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Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

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Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#191

Post by wreath »

classictraffic wrote: post #105
maxehmookau wrote: post #88

Sure, I get that salaries are higher in the US. Overall quality of life though? I'd take europe, personally. My salary is 50% lower than my SF-based colleagues but my quality of life is amazing. Large house, green open spaces, my taxes pay for high-quality healthcare and a _relatively_ equal society. I'm far richer here, in many ways, than I would be if my bank account were a bit larger.

This is how I feel as an American too. If i didn't have such strong ties here (family, friends, etc.), I'd move to Europe in a heartbeat and take the lower salary for QoL improvements.

Until when you retire you find out you paid to a system that was will reward you a small amount and you would pay taxes on that. Tell me about quality of life then! As an SWE, id take US any day.

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#192

Post by xxs13 »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #102
foxyv wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we have tons of people who can code at a proficient level in one language. However, don't underestimate the difficulty of software engineering. The people who we need to build our applications are getting really hard to find and especially keep around. Sure I can get someone who will code a basic Spring Boot application in a pinch. But do they have the excellent communication skills, knowledge of build systems,…

It seems like it would be more value efficient to train a person making 40k a year how to do that then pay someone hundreds of grand a year who already knows how to do it.

I thought so too but unfortunately it would take someone making 100k a year somewhere between 6 and 12 months to teach someone making 40k to do the job properly. Then that someone would get a job offer making 100k and quit.

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#193

Post by aweb »

odiroot wrote: post #145
tharne wrote: post #41

Six to eight weeks of vacation, plentiful Holidays, a 35-hour work week. If you look beyond pay as strictly salary and break it down into an hourly rate, I'd argue that European developers make considerably more than their American counterparts.

> Six to eight weeks of vacation, plentiful Holidays, a 35-hour work week. That's very rare even for jobs with good employers.

It's pretty standard for France, come work here! :)

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#194

Post by midrus »

ren_engineer wrote: post #39
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #17

It’s funny to see this site gather so many upvotes while the server is down. I think by now everyone knows very well that software engineering salaries are higher in the United States. If the shift toward remote work really comes to fruition, I fully expect EU software salaries to rise. I’ve hired a lot of excellent remote developers in European countries. The trick is to pay them American-level wages, which are ofte…

Silicon Valley engineers are for the most part arrogant, they sound like factory workers who said Chinese manufacturing would never displace their jobs and "made in America". Companies have shown again and again they are willing to sacrifice quality if it increases profit. In this case I'm not even sure quality will be sacrificed in most cases because as you said there are tons of great engineers available

I'll be downvoted to hell for this.

I'm from Europe, I've worked for several SF based companies (some hired, some through acquisitions) and can confirm that , despite there are some really, really smart people there are also a lot of people that have no clue what they're talking about, as in most places you have a mix of it. But almost all of them are incredibly arrogant and most have an incredible tendency to take decisions based on what's important for their CV and there career and their podcast and their YouTube channel than for what the company or the problem at hands needs. I'm not sure I'm taking again a job for a west coast based company.

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#195

Post by volta83 »

playing_colours wrote: post #144
volta83 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There might be more data for levels.fyi in the US than EU. 600k$ is 480k EUR. I know SEs in Germany doing more than 400k EUR at FAANG.

That is a lot for Germany, can I ask what companies are they work at specifically?

FAANG

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#196

Post by eterevsky »

city41 wrote: post #100
eterevsky wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think by now everyone knows very well that software engineering salaries are higher in the United States. It depends. In Switzerland for example salaries as as high as anywhere in the US while the taxes are somewhat lower.

Salaries in Switzerland reach $500k-$1 million/year? Honest question, I know nothing about Switzerland.

L6 or L7 at Google can have total compensation in that range.

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#197

Post by tharne »

aweb wrote: post #193
odiroot wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Six to eight weeks of vacation, plentiful Holidays, a 35-hour work week. That's very rare even for jobs with good employers.

It's pretty standard for France, come work here! :)

Would if I could, how's an American go about getting a work permit?

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#198

Post by tharne »

refurb wrote: post #167
tharne wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Healthcare is expensive, but it's less than 20k/year. That's not true. I pay about $10,000 a year for healthcare and my company pays roughly another $20,000. And that's before I have pay per visit up to my rather high deductible. And I work for a large company with good benefits. Healthcare costs in the U.S. are insane and almost hard to fathom if you haven't lived through them yourself.

Your benefits aren’t that great. I was paying $200 per month premium for my entire family ($2400 per year). $1000 deductible, 90% coverage, max of $2,000 individual or $5,000 for the entire family. So maximum in any year was $7,000. And unless we had a birth or major surgery it was typically much less.

They're not great, that's true. My point is that they're not unusual in the U.S.

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#199

Post by yencabulator »

This Glassdoor data is highly suspect:

  Senior Software Engineer
  A software engineer who has at least 5 years of experience [...]
  San Francisco: $175,669

  Lead Software Engineer
  If you have more than ~8 years of experience [...]
  San Francisco: $113,656
More experience, less salary?
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