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Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

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Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#41

Post by Silhouette »

badpun wrote: post #18
jheriko wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* dishonest and ethically corrupt contractors now take home less thanks to IR35. for the rest of us, it was a non-event.

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

There are plenty of people working as contractors or freelancers in the UK who are without sin in this respect. Not everyone - or even most people - working independently is trying to evade tax. In fact financially most people would be better off as employees now if you directly compare salary with contract rates as if they meant the same thing. The big advantages of contracting and freelancing are about flexibility and being able to price on value and not according to whatever trends are happening in the employment market.

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#42

Post by yrgulation »

bradleyjg wrote: post #37

Tech, like law, is a bimodal market. If you think of it as a single bell curve your intuitions will be all wrong. The good news is that unlike law it’s possible to jump into the better paying market even if you didn’t go to the “right” school.

Thats odd. I know loads of lawyers living in mansions while loads of “highly paid” developers live with housemates, or rent tiny homes. If anything, software development pay has reached construction worker pay. At least we dont have to sit out in the cold.

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#43

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

walthamstow wrote: post #16
finikytou wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in pure Euro no they went up a bit but definitly lower than the cost of living increase. the problem is that in the past decade Europe welcomed Cyprus, Czech Republic,Estonia,Hungary,Latvia, Lithuania,Malta , Poland ,Slovakia,Slovenia,Bulgaria ,Romania, Croatia. Most of those countries were below living standards/salaries of western europe while having for some of them a very strong education system. Romania for inst…

All the countries you mention apart from Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia were admitted in 2004, which is nearly 20 years ago now.

The effects took time to manifest. Now they slowed down.

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#44

Post by ethbr0 »

finikytou wrote: post #15
oxff wrote: post #7

In Europe they've probably gone down the past decade I'd say.

in pure Euro no they went up a bit but definitly lower than the cost of living increase. the problem is that in the past decade Europe welcomed Cyprus, Czech Republic,Estonia,Hungary,Latvia, Lithuania,Malta , Poland ,Slovakia,Slovenia,Bulgaria ,Romania, Croatia. Most of those countries were below living standards/salaries of western europe while having for some of them a very strong education system. Romania for inst…

Hasn't this been the Dutch playbook, since ~1600?

"Look at how much more freedom we give capital than the rest of Europe!" etc.

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#45

Post by oxff »

finikytou wrote: post #15
oxff wrote: post #7

In Europe they've probably gone down the past decade I'd say.

in pure Euro no they went up a bit but definitly lower than the cost of living increase. the problem is that in the past decade Europe welcomed Cyprus, Czech Republic,Estonia,Hungary,Latvia, Lithuania,Malta , Poland ,Slovakia,Slovenia,Bulgaria ,Romania, Croatia. Most of those countries were below living standards/salaries of western europe while having for some of them a very strong education system. Romania for inst…

Yeah I was taking into account cost of living increases and inflation when I wrote it, it's quite grim to live in Western Europe on regular dev salary :D

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#46

Post by IaacForHire »

brandall10 wrote: post #31
IaacForHire wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly outside of FAANG this is not the case at all. Total compensation out of non-faang is: Salary + worthless stock option and maybe a 3% 401k match if they're more than 5 years old.

There's many companies that compete for FAANG talent and pay that type of comp or come within 15% or so of it. Just peruse levels.fyi

I'm not sure I can believe that. The companies who hire for average senior engineers like me do not compete with FAANG. They hire the 90% of us who aren't rockstars and have accepted we have no upward mobility in our careers.

I know very many devops/software engineers in San Francisco making $140k-$150k total comp.

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#47

Post by yrgulation »

mrweasel wrote: post #25

That's a hard question. I'm in Denmark, which is notoriously expensive, and I'd say that even $120K for Sr DevOps is a bit on the high end. There where a period of time with large "year on year" jumps in pay from 2010 to 2018 (something like that). That does seem to have cooled of in the past four years. I did see a brief surge in positions offered and higher wages last year, but that stopped in during spring time th…

Issue in denmark is that high pay gets heavily taxed. So 102k is what 50k at best? Factor in vat and its less.

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#48

Post by 2rsf »

IaacForHire wrote: post #27
oxff wrote: post #7

In Europe they've probably gone down the past decade I'd say.

Oof, European salaries are absurdly low. When I first left the USA I was thinking "OK I'll get a nice job in Amsterdam or Denmark" .. Then I saw the cost of living and the low salaries, and waved away that dream.

I don't want to pen THIS discussion again, but... the difference is not that big especially if you calculate risk and family in. I live in Sweden with our "known" high taxes and as far as I can tell from conversations with friends and colleagues is that our QUALITY of life is not that different. Of course, YMMV especially if you were a big shot in a big shot place with no family to support, young and healthy.

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#49

Post by lrvick »

bradleyjg wrote: post #37

Tech, like law, is a bimodal market. If you think of it as a single bell curve your intuitions will be all wrong. The good news is that unlike law it’s possible to jump into the better paying market even if you didn’t go to the “right” school.

You can generally make as much as you want in this industry without any school at all if you develop niche skill sets and a large enough network.

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#50

Post by gsibble »

Having worked in startups in SF and now Boston for the last 12 years, I first started making my current salary in 2014 and have never made more than that from one job. So in real figures, salaries have come down quite a bit due to inflation.

Only real way to make money in tech is FAANG. I've owned so much worthless stock it's basically a meme.

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