Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Programmer salary in mainland Europe?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 115 posts

Re: Programmer salary in mainland Europe?

#61

Post by ig1 »

eliben wrote: post #51
ig1 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had an offer of over £1000/day a few months back (it's was for a C++ lead dev at a firm no-one wants to work at).

I'm not sure how £1000/day even makes sense. Isn't that like £20000/month, which computes to ~$400K/year? What am I missing? Is it only part-time because of consulting?

It's was for an investment bank, full-time 6 month contract, they were looking for someone who was strong at multi-threading and networking, and could be a lead dev. That's a rare enough combination of skills.

Re: Programmer salary in mainland Europe?

#62

Post by eliben »

ig1 wrote: post #61
eliben wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how £1000/day even makes sense. Isn't that like £20000/month, which computes to ~$400K/year? What am I missing? Is it only part-time because of consulting?

It's was for an investment bank, full-time 6 month contract, they were looking for someone who was strong at multi-threading and networking, and could be a lead dev. That's a rare enough combination of skills.

When working this way, do you get to keep more or less of the money as compared with a "normal" position?

Well done anyway ;-) As a lead dev myself I totally agree that people strong with multi-threading and networking are rare.

Re: Programmer salary in mainland Europe?

#63

Post by nakkiel »

FrojoS wrote: post #22
mrspeaker wrote: post #9

I can concur that the pay sucks in France - ludicrously low compared to Australian rates (like, half!) and it's not like living expenses are lower, that's for sure. If you're only in it for the dollars, then avoid! However, bonuses are (at least for me) much much lower working hours. Which means plenty of time for side projects.

I second this. "If you're only in it for the dollars, then avoid!" The usual employe is expected to take all of his 6 weeks (in Germany the minimum is 4 but 6 is standard, in France I think its 8 weeks) of vacation even though there are lots of federal holidays and And yes French food is expensive. But com'on its French food!

That's untrue. In France high responsibility positions have a different status (called "cadre") and there is no such thing as RTT for them (although in very large companies they might happen to actually take them into account): there is practically no weekly limit and it's usually anywhere between 40 to 50 hours a week (known as the "you leave when your work is done"). Holidays are at least (and usually) 5 weeks.

Re: Programmer salary in mainland Europe?

#65

Post by jmra »

charlesdm wrote: post #41
ig1 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had an offer of over £1000/day a few months back (it's was for a C++ lead dev at a firm no-one wants to work at).

I'm quite experienced with C++. Are these £850-£1000 rates common for C++ contract work in London?

Just two words: FIX PROTOCOL

Re: Programmer salary in mainland Europe?

#66

Post by jmra »

christkv wrote: post #42

yeah in Spain the average salaries are quite a bit lower than most places but you can get around 45K if you have a couple of years of experience. Throw in low prices, benefits (extra tax free restaurant tickets, pension plan, health care) and in the case of Barcelona awesome weather and lot's of beaches and it becomes more of a lifestyle decision than a pure monetary one. Yeah you might make 60K+ in London but the ta…

«45K if you have a couple of years of experience» LOL that's interesting because, you know, it's false :) replace «couple» with "more than 5 years" and I will begin to believe you.

It's true that in BCN and Madrid things are better, but not that much. And in London you can earn more than 60K per year.

Spain is near Poland in salaries, we have tons of people with CS degrees (which doesn't means that they are good at programming) that make the salary lower by offer/demand law.

To put in perspective: rent a flat (average in the south) 600 EUR/months, buy a car 10.000EUR/30.000EUR, buy a house 150.000 EUR. And that's the south, in BCN you can increase rent and house price nearly by 100%.

Re: Programmer salary in mainland Europe?

#67

Post by ig1 »

eliben wrote: post #62
ig1 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's was for an investment bank, full-time 6 month contract, they were looking for someone who was strong at multi-threading and networking, and could be a lead dev. That's a rare enough combination of skills.

When working this way, do you get to keep more or less of the money as compared with a "normal" position? Well done anyway ;-) As a lead dev myself I totally agree that people strong with multi-threading and networking are rare.

I'm actually trying to bootstrap my startup, getting people waving wodges of money in front of me to do contracting work instead is really distracting :P

Typically you get to keep more (generally 73%-75% of the amount), but you'll also need an accountant to minimize your taxes and that'll cost you about a grand a year. But in most cases it's worth it.

Re: Programmer salary in mainland Europe?

#69

Post by troels »

There are a lot of variables to computing salary. What kind of industry are you in? What kind of technology are you working with?

As others have already mentioned, Europe is a broad spectrum. Salaries in UK and Scandinavian countries is about comparable to US. When you move south and east from here, expect to see a drop in salaries. On the other hand, living expenses tend to follow that trend as well.

Regardless of salary, do your self a favor and get in contact with a union in the country you're moving to. They will know what salary to expect and they can help you with a lot of legal things. I don't know specifically about Austria, but in Scandinavia, unions have considerable political influence.

Re: Programmer salary in mainland Europe?

#70

Post by Xixi »

I can only speak about France. In Paris you could expect maybe a little bit more than in Vienna, but it vastly depends on the company of course (small or large).

What you need to know if you get an offer in France :

Official working hours are 35 hours per week, and ~7 weeks of holidays, but in small companies expect to work much more than 35 hours (and don't expect to be pay for the extra time).

Quoted salaries are vast fantasies, not actually tie to any sort of reality. Or, more precisely, born out of the obfuscation dreams of some bureaucrats.

A 45k "brut" salary means :

- you get ~35k ("net" salary), on which you still need to pay income tax at the end of the year,

- your employer pays ~30k of "social contributions" which pays for healthcare, retirement, unemployment insurance (if you are fired you keep getting a large chunk of your salary for a while), and other stuff like URSAAF, which I'm yet to figure out the purpose.

So that put the total at ~65k, but you don't see much of it.

Post reply on HN