The prime minister in my country (SWE, also known as Sweden) makes 170k/yr per year. So what do you think? :-D
Is 400k/yr overpaid for a SWE?
51–60 of 107 posts
Re: Is 400k/yr overpaid for a SWE?
#52I'm frankly super confused about salaries right now. Currently job hunting in Europe and the other day when a recruiter asked how much I was looking for I gave my current salary as a minimum of 65 euros/h and the recruiter kind of chuckled and told me that if I'm a good match I could ask for like 90. Okay, sounds great. So a few days later I was having an initial interview for a senior ML position and when asked how…
In my experience, a value per hour in Europe tends to imply contract/freelance arrangement, where you need to get a VAT number, liability insurance and have basically none of the labor rights regular employees have. So I think the confusion is due to the fact that the interviewer interpreted as you expecting a full time regular employment contract, which gives you plenty of legal protection. In that case I have seen…
really appreciate the numbers, thanks. Indeed 65 is what I said I make as a freelancer, tried to explain that I would have different expectations as an employee but I had no idea what number to say, so this is very helpful. That said I find it crazy how big the difference is on these two conditions and am struggling a bit now to justify why I would want to go back to being an employee. Maybe I'll drop the idea. On the other hand this job would have given me great experience so I wish I had known to give a lower number as a kind of investment. Mainly I was disappointed that saying the wrong thing had such a disastrous effect instead of being a point of discussion so maybe I need to work on how I word things when discussing my expections. I'm learning that interviewing takes practice and preparation. Cheers.
Re: Is 400k/yr overpaid for a SWE?
#53CEO thinks workers performing essential function are overpaid, and worry that their business can't work as well if they have to pay so much. News at 11.
crazy that some people have no clue they contribute 0 value in what they say, am i right?
Re: Is 400k/yr overpaid for a SWE?
#54is 400k driven by the tech bubble?
is 400k still viable? when companies like coinbase, shopee, tesla...etc. is laying off people or hire freeze. the current events is giving me the dotcom bubble vibe.
Re: Is 400k/yr overpaid for a SWE?
#55I'm frankly super confused about salaries right now. Currently job hunting in Europe and the other day when a recruiter asked how much I was looking for I gave my current salary as a minimum of 65 euros/h and the recruiter kind of chuckled and told me that if I'm a good match I could ask for like 90. Okay, sounds great. So a few days later I was having an initial interview for a senior ML position and when asked how…
I think the recruiter meant 90€ as freelance and you asked 100k as permanent? In Europe de permanent contract includes a lot of benefits and a big risk for the company: holidays, unemployment coverage, sick coverage and normally other things like bonus, pension, phone and sometimes medical insurance and car (consultants). For the rates I’ve seen first hand, 90€/hour of freelance corresponds to 70-80k hired salary
your numbers concur pretty well with what another poster replied, so thanks! I'll try to tailor my answers accordingly in the future, really helpful cheers. It just gets so confusing when people post their salaries like in the US and other places and I just don't know what is reasonable to ask for. Learning though, glad for the answers here.
Re: Is 400k/yr overpaid for a SWE?
#56I think it's pretty funny when libertarians or conservatives all of a sudden start sounding like Marxists and claiming that of course workers (engineers) should be entitled to part of the value they produce, when it's their own salary they're talking about. $400k is also way way more than any engineer will earn in most countries except USA, and maybe it's exceptional in most US states too? For context, it's about twi…
I live in the US and I'm not making anywhere near $400k. What I'm making is above average for my region, also. I haven't gotten a recruiter from this area (that shared their range) get anywhere close with the top end of their range when they've pinged me since I've gotten this job.
Re: Is 400k/yr overpaid for a SWE?
#57I'm frankly super confused about salaries right now. Currently job hunting in Europe and the other day when a recruiter asked how much I was looking for I gave my current salary as a minimum of 65 euros/h and the recruiter kind of chuckled and told me that if I'm a good match I could ask for like 90. Okay, sounds great. So a few days later I was having an initial interview for a senior ML position and when asked how…
I'm not sure about EU but there are still many many many hiring managers who think SWE/Devops/ML are just like any other employees and shouldn't get paid less than the middle managers about them.
Avoid those shops like the plague. If a company still doesn't understand that you get what you pay for in *current year*, they're not going to treat you well in non-monetary ways either.
Re: Is 400k/yr overpaid for a SWE?
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hadn't heard of it, but skimming some quick reading about it, yeah, I definitely agree with it. It also led me to the term "effective altruism", which is something I've been advocating for pretty much my whole life, never knowing there was a phrase defined by it. So that's neat. I'm curious to know how what proportion of people around the world follow these principles; I can't find any definitive or combined data o…
> "... as though it's literally stupid to care about other people." That's not what the quote means. It's generally understood to describe how young people are well-intentioned but naive, and that you come to understand your limitations and get wiser as you get older, which causes you to adopt more philosophically conservative views (see Leo Strauss for a good example).
Perhaps I exaggerated the dichotomy, but you just associated being well-intentioned with being naive, and being wiser -- explicitly in contrast to that younger state -- with being conservative. So even in your own comment, those associations are implied.
Re: Is 400k/yr overpaid for a SWE?
#59I don't think his tweet is saying SWEs don't deserve 400k. He's saying some business models are not viable at that price. So in relation to his tweet that's not wrong. If your medical business needs to hire doctors for 20k/yr to be viable then you don't have a business. At the end of the day that's no different than a child saying they're going to start a money tree business so they can just pick money off the trees…
> Software is an extremely scalable business where the marginal cost of every copy beyond the first is nearly zero.
and
> If you can drive the cost of doing business and your inputs toward zero almost any business idea could theoretically make a profit... but real markets are not so accommodating.
I agree with many of your points, but these vary by product. For example, FAANGs sometimes have applications where some inputs don’t scale well, e.g. the local knowledge that goes into mapping apps. But the company often provides the service for free and benefits from volunteers (free labour) adding valuable information like “this road is closed”. That product feeds into the ads part of the business, which does scale really well.
I’ve also noticed that FAANGs sometimes outsource work that doesn’t scale as easily. The contracting companies are either in cheaper countries or they’ll accept a smaller profit margin. Or both. The devs and analysts at those companies indirectly contribute to the FAANG’s product, but don’t get the bumper salaries.
Put another way, I think big tech companies do often try to “drive their inputs toward zero” (to paraphrase a little) but US-based devs don’t often experience it.
Re: Is 400k/yr overpaid for a SWE?
#60Probing questions, by me, here: https://twitter.com/jugurthahadjar/status/153713590102484582...
The person claims to have neither salary[0] nor equity[1].
- [0]: https://twitter.com/typesfast/status/1536703876505735168, "I don't take a salary".
- [1]: https://twitter.com/typesfast/status/1536735397644050432, "I also dont earn any equity for working here."