Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#811

Post by eecks » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

didibus wrote: post #477

arcticbull wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of folks here are calling out the lower pay for SWEs in Europe and Canada as a failure - but also praise the low wealth inequality and low income inequality in Europe and Canada. You can't have low inequality by definition if you decide to start paying one group a ton of money. Well, this is a lot like the housing conversation in the US. "I want my house to go up in value, and be a great investment!" Also: "Why…

> You can't have low inequality by definition if you decide to start paying one group a ton of money. That's true, but the question is, the higher salary you refuse to take as a SWE in Europe, does it really go instead to someone else in need of it? Or is it just pocketed by someone who already has more money than you?

> you refuse to take as a SWE in Europe

Refuse to take?

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#812

Post by imtringued » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #451

thinkloop wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wealth inequality debate is about Bezos and wall street ceo's type thing - I don't think many people have issue with some making $50k and others making $200k.

Are you talking to people in the 0-$50k range (below median) or in the $50-$200k range (above median)? Opinions probably diverge. If you think through it, the billionaires don't have all that much real resource to be used - eg, J. Bezos owns an island in Hawaii. So say the government takes his island off him and redistributes it to low-wage earners in New York - they can't actually use the island for anything. They'd…

>They'd sell their stake in it and go for real resources locally. The actual real resources they consume are going to be made up for by the upper-middle class having less.

That is not necessarily true if you can produce more of the resource. The extra money would drive up prices and thus make it more profitable to run a company that offers the resource. Housing is artificially restricted but the technology to build denser housing exists. Taking the island is not really a sound strategy though, because it is much more efficient to just borrow money and give it to people through government stimulus. CPI inflation will eat at the value of unproductive capital like the island away on its own.

>If anything is done about income inequality, it is probably going to involve bringing the above-median types more into line with the below-median earners.

There is no meaningful difference between lowering the top and raising the bottom. Wealth tends to flee easily so increasing the bottom is a more reliable strategy. CPI inflation is generally a force that does both at the same time.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#813

Post by imtringued » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 2:15 PM UTC

kortilla wrote: post #432

arcticbull wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's papa elon who made $2.3B in 2018. Though, I agree, that's a massive outlier :) Zaslav at Discovery was next in line with $129M total comp in 2018 [1]. Sounds like Satya needs to ask for a raise ;) [1] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/discovery-ceo-david-z...

You’re confusing compensation with stock appreciation.

What if you are compensated in stock? You are unlikely to liquidate your stock on your payday so it is very likely for your stock compensation to have risen in value by the time you want to sell the stock.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#814

Post by killtimeatwork » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 2:15 PM UTC

aaomidi wrote: post #140

messe wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One option is to emigrate to the United States Not an easy feat. Most would be reliant on the H1B program.

Which is not an issue for people immigrating from Europe.

It's a big issue and a primary reason why you don't see massive developer migration from Europe into US. Most devs in Europe are just comfortable enough to not want to deal with the whole H1-B hassle. People who are money-focused move to the few places in Europe that tend to pay more and/or switch to contracting, which is a hassle too, but still orders of magnitude smaller than trying to get into US.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#815

Post by eecks » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 2:15 PM UTC

dnpp123 wrote: post #342

drdaeman wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My net salary is just over 1000€ That's really low, even for poorer European countries. Decent middle-level software engineer in, let's say, Ukraine (no offense meant - it is a good country, just isn't one famous for high incomes), easily makes at least 2k (and I say "at least" - that's awfully underpaid). > that means that i'd need anywhere from ~8 to ~14 years to save as much as they could in a year That's a bit…

> That's really low, even for poorer European countries He said net salary. I know a lot of engineers from C schools in mid-size towns in France who are paid less than 2k euro net.

What is a C school?

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#816

Post by johbjo » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 2:19 PM UTC

nathias wrote: post #425

alkonaut wrote: post #55

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…

That is a completely wrong perspective, and might be symptomatic. You are not paid according to some argument that you personally deserve to be rich, you should be paid according to the value you produce in your context. And the relevant context is more and more global.

