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

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

#881

Post by m33k44 » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

It is about the mindset that needs to change for the SWE salaries to increase. I was working for a world leader in mobile space. The company was located in a place where there are lot of startups, big world leading local companies, lot of investment activity, US companies etc. The salaries are pittance in that area even though it is a major place of tech and innovation.

I will give you an example of what is the mindset of people(mostly HR) here. There were major changes going to happen at this company I was working for(we didn't know at that time, but came to know much later). The usual trick HR plays in these types of cases is to increase some perks to keep all employees "happy" so that they don't leave the company. So the HR of this company announced a perk via email, that the company will be providing "fruit bowl" to employees every day in the morning. Everyone was excited as there was no other means of eating at the office except for a small vending machine that delivered limited supply of sandwiches and a small coffee machine(did I mention that this company was a world-leader?). The day was announced for the "fruit bowl" perk. So on the day of the perk, when people came to the office they saw that a small bowl of fruits was kept in the "kitchen". There were 2-3 bananas, 2 pears, 1-2 kiwifruit, one apple and a bunch of grapes. One senior engineer who was with the company almost since its inception sent an angry email to the HR and CC'd it to the rest of employees at the office asking them how on earth this fruit bowl was going to be shared between 50+ employees at the office. The HR's reply was(again CC'd to everyone in the office) "But there are grapes"!

And I am not kidding you, I saw this type of "perks" being advertised in the country where I am. The perks are something like this:

"We provide our employees with lunch on Fridays" or "We provide our Employees lunch on first Thursday on the month" etc. What are engineers, beggars? But that is common in companies that are founded in the country where I stay. When I moved to an US founded company in my country, not only did my salary increase substantially(by local salary standards) but the perks were something like this:

Breakfast, Lunch, Pizza if had to stay late, unlimited supply of coffee, onsite postal service, onsite laundry, haircut, manicure, shoe-polish, ironing service, on-site shop for snacks, payment for car fuel(extra pay if the car was environment friendly), 24-7 access to free gym at the Marriot, discounted shopping coupons and the list goes on. And this was not FAANG!

The reaon this is happening is because(I learnt this indirectly), the local companies collaborate, in partnership with recruitment agencies, behind the scene to not only keep salaries low but to share the information with HR that someone is looking for a job or has interviewed at some other company.

In the US, if I am not mistaken, there was a very famous litigation that forced US companies to stop collaborating in artificially keeping salaries down and deliberately not hire from certain companies. This is not there in Europe I suppose.

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

#882

Post by sershe » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 5:46 PM UTC

pm90 wrote: post #431

titanomachy wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many developed countries, 42% tax would cover healthcare, a pension you can actually live off of, and fully-paid education for all of your children. Californians get none of those things, and I don't really understand what it is that they get over (e.g.) Washingtonians for the extra ~30% in taxes.

They get protection by the US military and promotion of Californian business interests throughout the world through Federal institutions. Not to mention: friction free access to a large labor pool and US domestic market etc. I get your point that the US doesn’t provide as much social services as other developed nations. Almost all these nations depend on US hegemony to not have to spend as much on their military. Thi…

WA residents get all of these things with 0% state tax, and only a bit more in property taxes. What Californians get for the extra taxes (and Washingtonians too, for that matter, for a large fraction of theirs) is a jobs program for incompetents that occasionally achieves something good as an unintended side effect; known as government.

I frankly have no idea why US govts on all levels, and from all parties, seem so much more incompetent than many European/Asian ones (I have a pet theory), but they are.

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

#883

Post by amai » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 5:47 PM UTC

Create a union for software engineers, make many software engineers join and threaten employers with labour strike. It works for other professions, so why not for software engineers?

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

#884

Post by highfreq » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 5:48 PM UTC

qwytw wrote: post #628

cjblomqvist wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure about that? Sure, not the top elite, but there's still a significant gap between upper middle class and lower in for example Sweden, which I believe is one of the more equal countries. FAANG level salaries would significantly widen that gap.

Interestingly while income inequality in Sweden is fairly low, wealth inequality there is one of the highest in the world and higher than in the US ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_eq... )

I'd guess that this is similar to the Netherlands, where it is primarily a function of household debt, and many households having negative net housing equity. [https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/economy-finance/e...]

The wealth inequality gini coefficient is not very useful and misleading. You could have a country where people choose to take on debt when they are young, and all of them end up with the same higher level of wealth later in life. This would be a very equal society, but could have a very high wealth inequality gini coefficient. To actually judge the wealth inequality of a society the analysis should be done cross-sectionally, comparing within age cohorts. [https://www.sv.uio.no/esop/english/publications/articles/201...]

