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Tech Compensation in Europe

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Re: Tech Compensation in Europe

#161

Post by tiborsaas »

mustafa_pasi wrote: post #160
tiborsaas wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what you mean by enormous costs. Yes, permanent moving is not exactly cheap, but it depends very much on the individual's life situation: age, social connections, home ownership, having a car, furniture all matters and all differs. Based on this one might move with a single backpack or it might take a few months to prepare. Most companies are happy to pay your relocation costs and / or get you a pl…

I couldn't give a rat's ass about relocation costs, or furniture, or even home ownership tbh. Those are all relatively minimal costs. But if you have a nice life, a nice social circle of friends, ...etc, do not take all that for granted. You won't magically get all that back once you move. You probably never will to be honest. You will meet other people but building a social life from scratch in a new country is hard…

I'm a 39 years old nerd and I really have very little to hold me up here. Who says that building a social life is easy? I did that before too when I moved to the capital from my hometown at the age of 26, I barely knew anybody. I did that twice after that for shorter periods of time, totally works. Follow your interests and pals/friends will come.

Re: Tech Compensation in Europe

#162

Post by dan-robertson »

gregdoesit wrote: post #84
__derek__ wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why build something new rather than encourage folks to submit on levels.fyi? There's already data for EU-based roles.[1] [1]: https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html?track=Software%20Engineer&c...

An interesting question here, on Hacker News. Why did Paul Graham build Hacker News rather than encourage the use of Digg? It already had submissions of similar types that Hacker News started with. I assume it was because things were missing off Digg that Hacker News built, and the two sites ended up serving different audiences in the end. Why build something new rather than encourage using existing services? Because…

Wasn’t hacker news originally ‘startup news’ and mostly around to promote discussion around startups that might help out the companies yc was investing in and help yc get more companies to invest in? And wasn’t partly it was to prove pg’s new lisp dialect?

Today it’s not so clear to me that/why it’s valuable to yc but I’m glad they find the site and its moderation.

Re: Tech Compensation in Europe

#163

Post by dan-robertson »

ge96 wrote: post #146
paxys wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a data point that may help put things into perspective – one of our employees in India lives in what would be considered a mansion when compared to silicon valley housing. His family has the best private medical insurance, and his kids go to the top private school in the city. He employs a driver to take him to work everyday. He has multiple full-time household help. His disposable income puts him in or close…

If I had that kind of money ratio locally, I would personally blend in eg. "stealth wealth" to avoid being a target. Probably self limiting to feel that way.

I read that in some places there is an expectation that (wealthy compared to the locals) western expats employ lots of staff or pay for services they might carry out themselves in western countries (e.g. laundry, cleaning, but also things like grocery shopping). It’s seen as a necessary amount of ‘giving back to the community’.

Re: Tech Compensation in Europe

#164

Post by aantix »

jacquesm wrote: post #154
aantix wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you are fighting against location based pay, you should be asking your employer to pay all employees on similar teams worldwide the same My response to the OP is to the above. I don't have to advocate for others. I don't even know the others capabilities, so I can't make an honest case for/against them. I know my skills. I know my value.

You know your value relative to the market . Without the market you would not know your value at all. This is different for sales people where it is much easier to benchmark individual contribution but for tech people the reality is that your individual contribution is not something that is known beforehand so it is you versus a bunch of others and unless you are exceptional (which may well be the case, I have no ide…

"The market" can be a very broad range.

Especially when you get into 20+ years of software engineering experience. It's not "you versus a bunch of others" - it's me and maybe one other candidate.

Salary ranges are huge. Exceptions are made all the time.

And when you're a contractor, the deal making is even more flexible (as is my case).

Re: Tech Compensation in Europe

#165

Post by hiptobecubic »

haspok wrote: post #150
gregdoesit wrote: post #42

Hi! I'm building this website, but I did not submit this show HN here. I don't think the site is ready for such a submission, it's currently in alpha - very clearly marked. It's not even beta-ready yet! The data set so far is small - limited to a few countries - and we're working behind the scenes. There are also lots of known issues, and a few data issues. I'm hoping this site will help people in tech get a better s…

Hi Gergo, thanks for this, and keep up the good work! It blows my mind that nothing like this exists yet that is primarily focused on the EU - tech still seems to be biased towards the US. The Tier-info is also exceedingly helpful (for those of us sad souls who are starting out in a new country and have limited information and no connections...). I was also wondering how you are planning to cover remote jobs, because…

The problem with focusing on CoL as an "excuse" for low pay is that people really overemphasize how independent they really are from the world economy. It all seems like it works out evenly until you realize that if you ever move or take a vacation, your years of hard work amount to very little.

