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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?

#521

Post by winston_smith »

lodovic wrote: post #502
winston_smith wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of hunter gatherer tribes still around for the people crazy enough to want to join them

It is not likely any of them will gladly accept new members.

Gaining acceptance by a tribe and finding ways to not die if you ever become disfavored seems like part of the whole hunter-gatherer package, don't you think?

They tend not to be very wealthy by modern standards. Maybe you could ingratiate yourself to them with them gifts of things that require modern manufacturing infrastructure.

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

#522

Post by barnacled »

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 honestly think this is a completely wrong-headed way of looking at things. You are paid what you're paid not because the company is determining what is 'fair' given all of your circumstances, but rather the minimum they feel they can get away with.

Nearly all employees would accept more pay if they were offered it, nearly all employers would pay less if they could - so like any market it is always an equilibrium between the two. And frankly in some job markets the salary is negotiated better than others.

There is a sort of learned helplessness to 'I don't deserve more for this job' etc. in the eternal words of Unforgiven - deserve's got nothing to do with it.

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

#523

Post by Y-bar »

sidlls wrote: post #190
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 can understand this for oneself. But to be this complacent/indifferent to your kids' future is just kind of amusing to me. I haven't got billionaire status ambitions, but I also don't want my elder years to be effectively dictated by the vicissitudes of the political environment.

I'm not OP but I'm paying my taxes specifically so that my children's future will be secured. My taxes pay into their and their peers education, it pays into their and their peers healthcare costs, it pays into my own retirement so that they will not have to worry about feeding me when I grow old. It pays into a social security net so that if there is an economic crash they will still have food on the table and a warm home.

This means the number in my wallet and bank account may look smaller, but I still live a rich life with money to spend however I want.

It's the exact opposite of complacency.

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

#524

Post by cookieswumchorr »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #378
adrianN wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Home ownership is strongly influenced by culture. Germans are just happier to rent. Buying often doesn't make a lot of sense financially either. It's not much cheaper to buy than to rent and you lose a lot of flexibility. I could afford to buy a house, but I don't want to. That would just tie up a large fraction of my wealth into one fairly risky investment and make it much harder to move when my life changes.

What’s risky about the investment? I’m of the impression that real estate is one of the more stable investments, subprime mortgage scandals notwithstanding.

divorce, for example, is one major risk

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

#525

Post by ahepp »

tananaev wrote: post #201
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…

What happens when the government doesn't have enough money to pay for retirement anymore? The system works well when you have growing workforce and productivity. It doesn't work with growing number of retirees and shrinking active workforce.

Isn't that going to be a problem whether the pension is public or private?

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

#526

Post by CaptArmchair »

didibus wrote: post #477
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…

> You can't have low inequality by definition if you decide to start paying one group a ton of money. That's true, but the question is, the higher salary you refuse to take as a SWE in Europe, does it really go instead to someone else in need of it? Or is it just pocketed by someone who already has more money than you?

Both.

Fiscal policies and budgeting policies aren't "This group of people will pay for that group of people, and that group will pay for the other."

Your taxes become part of a revenue line on various budgets. Who gets what is defined through various public policies, grants, subsidies, procurement. Maybe a chunk of your taxes will be allotted to social programs, another chunk to NASA and maybe another chunk to various endowments such as the Humanities and the Arts.

Moreover, the issue isn't just how tax revenue is spend. The issue is just as much in how taxes are levied. Income taxes for individuals vary from taxes on financial instruments, corporate taxes, value added taxes and various other taxes. Or even the taxes that get tacked on your various utility bills, the estate you inherit from a loved one and so on.

> Or is it just pocketed by someone who already has more money than you?

Money is often seen as a store of value. The more you have of it, the better of you are. But that's only part of the story.

Money only gains real value when it is exchanged. That's how wealth is created. Money acts as "oil in an engine". If money doesn't get exchanged, you have an economic crisis.

The big issue is today is that 50 years of complex global policy making have generated dynamics that pushed holes in the engine, causing that oil to leak away. Where to? The financial markets. Where money is exchanged for debts.

If you want an equitable economy, you have to address fiscal and monetary policies first. Not this "who gets my money" argument.

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

#527

Post by alexchamberlain »

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 expect to save nothing for my children or their education. I expect to have to put aside very little for retirement.

In the UK, at least, I'm not sure this is still true. On retirement, I planning on getting nothing from the government once I get there, and it's looking increasingly likely that I won't be allowed to retire until slightly later in life.

That being said, I have paid off my student loans in less than 10 years of work, so I can't complain about the cost and quality of education.

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

#528

Post by martin_a »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #404
terwey wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Denmark and the Netherlands have the highest income tax bracket at 52/53%. Germany is 43%. However they are stacked taxes. In Germany (where I reside), the first €9744 (2021) is untaxed, then 14% until a certain amount (can't find it atm) and max 43%. However, if you do your tax returns your effective tax rate will drop significantly. I'd wager that most pay around 25% in total income taxes, excluding things like the…

I was laid off recently due to the pandemic. Because I work in tech, it took me two weeks to find a new job and it ended up being a promotion and a 20% raise. I would make 40% less in Europe, even in a big city, and unless I lived in a small European town my cost of living would be quite a lot higher. Even factoring healthcare (contrary to what Europeans perceive, the healthcare system works very well for the upper m…

> the healthcare system works very well for the upper middle class

See, that's the point. In Europe it works well for everyone, no matter how much you earn. It's a mentality-thing in the end (where the US position is hard to grasp for Europeans).

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

#529

Post by Cthulhu_ »

Barrin92 wrote: post #29

It's not trivial to do. First you have to account for a lot of things if you want to make a fair wage comparison. Europeans generally work much less. Germans almost work 500 hours per year less than Americans. Cost of living is vastly different. I've heard from a lot of friends in the US they pay tens of thousands per year on education and childcare in expensive cities, that's not the case in Europe where most of it…

Another commenter mentioned the income-per-employee of SAP compared to US companies, and it was 4-8x difference. I think SAP has the problem of scaling, in that they need to hire people to grow the company, whereas the FAANGs can multiply their revenue without having to hire.

Spotify is also mentioned in that same post; it has the (profit) scaling problem that the more usage it gets, the more they have to pay their artists. Income and expenses scale alongside each other.

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

#530

Post by marcus_holmes »

sparkling wrote: post #511
fy20 wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading your comment gave me a thought... maybe a better way of looking at the difference in salaries is that living in the EU is better value for money than living in the US. In pretty much all of the EU, even in expensive cities like Stockholm or Dublin, if you earn a salary of €100,000, you can live a pretty decent life. Heck even on €50,000, you can do well in a lot of places. Good luck doing the same in any of t…

> In pretty much all of the EU, even in expensive cities like Stockholm or Dublin, if you earn a salary of €100,000, you can live a pretty decent life. Define "decent". In the top tier cities in western EU countries, buying even a modest apartment that will house a small family will be a challenge on €100k (pre-tax!). It is certainly doable, but you will not be able to afford any other luxuries.

Europe doesn't value property ownership like the UK/USA/AU does - it's perfectly normal to rent for your entire life, and owning your own home is not seen as a requirement for a good life or even a wealthy one.
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