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

Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

spectrum.ieee.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 272 posts

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#161

Post by hackerfromthefu »

closeparen wrote: post #146
jjjeii3 wrote: post #101

Meanwhile, EU salaries are stagnating and it's one of the worst places to be a software engineer. An average salary for a software developer in Germany was 46000 Euro per year in 2020, and don't forget, it's one of the richest countries in Europe. The average in EU is even lower... After paying taxes a single person with that salary will only have 2400 Euro per month (~ 2800 USD). The guy who cleans our house in Germ…

>The guy who cleans our house in Germany without any education (an African refugee) makes more money than that Another way of framing this is that Germany is successfully combating inequality, right? Professional-managerial class incomes and lifestyles aligning and sometimes inverting with working-class incomes is sort of the point.

But that's ridiculous - many many years of continual study and professional development are required to be a developer - with lots of it happening of the job in the developer's education and personal time.

About a week of on the job training is required to go from an entry level cleaner to an experienced cleaner.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#162

Post by betaby »

dilyevsky wrote: post #77
riantogo wrote: post #49

For those outside Silicon Valley why might think, "you could live like a king with that kind of money", here is a potential home you are looking at ($2M, 1200 sqft, 7 rated schools): https://www.redfin.com/CA/Palo-Alto/3785-Park-Blvd-94306/hom...

You do realize it’s the price of a lot? That house is a teardown

I'm under impression everything is a teardown yet people live in those. Same in Vancouver and Toronto.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#163

Post by hackerfromthefu »

jacques_chester wrote: post #24
gricardo99 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fairly cynical take. You may be right, at least in some cases, but I also think it's reasonable for any executive to look at the unprecedented situation with a high degree of uncertainty and reign in spending on all possible fronts. In hindsight perhaps cutting back salaries/bonuses wasn't warranted, but that doesn't mean it was all planned as a scheme to boost profits.

I'm cynical because apparently reigning in spending can be done instantly, but handing out bonuses, raises or equity seems to be a very long and difficult process involving a lot of some-day-soons and any-day-nows and then perhaps-next-years.

Yes .. watch what they DO, over a zoomed out timescale.

Anything else is a decoy. Words != actions.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#164

Post by tpush »

closeparen wrote: post #146
jjjeii3 wrote: post #101

Meanwhile, EU salaries are stagnating and it's one of the worst places to be a software engineer. An average salary for a software developer in Germany was 46000 Euro per year in 2020, and don't forget, it's one of the richest countries in Europe. The average in EU is even lower... After paying taxes a single person with that salary will only have 2400 Euro per month (~ 2800 USD). The guy who cleans our house in Germ…

>The guy who cleans our house in Germany without any education (an African refugee) makes more money than that Another way of framing this is that Germany is successfully combating inequality, right? Professional-managerial class incomes and lifestyles aligning and sometimes inverting with working-class incomes is sort of the point.

The managerial class in Germany earns much more than normal workers. The point here isn't that Germany somehow successfully combated inequality, just that it doesn't value software engineers as much as the US or even the UK does.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#165

Post by evanrich »

kureikain wrote: post #144

i never worked at a big tech so hope someone can help me on this. The stock grants usually has a 4 years vesting? that means after 4 years , you will not get any more granted stock? Does that mean after 4 years, your salary is going to drop down significantly

Usually you get a 4 year grant that vests monthly or weekly or whatever over the four years. You get one of those every year, so after 4 years you have 4 stacked vesting bonuses, when the oldest runs out, the new one you got that year will take its place.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#166

Post by dualthro »

legerdemain wrote: post #154
jjjeii3 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukrainian army only had 75 casualties in 2020... and this is on a very small area near the Russian border. The rest of the country is absolutely fine.

This is a continuing misrepresentation of a grim reality. The entirety of the US armed forces, in all of its "ongoing contingency operations" (euphemism for combat) around the entire world, has lost less than 75 people over the period of the last several years. "We've only had 75 people die in active combat on domestic soil last year!" is not a great sales pitch for Ukrainian quality of life. "A very small area near…

Not really sure the point that you're trying to make here. You seem to be implying that anyone living anywhere in Ukraine (such as Kyiv) is under constant threat of getting bombed by Russia, while jjjei3 is saying that Ukraine is relatively safe.

