I was quite surprised that the 75 percentile salary is highest in Amsterdam.
Anecdotally it seems that the top end of salaries is much higher in London than in Amsterdam, but maybe that doesn't show until the 90-95th percentile.
Europe data salary benchmark 2023
21–30 of 64 posts
Re: Europe data salary benchmark 2023
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
It makes sense to me. It lets you compare against US salaries and standardizes the EU currencies.
You can’t compare salaries without also comparing cost of living. Which is significantly cheaper in many of the cities listed vs SV. Also there already is a standardised EU currency. It’s even named after the EU: “Euro”.
A lot of EU countries don't use the Euro.
Re: Europe data salary benchmark 2023
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t think comparing salaries globally is that useful per se . But it’s even less useful if you don’t factor in exchange rates and cost of living.
Also, my understanding is that in the US each person must dedicate an important amount of money to receive the health services that are provided in Europe by the administration in many countries.
US companies provide health insurance for their employees.
Re: Europe data salary benchmark 2023
#24The median for EU vs US salaries seems likely to be around the same, but the high end in the EU is completely neutered compared to the US. Even in top companies like e.g. Meta, the pay in the US is significantly higher. US ($339k): https://www.levels.fyi/companies/facebook/salaries/software-... UK ($200k): https://www.levels.fyi/companies/facebook/salaries/software-...
Because most of the companies are American and like to keep their best guarded talent close to home, I guess.
Also the corporate culture is entirely different. In a European IT company you won't get paid $600k for being an IC. You might get that level of pay, but as some kind of management. But as just one of the runts who does the IT? No way.
Re: Europe data salary benchmark 2023
#25Calling this Europe data when you're comparing data from 5 European cities is a bit exaggerated. We have 44 countries in Europe and even within a country there can be significant differences.
Re: Europe data salary benchmark 2023
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can’t compare salaries without also comparing cost of living. Which is significantly cheaper in many of the cities listed vs SV. Also there already is a standardised EU currency. It’s even named after the EU: “Euro”.
You realize that companies pay SV-like salaries outside of SV now, right? LCOL US salaries can easily be higher than HCOL EU salaries. This is also exactly the same argument people in the US have tried to make about "SV" salaries vs "normal" salaries. Ex: "making $100k in the Midwest is better than $300k in SV because COL" It's plain wrong in almost all cases (Lower COL doesn't make up for lower salary) and SV vs els…
It’s not that simple.
Sometimes lower cost of living absolutely does make up for a lower salary. Ultimately it comes down to disposable income after your expenses are paid. If your cost of living is significantly lower despite your income decreasing, then your disposable income increases despite your salary decreasing.
It’s also why multinational services will often have regional pricing.
This phenomena might not be present in the US (I haven’t lived in enough American cities to make a generalisation here) but it’s absolutely true in Europe.
> SV vs elsewhere in the US is becoming less and less relevant with remote work.
Remote work will be what levels the playing field but we aren’t there yet. Most companies aren’t fully remote. Further more, as weird as it might sound to some on HN, some people do actually enjoy working with colleagues in an office.
So it’s very premature to handwave the cost of living with arguments like “because remote work”
Re: Europe data salary benchmark 2023
#27[dead]
Re: Europe data salary benchmark 2023
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can’t compare salaries without also comparing cost of living. Which is significantly cheaper in many of the cities listed vs SV. Also there already is a standardised EU currency. It’s even named after the EU: “Euro”.
A lot of EU countries don't use the Euro.
I know, I live in one that doesn’t. However no European county uses USD. So we are much more familiar with seeing Euros as a European benchmark than USD.
Also worth noting, EU is a subset of Europe. London isn’t in the EU but is in Europe.
Re: Europe data salary benchmark 2023
#29Hmm I wonder how they did the TC though since the value of stock has absolutely plummeted now. On salary I'm well below the median value here despite being a senior engineer at a large international company, in a department that pays slightly higher on average. Salaries in Europe are pitiful nevertheless, and then you've gotta add the 40% income tax and 25% VAT too :(
Are they really that pitiful compared to the global average? I think that in the English-speaking tech sphere we are just too inclined to compare to the US. But compared to the rest of the world, and outside of a few small low-tax hubs (Singapore, UAE, etc), they're quite in line with the rest of the job market.
(I do think we're getting fleeced in absolute terms, but that's nothing specific to the tech industry)
Re: Europe data salary benchmark 2023
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
While it does let you compare against US salaries, almost all EU countries use the Euro. Certainly all of the ones mentioned in this post do. If you're interested in just a raw number rather than a cost of living weighted number (which this post seems to ignore), converting any stragglers to Euro would have been simplest for European readers. That said though, as I mentioned, I don't think Europeans are the target ma…
Well, since this post includes the UK saying "all the countries in this post use Euros" is plain wrong. I think COL in itself matters far less than people think. COL difference is certainly not proportional to salary difference. I don't think this is specifically for EU readers either. I think it's aimed at a global audience since they use USD and mention US roles as well as their data on EU roles.
> COL difference is certainly not proportional to salary difference.
No, sometimes the COL is much cheaper than the salary discrepancy. Sometimes it’s worse.
Which is precisely why COL is absolutely vital when making any comparisons.