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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

#81

Post by DoingIsLearning »

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…

> have typically been in the range £120k-£150k

Is there for an actual roles in the org, or for fixed term contracting gigs?

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

#82

Post by codegeek »

wil421 wrote: post #76
ren_engineer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silicon Valley engineers are for the most part arrogant, they sound like factory workers who said Chinese manufacturing would never displace their jobs and "made in America". Companies have shown again and again they are willing to sacrifice quality if it increases profit. In this case I'm not even sure quality will be sacrificed in most cases because as you said there are tons of great engineers available

Not sure about SF arrogance but the whole “Your job is going to get outsourced to India don’t get into IT/Software Dev” thing has been around since the 90s. It’s 20 years later and the job market is better than ever, salaries are better than ever, and a lot of companies who fully embraced the IT outsourcing trend are realizing it actually hurt them in the long run. Short term it helped but now they have lost their ma…

If you know what you are doing by building an organic team in a foreign country, you can still get real bang for the buck. If you try the traditional outsourcing model by offloading shit to a 3rd party, you will get hurt.

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

#83

Post by lillecarl »

tharne wrote: post #41

Six to eight weeks of vacation, plentiful Holidays, a 35-hour work week. If you look beyond pay as strictly salary and break it down into an hourly rate, I'd argue that European developers make considerably more than their American counterparts.

I make 55k per year and pocket about 41k, 14k goes to taxes.

To be fair I'm a 26uy old sysadmin, but my understanding of the US is that this would be low tier, whereas in Sweden this is quite great, specially considering my age. I get 5 paid weeks, 2 or 3 unpaid. Considering our free healthcare is shit unless you're about to die or get rendered useless I'd say there's a difference.

I do understand why though, American IT companies automatically have a reach of 350M people without a fuzz, the biggest you can go in Europe (in one country) is 80m speaking the same language.

What I mean is, an American developers code is more likely to be used by more people, generating more profit, driving wages up.

We need to regulate English proficiency in the EU (as in school wise or get fined a couple billions) to be able to get to the level you're already at.

EDIT: my employer effectively pays 77k for me with the "employers tax" too, so 77-41=36 almost 50% is taxed away, so that skews the numbers a bit more.

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

#84

Post by HPsquared »

balabaster wrote: post #57
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…

You didn't recognize that there are plenty of European developers capable and willing to work on the US time zones. I presently split my life 50/50 between Toronto/Netherlands so I live half my life on Eastern Time and the other half on CET. I fly on weekends so I'm available during the week and when I'm in the Netherlands I fit work into my daily life at the time clients need me to fit in. Some days it can be tireso…

That sounds... Awesome.

I have always preferred to stay up and wake up late, but never thought of simply working in a different time zone.

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

#85

Post by nickthemagicman »

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…

On a macro scale this is happening in every field in America.

Any knowledge worker job that doesn't need to be done in person can be outsourced to the billions of people in the rest of the world. Radiologist, Accounting, Law, Animation, etc.

What is the value of a U.S. Hacker News moderator in the valley, for example, over a smart Croatian or Latin American person who will work for a fraction of the price?

Many peoples advantage is geography and connections, not talent or skill, which there is no shortage of amongst billions of people.

The ultimate result in my opinion, when no job is safe from outsourcing, is going to be the decline of wages and the middle class in America.

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

#86

Post by 0xB31B1B »

roenxi wrote: post #59
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…

As a counterpoint, software engineering saleries will fall. There isn't a shortage of clever people, it is a desk job, very low stakes and lots of opportunities. Lots of people want in on this. I'd guess the actual reason that US software developers make more is that it is easier to make lots of money in the US generally, so the profitable companies go there & then the developers make excellent wages due to geographi…

People have been saying this for 40 years and we have seen time and time again, as engineering gets “easier” by 1 click it makes each individual engineer 5x more effective, but it only expands the total pool of people available to do the work by 20%. The effect that dominates is that by making work more efficient/productive, there are many many more places where engineers can be a net value add to business metrics. It’s a textbook case of jevons paradox applied to labor markets.

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

#87

Post by baybal2 »

One thing nobody brings to the front about salaries difference:

Eastern Europe is, well, in Europe, and there are a lot of engineers willing to immigrate there.

Good English is not as much of a critical requirement in EU, and, in general, more big companies there are ok hiring foreign workers using their own language at the workplace.

Once a person is in EU, he becomes mobile withing a few years.

EU tech sector has a wider, more homogenous, and liquid labour market, despite the national differences.

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

#88

Post by maxehmookau »

Sure, I get that salaries are higher in the US. Overall quality of life though? I'd take europe, personally.

My salary is 50% lower than my SF-based colleagues but my quality of life is amazing. Large house, green open spaces, my taxes pay for high-quality healthcare and a _relatively_ equal society.

I'm far richer here, in many ways, than I would be if my bank account were a bit larger.

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

#89

Post by AlstZam »

vjk800 wrote: post #44
geoduck14 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I'll have to guess at an insightful comment. Here goes Sure Europeans get paid less - but they also get a bunch of great benefits like time off and government paid health care, so it works out Also, the average salary in America is skewed by FANMAG paying really high salaries In the end, I'm happy with my work and paid fairly. I deserve a 10% raise, but I'm not pressured to switch right now HN of the futur…

> government paid health care, so it works out This argument always gets brought up. The thing is, even in much of the Europe, highly paid professionals don't use the government paid health care, but instead get health insurances from their employers, so the situation is the same as in the US. For some reason those health insurances seem to be much cheaper here than in the US, though.

In France (and probably in other European countries), private health insurances from employers are complementary to the government health care and don't replace it. That's why it is much cheaper. And so even highly paid professionals still use the government paid health care. Moreover, if it wasn't the case it would make the national health care system a lot less efficient.

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

#90

Post by PragmaticPulp »

ren_engineer wrote: post #39
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…

Silicon Valley engineers are for the most part arrogant, they sound like factory workers who said Chinese manufacturing would never displace their jobs and "made in America". Companies have shown again and again they are willing to sacrifice quality if it increases profit. In this case I'm not even sure quality will be sacrificed in most cases because as you said there are tons of great engineers available

This isn’t a zero-sum game where 1 remote job gained equals 1 local job lost, though. Demand for good engineers still exceeds the available supply, in my experience.

Rather, I see remote work as a sort of leveling of the playing field. As the location advantage is diminished when it comes to compensation, the pressure starts to gently push everyone’s comp toward the median. Highly paid people might see some downward pressure but the underpaid people will start to see some upward pressure.

Silicon Valley jobs aren’t going away, though. In-person will always be in demand.

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