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Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

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Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#121

Post by distribot »

alkonaut wrote: post #55

I got my higher education for free. I expect to save nothing for my children or their education. I expect to have to put aside very little for retirement. The thing is, I just can’t find an argument why I should be able to get very rich doing my job. It’s a comfortable job. It pays a good salary. I got here by taking no risk at all. I wouldn’t want to switch jobs just to drive up my pay even if I could. I have other…

I'm kind of surprised by the idea of saving nothing for your children. Is it a symptom of the dog eat dog American system of capitalism that it seems kinda wild to me? I guess if you can be certain that their fundamental needs will be met, it isn't as important. But in the US your life can be pretty crap, even if not abject developing world style poverty.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#123

Post by slap »

ergocoder wrote: post #14
Jyaif wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 3 years in the US you earn significantly more than in 5 years in France, so the vacation and health coverage arguments do not hold, unless you have an expensive illness (>30k$ per year). The job security on the other hand is very real, so if you want to coast at your job, europe is the way to go.

There is absolutely no way to get 500k/year from being just an engineer in Europe. I recall the React creator's base salary is 100k/year in London, and he works at Facebook.

For reference, Dan Abramov's tweet regarding his salary in London :

https://twitter.com/dan_abramov/status/1228454264915271683

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#124

Post by topkai22 »

I unfortunately don’t have much perspective on software development on Europe, but one of the differentiators I’ve observed in the US between high salary SWE jobs/regions and lower SWE jobs/regions is that engineered in the higher categories are considered a core part of the business and are deeply integrated across the business. The engineers sit closer to and interact more with the “money people” than in companies where there might be a layer of analysts or business program managers, etc... As a result, engineering and computing at permeated throughout the business.

This often makes these companies more agile (the cycle times for requirements and feedback are shorter) and seems to make the business more willing to pay for engineering talent generally (as the decision makers see the value or are former engineers themselves.)

This is easier in some industries than others - consumer internet and commercial software companies will tend to organize more like this then health care, for example.

So I guess my answer would be ensure your software engineers aren't just doing software, but helping define the businesses

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#125

Post by LatteLazy »

xxpor wrote: post #62
LatteLazy wrote: post #27

You need to increase demand: * Offer tax breaks for tech startups. The UK has a whole suite of these and London is number one in EU (out of now) for tech startups * Similarly non-tax pro-entrepreneur reforms and help: bankruptcy protections (the US does this very well, the UK very badly); access to mortgages / leases and credit for the self employed; better management of taxes and benefits; reform of regulation for s…

Reading about how the bankruptcy system works in the UK a few years ago (when Thomas Cook collapsed) was mind blowing. How could any system where the firm has to cease operations immediately no matter the circumstance be considered a good idea?

It's based in Old law where your assets were physical stock and tools not brand name and ongoing business. It's also based on the British system where the upper class run everything, and they were more likely to be creditors than debtors.

It's not even just the pure bankruptcy itself. If you've ever been bankrupt you can't be a company director. You can't access all sorts of financial products (car insurance!?) until long after the bankruptcy is discharged. It's a mess.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#126

Post by arcticbull »

betaby wrote: post #110
arcticbull wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of folks here are calling out the lower pay for SWEs in Europe and Canada as a failure - but also praise the low wealth inequality and low income inequality in Europe and Canada. You can't have low inequality by definition if you decide to start paying one group a ton of money. Well, this is a lot like the housing conversation in the US. "I want my house to go up in value, and be a great investment!" Also: "Why…

I wouldn't call Canadian (or Fr or Se) wealth inequality 'low'. 'Why I can't afford a house', again is more a problem in Fr/De/Se than in US, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_owne...

Inequality in Canada is substantially lower than in America (and is on par with Australia, and between Fr and Se). This is evidenced in their Gini coefficients. [1]

- Gini for SE is 0.25

- Gini for FR is 0.31

- Gini for CA is 0.33

- Gini for US is 0.48

- Gini for ZA is 0.65

I've also included South Africa for comparison, one of the least equal societies on earth. A photo of what a 0.65 Gini country looks like is here (https://blog.prif.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/SA_Drone_Pi...)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#127

Post by throwaway3699 »

cies wrote: post #60
nickpp wrote: post #57

Just like anything worthwhile is done: through free market competition. Build a successful startup, make some nice money and attract the best in the business to work for you by making them eye-popping offers. This will make your competitors react by raising their pay and with it the whole market. It’s how Silicon Valley reached those salaries after all...

> Just like anything worthwhile is done: through free market competition. Dont know where to begin unpacking the falsehood of this. Maybe a counter question serves best: how is non-competitive behavior not worthwhile?

Note that free market competition doesn't preclude cooperation within its framework. It's a bit of a misnomer.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#128

Post by smabie »

ingvul wrote: post #16
ergocoder wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely no way to get 500k/year from being just an engineer in Europe. I recall the React creator's base salary is 100k/year in London, and he works at Facebook.

The average salary for a Software Engineer is $107K per year in United States. The average salary for a Software Engineer is $66K per year in Germany (~61% less). Source: indeed and payscale. I always find a bit funny when US devs in HN talk about getting salaries above $200K/year... when the average US dev gets half of that. (I find it funny because everybody here thinks we are above the average dev level and can ge…

Who says everyone here can't get a job paying 300k or whatever? Why is that statistically incorrect? Moreover, median != mean due to lefthand skew of the salary distribution of developers. Also probably excess kurtosis as well.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#129

Post by LatteLazy »

HatchedLake721 wrote: post #115
xxpor wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading about how the bankruptcy system works in the UK a few years ago (when Thomas Cook collapsed) was mind blowing. How could any system where the firm has to cease operations immediately no matter the circumstance be considered a good idea?

What’s not normal about it? As soon as you’re insolvent and not able to meet your due payments, why would you be allowed to keep raking up debt?

US Chapter 11 Bankruptcy gives a firm that has a chance of surviving some respite from its creditors to reorganise and try and emerge as a going concern.

This makes creditors more likely to be reasonable (as no one is getting paid) rather than all race to be the most demanding (because if anyone is getting paid you want it to be you!).

There is also Chapter 7 which governs liquidation. Even that allows room for the company to seek a buyer or similar opportunity rather than just give up and die. British law has moved a bit more on this direction in the last 10 years.

This is important because in modern companies are usually valued much higher than the sum of their parts. Actual assets you can repossess are much less important than the brand name, staff that know the job and each other, on going relationships with customer etc. Grabbing the assets gets you 10% of the value and burns the other 90%...

Edit:

Even British bankruptcy protects a workers tools. Because a few second hand hammers is worth a lot less than the bankrupt blacksmith could earn if he kept them (and hopefully pay you back). This is the same concept.

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