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Spanish dev here, 3 years in the business, been twice a freelancer and twice an employee. My main complaints: - The maximum salary a developer can earn at any

by vemv 10y ago

Spanish dev here, 3 years in the business, been twice a freelancer and twice an employee. My main complaints: - The maximum salary a developer can earn at any given company is almost written in stone - around 36000 euros. Every public job posting will have that figure as the max. When it's higher, they'll water it down in the interview. Why? Probably because they don't have the notion of a 10x programmer at all. We all are perceived as 'equal' or even replaceable. - Also, companies are scared of the mere possibility of their programmers leaving. The sole hint of that you may leave will turn their red alarms on, and they'll start searching a replacement. There rarely exists here the mentality that a work relationship is a commercial exchange, not an intimate family-like relationship. Being open to the market is not 'treason'. - Tech stacks tend to be years behind San Francisco, whether is languages, frameworks, ops practices... - Functional programming opportunities extremely scarce. Elixir is gaining traction here though.

charlesdm 10y ago
Have you considered working remotely for a US company? I know a guy making €7 or 8,000 per month, after tax, living in Paris. Best of both worlds: amazing quality of living, cheap cost of living + healthcare, lots of spending (or investing) money! Seems to be working well for him.
- jules 10y ago
  Is the cost of living in Paris less than a normal US city?
  - fchollet 10y ago
    Paris is much less expensive than the bay area, but more expensive than the average US city. In fact, it's barely less expensive than NYC, one of the most expensive US cities. Also, if you are working remotely you cannot command a bay area salary.
    - gorkemyurt 10y ago
      So you are saying NYC is much less expensive than Bay Area?
      - fchollet 10y ago
        Yes. Specifically, rents are much higher in SF/SV than in NYC. SF has even higher rent than Manhattan. Most of NYC (not Manhattan or Williamsburg) can be quite reasonable.
        feklar 10y ago
        Does SF gave rent brokers you have to go through? Manhattan you have to pay first/last rent to a broker plus deposit you need around 8-$12k to sign any lease up front
        JBReefer 10y ago
        Brokers fee is one month, not two, and the outer boroughs are much cheaper.
        dlandis 10y ago
        Broker's fees of 15% or even 20% seemed to be fairly common last time I was looking in Manhattan several years ago. It's definitely not pegged at one month anymore nowadays even in Brooklyn.
        eshvk 10y ago
        I moved from SF to Manhattan and found the prices and the process of finding an apartment easier. Most of my San Francisco friends dare not move or move to Oakland. People move here in NYC all the time, paying roughly the same in rent accounting for yearly inflation related increases.
        cylinder 10y ago
        No not really. Anywhere "reasonable" will have poor quality housing and 1hr commutes on the horrible subway system.
  - g4k 10y ago
    No.
  - charlesdm 10y ago
    In this case, not much. I was referring to Spain wrt the cost of living, my bad.
- vemv 10y ago
  Thanks for the reminder! Of course from time to time I consider the possibility. There's no particular reason why I don't give it a shot, other than the global competition for US remote gigs. Probably it's easier when you specialise in a niche language - which I'm doing lately!
- agumonkey 10y ago
  Is he a very special kind of dev ? Why would an US company go to that length to hire someone.
  - smsm42 10y ago
    I know a lot of US companies hiring remotely. Two reasons: 1) costs (you're not competing with Google and Facebook on salary, at least not directly) and somewhat related 2) bigger applicant pool. This is especially true if you're looking for specific skills - much easier to find somebody if you're looking at 10x market. For many developer positions, having a person in the office is not much better than having remote employee, and may be both more expensive. You don't really have to be "very special", just plain good, and there are a lot of good developers all over the globe.
    - emilburzo 10y ago
      Where does one find these companies? Almost all remote job posts that I find end with "(US only)" Example: https://hnjobs.emilburzo.com/#remote%20%22us%20only%22 https://hnjobs.emilburzo.com/#remote%20%22us%20only%22
      - AndyNemmity 10y ago
        Usually people get the job while in the US, become well liked and needed, then move where ever they damn well please.
        rurban 10y ago
        Or have to move because of H1B which ends after 3 years, and it's pure luck to get an extension in time. That's how I ended back in Germany doing remote for US.
      - smsm42 10y ago
        Unfortunately I can't give good advice as I know most of these people after they were hired, and didn't ask them how they were hired. I know there are companies doing that, and social networks are also very useful in it, otherwise there are companies like http://www.safeguardworld.com/ http://www.safeguardworld.com/ (just one I know, not a recommendation since I never worked with it, but I know some people who did and found good remote jobs) which usually help connecting employers and employees.
- muse900 10y ago
