The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021) • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by cmrdporcupine » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 10:16 PM UTC

mupuff1234 wrote: post #150

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Base level compensations for FAANG positions outside of SV are indeed pretty typical and humdrum. But they contain a large equity portion. And over 2-3 years that equity portion ends up being more than the base salary, and you can get pretty close to a Bay Area compensation range. e.g. I was L4 @ Google Waterloo in Canada. Base compensation was nothing special. Good for the immediate area, but not stellar. Yes, nice…

That was true for the longest bull run in history, which may or may not continue.

Sure, though the equity refreshes done at Google are done yearly targeting a $$ range at the current share price, and then vesting over multiple years. So even if the stock goes down it will tend to amortize out to about the same over a number of years, and if the stock goes up a bunch again older grants made "at the bottom" could even net you big results.

But of course there's also the chance that not only will Google's stock go down, but their revenues... and generosity... will to.

Me, I "lucked out" and sold my RSU at the peak. Though I've been living off the cash proceeds since, so.

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

#152

Post by bjornsing » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 10:17 PM UTC

vultour wrote: post #112

nivenkos wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not so sure, as a junior in the UK I got a raise moving to Spain of all places... from London.

Standard contract rate in London is ~500GBP per day, which is incredibly high compared to most of Europe.

62.50 GBP = 75.7 USD per hour is “incredibly high”…?

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

#153

Post by maccard » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 10:19 PM UTC

varispeed wrote: post #77

maccard wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in some states. On a salary of £120,000 in the UK, you'll take home 60% of your pay [0], meanwhile in California on $145,000 [1] you take home 63%. The real difference is that it's very hard to be paid 120,000 in the UK. [0] https://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php [1] https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-paycheck-calculator#...

This is a bit misleading, because on £120k salary the employer has to additionally pay £17k of employer's NI which comes from your salary budget. So in real terms you make £137k and your take home is about 53% (and it's get worse as your pay goes up as you are losing personal allowance and your take home quickly becomes less than 50%). It does not account for Apprenticeship Levy. It's a quite nasty way for the govern…

There's always a hidden cost. There's also the fact that on 120k an employer is required to contribute 3% and likely does so via salary sacrifice which changes the numbers again.

The number I picked for California is also on the higher end, other states are lower again. All thats to say a direct general comparison isn't possible but it's not right to claim that the west has a higher tax burden either the numbers are dangerously close in many cases.

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

#154

Post by dubswithus » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 10:26 PM UTC

jokethrowaway wrote: post #116

Jacqued wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, this is mostly wrong. You don’t get 500-600k Silicon Valley offers in Europe just for being a solid engineer. You do get a total comp that is 2-3x local market if you manage to get into FAANG like companies and even the tier below. I think this is what Gergely is describing. That is still life changing for a lot of engineers, and worth the 3 month grind to get through the interviews. At least it was…

2-3x local market is doable even outside of fangs, usually with more flexibility (remote was a nice perk pre-pandemic) and no bullshit interview. If you pair it with working via your own limited company and get your taxes down to single digits or low double digits you can make as much as salaried people on 300k - and with no equity that can go up or down (sure, and no holidays or sick days if you're the kind of perso…

You mean consulting?

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

#155

Post by ceeplusplus » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 10:30 PM UTC

BossingAround wrote: post #76

seibelj wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would rather a private company build it, or in a public / private partnership, so we at least have some semblance of breaking-even if not a small profit. Our current train systems are so woefully wasteful, inefficient, prone to breaking down, and so on that simply giving the same corruption more money would be extremely unwise.

I see no real reason why public transport must be necessarily profitable. It's a common good that tax payers enjoy. You'll have profitable legs, but you'll also have legs that are used by a few folks from a village who need to get to the city once a week, and those will never be profitable. A private company would probably not build there.

Because without the need to be profitable, you get gross incompetence, corruption, and waste. See: California HSR, BART expansion, NYC subway expansion.

The power of the market forces private businesses to offer quality service. A privately run subway would never allow drug addicts and thieves run rampant on the train like they're allowed to in NYC and the Bay.

Pro tip: if I feel scared for my life or property at any point during a transit, you've already lost against a car.

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

#156

Post by arnvald » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 10:31 PM UTC

wdb wrote: post #74

It’s unclear where these companies are in The Netherlands. Probably restricted to the Randstad? Haven’t really seen the mentioned salaries ranges outside Amsterdam

You're right, it's either Amsterdam or remote.

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

#157

Post by vultour » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 10:33 PM UTC

bjornsing wrote: post #152

vultour wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Standard contract rate in London is ~500GBP per day, which is incredibly high compared to most of Europe.

62.50 GBP = 75.7 USD per hour is “incredibly high”…?

Yes. If your country does not have one of the tech companies mentioned in the article then $75 per hour is a fever dream.

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

#158

Post by splittingTimes » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 10:37 PM UTC

Humanities supposedly most brilliant minds work on the next e-billing system, AI on how to sell more crap that nobody really needs, keep a glorified message board afloat or enable the cancer that is advertisment.

They should work on how to address the climate catastrophe, the waste/recycling problem, food security, sustainable agriculture and land/water use, medical devices/health care or how to fix the broken participatory political system that has led us to the multifaceted crisis we all find us in.

None of the companies named in that article solve any of the existential threads we as species at large or society in the small face and yet they pay the highest salaries and we are supposed to chase those.

This adds to the dark and heavy ball of despair in my stomach more than anything.

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

#159

Post by hintymad » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 10:37 PM UTC

I was wondering what makes companies be willing to pay Bay Area packages for engineers in only a few tech hubs. Supply and Demand? But then at least FANNGs have a hard time finding talents in European countries too, at least in Germany. And the number of engineers they hire is small compared to that in the US, so the companies could afford larger packages, right?

If it were not supply and demand, then it's puzzling to me why companies didn't want to pay packages comparable to the Bay Area in cities like London or Berlin. Is it because these cities do not have teams that own sufficiently mission-critical products or systems? If that's the reason, then why can't the cities own more products?

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

#160

Post by kortilla » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 10:38 PM UTC

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

Only if the developer is capable of finding a business product that can be automated at scale. Nobody suggested that part was trivial.

Once you have a business with that problem, then developers are worth significant money.