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Europe data salary benchmark 2023

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Re: Europe data salary benchmark 2023

#51

Post by pokepim »

adam_arthur wrote: post #47
emptysongglass wrote: post #28

We are getting absolutely fleeced by our American counterparts and paying higher taxes on top. Yet we're every bit as good developers, DevOps Engineers, SREs, you name it in tech. And cost of living in US metro areas vs Europe does not even begin to explain why. I wish we'd collectively take a harder stance on the bargaining line because it is insane to me we be paid half, a third less and then shell out very high ta…

Pay always comes down to supply and demand of labor, not value added. If you have a button that earns $1m a press, its a pretty valuable role to press it, but you can also hire literally anyone to do it. So pay for pressing the button can be quite low despite large value creation. Now, if only one person is eligible to press the button, he can easily negotiate up to $1m a press for himself. Same work, lower supply of…

Good point, we are seeing a lot of layoffs in bay area amand other HCoL locations in the US but at the same time hiring is still going strong in Eastern Europe and India. Typical outsourcing destinations where you can get a developer for fraction of the price. We can debate about quality but for sure countries like Poland have lots of developers that are on a par with best ones in Bay area

Re: Europe data salary benchmark 2023

#52

Post by Mizoguchi »

I worked for varios European companies in the US traveling often and for long periods of time to Europe for work.

I must say at least in places like Austria and Germany things like groceries, utilities and eating out seem to be considerably cheaper (and much better).

I'm currently paying $250 per month for water in the US for a household of three and this is not in San Francisco.

We also work more hours in general.

My counterparts in Germany had over 30 vacation days and at least one holiday per month.

Taxes here are lower, but just because we pay other big expenses ourselves such as health care.

But the real hit comes when you add kids.

In Germany it seems you are given even more paid time off work to spend time with your kids and travel with them which is awesome, besides your employer picking up some of the bills like education.

Forget that in the US. Here you are on your own. $chool, extra curricular activitie$, nannie$. Money money money.

Some european countries enjoy very high standards of living and great services and infrastructure, and that cannot possibly be free.

So salaries as a metric alone are meaningless, at the end of the day what matters is how much money is left in the bank after you pay all the bills to keep up with a certain life style. In the US a decent, not even a good life style costs a lot of money, almost like a hidden tax you need to pay.

Re: Europe data salary benchmark 2023

#53

Post by Mizoguchi »

dhdhhdd wrote: post #48
madballster wrote: post #40

Should normalize this to working days & hours. Germany has up to 6 weeks of paid vacation per year vs. ~10 days in the US.

Is 10 normal? Msft: up to 25, google: 20-25, meta: 21 (or more?). The worst I heard is apple with 12 days at the beginning

Legally is zero days in the US. I met people with 3-5 days per year. Most companies give you 10 days to start so that's considered standard. It took me 15 years to get to 20. There are some exceptions of course with a generous amount of days or unlimited vacation, but the vast mayority of corporations in the US go with 10,15,20 and maybe 25 once you spend 30+ years with the company.

Re: Europe data salary benchmark 2023

#54

Post by strato-cumulus »

madballster wrote: post #40

Should normalize this to working days & hours. Germany has up to 6 weeks of paid vacation per year vs. ~10 days in the US.

The legal minimum is 20 working days, though. The people in tech I've met in Berlin are getting anything between 26 and 30. My contract starts with 27 days and this number will be raised every year I'm working there till it reaches 30.

Re: Europe data salary benchmark 2023

#55

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

carom wrote: post #34
mahmoudhossam wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxation is highly dependent on location and personal factors (single income vs double income household) and other factors that are irrelevant in this context. Also "benefits" in the American sense aren't really a thing in the EU.

Pretty sure a month or two of vacation is common in the EU.

It's not anywhere I lived, not even close.

Now I have 25 days per year with up to 40 is the max I've seen for places with a lot of overtime.

Mid twenties to early thirties is the average vacation days per year people in the EU get. The rest are fringe outliers.

