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

blog.pragmaticengineer.com

241–250 of 309 posts

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

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usage of sick days seems to follow a bimodal pattern. There are people that use them up like vacation days for all kinds of reasons and people who very rarely use them ( This was true through my entire career and even back in high school. I think usage of sick days is likely to follow a learned behavior from parents/siblings growing up.

So what if you are sick? You are using your normal vacation days?

Honestly? I stay home and might check email when I'm bored but don't do any real work, but I don't usually file sick days either because the bureaucracy is a pain (seriously, I'm already sick, I can't deal with that added stress and I'm not going to the doctor just to spread my viruses and be told to go back home and rest). And as long as we're talking about 2 or 3 days, nobody really seems to care.

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

#242
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I'm a leftist in the EU, it's just that the system isn't working due to cuts and mismanagement, and unfortunately the "left-wing" parties here are more concerned with identity politics and policies benefiting the lumpen rather than the proletariat (mass immigration, social housing for criminals, etc.). I support universal healthcare, but I think a lot of Americans don't appreciate the benefits they get from t…

Europe pays ~10% of GDP to healthcare and you say it isn’t enough money “due to cuts”. USA pays ~20% of GDP and the left says it’s “too much” when compared to Europe. How much would you expect society to pay? Clearly it’s less than 20%, as that’s society being robbed, and more than 10%, as that’s healthcare being cheated. What is the correct percent?

I'd rather it be closer to 20% for sure. Healthcare is incredibly important.

But tax mismanagement is a huge issue, my home country and my resident country have sent billions of dollars to Ukraine for example whilst we still don't have enough housing, have people going to food banks, etc.

Same for accepting tens of millions of refugees and so on.

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

#243
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fed's balance sheet has barely started contracting. This contraction cycle has a while to play out.

Is there a place we can see a east to understand chart about this?

Here it is straight from the horse's mouth

https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...

Look at the Total... chart.

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

#244
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

Being a good developer is almost completely disjunct from being good at growing a company.

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

#245

IMHO the software engineering community has Stockholm’s syndrome around compensation (cue the doofy but not inaccurate jock/nerd dichotomy stereotype of not even 10 or 20 years ago). This shit is hard. Even relatively intermediate SWE jobs demand a level of fluid intelligence and capacity for detail within 1-2 sigma of the hardest jobs on Earth, and the more elite software jobs are among the most demanding jobs on Ea…

> and the more elite software jobs are among the most demanding jobs on Earth.

You need to get out of that bubble. Even being a professional violinist is like an order of magnitude harder than the most hardcore software job.

And most of them are payed shit.

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

#246

IMHO the software engineering community has Stockholm’s syndrome around compensation (cue the doofy but not inaccurate jock/nerd dichotomy stereotype of not even 10 or 20 years ago). This shit is hard. Even relatively intermediate SWE jobs demand a level of fluid intelligence and capacity for detail within 1-2 sigma of the hardest jobs on Earth, and the more elite software jobs are among the most demanding jobs on Ea…

> and the more elite software jobs are among the most demanding jobs on Earth. You need to get out of that bubble. Even being a professional violinist is like an order of magnitude harder than the most hardcore software job. And most of them are payed shit.

I have tremendous respect for serious concert musicians. I was never a professional musician but I was an extremely serious amateur musician for over a decade and my life is full of people who could trivially be professionals if, to your point, it paid better.

But I find the contention that elite musicians are “an order of magnitude” more capable as concerns fluid intelligence and capacity for detail than the folks at (to name one example) DeepMind to be just silly.

Now the guy composing those pieces after going deaf, yeah, that’s in this whole other world called “genius”.

Playing violin well enough to be called a profession is an extremely demanding task both physically and intellectually, that’s been measured every which way, but let’s not get carried away.

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

#247

Those high salaries remind me of the stories of heavy smokers who didn't die of cancer or COPD. I think it's very unlikely to get those high salaries in Europe. Comparing them to salaries in Silicon Valley without context isn't really smart. I have always tried to see bay area salaries as as risk compensation. E g. In Vienna/Austria a 2-3 bedroom apartment here is about 1-2k while in the bay area it's between 5-10k.…

is that euro or dollar?

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

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what if you are sick? You are using your normal vacation days?

Honestly? I stay home and might check email when I'm bored but don't do any real work, but I don't usually file sick days either because the bureaucracy is a pain (seriously, I'm already sick, I can't deal with that added stress and I'm not going to the doctor just to spread my viruses and be told to go back home and rest). And as long as we're talking about 2 or 3 days, nobody really seems to care.

So you are on sick leave without letting your boss know. I guess that works, but it puts the 'bimodal' comment in a different light.

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

#249

Every time I see this article reposted, I feel a pang of sadness. It's this chasing of the SF salary outside of the US that is supposed to be the holy grail of every engineer in rich EU countries. Well, if you get hired by FAANG in Germany, you don't get the SF salary. My experience is that companies that do offer extreme salaries do not do so out of competition with FAANG (since FAANG does not compete with itself gl…

> Well, if you get hired by FAANG in Germany, you don't get the SF salary. I don't think Germany has at-will employment. Plus all the taxes to feed people who don't want to work.

> Plus all the taxes to feed people who don't want to work.

That’s a very bad representation of the German reality of long term unemployment caused by the lack of availability of jobs.

The majority of welfare recipients in Germany are working people who are underpaid and/or underemployed.

What your taxes are really paying for is keeping the economic system with the largest low-wage sector in Europe going.

Think about that before yapping about „people who don’t want to work“.

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

#250

IMHO the software engineering community has Stockholm’s syndrome around compensation (cue the doofy but not inaccurate jock/nerd dichotomy stereotype of not even 10 or 20 years ago). This shit is hard. Even relatively intermediate SWE jobs demand a level of fluid intelligence and capacity for detail within 1-2 sigma of the hardest jobs on Earth, and the more elite software jobs are among the most demanding jobs on Ea…

> the more elite software jobs are among the most demanding jobs on Earth

Programming is ridiculously easy compared to physics or math. The hardest CS problems are math, not engineering.

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