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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?

#271

Post by softwaredoug »

ahupp wrote: post #222

Major US tech companies earn a profit-per-employee of $200-400k[0]. That's across every employee, so depending on how you attribute value the profit-per-SWE is much higher. That gives a lot of headroom to drive up salaries when competing for hires, and in part sets the market price. I suspect that low European software salaries are just a function of low profitability of European software companies. e.g, spotify is (…

My sense is there's a larger US market than a pan-Europe market. If I go from German to France to Spain, I'm almost certainly not going to see the same grocery store chains. In the US, there are regional chains, but also a high proportion of homogeneity. In Europe you have strong national and cultural differences that lead to economies more isolated from the whole. In the US, there's regional differences, but I can order at a Starbucks pretty easily in all 50 states without breaking a sweat.

Maybe why US brands tend to get big in the US and then export overseas? US has a homogenous and large market, which brands can make a lot of money in and develop a solid profitable base. That's probably very hard to do in Europe.

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

#272

Post by qafy »

ahupp wrote: post #222

Major US tech companies earn a profit-per-employee of $200-400k[0]. That's across every employee, so depending on how you attribute value the profit-per-SWE is much higher. That gives a lot of headroom to drive up salaries when competing for hires, and in part sets the market price. I suspect that low European software salaries are just a function of low profitability of European software companies. e.g, spotify is (…

I would love to see some research on the factors that contribute to this. Work culture? Leadership culture? Rigor in interviewing process? Education? There has to be a reason US tech employees are 5x-10x as "productive". What are we doing differently?

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

#273

Post by arcticbull »

ByteJockey wrote: post #250
arcticbull wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it's not a great way to raise the salaries of retail and restaurant workers. It's also a terrible way of providing healthcare. Ultimately it's more a question of supply and demand as to why US SWEs are paid so much.

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

You may want to take another look. Healthcare in the US is twice as expensive per capita as most European countries while the healthcare system ranks near the bottom of the OECD [2, 3] and 11th out of 11 in a recent commonwealth fund survey [1]. For the first time, life expectancy in the US is actually going down.

Even the best area identified in [2, 3] re: 5-year mortality for cancers is misleading as the US notoriously over-tests early on, detecting disease early, but isn't actually more effective at treating the disease, and folks die at the same time as they would in European systems. This naturally makes the 5-year mortality rates look good, but doesn't change the fact you're still gonna die at the same time.

While admittedly cherry-picked, it's also the only developed country in the world where mother's mortality rates during childbirth are rising. A mother is 5X as likely to die giving birth in America as compared to Canada (where healthcare costs half per capita and covers everyone).

Also, consider the median amount of tax collected in the US (excluding private $800/month tax your employer pays to insurance companies on your behalf) is actually higher sometimes than Canada now. The top marginal rates are also higher, consistently. [4]

[1] https://www.commonwealthfund.org/press-release/2017/new-11-c...

[2] https://www.oecd.org/unitedstates/health-at-a-glance-united-...

[3] http://www.oecd.org/health/health-at-a-glance-19991312.htm

[4] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/07/canadians-may-pay-more-taxes...

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

#274

Post by sidlls »

arcticbull wrote: post #85
alkonaut wrote: post #55

I got my higher education for free. I expect to save nothing for my children or their education. I expect to have to put aside very little for retirement. The thing is, I just can’t find an argument why I should be able to get very rich doing my job. It’s a comfortable job. It pays a good salary. I got here by taking no risk at all. I wouldn’t want to switch jobs just to drive up my pay even if I could. I have other…

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 gap.

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

#275

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

arcticbull wrote: post #85
alkonaut wrote: post #55

I got my higher education for free. I expect to save nothing for my children or their education. I expect to have to put aside very little for retirement. The thing is, I just can’t find an argument why I should be able to get very rich doing my job. It’s a comfortable job. It pays a good salary. I got here by taking no risk at all. I wouldn’t want to switch jobs just to drive up my pay even if I could. I have other…

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…

If you increase housing stock, there can be more cheap homes for new entrants in the market, meanwhile existing homeowners may still see significant appreciation on their home value, depending on lots of market variables.

Wanting affordable home ownership is not contradictory to growth of home asset prices.

