Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe? • Hacker News Board

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

#971

Post by terwey » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 12:53 AM UTC

6t6t6t6 wrote: post #965

ABeeSea wrote: post #786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Just out of curiosity. What would happen if, for any reason, you lose the capacity to work for a couple of years? Let's say that you have a bad accident that affects your hands, or you get a depression.

Are you asking me or ABeeSea?

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

#972

Post by kortilla » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 9:10 AM UTC

psychoslave wrote: post #968

kortilla wrote: post #956

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

From a business account analytics point of view, the difference matters. From a social analysis point of view of incomes inequalities, they are just random labels.

> From a social analysis point of view of incomes inequalities, they are just random labels.

FFS, one is not even income. So they aren’t the same if you care about even talking about income inequality.

An equity stake appreciating in a company is not actually income until you sell it and realize the gain. For example, if Amazon’s stock price doubles, none of the shareholders have made any income until they sell it on the market.

This distinction matters because stock owner equity appreciation has literally nothing to do with the amount the board has agreed to pay the CEO. They give a salary and a fixed number of shares with maybe another fixed number of shares if performance numbers are hit.

All of the obscenely rich CEOs are also major owners and their net worth is a bunch of unsold equity in the company. Being mad about companies becoming valuable and making shareholders wealthy is a completely different argument from income inequality. Shareholder appreciation directly benefits 401k holders, etc. and you’ll find a lot less support for putting a cap on how much a company can be worth.

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

#973

Post by runamok » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 7:14 AM UTC

ACS_Solver wrote: post #715

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…

Oh yes, familiar. I'm in Sweden, I definitely make good money by Swedish standards, and also have excellent benefits through work. This is, frankly, not proportionate to the value I provide to society. I work on some nice software that certainly adds convenience to the lives of many people in multiple countries. But it's by no means critical, and I generate less value for society than anyone working in healthcare, th…

Your salary is not about value for society, it's about value for your company.

Software as they say is eating the world. The software you write replaces tons of manual processes generally. Finally it come down to supply and demand. If lots of people know how to program (well) the salary goes down.

You should never feel embarrassed by making a good wage. If you wish, you can always use that wealth to give back to society and your community.

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

#974

Post by Izikiel43 » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 6:47 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #332

Izikiel43 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canadians are kind in a shit position. Real state is stupidly expensive everywhere where you would like to live (Greater Vancouver, Greater Toronto, Ottawa is getting more expensive), and salaries are not keeping up at all. For example, cost of living in Vancouver and Seattle, disregarding the currency, is more or less the same, however in Vancouver it's like you earn 2k less than Seattle for an entry level Big 4 pos…

Vancouver and the GTA for sure, Ottawa had been relatively affordable - prices in town went up before COVID, but down during. Montreal remains quite affordable. Edmonton and Calgary aren't bad, and Kitchener/Waterloo's pretty reasonable still. I mean, it's clear a lot of that is mainland Chinese money parking, which cities are actively pushing back on.

The problem I see is that everywhere in Canada but Lower Mainland in BC you freeze 6 months out of a year.