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Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

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Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#251

Post by Aunche »

ricardobeat wrote: post #173
aaomidi wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The salaries aren't low because of equality though. You're just shifting the high earners from the people doing the work to the managers of the people doing the work.

As far as my experience goes, managers make about the same, or less, as an engineer at a similar experience level. They may end up at a higher compensation level if far enough in the career ladder, but I don't think it's significant in the bigger picture. The average CEO earnings in the Netherlands, including bonuses, is only 5x-6x the average engineer salary.

> The average CEO earnings in the Netherlands, including bonuses, is only 5x-6x the average engineer salary.

What do you mean by average CEO? That's about the same as a CEO of a mid-sized American company. Shell's CEO makes a lot more than that, even considering the terrible year for oil.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#252

Post by anoncake »

shekispeaks wrote: post #96
alkonaut wrote: post #55

I got my higher education for free. I expect to save nothing for my children or their education. I expect to have to put aside very little for retirement. The thing is, I just can’t find an argument why I should be able to get very rich doing my job. It’s a comfortable job. It pays a good salary. I got here by taking no risk at all. I wouldn’t want to switch jobs just to drive up my pay even if I could. I have other…

Getting very rich allows me to do cook less, do less chores and build up my skill further (get better) or to pursue passions that do not pay well. I calculated moving to Europe as a SWE would lead to a drastic lifestyle change for me—even with retirement, healthcare and children's education considered (with 2 children, Europe wins at 3 hands down).

However, higher SWE salaries don't lead to less cooking or less chores needing to be done. So that is not an argument why a society should strive to optimize for that.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#253

Post by [deleted] »

anoncake wrote: post #246
offby37years wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a software engineer your leverage should be higher than near any other profession. This is why SV engineers are paid handsomely. Your productive output eclipses that of any profession without force multipliers. Your income should not be based on input (risk, comfort), but rather your output (scale, value).

> Your income should not be based on input (risk, comfort), but rather your output (scale, value). Why?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#254

Post by sokoloff »

trcollinson wrote: post #162
marcinzm wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>* Substantially more actual vacation time This depends on the company, last startup I worked at gave me around 6 weeks of vacation per year not counting holidays. Of course I got paid less than FAANG but still better than Europe even without the equity. >* Substantially cheaper and yet similar health, dental, and vision coverage I have heard a lot of people in Europe (UK and Germany) complain about issues with getti…

I guess my point on vacation is more around the culture of using it. As a senior level engineer/architect with maybe a small team leading role, when was the last time you took a solid 2 week off without anyone calling you for work? Heck, look at the number of unlimited PTO companies out there where employees never take a day. Just as an example. The experience my friends have in the EU seems to be pretty good over al…

I suspect a lot of us just got back from two weeks off. Dec 19 though Jan 3 (inclusive) for me.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#255

Post by samtho »

anoncake wrote: post #246
offby37years wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a software engineer your leverage should be higher than near any other profession. This is why SV engineers are paid handsomely. Your productive output eclipses that of any profession without force multipliers. Your income should not be based on input (risk, comfort), but rather your output (scale, value).

> Your income should not be based on input (risk, comfort), but rather your output (scale, value). Why?

Compensation, in a perfect world, should be based on how much value you bring to the company.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#256

Post by 6510 »

arcticbull wrote: post #85
alkonaut wrote: post #55

I got my higher education for free. I expect to save nothing for my children or their education. I expect to have to put aside very little for retirement. The thing is, I just can’t find an argument why I should be able to get very rich doing my job. It’s a comfortable job. It pays a good salary. I got here by taking no risk at all. I wouldn’t want to switch jobs just to drive up my pay even if I could. I have other…

A lot of folks here are calling out the lower pay for SWEs in Europe and Canada as a failure - but also praise the low wealth inequality and low income inequality in Europe and Canada. You can't have low inequality by definition if you decide to start paying one group a ton of money. Well, this is a lot like the housing conversation in the US. "I want my house to go up in value, and be a great investment!" Also: "Why…

They pay peanuts then say we need more programmers. They also say managers are really valuable while we have plenty of those. Programming is also a really intense job, pretty much no one can do it for 8 hours straight and managers sit on their ass drinking coffee all day with brief interruption by tasks 85% should have been automated 20 years ago.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#257

Post by MAGZine »

anoncake wrote: post #246
offby37years wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a software engineer your leverage should be higher than near any other profession. This is why SV engineers are paid handsomely. Your productive output eclipses that of any profession without force multipliers. Your income should not be based on input (risk, comfort), but rather your output (scale, value).

> Your income should not be based on input (risk, comfort), but rather your output (scale, value). Why?

Because people pay for output, not input. They don't care if you bought a pencil from someone else or grew the tree, made the paint, etc all yourself. They buy a pencil.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#258

Post by giantg2 »

johnqpub wrote: post #79
giantg2 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the healthcare system isn't a dream from what I hear. The main thing I see with the parent's comment though is that in the US you might be making $100k, but paying $15-20k in insurance costs. Whereas you might only be making $80k in the EU but you don't have that same insurance costs. I see this as being the same cost (ignoring the other factors per the OPs request) but just hiding the cost from the empl…

The thing is in the US, generally the more you make the lower your insurance costs are. I made ~$300k last year at a FAANG (Sr. engineer), and my healthcare costs were: $29/month in premiums $200/month in an HSA, which I'm saving for retirement (complicated US income tax reasons), so money I don't available for my use but it doesn't go into a black hole either. $1500 deducible $3000 total out of pocket I had a sudden…

True, the better jobs tend to have better benefits to go along with the better pay. I'm non-FAANG, making less than a third of you and my max out of pocket is $7k with a $3500 deductible and something like $7k in premiums. My kid has a condition now and so I will be hitting the max out of pocket every year or close to it.

So my comment was intended to apply generally. I can certainly see that there could be some outliers that this wouldn't apply to. I feel like SV and FAANG sort of fall into that category. I think many of us never make close to that money (or maybe I'm just a loser). I think I'll top out at $120k (today's value) if I have some career advancement, which seems unlikely. The US average (median?) for a developer is about $95k.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#260

Post by Bakary »

username90 wrote: post #232
esoterica wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A larger fraction of Americans have a tertiary degree than almost all European countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_... > Personally, I believe letting people leave the US without monetary penalties so they can pursue cultures that more match their own values is the solution. There are no monetary penalties unless you are both much wealthier than the average person and have substanti…

> A larger fraction of Americans have a tertiary degree than almost all European countries. Not if you only count STEM degrees, then USA is far behind. https://www.businessinsider.com/most-technological-countries... I'm not sure why American's don't study STEM, you'd think they wanted to study something that pays off. But maybe it is the other way around, with government funded education they only offer STEM degrees…

Most people are made miserable by studying STEM. And if it makes you miserable, you are unlikely to get good enough at it to get the purported payoff.
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