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My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

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Re: My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

#561

Post by C1sc0cat »

apexalpha wrote: post #232
phyller wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It boggles my mind that salaries can be so much lower in parts of Europe, while expenses are about the same as the US. Of course if you are living in New York City or San Francisco area expenses are higher, but most places they are not.

As always: it's not that Black and White. Many people in my country, and NW Europe in general, opt for pay in another currency: time. Dutch people work _on average_ 350 hours less per year than their US counterparts; or about 7 weeks worth when working 40 hours a week. It's not unheard of in my company to have between 30 and 50 paid days off per year on top of the national holidays. These days are negotiated during s…

You should be getting 72k for a 4 day week.

Re: My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

#562

Post by C1sc0cat »

pavlov wrote: post #221
phyller wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It boggles my mind that salaries can be so much lower in parts of Europe, while expenses are about the same as the US. Of course if you are living in New York City or San Francisco area expenses are higher, but most places they are not.

Even the big companies do this. My employer is a FANG and I'm based in London. Rents are nearly as expensive as in San Francisco... But if I moved to Silicon Valley, I'd get 40% more base pay for the same work. The only justification for this policy is something called "cost of labor" — in other words: "We've agreed with other tech companies that nobody's going to raise salaries locally."

Nearly I would have said London is more expensive than SF

Re: My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

#563

Post by roel_v »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #462
roel_v wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Is embedded development really that poorly paid?" At least in Belgium and the Netherlands it is, yes. I've interviewed a few times for roles like that, and they were always poorly paid and very depressing looking (like one guy beaming 'this will be your workspace!', pointing to an ancient pc on the edge of a lab table with a chair with holes in it. I think since the electronics guys didn't have chairs, that was the…

Do you have any idea why embedded got so poorly paid?

They seem to get lumped in with the EE guys, for whom just like the MechEng guys there are wholly different salary expectations (probably a supply/demand thing). I guess in embedded companies, software is just a necessary annoyance.

Re: My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

#564

Post by wsc981 »

Someone1234 wrote: post #296

These threads always invite the outliers (i.e. those who want to humble brag). Here's mine outside Washington/California/Silicon Valley/NYC: - $40K: 2010-2013, "DevOps" at small startup. No ownership/shares. - $45-72K: 2014-Current, Programmer (various job titles) working for state's education department Even management here only make $90K capping out around $115K~. But cost of living is low. These threads never have…

I'm a remote working iOS / Android dev located in the countryside of Thailand.

Currently working for 40 USD / hour for 32 hours a week, so that means around 65.000 USD per year. This year I started fully working remotely and decided to start a bit at the low end, earnings-wise. When working previously as a freelancer in The Netherlands my last rate was around 80 USD / hour.

I intend to raise my rate to at least 50 USD per hour in 2019 and perhaps working 5 days a week, which would mean earning around 100.000 USD per year.

Re: My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

#565

Post by jobigoud »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #555
jobigoud wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are still the lead dev on the project and have to take on all the responsiblities Except the responsibility of leading other people , on a resume this title would imply you gained that experience while in fact you didn't.

"lead" doesn't mean that at all in this context it's technical leadership

To me even technical leadership still implies there are people that are less technically advanced that follow or benefit from the leadership. In general any leader implies followers, otherwise, what are you leading?

Note that I didn't say manage other people. I'm talking about helping get the better of the team, showing a junior member how things can be done better, etc. Like a team captain, not a coach.

Re: My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

#566

Post by a_t48 »

Work history is probably going to out who I am to someone, but:

- $50k-$80k(?) - 2012-2014 - Mobile game company (gameplay\engine)

- $85k - 2014-2015 - AAA games company (gameplay\ai)

- $105k-$135k(?) - 2015-2017 - Technically a VR company (engine)

- $175k-$183k(?) + ~$95k yearly PSU + ~$60k other bonuses - 2017-2018 - Self Driving Car company

On the one hand I'm a huge outlier who got in something at the right time. On the other hand I'm really good at my job...but probably overpaid.