He believes he is paid what he "deserves".

He /should/ be paid commensurate with the value he produces.

In reality, he is paid the market rate.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#817

Post by timwaagh » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 2:19 PM UTC

Uberphallus wrote: post #504

fy20 wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm almost certainly not going to see the same grocery store chains That's not really true. It's fair to say that a lot of supermarket chains have operations only in a single country, but there are quite a few multi-country brands as well which aren't uncommon. A few examples: Carrefour, Auchen, Lidl, Audi, Tesco, (Euro/Inter)Spar, Iceland, Rewe - and that doesn't include subsidiaries of the same company (e.g. ICA/…

> It's fair to say that a lot of supermarket chains have operations only in a single country, but there are quite a few multi-country brands as well which aren't uncommon. Actually it's fair to say most of the business is done by local chains, and Europe-wide operations are rather uncommon. From your mentions, I'd only consider to be "Europe-wide" Carrefour and Spar. Carrefour is everywhere (though their market strat…

Carrefour is not in the Netherlands, neither is Auchan. The only ones we have are Lidl and Aldi. And spar, e which is of Dutch origin

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#818

Post by johbjo » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 2:21 PM UTC

titanomachy wrote: post #463

seltzered_ wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's cultural differences here depending on where the employer is based. I believe the employee-CEO pay gap is substantially less for many European companies (excluding UK).

So do the shareholders make a lot more then? Or are companies just less productive?

The markets might be more competitive, which means less profits.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#819

Post by imtringued » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 2:22 PM UTC

dnpp123 wrote: post #342

drdaeman wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My net salary is just over 1000€ That's really low, even for poorer European countries. Decent middle-level software engineer in, let's say, Ukraine (no offense meant - it is a good country, just isn't one famous for high incomes), easily makes at least 2k (and I say "at least" - that's awfully underpaid). > that means that i'd need anywhere from ~8 to ~14 years to save as much as they could in a year That's a bit…

> That's really low, even for poorer European countries He said net salary. I know a lot of engineers from C schools in mid-size towns in France who are paid less than 2k euro net.

I am honestly surprised. Even a bottom of the barrel public entry level job with worse compensation than private industry pays at least 2k€ (after taxes) here and that's in a place where you can get an apartment for 500€ per month.

Re: Ask HN: How to increase SWE salaries in Europe?

#820

Post by knuthsat » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 2:25 PM UTC

thargor wrote: post #753

knuthsat wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Croatia the total would be about 63%. If you go through capital gains (no paycheck just profit after corporate tax, capital income tax and VAT) it's 53%. It could go down if some company expenses can be used for your life expenses. In Austria the total is 75%. In Austria going through capital gains would still be 70%. I'm very disappointed at how much money Europe sucks out of my work.

I call bullshit on the tax rate in Austria. "Capital gains" through GmbH is 25% KÖSt (Körperschaftssteuer) and then 27,25% KESt on Profit. The highest VAT rate is 20%, there are also lower ones. This results in 56.35% percent including VAT (1-((1-25%) (1-27.25%) (1-20%)). If you go through income tax as a freelancer this is even lower when you claim the default deductibles (Pauschalierung), which is common in IT jobs…

Well, having a GmbH does not really allow a clean profit extraction without having employees, so when you eventually employ yourself you'll get to around 70%.

Austria is one of the worst countries in the world to do any kind of small business. Self-employment is also taxed aggressively.

A form of self-employment in Croatia allows a fixed tax payment of about 5k EUR a year with an income cap of 39k EUR per year, leaving you with 34k EUR after taxes. Similar thing in Serbia but even more money.

In Austria there's nothing like that.

It would be nice if it was possible to assign a significant amount of life expenses to business but that also is heavily bureaucratized and regulated that even buying a 5k EUR computing machine has weird tax consequences (not immediately deductible as expense in the full amount or now, because expenses are higher, you might not be able to take that 12% of profit untaxed).

I mean, I guess I'm just miserably following every word of law and my accountant's advice and maybe other people just ignore a bunch of these guidelines and hope that inspection never comes.