Why are lead engineer salaries lower than senior engineer's? Senior Software Engineer Average: $126,000 Lead Software Engineer Average: $109,000
Probably not enough data points.
Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States
171–180 of 199 posts
Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I've heard of London, Dublin, Berlin and Zurich, but I haven't heard that Munich has the highest salary.
100% sure Dublin & Berlin salaries are lower than Munich, at least outside of FAANGs.
Maybe Switzerland and Norway are higher but so are taxes.
Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure about SF arrogance but the whole “Your job is going to get outsourced to India don’t get into IT/Software Dev” thing has been around since the 90s. It’s 20 years later and the job market is better than ever, salaries are better than ever, and a lot of companies who fully embraced the IT outsourcing trend are realizing it actually hurt them in the long run. Short term it helped but now they have lost their ma…
If you know what you are doing by building an organic team in a foreign country, you can still get real bang for the buck. If you try the traditional outsourcing model by offloading shit to a 3rd party, you will get hurt.
Managers who know what they are doing are typically a lot more expensive than software engineers who know what they are doing. So the only reasonable way to outsource software engineering is to also outsource the corresponding management, and management don't want to do that.
Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
The point of my comment was to sarcastically point out there there are very qualified people sitting in decision making positions with an incentive to lower labor costs.
It is possible they are making a mistake and completely missing a great money saving opportunity, but I would not bet on it.
There very well could be new opportunities for labor arbitrage that can be taken advantage of by many businesses, and if so, it will be evidenced by the success of companies that take advantage of it. But it might take some time.
But it is not a new idea, and is certainly one that has already been tried, and so if certain companies are not taking advantage of lower labor costs elsewhere, then it is prudent to assume there is a good reason.
Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
> government paid health care, so it works out This argument always gets brought up. The thing is, even in much of the Europe, highly paid professionals don't use the government paid health care, but instead get health insurances from their employers, so the situation is the same as in the US. For some reason those health insurances seem to be much cheaper here than in the US, though.
What countries is this true. I know zero people who have private health insurance. Some companies offer it as a perk, but I have never heard of anyone paying for their own private health insurance.
Ireland. Without private health insurance you would be waiting many years before you would get to see a consultant in the public system. To even get an appointment in a public hospital in a reasonable amount of time you need private health insurance.
Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States
#176Sure, I get that salaries are higher in the US. Overall quality of life though? I'd take europe, personally. My salary is 50% lower than my SF-based colleagues but my quality of life is amazing. Large house, green open spaces, my taxes pay for high-quality healthcare and a _relatively_ equal society. I'm far richer here, in many ways, than I would be if my bank account were a bit larger.
Large houses with open green spaces seem much more attainable in the US then Western Europe. Additionally, if you're an American SWE you would have pretty great healthcare benefits anyway. In terms of average care outcomes, moving to Europe might be a step backwards in that regards.
They're probably less attainable specifically around San Fransisco and Silicon Valley than in most of Western Europe though, even on a SWE salary. It's definitely true in cheaper areas and states though.
Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States
#177Without 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.…
Yes, the Supercell HQ across the road from where I live must be a mirage ;)
Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States
#178Six 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.
I often get the feeling many people just maximise their take-home pay rather than how they function within the rest of society (and what society can do for them). I don't think any amount of money would convince me to have to live in the US.
Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States
#179Earlier 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.
Ok, even then: 30k < 100k. You still come out 70k ahead employed by a US company.
Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States
#180It’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…
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