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

Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

toolbox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 609 posts

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#151

Post by mjbeswick »

mathverse wrote: post #129

We europeans are underpaid and taxed to death. The US could easily fill its worker shortage by offering easy visas for EU engineers. Many of us would like to move but it's a real PITA to apply to companies that are even willing to consider visa sponsorship. I actually have no idea why this is not the case already. It's basically 1st world to 1st world transition and the one losing would be EU.

It only seems like that but people in the US have to pay for things that Europeans take for granted. You might earn more, but most people would end up with less disposable income.

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#152

Post by Nextgrid »

sgt wrote: post #128
happymellon wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20 years here too, UK, I've finally broken the 6 digit bar but I had to move to contracting. My experience made getting job offers simple, but no one wanted to pay more. I'd often get lowballs with the offer of kudos for working at that tech firm. £95k seems to be the upper limit at this point here for FTEs.

£95k is very decent in the countryside but in London that's nothing to write home about, is it? I don't live in London or even the UK, so my statement is just based on friends living there.

Keep in mind that taxes eat quite a bit of that (seemingly more so than in the US).

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#153

Post by Nextgrid »

gbuk2013 wrote: post #87
AnotherAsprin wrote: post #61

Are six figure salaries an american thing? I see people saying "Entry level jobs are paying up to 60k" which is just crazy money! I have worked for the past 7 years as IT within the UK education sector and expect my salary to be lower than that of industry but I am not even making half that!

“Working in IT” is pretty broad, but a senior JS dev in London can reasonably ask for 70-90k these days, sometimes more.

90k is the top level, and doesn't go far especially in London.

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#154

Post by lotsofpulp »

astrange wrote: post #131
indecisive_user wrote: post #5

>the average tech worker’s salary [will] reach $104,566 in the U.S. — a 6.9% increase since 2020, the report found. But inflation is over 11% since 2020. This isn't an increase. The average tech worker is making less than they were 2 years ago according to the Dice salary report. Why do tech workers feel underpaid? Many companies posted record growth and profits over the pandemic, but still give out paltry 3-5% raise…

> But inflation is over 11% since 2020. This isn't an increase. The average tech worker is making less than they were 2 years ago according to the Dice salary report. Are you buying the average number of used cars and housing? I'm not. My expenses haven't gone up 10% in nominal dollars. (Related anecdote: people tend to say the economy is bad if they heard it was bad on TV, even if they just got a new job and a raise…

Assuming your goal is to have a car, your budget should always be accounting for the time when you will need to buy a new car since cars do not last forever.

Same with land. If your goal is to purchase lands, then your budget needs account for increases in the prices of land (specifically the land you want). And healthcare. And education.

Also, my food purchases have definitely increased at least 10% nominally in the past couple years.

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#155

Post by Nextgrid »

mjbeswick wrote: post #151
mathverse wrote: post #129

We europeans are underpaid and taxed to death. The US could easily fill its worker shortage by offering easy visas for EU engineers. Many of us would like to move but it's a real PITA to apply to companies that are even willing to consider visa sponsorship. I actually have no idea why this is not the case already. It's basically 1st world to 1st world transition and the one losing would be EU.

It only seems like that but people in the US have to pay for things that Europeans take for granted. You might earn more, but most people would end up with less disposable income.

It really depends on your country. In the UK, the "NHS" everyone seems to love here is completely useless unless you're on the brink of death. Any non-critical care is impossible to get so you end up going private anyway, essentially paying twice.

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#156

Post by lotsofpulp »

kilroy123 wrote: post #113
uejfiweun wrote: post #23

Working in tech is not exactly easy, even if you love computers. You have to move to some awfully expensive part of the country and interact with some extremely thin skinned people all day, and spend hours upon hours examining minute details of systems supporting systems supporting systems that you never even knew existed.

Plus it's very competitive. You can't just sit around and rest on one's laurels. You have to constantly be learning and god help you when you need to interview and land a new job.

Hence the higher pay. If it was easier, there would be more supply of labor relative to demand, hence the prices for the labor would be lower.

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#157

Post by lotsofpulp »

throwawayo wrote: post #140
tjansen wrote: post #10

It also makes us Europeans feel underpaid :) I have 20 years of experience and don't even make six figures. $350000 base pay sounds like a different world.

Our CEO makes 120.000 € a year. Revenue about 2.000.000 € There are employees that make more than him, but no one is close to 200.000 €. Personal is our biggest expense. I earn a decent living and can afford a house and two kids and a stay at home wife in Central Europe with 74.000 € (Project Manager / DevOp / Admin). Cost of living must be insanely high in the U.S. For me, these numbers are so high - I can't imagen…

> Cost of living must be insanely high in the U.S. For me, these numbers are so high - I can't imagen what someone would do with all this money.

First is secure yourself with fuck you money so you do not need to sell your labor to procure the things you want, especially shelter (land), food, water, energy, healthcare, and education.

Second is play the game against other high earners. Get involved in other businesses or politics, etc.

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#158

Post by [deleted] »

baal80spam wrote: post #17
tjansen wrote: post #10

It also makes us Europeans feel underpaid :) I have 20 years of experience and don't even make six figures. $350000 base pay sounds like a different world.

Exactly my thought when I read the title. I know the cost of living is higher in US but I'm always baffled by how much tech workers make on the other side of the pond. To me it sounds like a dream.

[deleted]

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#159

Post by inertiatic »

Melting_Harps wrote: post #119
jokethrowaway wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of everything else raised as well, so wealthy tech workers also lost purchasing power (especially after the last stock crash).

> I don't understand this opinion. Ok, let me spell it out: you're not special. Nothing about your profession makes you special, you are not somehow better than anyone because you can sit at a computer and write code. It's a skill, a very highly compensated one for now but an incredibly narrow one that happens to be useful a select few corps, sure, but so was were many other things. And if one thing that COVID has ta…

>And if one thing that COVID has taught us is how incredibly unnecessary you are to maintaining civilization

I don't think you understand how the world dealt with COVID. Governments needed software fast to deal with things like tracking the spread of the virus, ensuring people observe protocols (like in my country Greece where you had to go online or send a text to make sure that you're allowed to be outside during the peak of the pandemic). You do mention supply chain, like it's one simple job, but in fact software is now an integral part of selling anything to anyone. People went online to do things like work, socialize, buy things they don't need, buy the things they need to survive, go to school or learn skills they now need to survive like how to cook, exercise, perform, have sex.

I don't think being a programmer makes me special either, I'm not attacking that argument of yours, but in trying to make that argument you make some very myopic remarks...

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#160

Post by astrange »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #154
astrange wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But inflation is over 11% since 2020. This isn't an increase. The average tech worker is making less than they were 2 years ago according to the Dice salary report. Are you buying the average number of used cars and housing? I'm not. My expenses haven't gone up 10% in nominal dollars. (Related anecdote: people tend to say the economy is bad if they heard it was bad on TV, even if they just got a new job and a raise…

Assuming your goal is to have a car, your budget should always be accounting for the time when you will need to buy a new car since cars do not last forever. Same with land. If your goal is to purchase lands, then your budget needs account for increases in the prices of land (specifically the land you want). And healthcare. And education. Also, my food purchases have definitely increased at least 10% nominally in the…

The inflation number is specifically high because used cars got expensive due to the chip production supply crunch, it’s not those other things. (Except insofar as those other people want to buy used cars, which some of them do.) You’re reading as if it applied to the entire economy just because you’ve been given a single number.

My rent hasn’t gone up either. Which is kind of weird since I don’t think we have rent control here.

Post reply on HN