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

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

#261

Post by ricardobayes »

FredPret wrote: post #82
Dove wrote: 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

Unfortunately us devs are really good in starting companies that sound smart, but have low real-world usage. Successful companies generally speaking are rarely high-tech.

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

#262

Post by lozenge »

seibelj wrote: post #237
_vbnz wrote: 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?

Healthcare spending of the UK is at the OECD median and is just 80% of the EU15 median. The UK also has an aging population which means its spending needs to drift upwards over time.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan...

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

#263

Post by benreesman »

dan-robertson wrote: post #256
benreesman wrote: post #240

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…

To answer your last question: how much you’re paid has little to do with how hard you tried or how hard your job is. Secondly your vague statement about ‘within 1-2 sigma of the hardest jobs on Earth’ seems a little hard to interpret to me. If you say the hardest jobs are at 5 sigma (~2k people on earth have them) then 4 sigma gives 250k people and 3 sigma gives about 10 million people. (In the US the numbers give yo…

Obviously to fit my point into what amounts to a tweet I’ve hand-waved a bit, and your less hand-wavy napkin math sounds more or less plausible. 5 standard deviations sounds like a lot for anything that can be called “jobs” plural: being an Olympic gold-medalist is a “job” in some sense but I think the idea of job has started to break down a bit there. Ditto Fields-caliber mathematicians, etc.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone seem all that surprised that senior but not world-famous attorneys often bring in 7 figures, but I routinely see people act not just surprised but almost indignant that senior software people sometimes do.

I don’t think we strongly disagree as long as I’m clear that software pay seems to be growing roughly in line with the importance of software to life and commerce. My point was, why should anyone be surprised or even upset by this?

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

#264

Post by ricardobayes »

splittingTimes wrote: post #158

Humanities supposedly most brilliant minds work on the next e-billing system, AI on how to sell more crap that nobody really needs, keep a glorified message board afloat or enable the cancer that is advertisment. They should work on how to address the climate catastrophe, the waste/recycling problem, food security, sustainable agriculture and land/water use, medical devices/health care or how to fix the broken partic…

My goal is to reach financial independence ASAP so I can contribute my effort 100% to something that matters.

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

#265

Post by lozenge »

justinlloyd wrote: post #233
maccard wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in some states. On a salary of £120,000 in the UK, you'll take home 60% of your pay [0], meanwhile in California on $145,000 [1] you take home 63%. The real difference is that it's very hard to be paid 120,000 in the UK. [0] https://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php [1] https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-paycheck-calculator#...

> The real difference is that it's very hard to be paid 120,000 in the UK. Interesting. I recently turned down the opportunity to interview with a UK company because the compensation target was 120,000 pounds and I flat out told them, "that won't even get me out of bed in the morning." I have been talking with quite a few UK recruiters over the past few months and what I am noticing is that a lot of recruiters and he…

You can pretty much list the highest-paying UK companies on levels.fyi. There's FAANG, Bloomberg and a couple of other financial/trading companies. The financial companies are the only ones to engage external recruiters.

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

#266

Post by ricardobayes »

benreesman wrote: post #240

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…

I don't think this true at all. Your intermediate SWE job will be adding functionality to a React page or writing REST endpoints in Python. You will reach this level with around 2 years of experience. I don't see this nearly as demanding as the 10+ year preparation to be a neurosurgeon, or to be a teacher. I think being an 'average' dev is pretty easy after all in the grand scheme of things.

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

#267

Post by Tade0 »

A friend of mine went through all those tiers(salary-wise at least) within a year and then got laid off several months in.

I would've stopped at tier 2, but he's a risk taker, which both enables him to do amazing things and occasionally gets him into serious trouble.

In any case this distribution is definitely there and interestingly if you, like me, hail from a popular outsourcing destination, your employer might charge the client high-tier rates and pay you a low-tier wage, so it's advisable to shoot for at least the mid-tier if you can manage to get through the recruitment process.

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

#268

Post by legulere »

splittingTimes wrote: post #158

Humanities supposedly most brilliant minds work on the next e-billing system, AI on how to sell more crap that nobody really needs, keep a glorified message board afloat or enable the cancer that is advertisment. They should work on how to address the climate catastrophe, the waste/recycling problem, food security, sustainable agriculture and land/water use, medical devices/health care or how to fix the broken partic…

Here's a list of companies that work on sustainability where you can work as a software developer:

https://github.com/pogopaule/awesome-sustainability-jobs

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

#269

Post by aix1 »

nemexis wrote: post #247
de6u99er wrote: post #126

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?

For reference, €1 is currently worth US$1.04, i.e. they're basically at parity.
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