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

blog.pragmaticengineer.com

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

#41

Post by vimy »

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…

How much does imaging cost without insurance?

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

#42

Post by ornornor »

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…

The corollary is that you live like a king in a country where people could be billionaires or they could be poor, desperate, with untreated mental health issues, nothing to lose, and a loaded gun.

On the global scale, I wouldn’t say the US is a beacon of progress and happiness. It’s better than many bottom tier countries but far from top tier countries (which aren’t as liberal, for the most part)

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

#43

Post by ctvo »

kingkawn wrote: post #29
TulliusCicero wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”

The dregs, as in the bottom of the barrel, of the global developer salary band. There’s no need to jump to the conclusion that it’s a judgement on the country itself and look for something to be offended by.

Due to current events someone could say the dregs of reproductive rights include the USA. They’re not making a value judgement on the entire country.

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

#44

Post by thr0wawayf00 »

vimy wrote: post #41
thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

How much does imaging cost without insurance?

Well, providers don't have to disclose transparent pricing so it's hard to say for sure, but Google says between $1-3K.

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

#45

Post by seibelj »

djvdq wrote: post #24
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…

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

I would rather a private company build it, or in a public / private partnership, so we at least have some semblance of breaking-even if not a small profit.

Our current train systems are so woefully wasteful, inefficient, prone to breaking down, and so on that simply giving the same corruption more money would be extremely unwise.

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

#46

Post by hawk_ »

sealeck wrote: post #39
hawk_ wrote: post #31

I am curious to see how this plays out with the coming recession (hiring freezes instituted already). I suspect that #3 segment will prove to be ephemeral - a result of fed's QE unlimited regime.

If you look at Google, Apple, Amazon, etc's balance sheets they're quite solid, not really at this point propped up by monetary policy any more.

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

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

#47

Post by nivenkos »

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…

Yeah, and for most working professionals you get sweet FA.

Like here in Sweden we pay 40% income tax, 25% sales tax and still have to pay about $30 for each doctor visit. Dentistry is not included in the state health coverage. Neither are annual checkups of any kind, so diagnosis can be difficult and slow, etc.

In Sweden, those taxes are just going to those who are lucky enough to have first-hand subsidised apartment contracts, or have loads of children and live off the barnbidrag. Especially asylum seekers (failed or accepted) that get both of those for free, and never have to work or integrate with society.

The only major benefit over the US is the semi-decent trade unions which mean full-time work is quite stable and with good vacation allowance.

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

#48

Post by yrgulation »

nivenkos wrote: post #40
odiroot wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not so sure, as a junior in the UK I got a raise moving to Spain of all places... from London.

Probably because you are at a senior level in that market. Few eu countries can compete with the uk in terms of pay and modern tech.

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

#49

Post by 988747 »

sealeck wrote: post #32
988747 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long ago was that? Are you guys still in touch? Because it seems to me that recently developer salaries in Poland matched or even surpassed those in Austria :)

I don't think this is likely to be true at a population level; Austria is a much richer country than Poland; has a much higher standard of education and in other sectors salaries are usually higher in Austria than Poland.

Agree that this isn't likely to be true at population level - I was talking about Software Developers specifically.

Disagree on "much higher standard of education" - even if Austria comes on top, it's just barely, not by a lot.

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

#50

Post by hef19898 »

I_AM_A_SMURF wrote: post #36
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.

For high earners it's still higher in EU, about 50% vs 40% but yeah it's not that significant.

Be aware that those 50% in the EU usually include social security, unemployment, health care and taxes, not just taxes on your salary. Also, it's less than 50% in praxis, 50% are just easier to calculate in your head.
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