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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

#161

Post by redis_mlc »

geoduck14 wrote: post #4
city41 wrote: post #2

Site seems down, possibly HN hug of death

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…

> paid health care

Virtually all US programmers get 2+ weeks off plus 10 holidays and company-paid employee health care, and always have. Some also get paid or subsidized family health care.

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

#162

Post by dom96 »

evgen wrote: post #152
dom96 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve hired a lot of excellent remote developers in European countries. The trick is to pay them American-level wages, which are often substantially higher than what they could get locally. Are there any websites that specifically cater to advertising these kinds of positions? As someone in London currently working at a FAANG it's becoming clear that the only way I can hope even to match my current salary is to A) g…

If you are expecting to get the same total comp as you currently do with with RSUs then your only option in London is fintech or a hft/quant firm. I have received offers from companies in the city that net out to £350k+ as well as a small equity upside, but even at a FAANG your best bet for good comp was to join them in the US and then get transferred to the UK office. It is also worth noting that while the price tra…

I'm not really expecting it. I'm actually not sure what to expect. I'm still very early in my career, I've been very lucky to graduate with a position at a FAANG but now am feeling like there is nowhere for me to go but down comp-wise. Traditionally I have heard from family and friends that accepting anything short of a raise when switching roles is a loss, in fact I have heard and read many times that switching companies is the best way to get a raise in the software industry. Is it typical for engineers switching from FAANG to non-FAANG to take a significant pay cut? (~50%)

As for fintech, I have had an internship that has put me off them. But maybe it was just a bad place and I shouldn't write them off completely.

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

#163

Post by yeezyseezy »

donretag wrote: post #71

Why are lead engineer salaries lower than senior engineer's? Senior Software Engineer Average: $126,000 Lead Software Engineer Average: $109,000

I think this is due to the self-reported nature of Glassdoor, and it exposes how this is a flawed methodology. The original point of salary disparity still stands, but any single datapoint here is likely not reliable.

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

#164

Post by oceanofsolaris »

donretag wrote: post #71

Why are lead engineer salaries lower than senior engineer's? Senior Software Engineer Average: $126,000 Lead Software Engineer Average: $109,000

I assume because their data source is not great (aggregation of some kind of Glassdoor data).

* Looking at data for Google in San Francisco, Glassdoor says that average total compensation for a "Senior Software Engineer" is 230K $, whereas levels.fyi (which I trust a bit more) says that Level 5 (the one labeled "Senior SWE") earns 350K $ on average. Interestingly, Glassdoor also offers a breakdown of total compensation into the components. Adding the average value of the components together also results in something around 350K $ ... I guess Glassdoor just aggregates things in a wrong way. * People at different stages of their career probably have a very different likelihood to create a Glassdoor account (let alone one that accurately names their salary). Similar with small vs. large companies, European vs. American companies etc. This potentially introduces enough bias to make the whole thing worthless for jobs that have a large variance in salaries (such as "director of engineering"). * I still assume that the general thrust of the article is right (when starting your software eng career, the bay area is not a bad place to be). But I wouldn't trust the salary numbers very much.

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

#165

Post by anotheryou »

city41 wrote: post #32
anotheryou wrote: post #15

Does anyone have scatter plots or distribution data on tech salaries? Would be much more interesting than average, anecdotal and even median.

there is https://comp.fyi for a decent set of data, although it does seem rather SV biased.

Also very biased towards big companies, at least for my region.

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

#166

Post by zuhayeer »

The disparity (especially on the higher end) is in reality much higher since Glassdoor data may be stale and not accounting for total compensation. Take a look at Levels.fyi and see how much total compensation can differ across locations: https://levels.fyi/locations/

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

#167

Post by refurb »

tharne wrote: post #53
sneak wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your benefits aren’t that great. I was paying $200 per month premium for my entire family ($2400 per year). $1000 deductible, 90% coverage, max of $2,000 individual or $5,000 for the entire family.

So maximum in any year was $7,000. And unless we had a birth or major surgery it was typically much less.

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

#168

Post by nickthemagicman »

foxyv wrote: post #147
nickthemagicman wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like it would be more value efficient to train a person making 40k a year how to do that then pay someone hundreds of grand a year who already knows how to do it.

The problem occurs when, after training that 40k a year developer, they BECOME a 100k a year developer. Unless you can lock them in with an amoral non-compete or some other form of illegal method, they will find out that they are worth that much and leave for someone who will pay them.

In many countries a 40k a year developer IS a 100k a year developer in US.

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

#169

Post by nickthemagicman »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #120
nickthemagicman wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like it would be more value efficient to train a person making 40k a year how to do that then pay someone hundreds of grand a year who already knows how to do it.

This information seems like it would be of interest to the board of directors at companies paying hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to employees. I assumed that they would have hired management that takes labor costs into account.

in this post pandemic world, now that companies have set themselves up for remote work.... why would they hire someone in the US when they could hire someone cheaper in another country?

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

#170

Post by EugeneOZ »

polotics wrote: post #72
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 ;)

The US has higher cost of living if you factor in the many externalities like lack of usable public transit, mass shootings, the opioid epidemic on the streets, and many other US disasters impacting the cost of getting an equivalent quality of life.

I believe numbers more :)
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