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

Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

4dayweek.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 199 posts

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

#91

Post by the_only_law »

wayoutthere wrote: post #65
tw04 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd point out two things: While the valley definitely skews the high end in America, it employs a fraction of the total developers in the US. There's the other 90% of the country that doesn't live in the valley that works in those very same "corporate development" jobs that are in Europe. You don't think companies like Walmart, State Farm, Allstate, Epic*, Target, Best Buy, UHG, Dell*, IBM* etc. etc. employ boatloads…

I do consulting work for those kinds of clients, and we’re having a hard time hiring engineers with a few years experience below $150k. Previous talent shortages were primarily for that top 10% of developer talent / salary, but this one feels different because grunt-level unsexy corporate IT technologists are also in short supply.

It’s interesting how ever within the US, there seem to be worlds of difference.

> grunt-level unsexy corporate IT technologists are also in short supply

This describes my work experience, and I don’t think I could even get six figures, or would barely break that.

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

#93

Post by tribaal »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #51
whimsicalism wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 exceptio…

I think that's the wrong take, personally.

The draw of hiring remote is that you will get access to great engineers that would otherwise never want to move to the Bay Area. You get to compete for their talent if you're offering full remote, but so do other companies that pay "Bay Area salaries".

I think it's great for software engineers everywhere, but not great for the Bay Area itself since the incentive to move there becomes lower (salary is not the only reason people move to the Bay Area, but it's definitely a big pull). Although if you live there that means less pressure on real estate ;)

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

#94

Post by volta83 »

rgrmrts wrote: post #55
EugeneOZ wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There might be more data for levels.fyi in the US than EU.

600k$ is 480k EUR. I know SEs in Germany doing more than 400k EUR at FAANG.

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

#95

Post by dukeyukey »

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…

> No US Company will never "outsource" to europe to save 50% per full time worker

To a point this has already happened, there are tonnes of American tech companies hiring in London. The cultural difference between the US and the rest of the Anglosphere is fairly minimal, which makes us plus Canada obvious choices for "nearsourcing". And if the planned UK-US free trade agreement goes through, this is just gonna accelerate.

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

#96

Post by foxyv »

roenxi wrote: post #59
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 geographi…

Yes, we have tons of people who can code at a proficient level in one language. However, don't underestimate the difficulty of software engineering. The people who we need to build our applications are getting really hard to find and especially keep around.

Sure I can get someone who will code a basic Spring Boot application in a pinch. But do they have the excellent communication skills, knowledge of build systems, cloud knowledge, understanding of TCP and SSL, HTTP protocol, forwarding and reverse proxies, containerization, unit testing, and version control just to start. This isn't mentioning secure design and the hundreds of other small things they will need to learn and understand.

Then they have to be willing to get up to speed on new libraries and be able to read and understand software. Will they be able to set up remote configuration for our swarm? Will they be able to do the research if they don't know something? Do they have a firm base of computer science knowledge to make that learning stick?

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

#97

Post by misterS »

tharne wrote: post #41

Six to eight weeks of vacation, plentiful Holidays, a 35-hour work week. If you look beyond pay as strictly salary and break it down into an hourly rate, I'd argue that European developers make considerably more than their American counterparts.

Let me assure you that not all European developers have such generous conditions.

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

#98

Post by hirako2000 »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #33
mistrial9 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my own software development specialty (in California) was massively outsourced to the Ukraine in the late 90s. So, your prediction is old news.

Could you share what speciality was shipped to Ukraine?

Plenty of specialities are shipped to Eastern Europe. Ukraine being a well appreciated destination due to general grasp of English among young population, and hard working good engineers. Like the specialities we see delocolised to India, php ecommerce dev/customisation is one. And the whole enterprise j2ee kind of stuff, platform development. And also mobile dev has become popularly outsourced to Ukraine.

The software industry is seeing the same thing as what happened to factory industries. First the specialities that are least challenging to manage offshore, then eating the rest of the profession, leaving some niche I suppose like we still produce certain type of clothes, furniture and electronics in the well developed countries.

I've lived in several countries where outsourcing is common, it's always the same schema. Flocks of non very competent wanna be tech riches launch businesses of hiring cheaper labour with the promise to deliver quality projects. In the end it's a mess of a code base, but client see the bill as more digestive than hiring a team of people with all the tax and high social benefits to pay without any guarantee that anything will work in the end.

I don't know how the outsourcing hype will end given the difficulty to streamline software development. There is little cultural/message loss when sewing t-shirt with a logo and well defined patterns on them, all designed by an artist and industrialists in Paris or Milan. The translation of digital application which spans across multiple type of devices, on terminals and multiple servers, constantly evolving to quickly adapt to business needs is another story. But hey maybe we will rather have somewhat satisfying software made abroad for cheap and guaranteed further unemployment locally than pay what is worth and have products well fit for purposes.

Edit: typos

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

#99

Post by fsloth »

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…

"..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."

So my career for the past 14 years has been a dream? Of course there are software product companies in Europe.

I can name any number of them for example in the really small (population wise) Helsinki area. Just to name a small subset: Supercell, Rovio, Remedy Games, Napa (ship design), Rightware (automotive UI:s), Basemark (AI and mobile graphics), F-Secure, Aiven...

Then there are hardware businesses that are deeply linked with software. Nokia (Networks, not phones...) being the most prominent of them, but new comers as well - IQM (Quantum computers), Varjo (VR headsets), Iceye (satellites)...

Then there are the subsidiaries of global companies developing software - NVidia, Trimble, Huawei (handsets), Amazon (robotics), QT, Electronic Arts, Unity...

This is not an exhaustive list but just a small subset out of the cuff. If I can name this bunch just from my local capital area in Finland I can only extrapolate that the Zoo of software companies in Europe is, in fact, quite large.

There are just not any Google of Facebook scale unicorns (except local subsidiaries of them course).

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

#100

Post by city41 »

eterevsky wrote: post #24
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…

> 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.

Salaries in Switzerland reach $500k-$1 million/year? Honest question, I know nothing about Switzerland.
Post reply on HN