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The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

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Re: The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

#121

Post by guenthert »

mediascreen wrote: post #57
thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you get the choice of what you want to buy in the US. Not really in my experience. You get to choose between providers in your insurance network, but I've lost count of the number of times my preferred provider wasn't in my network. On top of that, the insurance company has to sign off on many diagnostic tests even when my doctor wants to do one. I'm experiencing this right now with chronic pain associated with an…

As someone who pays taxes in Sweden and don't plan on having children, I would probably not choose to pay for 480 days parental leave per child, subsidised day care and child allowance payment to the extent they exists today if I had a choice.

You do want to incentivize people having kids though if there is not sufficient immigration. After all, who's going to pay your retirement?

Re: The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

#122

Post by cjbgkagh »

kayoone wrote: post #61
yrgulation wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because you are at a senior level in that market. Few eu countries can compete with the uk in terms of pay and modern tech.

Working in Berlin tech, I found London salaries not that interesting considering the cost of living is easily 2x of Berlin.

The money in London is in contracting.

Re: The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

#123

Post by jokethrowaway »

seibelj wrote: post #5
ceeplusplus wrote: post #3

Unfortunately this misses the difference in taxation vs. the US. You pay almost nothing for healthcare at any tech company and pay much lower taxes (both income and sales tax). So European offers are still much less competitive than the US.

A common criticism is that “but you get so much more for your taxes in Europe”. I have a counterpoint - you get the choice of what you want to buy in the US. I’d rather keep more of my take-home pay and do without certain services, or better yet choose the provider (and quality / expense) of such services if I want them. Somehow the bureaucracy in the US is still massive, so I can only imagine what far higher tax rat…

Taxes in EU can be high or low depending on where you leave and whether you're employed or work through your own business.

Tax rates can go from 5% (Maltese company + Portuguese NHR scheme) to 60% (high earning employees).

High tax Europe doesn't make any sense if you ask me, you're not getting much for it.

Infrastructure (roads, public departments, police) and public healthcare are terrible in most of EU for the average high earner. Nordic countries are way better in that regards but it's too cold for me to even consider those places.

USA healthcare is comparable to the best private healthcare available in EU.

Re: The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

#124

Post by varispeed »

moonchrome wrote: post #22
ido wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost of living in Poland is not actually 1/3 of Austria, the difference in cost is much smaller than in salary. But it's true that the more senior you are the less geography affects your wage.

Austria != Vienna, similar to how London != UK. Equating for standard of living (eg upper middle class) you'll likely be 3x in Vienna. Although I'm just guestinating on Gdansk, maybe it's a really expensive place.

You can compare cost of living to an extent - assuming, for instance, that the worker won't go on holiday anywhere nice.

Checked at one of known tour operators, for the same hotel and destination in the Caribbean, same duration and dates you will pay ~£2900 when going out from London and £4900 when going out from Cracow.

Things like tech products will also cost broadly the same.

Also engineers these days don't live like upper middle class (unless they come from such background). It's more like upper working class. Progressive taxation prevents workers from amassing capital and climbing the class ladder.

People from upper middle classes get paid in ways out of scope of progressive taxes designed to keep working class in check.

Re: The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

#125

Post by jokethrowaway »

nerdponx wrote: post #12
seibelj wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A common criticism is that “but you get so much more for your taxes in Europe”. I have a counterpoint - you get the choice of what you want to buy in the US. I’d rather keep more of my take-home pay and do without certain services, or better yet choose the provider (and quality / expense) of such services if I want them. Somehow the bureaucracy in the US is still massive, so I can only imagine what far higher tax rat…

The biggest US government expenses are the military and overcomplicated inefficient social programs (Medicare, food stamps, Social Security). Moreover, the logical extreme of this argument is to just not have a government at all. I don't need bridges because I don't drive. I don't need the fire department because I am careful. Etc. It doesn't make sense, and the truth is that some things either best administered cent…

> I don't need bridges because I don't drive

Why should you pay for it? Let those who need it or stand to make money out of it to pay.

There are alternative systems, we never had the freedom to try them outside of emperors / feudal kings / governments coercion: http://daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf

Re: The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

#126

Post by de6u99er »

Those high salaries remind me of the stories of heavy smokers who didn't die of cancer or COPD. I think it's very unlikely to get those high salaries in Europe. Comparing them to salaries in Silicon Valley without context isn't really smart. I have always tried to see bay area salaries as as risk compensation.

E g. In Vienna/Austria a 2-3 bedroom apartment here is about 1-2k while in the bay area it's between 5-10k. If I lose my job I still have a social net that will soften my fall, while in SV you're on your own and can get evicted from one day to the other. We have a single payer healthcare system while in the US certain health issues can, despite being insured, lead to financial ruin.