Re: Europe data salary benchmark 2023

#56

Post by retrac98 »

woobar wrote: post #33
emptysongglass wrote: post #28

We are getting absolutely fleeced by our American counterparts and paying higher taxes on top. Yet we're every bit as good developers, DevOps Engineers, SREs, you name it in tech. And cost of living in US metro areas vs Europe does not even begin to explain why. I wish we'd collectively take a harder stance on the bargaining line because it is insane to me we be paid half, a third less and then shell out very high ta…

You can't have your cake and eat it too. You like your social safety net? You like stronger worker protection? Long vacations? Someone has to pay for all of it. Either through higher taxes or lower wages.

“Social safety net”

14% of people in UK are skipping meals because they can’t afford food right now.

https://theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/18/one-in-7-briton...

Re: Europe data salary benchmark 2023

#57

Post by retrac98 »

I stopped paying attention to these sorts of stats when I realised it’s far more effective to focus on improving what I’m making in a way that doesn’t compromise other things I value in life (leisure time, location, type of work, etc) than it is worrying about what people in other economies make with no context.

Re: Europe data salary benchmark 2023

#58

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

88913527 wrote: post #45
woobar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. You like your social safety net? You like stronger worker protection? Long vacations? Someone has to pay for all of it. Either through higher taxes or lower wages.

You could take away Europe's social safety net and wages would still be lower. There is no equivalent to Silicon Valley there which creates the competition that bids up salaries.

>You could take away Europe's social safety net and wages would still be lower.

That's true, however the strong employee protection laws are definitely a factor that keep investors looking for safer returns like real estate rather than putting their money in starting a risky business in Europe.

If you had 1 mm USD/EUR/GBP to start a tech business, would you rather put it in a country where employees have high salaries but almost no rights or benefits by law, or in a country with lower wages but where you have the added risk to your business by all employees have stronger rights and benefits so your star coder could always spontaneously take his parental leave or his month long vacation break whenever you need him the most because "that's his legal right".

It's sad but true. Employee protection rights are good, but they do discourage investments. The fact that US has almost no employee rights does encourage investing in labour there.

Re: Europe data salary benchmark 2023

#59

Post by anonzzzies »

emptysongglass wrote: post #28

We are getting absolutely fleeced by our American counterparts and paying higher taxes on top. Yet we're every bit as good developers, DevOps Engineers, SREs, you name it in tech. And cost of living in US metro areas vs Europe does not even begin to explain why. I wish we'd collectively take a harder stance on the bargaining line because it is insane to me we be paid half, a third less and then shell out very high ta…

It is not ok, but I cannot see it change soon. You can change things though for yourself at least, however, people seem to not want to change and want the government to fix things for them. I expect that as well when I vote for a party that has this on their program, but I know it won’t happen. I have always (since begin 90s) made Silicon Valley wages in the EU, but that takes some effort; hard bargaining, being cocky (consistently overselling yourself; I am not particularly talented as a programmer but I always get paid more than most of my colleagues, including ones in management), having an agency (which made wfh possible for the past 30+ years, so I don’t need to throw my money away on renting/buying in a city), being smart with taxes, smart investing and not live in a big, expensive country or city.

From my salary alone I am over Silicon Valley higher bracket earners and that’s salary. Most Silicon Valley posts say they earn $x but that’s including stock options etc. It is really more that EU people seem very risk averse and waiting for ‘things to improve’ by some type of magic. I might be a cynical old guy, but I accepted they won’t and you have to do it yourself. Which means you need to make some sacrifices to make it work more like the US but with the benefits of the EU (mostly; simply healthcare without needing insurance, free uni and working 4 days or less with a lot of vacation and still making more than most Americans). I realise you and most others here will do things to change the way you live, that is fine, but then things will remain the same and your gov or the eu gov is not going to change that. The options are already there if you search and they have always been like that in IT at least.

Re: Europe data salary benchmark 2023

#60

Post by suslik »

joshvm wrote: post #43
thomasingalls wrote: post #24

Why isn't France ever in these datasets?

Also Switzerland (or Scandinavia for that matter) which pays similar to the US for tech jobs. Even academic jobs here pay exceptionally well compared to anywhere else in Europe. Starting salary for a good data scientist role (requiring some domain expertise) here is close to 100k CHF (not including Big Tech who can easily pay 1.5x more). Cost of living is high, but frankly London is comparable in terms of rent nowada…

Scandinavia is nothing like that, unfortunately.
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