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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?

#471

Post by FlyingSnake »

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…

I have come to the same realisation. I would rather have a better quality of life than I had in US than to get tons of $$ and live off in a gated community. Great public transport, healthcare, schools, world class Unis, top notch research institutes, and great cultural institutes. The Gemeinschaft approach works here because you need to contribute back to the society in order to reap it's benefits.

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

#472

Post by didibus »

titanomachy wrote: post #421
ilikeerp wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not insane - it's pretty common in most developed countries. The US is a major outlier.

In many developed countries, 42% tax would cover healthcare, a pension you can actually live off of, and fully-paid education for all of your children. Californians get none of those things, and I don't really understand what it is that they get over (e.g.) Washingtonians for the extra ~30% in taxes.

Are you sure Washington doesn't just take the money from some other tax? Like property tax and business tax?

I'm actually curious, is there somewhere you can see the total revenue for a state from the union of all collected taxes and fees?

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

#473

Post by adrianN »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #412
fulafel wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What isn't? Volatile market value, risks of breakdowns and fires and previously undiscovered structural flaws, fires, natural distasters, etc. It's putting a lot of your eggs in one basket, which in investment terms is same as foregoing diversification, ie taking on a lot of risk for no corresponding increase in returns. Depending on jurisdiction, risk of unfair treatment in a divorce. High transaction costs when cha…

Home process in the US are historically very stable. I would think this is also true in Europe? As for diversification, your house shouldn’t be your only investment. As for fires and natural disasters, this is why insurance exists. Owning a home isn’t for everyone, but I don’t think there’s anything particularly risky about it as far as investments go.

Buying a home in a tolerable location costs at least 200k in my area and upkeep isn't free either. I can rent an apartment in a much better area for fifteen to twenty years for just the initial investment.

A house can easily lose its value or at least cause large expenses, e.g. if the cellar floods or develops mold problems. Or if the surrounding neighborhood becomes worse.

Selling houses has a large transaction cost.

I really don't see much benefits to owning over renting. I'd rather have 200k in a diversified portfolio that earns me 5k a year after taxes and has a much lower probability of losing 30% of its value while living in an apartment in a central location than own a house in a suburb that costs me a few thousand a year in upkeep and taxes. I'd likely need to buy a car too in that case, which is another few thousand a year.

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

#474

Post by Hamuko »

KraftKacke wrote: post #206
ricardobeat wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of something I read a few weeks ago. An old lady who lives in a cabin in the woods is being interviewed. The interviewer asks: "isn't it incredibly inconvenient that you need to gather firewood and light a fire every time you want to drink some tea?" "Isn't it inconvenient that you have to work for someone else for 8 hours every day, only so you don't need to start a fire?" I'm positive you can do all of t…

I recently learned, people worked less when we were hunter/gatherer, had more leisure time. I don't want to skip on modern medicine and shit, but it does make you think... [*] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yocja_N5s1I

I imagine the quality of the leisure time as hunter/gatherer was much lower than what you have now. What are you going to do with your leisure time? Count how many of your children have survived winter?

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

#475

Post by vatican_banker »

newswasboring wrote: post #442
vatican_banker wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wouldn’t want to switch jobs just to drive up my pay even if I could [...] I have worked 20 years in the same job and so have my colleagues. Honestly this part of the European mentality is hard for an outsider understand. I lived there for ~10 years and heard this argument countless times. I want a fulfilling life and part of that is a fulfilling job. It's hard to believe a job on the same company can be fulfilli…

> It's hard to believe a job on the same company can be fulfilling for 20+ years. I don't see why not. I have never worked for small companies (always 25k+ sizes ) so my view may be skewed but the scope of these companies are so large that changing a project can mean totally different ways of working and sometimes totally different industries. Can it be that it's easier in europe to change your job context within the…

It's not KPI chasing. I've grown _so_ much after each job/career change that I often wonder how long would it take me to grow by same amount if I'd stay at a single job (I don't have that answer yet but I'm sure longer).

Changing jobs every 5 years-or-so is forcing yourself to learn a new culture and new set of skills.

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

#476

Post by yamrzou »

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…

As another comment said: to pursue passions that do not pay well.

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

#477

Post by didibus »

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…

> You can't have low inequality by definition if you decide to start paying one group a ton of money.

That's true, but the question is, the higher salary you refuse to take as a SWE in Europe, does it really go instead to someone else in need of it? Or is it just pocketed by someone who already has more money than you?

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

#479

Post by thomasahle »

dnautics wrote: post #291
arcticbull wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assumed you realized we were constraining ourselves to places with a High or Very High HDI. If nobody has any money at all, would you not say inequality is low? If everyone in Tajikistan has $5 except the president, Emomali Rahmon, is inequality not low? I suspect you are looking for a pairing of HDI and Gini, which factors in both the development (and hence the standard of living) and the inequality. Sweden: (Gini…

> If everyone in Tajikistan has $5 except the president That distribution will yield a very high gini coefficient of very close to 1.

>> If everyone in Tajikistan has $5 except the president

> That distribution will yield a very high gini coefficient of very close to 1.

It yields (n-1)|5-p|/(2n(5(n-1)+p)) which is about p/(5n+p).

So it depends on whether the president (p) has $10 or $n^2.

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

#480

Post by georgeplusplus »

arcticbull wrote: post #357
strombofulous wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

40%?! Where do you live? The effective federal income tax at 100k is 22.75%. I don't think any state has a 17.25% effective income tax, certainly not if you only earn 100k.

If you're making 100K in California, your marginal tax rate is: - Federal: 24% - State: 9.3% - FICA: 7.65% (6.2% social security, 1.45% medicare) - SDI: 1% This gets you to 42%. Your employer matches the FICA payments too, so that's closer to 50% of your take-home pay. Once you make enough to pay off the regressive FICA taxes ($142K) you get bumped back down to "just" the mid-high 30% range briefly, until you hit $16…

This is slightly misleading. The federal tax rate is a tiered system, meaning a portion of your income is taxed at a certain rate and income that exceeds that tier is taxed at a different rate after that and so on.

The federal tax rate is much lower if you account for that.

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