91–100 of 974 posts
One option is to emigrate to the United States, driving up pressure on the engineers who remain. My near-term ancestors all left Germany due to poor wages and a tendency for Bismarck to sacrifice draft-age men in wars, and while moving to the US helped their own status it also did a bit to increase pressure at home.
EU engineers should vote with their feet. That's the only way.
Make non-competes illegal (or, well, unenforceable).
Are non-competes common in Europe?
So generally speaking, they’re only worthwhile for people that have important company secrets.
What’s the incentive for companies to pay European devs more?
One option is to emigrate to the United States, driving up pressure on the engineers who remain. My near-term ancestors all left Germany due to poor wages and a tendency for Bismarck to sacrifice draft-age men in wars, and while moving to the US helped their own status it also did a bit to increase pressure at home.
The only jobs filled by locals were those which had artificial cap on employee numbers and local regulations(accountants/legal)
Whilst some of these engineers were A+ level brilliant, most were mediocre and doing jobs that could easily be done by local talent.
The benefits for companies doing this? - immigration visa tied to job and ability to lowball salary (as residence in host country was itself a major plus) thus ensuring salaries rose way slower than demand would otherwise have made them.
The one off cost of Visa is nothing compared to the money those companies saved.
Companies want developers and will pay market rates. We will converge towards a global rate for devs.
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…
I calculated moving to Europe as a SWE would lead to a drastic lifestyle change for me—even with retirement, healthcare and children's education considered (with 2 children, Europe wins at 3 hands down).
Join Google and move to Switzerland. It isn't that easy to join Google Switzerland but it pays like Silicon Valley.
Do you mean a particular part of Europe? I only ask because there are more factors than salary. I have friends who have moved to work in France, Norway, and Germany. They do make markedly less than I do on my US salary. However, they also get: * Substantially more actual vacation time * Substantially cheaper and yet similar health, dental, and vision coverage * Less risk/stress associated with job security * A very s…
This depends on the company, last startup I worked at gave me around 6 weeks of vacation per year not counting holidays. Of course I got paid less than FAANG but still better than Europe even without the equity.
>* Substantially cheaper and yet similar health, dental, and vision coverage
I have heard a lot of people in Europe (UK and Germany) complain about issues with getting health coverage for non life threatening issues unless they also had private insurance. No idea how many companies pay for that in Europe.
>* Less risk/stress associated with job security
My bank account is my job security. I don't think I ever was worried about job loss after a few years of building up savings.
There are plenty of US companies that hire devs that do not have these economics, but they’re forced to pay more or loose the few developers they have.
What reduces the upside of European companies hiring?
[1] Calculate the revenue per employee of Facebook, Apple, Google etc to see how much money is involved.
In the US, most people I know made a significant chunk of their wealth from their equity growth, especially as equity grants grow much more than salary, as people get promoted.