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The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

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Re: The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

#91

Post by acchow »

6510 wrote: post #38

Without taxes the per country salaries are only meaningful to employers? The 55000 would be 4580 per month or 38400 and 3200 after tax in NL. Depending on the company you can easily spend 8 hours on extra nonsense during free hours: unpaid breaks, long commutes, messages, phone calls. IMHO it's a crap deal compared to other jobs.

By this diagram, if you can't climb from the second curve onto the third one, then it is indeed a bad deal and it would make financial sense to switch to some other career.

Re: The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

#92

Post by BossingAround »

Every time I see this article reposted, I feel a pang of sadness. It's this chasing of the SF salary outside of the US that is supposed to be the holy grail of every engineer in rich EU countries.

Well, if you get hired by FAANG in Germany, you don't get the SF salary. My experience is that companies that do offer extreme salaries do not do so out of competition with FAANG (since FAANG does not compete with itself globally, i.e. FAANG companies tell you something like "if you want SF salary, come and work in SF," which tends to be difficult due to the exploitative nature of US immigration system).

Rather, there's some kind of a catch, like "we need you to know this highly specialized thing that globally only a handful of people have experience with" (I'm looking at you, AI solvers), or they provide conditions very few people can tolerate.

Re: The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

#93

Post by varispeed »

thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #21
seibelj wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A common criticism is that “but you get so much more for your taxes in Europe”. I have a counterpoint - you get the choice of what you want to buy in the US. I’d rather keep more of my take-home pay and do without certain services, or better yet choose the provider (and quality / expense) of such services if I want them. Somehow the bureaucracy in the US is still massive, so I can only imagine what far higher tax rat…

> you get the choice of what you want to buy in the US. Not really in my experience. You get to choose between providers in your insurance network, but I've lost count of the number of times my preferred provider wasn't in my network. On top of that, the insurance company has to sign off on many diagnostic tests even when my doctor wants to do one. I'm experiencing this right now with chronic pain associated with an…

Here in the UK chronic pain treatment is a farce. You get to go to meetings where they tell you to soldier on and if you can't, well try harder then. So there is a huge illegal market of opiates of all kinds and deaths are soaring. If people can't get prescription and can't stand the pain then where do they go? Dealers. Big pharma has a great grip on the government so things like medical cannabis are out of question. Fortunately it has been legalised a couple of years ago, but it is only available on private prescription after you have failed "traditional" therapy. If you are unlucky, you are looking at spending £300-600 a month out of your own pocket.

Re: The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

#94

Post by Joeri »

seibelj wrote: post #5
ceeplusplus wrote: post #3

Unfortunately this misses the difference in taxation vs. the US. You pay almost nothing for healthcare at any tech company and pay much lower taxes (both income and sales tax). So European offers are still much less competitive than the US.

A common criticism is that “but you get so much more for your taxes in Europe”. I have a counterpoint - you get the choice of what you want to buy in the US. I’d rather keep more of my take-home pay and do without certain services, or better yet choose the provider (and quality / expense) of such services if I want them. Somehow the bureaucracy in the US is still massive, so I can only imagine what far higher tax rat…

A well run government subsidized system still has choice and competition. In belgium I can choose what school my kids go to, even though all of them are subsidized to the point of costing very little. I can also choose what hospital to go to, or what doctor to see, and that visit will always be subsidized by the public healthcare system, while doctors still are self-employed and can set their own rates (higher rates means I pay more myself). In both systems there is little administration, because the system works the same way for everyone and is straightforward.

Re: The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

#95

Post by 2-718-281-828 »

BossingAround wrote: post #92

Every time I see this article reposted, I feel a pang of sadness. It's this chasing of the SF salary outside of the US that is supposed to be the holy grail of every engineer in rich EU countries. Well, if you get hired by FAANG in Germany, you don't get the SF salary. My experience is that companies that do offer extreme salaries do not do so out of competition with FAANG (since FAANG does not compete with itself gl…

> or they provide conditions very few people can tolerate.

Like intimate cleaning and nursing of old and very sick people under immense time pressure and emotional stress.

Oh, well ... never mind

Re: The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

#96

Post by wasmitnetzen »

seibelj wrote: post #5
ceeplusplus wrote: post #3

Unfortunately this misses the difference in taxation vs. the US. You pay almost nothing for healthcare at any tech company and pay much lower taxes (both income and sales tax). So European offers are still much less competitive than the US.

A common criticism is that “but you get so much more for your taxes in Europe”. I have a counterpoint - you get the choice of what you want to buy in the US. I’d rather keep more of my take-home pay and do without certain services, or better yet choose the provider (and quality / expense) of such services if I want them. Somehow the bureaucracy in the US is still massive, so I can only imagine what far higher tax rat…

There are things money can't buy. It's hard to list things without getting too political, which I don't think this is the right forum for, but there are fundamental differences in European politics vs American politics, and no salary, as high as it might be, can change that.

Re: The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

#97

Post by cdavid »

digianarchist wrote: post #79
maccard wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in some states. On a salary of £120,000 in the UK, you'll take home 60% of your pay [0], meanwhile in California on $145,000 [1] you take home 63%. The real difference is that it's very hard to be paid 120,000 in the UK. [0] https://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php [1] https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-paycheck-calculator#...

There can be huge tax advantages in the US compared to Canada or the EU. My effective rate in California is 24% because I can file my taxes jointly which isn't possible elsewhere.

It depends on the country. In France, you definitely gets lots of tax advantage getting married, and in many cases 1 person earning X is not so different than 2 people getting x/2 after tax.

That is definitely not true in the UK, at least when I was working there from 2011 to 2017.

Re: The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

#98

Post by breadloaf »

ido wrote: post #4

Ok let me make a probably very unpopular comment here: their 3rd point lists "companies benchmarking against all regional or global companies" but in fact what they mean is "companies benchmarking against the highest paying US tech hubs". I assure you "all regional or global companies" also include Vietnamese companies paying junior devs $300 per month - what is the advantage of the European engineer that is worth pa…

Well that really depends. I was outsourcing to India when it was still cheap. I probably did something wrong, but I provided definition of the project, set of unit tests and access to git repository so they can upload the result. I got completely useless trash code, incoherent excuses and wasted time.

I paid the company for their "work" and never considered outsourcing again. Sometimes cheap means horrendously expensive.

Re: The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

#99

Post by V-2 »

sealeck wrote: post #32
988747 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long ago was that? Are you guys still in touch? Because it seems to me that recently developer salaries in Poland matched or even surpassed those in Austria :)

I don't think this is likely to be true at a population level; Austria is a much richer country than Poland; has a much higher standard of education and in other sectors salaries are usually higher in Austria than Poland.

What exactly implies Austria has a "much higher standard of education" than Poland?

For example in the most recent PISA rating the average score of mathematics, science and reading is 513 for Poland (11th in the world) and 491 for Austria (28th place).

Re: The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021)

#100

Post by ido »

digianarchist wrote: post #79
maccard wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in some states. On a salary of £120,000 in the UK, you'll take home 60% of your pay [0], meanwhile in California on $145,000 [1] you take home 63%. The real difference is that it's very hard to be paid 120,000 in the UK. [0] https://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php [1] https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-paycheck-calculator#...

There can be huge tax advantages in the US compared to Canada or the EU. My effective rate in California is 24% because I can file my taxes jointly which isn't possible elsewhere.

It may not be possible everywhere but it’s certainly possible elsewhere (my wife and I also file jointly in Germany).
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