581–590 of 974 posts
From what I know of the UK, professionals, executives, and the professional service sector are some of the best compensated roles. This may be the case for any EU economy with a burgeoning financial service sector, too. It’s a similar story in NYC though the city has more and more developer presence than 10 years ago. The more your SWE role can look like that of an auditor, accountant, management consultant, or finan…
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Why would I be bored? Of course this means that you're actually not doing the exact same thing at the same company all the time. A good company allows for that. Either because you can easily switch projects, switch teams, move up, move sideways etc. Depends on things like company size, structure, culture etc. And yourself obviously.
I think what parent means is: Don’t you have to actually maintain the crap you built using your resume-driven technology decisions? /s
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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…
1-(1-0,24)*(1-0,093)*(1-0,0765)*(1-0,01) = 0,37
As an European (working in "tech"), first and foremost:
The salaries of teachers in primary and secondary education must be at least doubled or tripled. The rest will likely trickle down from that.
Software engineers already make a very good living in Europe, no need to give more money to them. If anything, useless managerial jobs must be culled.
Worst student debt you can get is in the UK, its fees are capped at £9k for each academic year. I paid off my student debt in 4 years after graduation, while financially supporting my family and saving for a house in top5 biggest city, which I bought 5.5 years after graduation.
When I was made redundant I got paid 300% of my salary as a security deposit + what I earned that months and cash for unused holidays, it was close to 5 months salary in one pay. I was given fair review and 3 weeks notice before my last day, I didn't go bankrupt or homeless. In fact market is so good here that I had 2 job offers on next working day.
I would not change this program for American version. I don't think my salary is that low that needs increase by a significant %. We get a lot of other benefits, higher living standard, higher job security, paid holidays (20+ days in the UK + a few bank holidays - depends on country), maternity and paternity leave (weeks or months depending on country).
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’m also from Germany. There is significant wealth inequality, but making €40-60k pre-tax a year is very attainable for most developers here. In Switzerland, it’s even higher (€60-70k+) and they have to pay fewer taxes (with a higher cost of living).
But the „average life“ in Germany for a developer is very good. About 4-5 weeks of vacation every year, no expectations of working more than 9-5 (at the average employer), and after 1 year working at a job you’re eligible for unemployment insurance which means you get 60% of your net salary for 1 year if you’re unemployed.
With regards to attaining riches:
You can live comfortably with €2000/month net as a single (and easily with €3-4k with two incomes and two small kids in a smaller city), so for most people, it’s possible to save 500+€/month (most don’t because of lifestyle inflation, but that’s a different matter). With side hustles (small freelance work) you can easily save €500-1000/month which means that after 5-7 years you are able to save €80,000. Continuously investing in stocks, pension plans and ETFs (what most Germans also don’t do) means that you can accumulate half a million euros by the age of 45-50.
And this is the average developer, no 10x rockstar. Having a net worth of €700k to one million euros when you’re 67 years old with a very good work-life-balance is nothing to be ashamed of. With more ambition, you can freelance for €75/h which translates to a six-figure income. With that, it’s possible to build a net worth of 2-3 million over 20-30 years.
For people who want to be a millionaire in 10-15 years, this is not very attractive. But when you consider the work-life-balance and the labor rights, it's easy to see how people would choose that. For high-achievers, I would also recommend working in the US or Switzerland. But for average developers, it's not that bad of a deal.
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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…
Buying a house was hard despite my "high" salary, thats ridiculous, but I don't think the solution is to earn more. I would like to see more support for my mum who lost her job of 28 years due to COVID, I would like to see less homeless addicts on the street due to lack of support, I would like to see the people around me working as hard as they can barely able to pay rent to have more options.
Seeing what tech has made of the Bay Area and asking for more of that please is misguided imo.
For them, you’re cheap(-er) labor, for yourself, you’ll make more than what you used to make in Europe.
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> But I would want to point out the curious phrasing and of your first paragraph and what that says about USA way of thinking. All these points are business targeted while all european points are individual targeted. I don't think there is anything curious about this way of thinking. And US hegemony plays directly into this! Pre-World Wars, European nations had their colonies and their militaries and the priority of…
> However, its a fundamental mistake to assume that a Government can provide effective social services without having a strong economy. Strong economies require successful businesses. Umm... I would say the social services in european countries are pretty successful.