Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

21 Years of Income as a Software Engineer in San Francisco

reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 146 posts

Re: 21 Years of Income as a Software Engineer in San Francisco

#121

Post by zuper »

EB-Barrington wrote: post #94
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The majority of Europe is poor compared to Sweden or Germany. There are some poor countries like Bulgaria and Romania. Most of Europe is doing just fine. Like you have poor Europe you also have poor US cities and countries and if you compare the poor parts you will find them not all too different. > If you're making ~$60,000 or more in the US, you are overwhelmingly going to have good health insurance. If you're ma…

For balance: in Ukraine, a population approximately five times larger than Austria - a grocery store worker would be considered lucky to make 4000 EUR per year. Further - for tens (hundreds?) of millions of people in Europe, in countries such as Hungary, Serbia, Poland, Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Moldova, Russia, Belarus, Latvia, Lith…

20 years of experience in development , 5year degree from computer engineering school, with Mba and PhD. Net 13000 eur per year. Greece

Re: 21 Years of Income as a Software Engineer in San Francisco

#122

Post by toomuchtodo »

nugget wrote: post #99
lnrdgmz wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this, if true, discouraging? Do you think government workers (a pretty broad term which can encompass a wide range of positions and levels of expertise) should not be well paid?

I don't know how true it is, but my understanding is that Federal workers often work fewer hours and enjoy better job security than their private counterparts. If so, wouldn't you expect these benefits to be offset by lower compensation? On an hourly basis it could net out to be similar and simply appeal to folks who want a different type of career or work life balance.

No, I would expect private sector workers to organize over receiving less compensation for more work. The problem isn’t government worker compensation.

Re: 21 Years of Income as a Software Engineer in San Francisco

#123

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

EB-Barrington wrote: post #94
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The majority of Europe is poor compared to Sweden or Germany. There are some poor countries like Bulgaria and Romania. Most of Europe is doing just fine. Like you have poor Europe you also have poor US cities and countries and if you compare the poor parts you will find them not all too different. > If you're making ~$60,000 or more in the US, you are overwhelmingly going to have good health insurance. If you're ma…

For balance: in Ukraine, a population approximately five times larger than Austria - a grocery store worker would be considered lucky to make 4000 EUR per year. Further - for tens (hundreds?) of millions of people in Europe, in countries such as Hungary, Serbia, Poland, Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Moldova, Russia, Belarus, Latvia, Lith…

The numbers within the EU and EEA are PPP adjusted not that badly off. Ukraine is an extreme example where part of ones salary often bypasses the state and taxation so is Greece which has a dysfunctional government and evonomic slump. With extremes like that you might as well compare it with Detroit or if we don’t stick to the EU might as well compare with Mexico.

Re: 21 Years of Income as a Software Engineer in San Francisco

#124

Post by telltruth »

This is quite shocking and I am sure it’s not a pattern. My compensation has doubled roughly 6 years over similar period in inflation adjusted dollars and I have considered it as slow growth. Note that most of this is without climbing up management ladder. Most of my friends have also experienced doubling every 5-7 years as far as I can. There are few folks who haven’t moved much but that’s usually because they didn’t kept up with tech or kept chasing next startup or find non dev roles where they can excel. Living in SF/bay below $200K is quite unimaginable these days.

Re: 21 Years of Income as a Software Engineer in San Francisco

#125

Post by mnm1 »

adventured wrote: post #49
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we (Europeans) generally argue that paying taxes and universal healthcare is great not that earning less is. Also while some professions pay less others pay more (like working in a grocery store) so it’s not that clear cut.

That's a pretty broad statement about Europe. The majority of Europe is poor compared to Sweden or Germany. If you're making ~$60,000 or more in the US, you are overwhelmingly going to have good health insurance. If you're making $140,000, you're going to have great health insurance. I fail to see how universal healthcare is a lure in this case. The US has a far more progressive income tax system than most of the dev…

"If you're making $140,000, you're going to have great health insurance."

I am and I'm not. This depends on your employer. Otherwise, one can spend tens of thousands on health insurance to maintain coverage. And it could be terminated by an act of Congress at any time. Worker's compensation is also a thing. Try waiting 8 months to see a doctor for repetitive stress injuries because you've changed states and no one wants to take your case.

