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)

#21

Post by thr0wawayf00 » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 7:25 PM UTC

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…

> 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 old injury. My doctor wants to do an arthrogram, but my insurance won't approve it without doing a full course of physical therapy first and doing any kind of motion with this injury is excruciatingly painful. I have to literally suffer through 12 weeks of PT in order to get the imaging I need and I have what many would consider to be great insurance. I don't really have any (good) choices here. I can pay for the imaging out of pocket or continue to suffer. This is a uniquely American problem.

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

#22

Post by moonchrome » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 7:25 PM UTC

ido wrote: post #17

moonchrome wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In more recent times (especially post COVID), by the time both of you are competent enough be independent he will be earning as much as you for 1/3 cost of living.

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.

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

#23

Post by ido » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 7:28 PM UTC

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.

Austria is a lot less variable than the UK, and Vienna is not really the most expensive city there at all (generally the further west you go the more expensive it gets). I'm pretty sure a lot of the smaller cities like Salzburg and Innsbruck are actually more expensive than Vienna and not at all certain Vienna is much or at all above the Austrian average (or at least urban average).

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

#24

Post by djvdq » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 7:28 PM UTC

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…

Let's say that I want to have better train infrastructure. How much will it cost me to build that, according to your thinking?

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

#25

Post by TulliusCicero » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 7:31 PM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #8

ido wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax rates at the higher taxed states in the US (like California) are actually not lower than in western europe while still not providing you with all the services western european governments do.

I live in Massachusetts, and somehow we actually have fairly low taxation (5.25% flat tax) despite our reputation and being deep blue politically. I average about 30% total taxation in a high tax bracket. If I was trying to avoid taxes on real wealth I would move to Florida for 6 months and do the other 6 in Boston (as have many friends of mine). Why people keep paying California / NYC tax rates in software dev jobs…

Meanwhile WA has no state income tax at all, so it's even better for high earners.

Advantages for the bay area are its weather and much larger tech ecosystem. Main advantage for NYC is being a 'real' big city with all that entails (night life, better transit/walkability, other urban amenities).

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

#26

Post by odiroot » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 7:31 PM UTC

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.

The difference between UK and some of the Western-EU countries is already significant enough. No need to go straight to USA.

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

#27

Post by TulliusCicero » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 7:32 PM UTC

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…

Winning a competition means beating people at the top of a range, not the dregs.

Implicit here in benchmarking globally is that you want the kind of devs that can move around globally. The engineers working at Vietnamese companies for $300/month aren't that.

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

#28

Post by user_7832 » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 7:35 PM UTC

thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #21

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…

> 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…

Might it not be possible to have your doctor write some "PT not possible"/"PT may result in additional injury" note? Failing which, is it possible to speak with someone higher up at your insurance company?

I do not know your background, but if you have sufficient resources (well, mainly money) it might be easier to contact an injury/similar lawyer and have them represent you to talk, and perhaps go to the legal dept of the insurance company. I am sorry for what you're having to go through, healthcare is unfortunately far from perfect (even outside the US).

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

#29

Post by kingkawn » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 7:35 PM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #27

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…

Winning a competition means beating people at the top of a range, not the dregs. Implicit here in benchmarking globally is that you want the kind of devs that can move around globally. The engineers working at Vietnamese companies for $300/month aren't that.

Niiiice calling people from poor countries “the dregs”

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

#30

Post by ido » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 7:35 PM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #27

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…

Winning a competition means beating people at the top of a range, not the dregs. Implicit here in benchmarking globally is that you want the kind of devs that can move around globally. The engineers working at Vietnamese companies for $300/month aren't that.

I know we all want to believe we're the next Carmack but if there's a ton of solid engineers willing to work for a lot less money than you & at the same time global barriers drop that means downwards pressure from lower cost countries and upwards pressure from higher cost countries. I think the last decade or so was an anomaly due to the asset bubble inflating how much money (and how cheap that money was) tech companies had to spend.