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Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

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Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#51

Post by PragmaticPulp »

whimsicalism wrote: post #45
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously there are exceptions and not every EU dev is paid less than every US dev. The point is that there are large numbers of developers across the EU who can stand to gain a lot by working remotely for US wages. Not every last one of them, but many. Switzerland is only 2% of the EU’s population.

> Switzerland is only 2% of the EU’s population. The Bay Area is, similarly, only 2.5% of the US' population.

Part of the draw of hiring remote is that you don’t have to pay Bay Area salaries.

I wasn’t referring to Bay Area salaries. I was referring to normal US developer salaries, which are still higher than common EU salaries.

My comment was about general hiring, not the outlier edge cases. If you want to pay Bay Area salaries you can obviously compete on compensation with just about anyone, anywhere with very few exceptions.

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#52

Post by JofArnold »

echopom wrote: post #47

I'm a tech worker based in France. This topic gets brought up on HN every year I think. The answer is always the same : - Yes , US Engineers Salary are way exaggerated compared to the rest of the world - No US Company will never "outsource" to europe to save 50% per full time worker This has been predicted already a millions times and has never happened. The cultural difference is so important it doesn't work. Long t…

They do though. They've been doing it for years. I mean UK's no longer in Europe so your point may technically be true but I've had plenty of recruiters contact me from big US tech co's who operate via EU/UK (sometimes shell) entities.

EDIT: to further qualify, those orgs base salaries have typically been in the range £120k-£150k if a quick scan through my notes is in any way representative. And obviously the FAANGs pay extremely well when you factor in stock but those figures are quite hard to come by.

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#53

Post by tharne »

sneak wrote: post #11
geoduck14 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I'll have to guess at an insightful comment. Here goes Sure Europeans get paid less - but they also get a bunch of great benefits like time off and government paid health care, so it works out Also, the average salary in America is skewed by FANMAG paying really high salaries In the end, I'm happy with my work and paid fairly. I deserve a 10% raise, but I'm not pressured to switch right now HN of the futur…

Americans make several multiples what europeans do in this market. Healthcare is expensive, but it's less than 20k/year. The salary differences are frequently >100k/year. You can also negotiate PTO. Passive-aggressive "unlimited" (but not really) PTO is becoming a common bullet point in startup JDs now.

> Healthcare is expensive, but it's less than 20k/year.

That's not true. I pay about $10,000 a year for healthcare and my company pays roughly another $20,000. And that's before I have pay per visit up to my rather high deductible. And I work for a large company with good benefits. Healthcare costs in the U.S. are insane and almost hard to fathom if you haven't lived through them yourself.

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#54

Post by codebolt »

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #3

Without reading the article (site is down) my expectation is that the data will show significantly lower salaries in Europe than in the USA. One of the explanations is that there are almost no genuine software development companies in Europe. Software jobs there are mostly internal (enterprise) software development or customization, and not software product or service development. Being a cost centre instead of a pro…

Another explanation is that EU is not a large cohesive economy like the US. In the US, startups target a potential userbase of 300M+. In the EU, a startup typically only targets a single country with a fraction of the population. Seems obvious that the potential profitability of a piece of software correlates with the population of its market. And only natural that developer salaries correlate with the potential profitability of the software that they make.

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#55

Post by rgrmrts »

EugeneOZ wrote: post #19
volta83 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Europe, you go, where? Same place? All of FAANG and beyond has offices in Europe.

with lower salaries, and they are trying to justify it by the “lower cost of living”, which is not actually lower. The only the exception is Switzerland - FAANG salaries here aren't lower, because this country has so legendary cost of living ;)

Based on reported data from levels.fyi, senior SWE salaries in the US go up to $600k whereas in Switzerland they max out at around $400k.

If looking at averages, there’s about a $50k difference.

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#56

Post by jtwaleson »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #40
eterevsky wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think by now everyone knows very well that software engineering salaries are higher in the United States. It depends. In Switzerland for example salaries as as high as anywhere in the US while the taxes are somewhat lower.

Obviously there are exceptions and not every EU dev is paid less than every US dev. The point is that there are large numbers of developers across the EU who can stand to gain a lot by working remotely for US wages. Not every last one of them, but many. Switzerland is only 2% of the EU’s population.

Switzerland is 0% of the EU population because Switzerland is not in the EU.

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#57

Post by balabaster »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #17

It’s funny to see this site gather so many upvotes while the server is down. I think by now everyone knows very well that software engineering salaries are higher in the United States. If the shift toward remote work really comes to fruition, I fully expect EU software salaries to rise. I’ve hired a lot of excellent remote developers in European countries. The trick is to pay them American-level wages, which are ofte…

You didn't recognize that there are plenty of European developers capable and willing to work on the US time zones. I presently split my life 50/50 between Toronto/Netherlands so I live half my life on Eastern Time and the other half on CET. I fly on weekends so I'm available during the week and when I'm in the Netherlands I fit work into my daily life at the time clients need me to fit in. Some days it can be tiresome, having to work until 11pm, but other days if I have a light work load with standup at 3:45pm CET, some days that's my only meeting and I can pretty much work when I like. It works out well.

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#58

Post by cooervo »

MattGaiser wrote: post #7

Now, is Europe higher or lower than Canada? We have some software developers working here incredibly cheaply, especially in USD terms.

Personal experience:

I used to work in Munich (which has the highest average software salaries in Europe) now I work in Canada. From my experience salaries are higher in Canada than in Europe.

Not only that, it seems technologies are adopted faster in Canada vs Europe, and in my experience code quality better in Canada vs Europe. This is of course very biased and based on my own personal experience. So take it with a grain of salt.

I suppose the proximity with US makes Canada a better option than Europe due to language and timezone barriers.

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#59

Post by roenxi »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #17

It’s funny to see this site gather so many upvotes while the server is down. I think by now everyone knows very well that software engineering salaries are higher in the United States. If the shift toward remote work really comes to fruition, I fully expect EU software salaries to rise. I’ve hired a lot of excellent remote developers in European countries. The trick is to pay them American-level wages, which are ofte…

As a counterpoint, software engineering saleries will fall. There isn't a shortage of clever people, it is a desk job, very low stakes and lots of opportunities. Lots of people want in on this.

I'd guess the actual reason that US software developers make more is that it is easier to make lots of money in the US generally, so the profitable companies go there & then the developers make excellent wages due to geographic effects.

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#60

Post by TrackerFF »

Should be mentioned that in some countries (like my country, Norway), salaries are MUCH more compressed around a mean (i.e, lower variance), not just for specific industries. Software Engineering is no exception.

But then again, people live good here. The ones that don't enjoy it, or are more ambitious, tend to move anyway.

Many of the regular issues you hear American citizens deal with, are completely non-existent here.

edit: Also, and quite obviously, EU is not one country. There's just too much variation going on to compare.

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