Re: 21 Years of Income as a Software Engineer in San Francisco

#126

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

eecks wrote: post #63
marvin wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly it isn't the same in absolute terms? You can get a two-bedroom apartment in Copenhagen for $300,000 or so. I haven't heard of any place in Europe where you can expect to make anything close to this for any normal software engineering role. (I earn around, maybe less than half the average in this graph, in Norway).

In Dublin, Ireland you would pay about 500k USD for a 2 bed apartment

This is not really true. See: http://www.daft.ie/dublin-city/apartments-for-sale/dublin-ci...

Note that none of the newspapers or media will talk about the low end of the market (which isn't actually very low), and focus on the houses/apartments that very few people can afford, which is odd.

Re: 21 Years of Income as a Software Engineer in San Francisco

#127

Post by CalRobert »

toephu2 wrote: post #96
CalRobert wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved from CA to Europe. Don't regret it. I get a month and a half of vacation, a nice walkable city, and don't feel like I live in a dying democracy. Two days ago my infant was sick. Made one phone call and thirty minutes later a qualified gp showed up at my apartment and made sure everything was fine. At 2 AM. For free. In the US I could make more money but would spend it all on rent and cars (and private school…

Nothing in life is "free". Europeans pay way higher taxes than Americans. "would spend it all on rent and cars" Excuses. If you don't want to make it work that's fine. But there are tens of thousands of people making it work in the Bay Area. #1 Don't have a car and live in SF, or buy a used cheap Honda or Toyota. #2 Look at Rooms on craigslist, you can easily find a room or in-law room w/ own private bathroom IN San…

Excuses??? Excuses are for when you've done something wrong. Why the hostility? I decided to give europe a try and liked it, so I stayed. sheesh.

Anyway I had a good time in the bay, in Berkeley. But at this stage in my life I like it here.

Also, even though I could have gotten "unlimited" time off in the US (note the huge scare quotes), my wife couldn't have, and here she gets ample holidays too.

Re: 21 Years of Income as a Software Engineer in San Francisco

#128

Post by CalRobert »

ikeyany wrote: post #103
CalRobert wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved from CA to Europe. Don't regret it. I get a month and a half of vacation, a nice walkable city, and don't feel like I live in a dying democracy. Two days ago my infant was sick. Made one phone call and thirty minutes later a qualified gp showed up at my apartment and made sure everything was fine. At 2 AM. For free. In the US I could make more money but would spend it all on rent and cars (and private school…

Do you mind me asking the hit your salary took? Do you also mine asking what region of Europe, and how you were able to find the right employer?

It's hard to say. I came to europe as a technical account manager and transitioned to data engineer here (lately, shoving stuff around with redis/celery and reporting on it with redshift and superset). I doubled my income after six months here, but that was due to a new job. I'm around the 90th percentile for incomes of full time workers in my country (Ireland).

My best guess is I'd make around 50k more (usd) in the bay. Hard to say though.

I came here on a working holiday visa; check the website of your country's Irish embassy for more info. I got a bit lucky in that my old company had an office here (though I came under my own steam) but honestly got my best gig through a guy I met in a pub after overhearing a discussion about the pronunciation of JSON. That was in 2013 with a crap economy; now it's much easier. Hell, if you're decent with python (bonus if you've experience with Celery) drop me a line. Look in my profile.

Re: 21 Years of Income as a Software Engineer in San Francisco

#129

Post by philipwhiuk »

toephu2 wrote: post #96
CalRobert wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved from CA to Europe. Don't regret it. I get a month and a half of vacation, a nice walkable city, and don't feel like I live in a dying democracy. Two days ago my infant was sick. Made one phone call and thirty minutes later a qualified gp showed up at my apartment and made sure everything was fine. At 2 AM. For free. In the US I could make more money but would spend it all on rent and cars (and private school…

Nothing in life is "free". Europeans pay way higher taxes than Americans. "would spend it all on rent and cars" Excuses. If you don't want to make it work that's fine. But there are tens of thousands of people making it work in the Bay Area. #1 Don't have a car and live in SF, or buy a used cheap Honda or Toyota. #2 Look at Rooms on craigslist, you can easily find a room or in-law room w/ own private bathroom IN San…

Healthcare in the US is twice as expensive and outcome significantly worse.
Post reply on HN