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Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

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Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#61

Post by lhorie »

TaylorPhebillo wrote: post #38

As is often the issue with articles like this, it discusses salary rather than compensation (sourced from Glassdoor). Since compensation at the high end is disproportionately in equity (or in finance, bonuses), this makes the range of compensation look artificially small. Differences between e.g. junior and senior devs are probably bigger than this article lists, and I suspect there might be bigger differences betwee…

Another problem with many salary related articles/discussions is statistical oversimplification.

For example, downthread I linked to a page listing the Canadian software dev salary at ~67k CAD, but I know for a fact that there are companies paying 150k for senior level talent.

What this means is that average alone doesn't tell you the whole story.

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#63

Post by ucha »

Salaries don't tell the whole story for an employer because you have to pay many more charges on top of the salary. For example in France, the "charges patronales" are about 60% of the salary before taxes. In the UK, the National Insurance contribution for the employer are lower but it's always higher than in the US if I remember correctly. When I compared hiring in France vs the US, the cost was just slightly lower in France but not by the amounts shown here.

For the employee, the salary is obviously much lower than the US but then they also don't have to save for uni, medical care, retirement etc...

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#64

Post by 300bps »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #17

It’s funny to see this site gather so many upvotes while the server is down. I think by now everyone knows very well that software engineering salaries are higher in the United States. If the shift toward remote work really comes to fruition, I fully expect EU software salaries to rise. I’ve hired a lot of excellent remote developers in European countries. The trick is to pay them American-level wages, which are ofte…

This is also why I don’t believe the rise of remote work (if it actually happens) will be as good for US workers

Beyond just time zone issues, there are substantial legal, cultural, language and other issues that will prevent this from happening on a wide and sustainable scale.

I have worked with many companies that tried this and failed spectacularly. Examples of problems encountered:

1. Having to explain every little thing that people of the same culture intrinsically know

2. Being slapped with regulations that nobody in the U.S. has even heard of

3. Cultural differences surrounding vacation / other time off

4. Overseas contractors literally copying the company and using their data and using the software they were hired to write to compete against them. I spent four days as an expert witness in a U.S. Federal court case over this one.

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#65

Post by wayoutthere »

tw04 wrote: post #31
tut-urut-utut wrote: post #3

Without reading the article (site is down) my expectation is that the data will show significantly lower salaries in Europe than in the USA. One of the explanations is that there are almost no genuine software development companies in Europe. Software jobs there are mostly internal (enterprise) software development or customization, and not software product or service development. Being a cost centre instead of a pro…

I'd point out two things: While the valley definitely skews the high end in America, it employs a fraction of the total developers in the US. There's the other 90% of the country that doesn't live in the valley that works in those very same "corporate development" jobs that are in Europe. You don't think companies like Walmart, State Farm, Allstate, Epic*, Target, Best Buy, UHG, Dell*, IBM* etc. etc. employ boatloads…

I do consulting work for those kinds of clients, and we’re having a hard time hiring engineers with a few years experience below $150k. Previous talent shortages were primarily for that top 10% of developer talent / salary, but this one feels different because grunt-level unsexy corporate IT technologists are also in short supply.

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#67

Post by meheleventyone »

codebolt wrote: post #54
tut-urut-utut wrote: post #3

Without reading the article (site is down) my expectation is that the data will show significantly lower salaries in Europe than in the USA. One of the explanations is that there are almost no genuine software development companies in Europe. Software jobs there are mostly internal (enterprise) software development or customization, and not software product or service development. Being a cost centre instead of a pro…

Another explanation is that EU is not a large cohesive economy like the US. In the US, startups target a potential userbase of 300M+. In the EU, a startup typically only targets a single country with a fraction of the population. Seems obvious that the potential profitability of a piece of software correlates with the population of its market. And only natural that developer salaries correlate with the potential prof…

Although EU businesses know this and target the US/International market.

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#68

Post by jimmaswell »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #17

It’s funny to see this site gather so many upvotes while the server is down. I think by now everyone knows very well that software engineering salaries are higher in the United States. If the shift toward remote work really comes to fruition, I fully expect EU software salaries to rise. I’ve hired a lot of excellent remote developers in European countries. The trick is to pay them American-level wages, which are ofte…

> There is a lot of underpaid, highly qualified talent on the international remote market

Maybe the laws need to be updated. Nobody anticipated remote work when the laws on visas/green cards were written. It seems like an exploit that you don't need any to work for an American company potentially taking the spot of an American worker. American taxes aren't even withheld in this case apparently.

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#69

Post by Philip-J-Fry »

JofArnold wrote: post #52
echopom wrote: post #47

I'm a tech worker based in France. This topic gets brought up on HN every year I think. The answer is always the same : - Yes , US Engineers Salary are way exaggerated compared to the rest of the world - No US Company will never "outsource" to europe to save 50% per full time worker This has been predicted already a millions times and has never happened. The cultural difference is so important it doesn't work. Long t…

They do though. They've been doing it for years. I mean UK's no longer in Europe so your point may technically be true but I've had plenty of recruiters contact me from big US tech co's who operate via EU/UK (sometimes shell) entities. EDIT: to further qualify, those orgs base salaries have typically been in the range £120k-£150k if a quick scan through my notes is in any way representative. And obviously the FAANGs…

>I mean UK's no longer in Europe

When did we switch on the thrusters?

Re: Software Engineering Salaries in Europe vs. the United States

#70

Post by underdeserver »

JofArnold wrote: post #52
echopom wrote: post #47

I'm a tech worker based in France. This topic gets brought up on HN every year I think. The answer is always the same : - Yes , US Engineers Salary are way exaggerated compared to the rest of the world - No US Company will never "outsource" to europe to save 50% per full time worker This has been predicted already a millions times and has never happened. The cultural difference is so important it doesn't work. Long t…

They do though. They've been doing it for years. I mean UK's no longer in Europe so your point may technically be true but I've had plenty of recruiters contact me from big US tech co's who operate via EU/UK (sometimes shell) entities. EDIT: to further qualify, those orgs base salaries have typically been in the range £120k-£150k if a quick scan through my notes is in any way representative. And obviously the FAANGs…

Still in Europe, just not in the EU.
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