Re: Tech Compensation in Europe

#166

Post by hiptobecubic »

akmarinov wrote: post #159
ksdnjweusdnkl21 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his argument is that in general their results would be worse because of the timezone and culture difference, thus earning less on average. I think there might be an element of truth there, but probably not enough to explain the entire difference, only a small part of it.

You know, there are a lot of cultures in the US itself - should we pay them differently based on that?

It's not that Indian culture somehow isn't as good. It's that there's sufficient supply there to fill all the positions at lower pay. If the exact same people manage to get a visa and transfer to SF, they will instantly start getting paid $100,000s more. Likewise, If Google moves an entire org, doing all the exact same work, from NYC to Raleigh, NC, it will cut everyone's pay by 25%.

I personally am moving from completely remote to completely remote but from somewhere else, specifically because my company pays more than the difference in CoL so it's "free" for me. From the company's point of view, I just became more expensive for no reason and at no gain to them, but that's their policy so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Tech Compensation in Europe

#167

Post by gdaramouskas »

gregdoesit wrote: post #42

Hi! I'm building this website, but I did not submit this show HN here. I don't think the site is ready for such a submission, it's currently in alpha - very clearly marked. It's not even beta-ready yet! The data set so far is small - limited to a few countries - and we're working behind the scenes. There are also lots of known issues, and a few data issues. I'm hoping this site will help people in tech get a better s…

Clearly I have misunderstood the rules of Show HN and for that I am sorry.

The website was shared to me some time ago, and I have actively used the information to yield a better TC; which worked flawlessly. And I wanted to share this with the community, by using the Show HN. Apparently things don't work that way here.

Again very sorry for the wrong submission and thank you for all the work that you have done.

Re: Tech Compensation in Europe

#168

Post by benhurmarcel »

aantix wrote: post #69
shmatt wrote: post #34

This is why I dislike the fight against location based pay in the U.S. People are heated about how they add the same value whether in SF or Kentucky, but forget there are people even more valuable than them getting paid significantly less. If you are fighting against location based pay, you should be asking your employer to pay all employees on similar teams worldwide the same

I am hyper aware of my strengths, my accolades, my career accomplishments. I have no idea what "employees on similar teams" bring to the table. I am not going to negotiate on their behalf. I am productive. I'll make an immediate impact on your team. I've added millions of dollars in value. I've done international product launches. We can walk through my body of work from the past two decades in detail if you'd like.…

Your salary doesn't mainly depends on the value you bring, that's merely an upper limit. It's determined by how much somebody else who brings the same value is willing to accept.

Re: Tech Compensation in Europe

#169

Post by ribfeast »

mustafa_pasi wrote: post #143
ribfeast wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Helps with salary gaps within those countries, but salaries are still laughable compared to US software engineering salaries. Does anyone know why that is?

Demand: US has much more investment in pure-tech. In EU a lot of SWE are working in IT offices of non-tech companies. So the job market in the US is more competitive. Supply: In the EU university is easily accessible, meaning that there are thousands of universities pumping hundreds of thousands of graduates a year. Plus, now they even invented the Blue Card to make it easy for skilled second/third worlders to immigr…

At least according to [this](https://www.cbi.eu/market-information/outsourcing-itobpo/sof...), there's an under-supply of developers in the EU.

Re: Tech Compensation in Europe

#170

Post by wing-_-nuts »

schnitzelstoat wrote: post #12

It'll be interesting when they add Southern Europe. I've seen adverts for experienced developers that pay €35k. And life isn't that much cheaper in the cities here.

I've always wondered about this. You'll see cities with very high real estate prices and rents, and the median salary will not be sufficient to afford either. It makes me wonder why this is sustainable?
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