That being said my salary was until now always a 5-figure salary. In my upcoming job I will for the first time in my career path get a 6-figure salary which excluding bonuses is 70% higher and including bonuses can be up to 89% higher than currently. It took me quite some while to get there, and I can assure others that jobs paying those amounts don't grow on trees. It requires both talent and charisma, and honestly also luck, to land such a job. Constantly switching jobs and chasing slightly higher salaries definitely isn't the way to go.

Re: The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

#127

Post by mlboss »

breadloaf wrote: post #98
ido wrote: post #4

Ok let me make a probably very unpopular comment here: their 3rd point lists "companies benchmarking against all regional or global companies" but in fact what they mean is "companies benchmarking against the highest paying US tech hubs". I assure you "all regional or global companies" also include Vietnamese companies paying junior devs $300 per month - what is the advantage of the European engineer that is worth pa…

Well that really depends. I was outsourcing to India when it was still cheap. I probably did something wrong, but I provided definition of the project, set of unit tests and access to git repository so they can upload the result. I got completely useless trash code, incoherent excuses and wasted time. I paid the company for their "work" and never considered outsourcing again. Sometimes cheap means horrendously expens…

Any developer charging $3k will not be good. And even then you need to pay lot of attention on how they are doing.

Re: The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

#128

Post by jokethrowaway »

WJW wrote: post #72
seibelj wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The brightest minds don’t go into government bureaucracies - they don’t get respect, don’t get paid, can’t get shit done, and a myriad of reasons why they go private instead. The best-staffed departments are those that have a symbiotic relationship with the private sector, like the SEC, where doing a government stint raises your value in the private sector significantly. Because we have seen endless waste and corrupt…

I'm not saying you're not correct wherever you are, but it's important to recognize that there is a significant cultural aspect in this. In the US, you would be entirely correct: talented people don't go into the government and thus the public sector is filled with subpar employees. In many EU countries, the government has more prestige, thus it attracts more talent and so it works better and gets more prestige. It's…

Government services can work - but at what cost?

We routinely had multimillions public projects to build crappy website for our universities.

It was something the students could have done better for less than 100k.

After you factor in all the corruption and inefficiency caused by not having competition, you can end up paying a high multiple of what is reasonable.

Re: The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

#129

Post by bilekas »

breadloaf wrote: post #98
ido wrote: post #4

Ok let me make a probably very unpopular comment here: their 3rd point lists "companies benchmarking against all regional or global companies" but in fact what they mean is "companies benchmarking against the highest paying US tech hubs". I assure you "all regional or global companies" also include Vietnamese companies paying junior devs $300 per month - what is the advantage of the European engineer that is worth pa…

Well that really depends. I was outsourcing to India when it was still cheap. I probably did something wrong, but I provided definition of the project, set of unit tests and access to git repository so they can upload the result. I got completely useless trash code, incoherent excuses and wasted time. I paid the company for their "work" and never considered outsourcing again. Sometimes cheap means horrendously expens…

This might get a bad rep but I've had this experience too. It's not a blanket statement though. Outsourcing is fine but you definitely have need to do your homework. That's why you see a few of the outsourcing companies being bought over by their employers, because they're good.

Out of curiosity and related to another HN topic, have you ever hired freelancers directly?

Re: The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

#130

Post by Dove »

FredPret wrote: post #82
Dove wrote: post #66

I found this fascinatingly counterintuitive. I would normally expect that a broader market leads to lower prices for commodity goods. If I can only buy candy from the vendor at the movie theater, I expect to pay a higher price than if I can buy it from all the stores in the region, which I expect to be higher again than if I can import it from anywhere in the world. The reverse is true for developers? The companies w…

By this logic, the best deal for a good developer will almost always be to start a company

I suppose that is true, if you reason narrowly.

There is another force in play: the degree to which support makes the individual more powerful. I am much closer to my full potential as a problem solver when surrounded by effective management/facilities/IT/legal/differently-specialized-peers/enough-people-to-work-on-truly-large-systems than when I go it alone. Having spent significant time both as a freelancer and in mind bogglingly huge corporations, the corp lifestyle has its drawbacks for sure -- but I myself find the benefits of support and large problems to dramatically outweigh the drawbacks of politics and lack of freedom. Your mileage may vary, of course. Shoot, my mileage has varied over the course of a career. Still, the intuition seems solid: you aren't going to be solving Google-datacenter or Amazon-logistics levels of problems with your personal startup calendar app. At least, not usually, not for a while.

If there is a minimum size market which can maximize the impact of a good developer, I suspect there might be a minimum size company, too.

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