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Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

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Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#81

Post by SXX »

brtkdotse wrote: post #76
gamesbrainiac wrote: post #17

Earlier 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…

> European developer to consider because taking a US job Nitpicking, but this is technically not possible. The US company has to have a EU presence or the developer needs to be self employed and invoice the US company

There are numerous talent management companies like Deel that handle this for you. Of course technically EU person would be working for EU company in this case.

Also no one stoping person living in EU from registering LLC in US and working through that. Corp2corp with own LLC is actually how majority of people from outside the US work with US companies.

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#83

Post by 908B64B197 »

myth2018 wrote: post #57
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

> Or maybe people everywhere else need to really reflect on how underpaid they are. You must consider currency exchange rates too. In my country, at the current rates, 80k US$/year puts one above many top executives, doctors and other prestigious jobs. Not bad at all for a remote position in software development.

> 80k US$/year puts one above many top executives, doctors and other prestigious jobs. Not bad at all for a remote position in software development.

The real question is: Who is creating the most value here? The top executive at a local company? The local doctor or the software engineer shipping products in markets around the world?

It's unclear whether or not the local doctor's qualifications would even be recognized in the US, yet the remote software engineer's work is making money there and countless other high-value markets as we speak.

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#84

Post by jessekv »

hoffs wrote: post #73
oezi wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many Europeans can't imagine moving to the US (higher work load, less social safety, higher violence) and employers well know it and can keep salaries depressed.

More like people just don't want to leave their life behind... Those listed things are like the bottom of the reasons

On the other hand, I know dozens of people that left their life and higher salaries in the US behind to come to the EU for those stated reasons.

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#85

Post by 908B64B197 »

aiunboxed wrote: post #80
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

I think it is not as simple as that. There is cost of living and demand supply levers as well. There is a huge salary gap between usa and Canada as well.

> There is a huge salary gap between usa and Canada as well.

Not in my experience. At least not for SV-Caliber talent.

Something you have to keep in mind is that there are two parallel markets over there: SV caliber developers and the rest. The former won't have any issue getting a job in the US (takes maybe a week for a talented engineer to get one). Therefore, comp has to be priced appropriately. The later can't -and likely won't ever be able to- secure a US visa, mostly due to skills. A lot of them are immigrants to Canada themselves (there's a reason they immigrated to Canada, it's way easier and the quotas are close to 10x per capita compared to the US). Some companies leverage this and have floors of international devs they park in Canada for a fraction of their US counterpart through a subsidiary.

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#86

Post by JB_Dev »

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #72
School-Cotton wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than the months of notice period, American tech workers get all of those things.

Also between jobs / when unemployed / being laid off?

Pretty much, yea. You easily make enough money to pay for COBRA. Then if that runs out you can get (an admittedly bad) plan from the marketplace. But it all comes back to point (1) - the amount you make more than makes up for it.

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#87

Post by SXX »

rockyj wrote: post #21

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.

In UK there are very few companies that hire above $100K: mostly hft, gambling, fintech and subsidiaries of US companies. Almost all other UK tech companies hire senior developers for 65K-75K GBP.

At the same time both job security and work life balance will be very different experience.

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#88

Post by joshcsimmons »

mindondrugs wrote: post #11

> 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/...

Crabs in a bucket mentality. House prices and medical expenses are astronomical compared to European countries.

Re: Ask HN: How come YC startups offering <80k$/year?

#90

Post by plandis »

oezi wrote: post #48
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

I think many Europeans can't imagine moving to the US (higher work load, less social safety, higher violence) and employers well know it and can keep salaries depressed.

In my experience the social safety net doesn’t really matter for highly skilled workers making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. In terms of violence you’re statistically unlikely to be the victim of violent crime in the US as an upper class white collar worker.
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