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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?

#451

Post by roenxi »

thinkloop wrote: post #137
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…

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.

Are you talking to people in the 0-$50k range (below median) or in the $50-$200k range (above median)? Opinions probably diverge.

If you think through it, the billionaires don't have all that much real resource to be used - eg, J. Bezos owns an island in Hawaii. So say the government takes his island off him and redistributes it to low-wage earners in New York - they can't actually use the island for anything. They'd sell their stake in it and go for real resources locally. The actual real resources they consume are going to be made up for by the upper-middle class having less.

If anything is done about income inequality, it is probably going to involve bringing the above-median types more into line with the below-median earners. There aren't many ways around that - low earners need real resources, not paper money. Billionaires tend not to have the amount of real resources that are needed.

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

#452

Post by Laarlf »

Let’s be honest: most jobs are underpaid in Europe. Especially the lower wage ones. Living costs are rather similar in the us and in the eu. That mostly depends on what city you live. You can’t fire people easily so there is a huge risk involved into employing people. Especially low wage jobs. High taxes for companies and high income taxes add to that and you generally have less money to spend at the end of the month.

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

#453

Post by arp242 »

kodah wrote: post #191

Europeaners seem to think getting by is just fine. They're happy that they're hyper educated, that their kids are going to be hyper educated, that their healthcare is paid for, and they get lots of vacation. Because you can't save, you are entirely dependent, in a broader sense, on the government's stability (I am not using this sentiment in a pejorative sense like some might.) Americans want their fair share of the…

> you can't save, you are entirely dependent, in a broader sense, on the government's stability (I am not using this sentiment in a pejorative sense like some might.)

I managed to save about €10k/year on a €42k/year salary (and I was being woefully underpaid even by European standards for what I do, but that's a different story, I should have earned at least 60k, but ah well) which I used to fund my business.

Maybe you can save more in the US – I don't know – but you can save plenty of money on tech salaries in Europe.

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

#454

Post by concreteblock »

anoncake wrote: post #428
concreteblock wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you automatically bring "ethics" into this discussion? The person you replied to was probably using the word 'should' in reference to some other objective.

I automatically bring ethics into this discussion because I try to be a decent human being and actually care about the society I live in.

Someone said, roughly, that X should be like Y. You immediately asked them why this was ethically optimal.

To me that seems like a non-sequiter.

There is no reason to suspect that the optimization (with respect to whatever objective you desire, e.g. total happiness) of a large, complex, chaotic, system (such as a society) can be best achieved by using 'ethical correctness' as the only criterion for decision making.

At least, that's my opinion. I hope that doesn't make me an indecent human being.

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

#455

Post by oblio »

hogFeast wrote: post #136
betaby wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call Canadian (or Fr or Se) wealth inequality 'low'. 'Why I can't afford a house', again is more a problem in Fr/De/Se than in US, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_owne...

I don't know about the other countries you have mentioned but German residential real estate has very high levels of institutional investment and the legacy of rent control (famously, Berlin...although that changed a few years ago). So you have very high wealth inequality, average German net financial wealth is equal to Greece and Germany has a significant number of billionaires, but you also have a system that funda…

Most statistics contradict you, despite the popular impression. The US has lower social mobility than most European countries.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index

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

#456

Post by titanomachy »

anoncake wrote: post #288
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…

What you don't realize is that you rely on your government just as much as we do on ours. If it fails, it can't protect your property rights anymore and your net worth is just a theoretical number.

A developed country's government failing to the point that it can no longer guarantee property rights is pretty unusual.

Running out of money to pay pensions is much more common, and it seems somewhat likely given the way demographics are headed.

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

#458

Post by newswasboring »

pm90 wrote: post #431
titanomachy wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many developed countries, 42% tax would cover healthcare, a pension you can actually live off of, and fully-paid education for all of your children. Californians get none of those things, and I don't really understand what it is that they get over (e.g.) Washingtonians for the extra ~30% in taxes.

They get protection by the US military and promotion of Californian business interests throughout the world through Federal institutions. Not to mention: friction free access to a large labor pool and US domestic market etc. I get your point that the US doesn’t provide as much social services as other developed nations. Almost all these nations depend on US hegemony to not have to spend as much on their military. Thi…

I don't want to address the hegemony point beyond I disagree on the need or even effectiveness of US military.

But I would want to point out the curious phrasing and of your first paragraph and what that says about USA way of thinking. All these points are business targeted while all european points are individual targeted.

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

#459

Post by ivan1783 »

Been working in Europe for about 10 years now with "low" wages as a Hardware Engineer (6 figures US). Sorry but America seems like a third world country compared with what we get here. I have: 35 days vacation per year, 35 hour work week, overtime pay, free education, childcare money each month, healthcare that wont bankrupt me if I lose my job, up to 3 years in parental leave (6 mo. paid), probably other things which I'm forgetting. No amount of money would make me go back to that dumpster fire that is America.

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

#460

Post by rognjen »

Isn't one of the reasons that the total cost of employing a person being significantly higher. I believe I read that in Europe it's often calculated to be about twice the person's salary. I could be mistaken but don't have the patience to look for the source at the moment.
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