Clichés are clichés. UK is in Europe btw ;)

Not any more ;)

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

#952

Post by terwey »

ABeeSea wrote: post #786
beagle3 wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> contrary to what Europeans perceive, the healthcare system works very well for the upper middle class) ... until you get a really expensive chronic disease. And then it fails miserably. I know upper middle class parents whose kids got a disease which need ~$5000/month meds for a few years (and nontrivial infusion center costs on top). It worked ok for some, many had been informed that the insurance company decided…

Not defending the US healthcare system, but I’ve never heard of an insurance plan without an out of pocket maximum. For example, my plan has a 2k maximum for individuals and 4K for married couples. Combined with a health savings account (allowed to be funded pre-tax from both the employer and employee), I’ve generally put $1-2k a year in that during my 20s when I rarely needed medical expenses. I still haven’t had a…

2k max out of pocket expense to me sounds absolutely ludicrous.

In Germany you can have private health insurance (if you make more then 63k a year you can opt-out of public health insurance) and there the out of pocket is usually around €350. In the Netherlands the out of pocket is also something like €300, which most already consider too high.

The option to get it to zero is of course possible but usually doesn't offset the savings.

However the notion of having to need savings to be sick is... to me extremely foreign and strange.

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

#953

Post by iso1631 »

sguo35 wrote: post #920
iso1631 wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Income taxes for a $500k/year person in California is $210k Income taxes for a $500k/year person in Arkansas is $196k Income taxes for a $500k/year person in the UK $220k - but that includes healthcare Why isn't Arkansas the centre of the development world? Does skipping healthcare and increasing your takehome pay by 3% really make a difference? sources: https://goodcalculators.com/us-salary-tax-calculator/ https://l…

I said it was partially responsible; it is by no means even close to the sole factor by which startup ecosystems are formed. Arkansas lacks in education, research, and a number of other metrics that make it undesirable to develop in. Income taxes are only one part of the tax equation as well, since employers pay a larger chunk of overall taxes in France and other EU countries [1] compared to the US. Again, an employe…

An company in California spending $500k a year on an engineer will get the employee about $290k a year

An company in the UK spending $500k a year on an engineer will get the employee about $250k a year

An company in California spending $200k a year on an engineer will get the employee about $147k a year

An company in the UK spending $200k a year on an engineer (gross salary £130k plus £17k employer NI) will get the employee about $107k a year

Its not taxes that keep the salaries "down" in the UK

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

#954

Post by davidwsilva »

My 2 cents: we are living in a certain time when where you live is not as relevant as what you do. IMHO, if you work in areas of high demand and few available professionals (such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, cybersecurity, machine-human interface, etc) you will be a desirable asset and will probably be in the position of choosing what offer is the best one for you. Recruiters are going crazy on Linkedin right now and before you ask they let you know that you can work remotely with very competitive salaries. So as an attempt to answer your question as of how to increase SWE salaries in Europe (as in any other place in the world really) is to consider making a move towards some hot career paths related to areas such as the ones I cited (not restricted to those obviously). I am a firm believer of this type of initiative. It might take time and be very challenging (and it will) but it definitely pays off.

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

#955

Post by dgellow »

seppel wrote: post #939
dgellow wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mor…

> You mean in Munich, right? Anywhere outside of Munich €100k is a really high salary for a software engineer These salaries are also possible in Berlin, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Mannheim, Heidelberg (and more, this is where I know) > 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. Well so what? They shouldnt pay more becau…

I think that you miss the context of the thread

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

#956

Post by kortilla »

psychoslave wrote: post #494
kortilla wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re confusing compensation with stock appreciation.

One might guess that all the random labels you put before the numbers makes few difference. At the end of the day, it’s a large gap in incomes.

The point is that at this point Tesla itself could pay Elon Musk absolutely nothing. His stock appreciation as a shareholder is where the majority of his income is coming from. It has nothing to do with CEO compensation at that point.

It has nothing to do with “labels”. There is a fundamental different between what a company pays its CEO and what the value of its shares provide through appreciation.

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

#957

Post by kortilla »

imtringued wrote: post #813
kortilla wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re confusing compensation with stock appreciation.

What if you are compensated in stock? You are unlikely to liquidate your stock on your payday so it is very likely for your stock compensation to have risen in value by the time you want to sell the stock.

It doesn’t matter. The amount the company paid is the price of the stock at that particular grant time.

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

#958

Post by winston_smith »

dang wrote: post #927
winston_smith wrote: post #903

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.ycombina…

Upon reflection, you're right. Thanks for the wake-up call.

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

#959

Post by cjblomqvist »

sidlls wrote: post #950
cjblomqvist wrote: post #933

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it all comes down to which unequality we're talking about. Sure, if does not significantly affect the difference between the very top and the rest. But there are a lot of differences between different brackets from the ones at the bottom up to 99% too.

Those differences between the lower brackets exist more because of the power those in the top have. Raising incomes of those in the lower brackets might increase the gaps between some of them: but those gaps are much smaller than between any of them and the top.

They do? How can you be so sure there are causation between the two? Lessen the gap between the 99% seems to affect the general consensus (since 99% share a more similar type of life and experience status /money wise), making it easier to change the rules for the top 1%.

To me this feels like falling into perfect is the enemy of great trap. Just because this topic might be affecting you (assuming you're a software dev), and because it doesn't affect the top 1%, doesn't make it smart to widen the gap between the 99%.

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

#960

Post by sguo35 »

iso1631 wrote: post #953
sguo35 wrote: post #920

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said it was partially responsible; it is by no means even close to the sole factor by which startup ecosystems are formed. Arkansas lacks in education, research, and a number of other metrics that make it undesirable to develop in. Income taxes are only one part of the tax equation as well, since employers pay a larger chunk of overall taxes in France and other EU countries [1] compared to the US. Again, an employe…

An company in California spending $500k a year on an engineer will get the employee about $290k a year An company in the UK spending $500k a year on an engineer will get the employee about $250k a year An company in California spending $200k a year on an engineer will get the employee about $147k a year An company in the UK spending $200k a year on an engineer (gross salary £130k plus £17k employer NI) will get the e…

Hate to break it to you but... $40k a year in extra income is a lot of money. Taking your numbers, 147k is 37% higher than 107k. That money has higher order effects more than just the 40k the employee gets, since all else equal higher salaries attract better talent and winner take all market dynamics mean only the best companies make a lot of money. You might note that Silicon Valley salaries are much higher now than in the 1990s and early 2000s, and this kind of snowball effect is a partial contributor to that. Also, 37% is a LOT and even if you add healthcare and miscellaneous costs that gap is still massive. I would consider anything more than 10% a big difference.

Your own numbers show taxes are absolutely one cause of lower salaries in the U.K., although certainly I don’t claim they’re the only cause.

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