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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?

#291

Post by dnautics »

arcticbull wrote: post #158
betaby wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your link, GINI of Canada and Tajikistan is the same or Finland and Azerbaijan. Totalitarian states like Belarus or Kazakhstan have one of the lowest GINIs in the world, now I question gini usefulness even more.

I assumed you realized we were constraining ourselves to places with a High or Very High HDI. If nobody has any money at all, would you not say inequality is low? If everyone in Tajikistan has $5 except the president, Emomali Rahmon, is inequality not low? I suspect you are looking for a pairing of HDI and Gini, which factors in both the development (and hence the standard of living) and the inequality. Sweden: (Gini…

> If everyone in Tajikistan has $5 except the president

That distribution will yield a very high gini coefficient of very close to 1.

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

#292

Post by jachee »

s17n wrote: post #237
arcticbull wrote: post #85

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…

A SWE might make like 5 times what a teacher makes but a CEO can make like 1000 times what a SWE makes (eg $50k for the teacher, $250k for the SWE, and $250M for the CEO).

I believe you're vastly overestimating the CEO earnings. I doubt you'll find many 8-digit CEO earnings, let alone 9-digit.

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

#293

Post by tharkun__ »

aantix wrote: post #277
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?

Why would I be bored?

Of course this means that you're actually not doing the exact same thing at the same company all the time. A good company allows for that. Either because you can easily switch projects, switch teams, move up, move sideways etc. Depends on things like company size, structure, culture etc. And yourself obviously.

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

#294

Post by offby37years »

anoncake wrote: post #246
offby37years wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a software engineer your leverage should be higher than near any other profession. This is why SV engineers are paid handsomely. Your productive output eclipses that of any profession without force multipliers. Your income should not be based on input (risk, comfort), but rather your output (scale, value).

> Your income should not be based on input (risk, comfort), but rather your output (scale, value). Why?

If you need a hole dug by tomorrow and you have $1k to spend, you can either:

- Pay one person ($1k) with an excavator

- Pay ten people ($100/each) with shovels

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

#296

Post by geodel »

dantheman wrote: post #279
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Seems better than perennial back pain from sitting long hours and getting brain fried from implementing same logic of micro-service 1000th time for a 'challenging' project.

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

#297

Post by eloff »

Bakary wrote: post #260
username90 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A larger fraction of Americans have a tertiary degree than almost all European countries. Not if you only count STEM degrees, then USA is far behind. https://www.businessinsider.com/most-technological-countries... I'm not sure why American's don't study STEM, you'd think they wanted to study something that pays off. But maybe it is the other way around, with government funded education they only offer STEM degrees…

Most people are made miserable by studying STEM. And if it makes you miserable, you are unlikely to get good enough at it to get the purported payoff.

Doing something easy rarely pays off. The road to hell is the path of least resistance.

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

#298

Post by jojobas »

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…

Work is exchange of the only finite resource you have (your life) for money. You sure would want the best deal you can get.

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

#299

Post by webmaven »

908B64B197 wrote: post #118
arcticbull wrote: post #85

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…

> but also praise the low wealth inequality and low income inequality in Europe and Canada. Now what happens if you include expats in the calculation? > makes it much easier to found and grow a business without the threat of death And yet you see a lot of Europeans and Canadians founders going to the valley for funding. Yet the opposite almost never happens.

> > makes it much easier to found and grow a business without the threat of death

> And yet you see a lot of Europeans and Canadians founders going to the valley for funding. Yet the opposite almost never happens.

Just because it is easier to found and grow a business doesn't mean the environment is friendly to founding and funding a high-growth business.

In fact, an environment that is friendlier to SMEs, lifestyle, and bootstrapped companies probably reduces the pressure to jump into a VC-funded high-growth swing-for-the-fences model. Combine that with a less generous funding climate, and those who do want to go that route will go somewhere else for their funding.

But I don't think the reverse applies in terms of attracting entrepreneurs that don't wish to go the high-growth route from elsewhere.

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

#300

Post by ano88888 »

KronisLV wrote: post #231
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…

That does sound like a pretty stress-free way to live! That said, living in Europe doesn't always equal good living conditions and stability - it depends on the particular country you're in as well. My net salary is just over 1000€ per month as a software dev. My living expenses eat up around half of that. If a quick search turns up that in USA the median salary for a dev is around 100k$ per year ( https://money.usne…

That seems really underpaid. I live in south east asia and my net pay is above 4000 Euro (excluding year end bonus which could be 6 to 12 months salary) . There is no social benefits though.
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