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

#885

Post by throwaway894345 » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

jbn wrote: post #858

throwaway894345 wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I considered moving to France for a few years (from the US), but I was shocked to find it would be a 40% pay cut, even after factoring in all of the healthcare and other expenses we Americans enjoy. And the cost of living is a fair bit higher in France to boot. Now that companies are cozying up to remote work, I think I’ll jist do more frequent 3 month trips and work in the evenings when I run out of vacation days. T…

watch out, if you spend more time in France than in any other country (not just 183 days per year), then you will be considered a fiscal resident of France and therefore taxable on income. in addition, you can't really work remotely and avoid employment taxes, pension contributions, etc... this is only tenable if you spend a minor portion of the time in the country (like any other country, really... states need their…

Yeah, I would probably be in the US for at least 9 months out of the year, and I’ll take a closer look at the tax implications when the time approaches.

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

#886

Post by 908B64B197 » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 6:08 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #131

908B64B197 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but also praise the low wealth inequality and low income inequality in Europe and Canada. Now what happens if you include expats in the calculation? > makes it much easier to found and grow a business without the threat of death And yet you see a lot of Europeans and Canadians founders going to the valley for funding. Yet the opposite almost never happens.

> Now what happens if you include expats in the calculation? Pretty sure expats are included in Gini calculations. > And yet you see a lot of Europeans and Canadians founders going to the valley for funding. Yet the opposite almost never happens. Why wouldn't you raise money from where the money is? Inequality means there's a small handful of people with giant piles of money. That's a good bet to go knocking at if yo…

> Pretty sure expats are included in Gini calculations.

I meant European nationals living in the US. Pretty sure the salary distribution would be different between "Software Engineers in France" and "French Software Engineers" as the second includes all expats living in the Bay Area...

> I should also say, just because you raise money in the bay doesn't mean you have to run your business in the bay. Should you choose to do so remotely, you'll like take a bit of a discount, but it's worth mentioning this year's YC class was entirely remote.

Had there not been a global pandemic would that have been the case?

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

#887

Post by sdevonoes » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

smabie wrote: post #128

ingvul wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average salary for a Software Engineer is $107K per year in United States. The average salary for a Software Engineer is $66K per year in Germany (~61% less). Source: indeed and payscale. I always find a bit funny when US devs in HN talk about getting salaries above $200K/year... when the average US dev gets half of that. (I find it funny because everybody here thinks we are above the average dev level and can ge…

Who says everyone here can't get a job paying 300k or whatever? Why is that statistically incorrect? Moreover, median != mean due to lefthand skew of the salary distribution of developers. Also probably excess kurtosis as well.

I guess they mean that:

- number of software engineers in the US: X - number of software engineers in HN: Y - number of software engineers working for FAANG-like companies: N

Where X >>>> Y >> N. So, yes, I also think that everyone here can't get a job paying 300K or higher not because we are not skilled enough but by simple math.

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

#888

Post by 908B64B197 » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 6:12 PM UTC

paledot wrote: post #141

908B64B197 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada has out of control immigration quotas, that will push wages down, and quite a large brain drain to the US.

[citation needed]

10x per capita for permanent residency compared to the US.

And the point based system is also... interesting, as one can score very high and yet be unemployable.

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

#889

Post by petters » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

johbjo wrote: post #809

petters wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing is, I just can’t find an argument why I should be able to get very rich doing my job. Sure, but if you are a really good engineer in software, someone is going to get "very rich" from your work. Why not (partly) you?

> Why not (partly) you? The short answer is that he is replaceable, while the owners are not.

Well then they are perhaps already getting a fair wage.

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

#890

Post by mrmanner » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 6:25 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #498

yamrzou wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As another comment said: to pursue passions that do not pay well.

The most scarce resource is time. Switching job would presumably require more work from me at least temporarily. I'd perhaps need to commute initially at least, for example. I'd like to know this: if I got 2x the pay in the US, could I instead ask to work 1/2 and get the current pay level I have? Most likely no, right? So in what way is that higher pay actually helping me pursue passions? I'd be working at least as m…

> When exactly are those passions supposed to be pursued? When retiring? I'm pursuing that now. I have had 6-8weeks off in summer the last 10 years. I like to travel, etc.

This!

I'm not familiar with all European countries, and not extremely so with the US, but I think this is an important difference: Free time. 5-6 weeks paid vacation is common, and employers expect it to be used. It's often easy to get unpaid leave for whatever reason, such as studying or starting a business. Parental leave is paid and the expectation is that it will be used. Employers demanding overtime or "crunching" or whatever is generally frowned upon.

Etc. etc. My strong impression is that those "low-paid" European jobs are often a lot more balanced, with more room for life than their American counterparts.

(I do live in Scandinavia, maybe we're on the extreme end of this, but still )