Re: My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

#567

Post by julius_set »

Middle eastern male,

2014-2015: Consulting gig while in college, initial $10,000 bid. Signed Maintenence contract for $60/hr ~ $125,000 / year

Ended up with $34K total earned due to me studying as a full time student.

2015: First real job in SF California at startup. $110,000, $5K sign on.

2016: Promoted to $125,000

2018: Received offer for $180,000, counter offered to $180,000, took counter offer.

Re: My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

#568

Post by tathougies »

lbotos wrote: post #504
tathougies wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's easy for people to feel that their perfectly normal salaries are low. Part of a free market is realizing that, if others are earning more money for the same work, there is a good chance that you are undercharging your employer for your services.

Do you agree that this stance ignores the idea of local economies factoring into why dollars are not valued the same everywhere? Most companies I've known charge what they would consider "base rate" + some kind of Cost of Living multiplier. See Buffer's example: https://buffer.com/salary/staff-engineer-web/average

No? Salaries ought to be compared in real values. This is econ 101. The author made no claim his figures were in real terms. He gave the nominal amounts and that is quite clear in the post. It's up to the astute reader to convert them into real values based on the purchasing power of the nominal amount provided in their locale.

Your claim was that

> HN is full of West Coast FAANG SV employees who are outliers.

There are two ways to interpret this claim. Way 1 is to assume that you are talking about West Coast 'FAANG' employees being outliers in the sense their nominal salaries are outliers. Way 2 is to assume you claim that West Coast employees are outliers in the purchasing power sense.

If I assume way 1, then your claim that 'it's easy for people to feel their salaries are low' doesn't make sense, because salaries would be compared in real terms. Moreover, the SV employees wouldn't really be outliers. They'd be perfectly average.

If I assume the latter, which is that the salaries are outliers in real terms, then what I said stands: if someone else is making more money for the same job, you're probably being underpaid.

Re: My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

#569

Post by gigatexal »

qubax wrote: post #327
gigatexal wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2018 - Salary for me an expat in Germany at a fintech startup: 53k Euros a year. No signing bonus. No options. Experience: 5 years as a DBA the rest a sad self taught programmer with 6 months of prior startup experience shipping microservices in C# and Python. Startup in logistics 2018 6 months: 48k euros. Previous: DBA in Portland Oregon in 2013 to 2017 - 60k to 70k then as an EDW dev 78k USD.

Jesus that's horrible. I made much more than that straight out of college. But it was in NYC where cost of living is high and taxes destroy you. The saddest part is that your salary didn't increase much in 5 years? Going from $60k to $70k to 53k euros over 5 years is pretty much tracking inflation. Over 5 years, my salary increased by more than double your entire salary. You should ask for a raise from time to time o…

Yeah it’s not great. But I don’t have a CS degree. I was brought in off the street with an Econ degree to be a super junior DBA and spent a lot of time warming a seat as a migration admin. Then moved on to EDW work but the chance to move wasn’t entirely motivated by money but by what else’s I could learn.

Then I moved to Germany to try my hand at a startup to gain more experience.

The pay could be better but that’s not my entire goal: loving what I do is important and having a good work life balance is too.

Re: My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

#570

Post by IkmoIkmo »

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #342
apexalpha wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zit in die 12,5%!

Ah, dus ~4% "jaarbonus" naast 8% vakantiegeld. Nog niet eerder gezien, is dat gebruikelijk? Je krijgt 56% belasting over bonussen toch? Kunnen ze het niet beter in je salaris stoppen, zodat je gewoon "normaal" (42%?) belastingtarief betaalt?

Salaris en bonussen worden exact hetzelfde belast bij de jaarlijkse afrekening, net als je vakantiegeld en je eindejaarsuitkering. Allemaal hetzelfde.

Echter wordt er gedurende het jaar vaak over de bonus tegen het toptarief ingehouden als voorzorgsmaatregel dat je in ieder geval geen extra belasting moet betalen aan het eind van het jaar.

Geen wezenlijk verschil dus.

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