I also think your argument about income inequality is not right. Achieving income equality by suppressing wages and paying below competitive market rates is nothing to be proud of - and largely for professions like SWE, it has absolutely nothing to do with income levels at the low end close to poverty, which is what matters when understanding income inequality.

We should be raising purchasing power and unlocking possibilities for people. That’s the real purpose of reducing inequality.

Otherwise we can just take the trivial solution: destroy all technology and return everyone to subsistence agrarian society. Near perfect income equality, near zero societal level wealth.

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

#276

Post by InvertedRhodium »

ByteJockey wrote: post #250
arcticbull wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it's not a great way to raise the salaries of retail and restaurant workers. It's also a terrible way of providing healthcare. Ultimately it's more a question of supply and demand as to why US SWEs are paid so much.

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.

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

#277

Post by aantix »

alkonaut wrote: post #55

I got my higher education for free. I expect to save nothing for my children or their education. I expect to have to put aside very little for retirement. The thing is, I just can’t find an argument why I should be able to get very rich doing my job. It’s a comfortable job. It pays a good salary. I got here by taking no risk at all. I wouldn’t want to switch jobs just to drive up my pay even if I could. I have other…

>I have worked 20 years in the same job

Very different. I cannot imagine staying anymore more than two years - aren't you bored?

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

#278

Post by xwdv »

pavlov wrote: post #267
xwdv wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are taking a risk. The risk is that you assume your government will be able to provide you with a comfortable life even when you can no longer work. And when the time comes for your children to get higher education and retire themselves eventually you hope the government will also be there to step in. It works, until it doesn't. In America you can compensate yourself for this risk by simply getting a job where yo…

I'm a European living in USA working for a FAANG. Frankly, my assessment is exactly the opposite from yours. United States is the country that's most likely to go to shit. All of us wealthy professionals here are sitting on a powder keg of inequality and delusional politics, and nobody will be decoupled from it when it blows up. I plan to stay for a few more years, then return to my safe North European home country w…

Inequality doesn’t really matter as much as people think.

What inequality does is ensure that there will always be two markets of consumers: one that needs goods at low prices and one that can afford higher prices for luxury goods.

As long as the lower price market exists, hoarding sufficient wealth guarantees you’ll be able to at least afford the minimum standard of living, allowing you to safely retire. If everyone was wealthy everything would be expensive and then no one would feel wealthy enough to retire.

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

#279

Post by dantheman »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #249
sokoloff wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would way rather program 60 hours a week than live as the hunter-gatherers did.

I am not sure, in there own world some tribes might have been far happier than 95% of society is today

That is until they die from a simple infection.

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

#280

Post by sidlls »

arcticbull wrote: post #144
thinkloop wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wealth inequality debate is about Bezos and wall street ceo's type thing - I don't think many people have issue with some making $50k and others making $200k.

Remember the whole drive to push all the Techies out of SF? Remember rocks getting thrown at the Google busses? It's both. At the end of the day Bezos makes headlines but his personal largesse has very little effect on most people in the country. It has very little impact on the lives of folks getting "pushed out" of SF. That's the folks he employs.

> Remember the whole drive to push all the Techies out of SF? Remember rocks getting thrown at the Google busses? It's both.

This is primarily attributable to two causes:

1. distorted views that result directly from inequality and the extreme poverty some communities have: to the (stereo)typical Tenderloin resident, as person who is able to afford a modest 3/2 townhome appears to be vastly wealthy

2. the mistaken view of techies, themselves, as being in the same class as those who actually are wealthy, and presenting as such (including the disaffected/indifferent attitude towards those in even lower socioeconomic brackets), which reinforces (1)

> At the end of the day Bezos makes headlines but his personal largesse has very little effect on most people in the country. It has very little impact on the lives of folks getting "pushed out" of SF. That's the folks he employs.

That's so out of line with actual reality it's best classified as "not even wrong." I don't even know where to begin with it. The people pushing others out in SF are not Bezos' employees; they're a tiny, tiny fraction of tech workers, most of whom won a VC/IPO lottery.

Bezos and his social class benefit immensely from the lower socioeconomic classes in-fighting. For example, by some thinking paying a laborer more will lead to more inequality.

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