If you're so sure its so dangerous there, maybe you can pull up statistics about number/rate of shooting deaths there compared to the US?

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#167

Post by jjjeii3 »

hackerfromthefu wrote: post #161
closeparen wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The guy who cleans our house in Germany without any education (an African refugee) makes more money than that Another way of framing this is that Germany is successfully combating inequality, right? Professional-managerial class incomes and lifestyles aligning and sometimes inverting with working-class incomes is sort of the point.

But that's ridiculous - many many years of continual study and professional development are required to be a developer - with lots of it happening of the job in the developer's education and personal time. About a week of on the job training is required to go from an entry level cleaner to an experienced cleaner.

Not only that, but in Germany many companies will not hire you, if you don't have a degree. So you must also spend a lot of time (3-5 years) and money to get a Bachelor/Master degree.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#168

Post by d33lio »

Impossible wrote: post #139
opportune wrote: post #74

My theory for why "AR/VR" is so much higher is that those engineers are mostly just working for Facebook on Oculus, and FB has high pay. Also telltale sign someone's not plugged into SV - looking at salaries rather than total comp. Then there are two further schools of thought: granted vs. vested compensation. What was your offer + refreshers at grant value + expected bonus vs. what are your initial grants and refres…

Apple also use AR/VR engineer and almost no one else uses that phrase exactly. For example Unity uses "XR engineer" and VR game studios tend to use standard game industry titles (software engineer, graphics engineer, gameplay engineer, programmer, etc.)

Or not realizing that cost of living if you don't have roommates / tax burden is also absolutely insane in SV.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#169

Post by smartician »

jjjeii3 wrote: post #101

Meanwhile, EU salaries are stagnating and it's one of the worst places to be a software engineer. An average salary for a software developer in Germany was 46000 Euro per year in 2020, and don't forget, it's one of the richest countries in Europe. The average in EU is even lower... After paying taxes a single person with that salary will only have 2400 Euro per month (~ 2800 USD). The guy who cleans our house in Germ…

When I left Germany in 2007, I was making 52000 Euro per year. Crazy to hear that salaries remained practically flat. When I went to Silicon Valley, my pay practically doubled overnight, and now 13 years later I make 10x as much (and my job hasn't really changed much).

Curious though how your house cleaner is making more than a software engineer?

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#170

Post by yrgulation »

jjjeii3 wrote: post #101

Meanwhile, EU salaries are stagnating and it's one of the worst places to be a software engineer. An average salary for a software developer in Germany was 46000 Euro per year in 2020, and don't forget, it's one of the richest countries in Europe. The average in EU is even lower... After paying taxes a single person with that salary will only have 2400 Euro per month (~ 2800 USD). The guy who cleans our house in Germ…

This will get downvotes but its worth it.

Another reason for your Ukraine friends not wanting to move to Germany is because in one single comment you somehow made it clear that your cleaner is an African refugee and that Ukraine is poorer. Let that sink in.

The question I would ask is why is there less demand in the EU for software engineers. The fact is software startups in europe are pretty small compared to the US and UK. For instance german VC investment in tech startups vs british investment is significantly lower [1]. The rest of the eu is even smaller on a country by country basis. The eu tries covering that gap with government grants and eu funds which rarely produce much return in tech. The EU as a whole doesnt have the culture of risk needed for startups to thrive. We are safer with the same car makers since ww2, same tv manufacturers, and having a law for everything. We dont want amazons, facebooks, and googles around here because they kill our small shops, violate our privacy, and teslas threaten our precious diesel engines.

So if we want higher salaries in the eu, and germany included, we need to loosen things up a bit to let startups “break” things and have vcs invest in them.

Or you could simply immigrate to east europe or the uk to either earn more or live a better life.

1. https://www.altfi.com/article/7458_london-tech-firms-receive...

Post reply on HN