Just to add my opinion, 60-80K is an expected decent/common salary for an experienced programmer across EU (UK salaries are higher). Programmer salaries above 100K are very uncommon outside a few companies and US/UK.
Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?
21–30 of 200 posts
Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?
#22> Do they offer something else which is unusually attractive? You can literally read the job description. Answer:no. Source: I've read the descriptions. > Intrigued to learn more. They are just companies. They either don't have money, or have money and want to lowball (it's good time to lowball).
> it's good time to lowball There's lowballing, and then there's insulting.
Is the dignity of work worth nothing to you? Think of the poor job creators.
Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?
#23> this salary wouldn't attract strong talent even in medium cost-of-living countries (like portugal/spain). median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year[1], so 50-80k would easily place them in the upper 10% of the scale. I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are. [1] https://www.payscale.com/research/ES/Job=Software_Developer/...
Those figures are wrong to be honest. Most senior folks in Spain don't work for Spanish companies in general; they work for EU companies that pay more. Plenty of senior folks in Spain making $100k+. In Barcelona, you can make north of $70K easy; even for non-senior devs. I agree with OP. The salary is way too low for a senior European developer to consider because taking a US job means that there are no employment pr…
> Those figures are wrong to be honest. Most senior folks in Spain don't work for Spanish companies in general; they work for EU companies that pay more.
Does that contradict those figures though? Are you talking about the upper 10% discussed?
Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?
#24> Do they offer something else which is unusually attractive? You can literally read the job description. Answer:no. Source: I've read the descriptions. > Intrigued to learn more. They are just companies. They either don't have money, or have money and want to lowball (it's good time to lowball).
> it's good time to lowball There's lowballing, and then there's insulting.
99% of programming jobs outside of America must be insulting to you.
Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?
#25> this salary wouldn't attract strong talent even in medium cost-of-living countries (like portugal/spain). median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year[1], so 50-80k would easily place them in the upper 10% of the scale. I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are. [1] https://www.payscale.com/research/ES/Job=Software_Developer/...
> Americans need to really reflect on how inflated American dev salaries are.
More specifcally: SV needs to reflect on how inflated SV salaries are. Possibly with a few outliers elsehwere, such as New York and maybe a few pockets in London. But overall the area where software developers as a rule make > $120K per year is probably less than a few hundred square kilometers and the world is much, much larger than that.
Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those figures are wrong to be honest. Most senior folks in Spain don't work for Spanish companies in general; they work for EU companies that pay more. Plenty of senior folks in Spain making $100k+. In Barcelona, you can make north of $70K easy; even for non-senior devs. I agree with OP. The salary is way too low for a senior European developer to consider because taking a US job means that there are no employment pr…
> Those figures are wrong to be honest. Most senior folks in Spain don't work for Spanish companies in general; they work for EU companies that pay more. Does that contradict those figures though? Are you talking about the upper 10% discussed?
From PayScale, the upper is at $50K. You wouldn't even get an average developer for that salary in Barcelona for example.
Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?
#27One take I haven't seen..
It's sort of like when otherwise successful "name brand" organizations offer unpaid internships (let's not get in to whether that's legal or not.)
This selects for the type of people that can afford an arrangement like that.
Put another way, already wealthy founders, supported by wealthy investors, also want wealthy employees, or at least the demographic that fits already wealthy people.
Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?
#28> this salary wouldn't attract strong talent even in medium cost-of-living countries (like portugal/spain). median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year[1], so 50-80k would easily place them in the upper 10% of the scale. I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are. [1] https://www.payscale.com/research/ES/Job=Software_Developer/...
>I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are.
Or maybe people everywhere else need to really reflect on how underpaid they are. It’s not like the revenue of tech companies is lower outside of the US, so why isn’t more of it ending up in developers’ pockets, where it should go?
Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?
#29"Senior" means different things to different people. I've interviewed "senior" engineers who I wouldn't hire into an internship, and I've interviewed regular (non-senior) engineers who are exceptional. It also means different things to different companies. At a startup, a "staff engineer" might just be the best engineer on a team of 5-10, but at a big tech company it means a completely different thing. I've also work…
> At a startup, a "staff engineer" might just be
They're clearly wizards that hold a staff.
> I've also worked with senior engineers at big tech companies who would be less productive than a new graduate in a 3 person startup.
That doesn't sound like the engineers' fault? In reverse would the new graduate be productive in big tech?
> "Senior" means different things to different people.
It usually just means old.
Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?
#30"The average total compensation of a Software Engineer in Spain is €55,437." "The average total compensation of a Software Engineer in Portugal is €39,094."
Dont thrust those numbers. 50k € is a very high salary in Spain for a software developer. The average is probably closer to 35k €