  I find that salary excessive tbh. I understand working remotely for a US company and get a US based salary, truth is that the companies that will do that are mostly startups and I don't think they have the funds for high end salaries. Except if you are a genius dev and they do need you and you go off and tell them that you want to work from home and live in another Country. I do think though you can get jobs that pay around 2000-3000 euros a month when working remotely, although you have to be very patient as it is some kind of contracting, I mean you won't exactly get all the employment rights you would get if you lived and worked at the country that the company is set.
  - themartorana 10y ago
    2000-3000 Euro/month is incredibly low. Fresh devs around here go for $50k+ annually, and experience costs 6 figures easily (and I'm in Philadelphia, I'm not talking SF/NY numbers). Edit (pressed submit early): some companies use remote workers to reduce costs, but I wouldn't expect to pay such a low $36k max in Europe. Remote, if managed well, is just as good as in-house. You're not worth significantly less.
    - yulaow 10y ago
      You have to consider that here in a lot of sud-west EU states 3000e/month allow you to live VERY GOOD even in the main cities. Cost of life here is extremly low compared to that of SV.
      - gleenn 10y ago
        I think that's very true, but it still seems a little crazy that you're doing the same work and getting paid 20-25% of a SV job.
        yulaow 10y ago
        It depends also on how many hours do you work. Here is pretty common you never go over 38hours week, and if you have to you are compensated very well (1.5~2.5 x normal hour rate). For what I read (but probably there is a little bias in it) in SV there is a partially workcentered style of life when you have to work often >60h with a salaried contract (that, btw, here in EU they do not exist... you are paid with an explicit amount of hours per week in your contract). For example reading the book of Elon Musk it seems he asks constantly for 80/90h/w working also on the weekend. Consider also that. Oh and also you have not to pay anything for healtcare. Basically, as other have already said, if you manage to live in Italy-France-Spain-Portugal-Germany and you are capable to get a remote work for a company in US you will have a incredibly high level of life here.
- 13of40 10y ago
  Same here. I know at least 4 people who are making six figure (US) salaries working for a US company from Europe. All for the same company and it's kind of hard to get in, but still...
  - radicality 10y ago
    What's the company if I may ask? Or at least the niche. Thanks!
  - pyvpx 10y ago
    how did they come across these remote-friendly positions?
- tluyben2 10y ago
  Most of my friends find those hard to get; seems the way US guys do interviews is very unlike here.
- hibikir 10y ago
  Amazing remote jobs exist: I have one. The problem is to find a company that has those remote jobs AND will hire people they don't have a huge background on. I know a recruiter at a company like that that worked on a point system: Barring a recommendation, to pass his bar you had to have 5 years of experience in the industry for what he considered a major tech company, a degree from a top university, and a history of promotions during those years. So he is fine with hiring all over the world, as long as you had already worked at trendy Silicon Valley companies for a while (In practice, using them as a recruiting filter). So, for all intents and purposes, the only people passing that bar would be people that already had a great job. Someone with talent but without pedigree would not even get an interview.
Jare 10y ago
Leaving aside the validity of the 10x programmer concept, the company still needs to be able to extract that extra performance in actual value. Most software jobs in Spain don't have productivity of that kind. Almost no companies here develop software products or services whose effectiveness translates directly into revenue. Very few of those who have tried have had any sort of long-term success.
- vemv 10y ago
  I agree that measuring productivity is a hard, universal problem. While I don't claim to commit 10x more LOCs, I do write exceptional abstractions that allow me to get things done in a quick, robust way. I've met far too many 'senior' developers blatantly breaking DRY because they don't really know/use all features $language or $framework has to offer.
  - tmptmp 10y ago
    You don't have to claim "10x more LOC", if your abstractions are powerful enough to capture a vast breadth of situations in an elegant and not-an-over-inefficient manner. If you could achieve this feat, I'd say you are already a 10x type programmer. It's good you are better at abstraction, you may not be 10x but you may be 5x/4x and that's significant. LOC is the worst measure of productivity, but sadly, most managers (mainly, the excel sheet type managers) find it easy because they can use LOC in their shitty formulas.
  - jfoster 10y ago
    I think you're missing Jare's point. You don't need an amazingly powerful engine in your car to go at 20 miles/hour, just as companies don't need 10x programmers to work on the types of software problems that Jare asserts Spanish companies are working on.
    - lightbendover 10y ago
      In my experience, the real '10x' productivity bump comes from engineers who can internalize huge swaths of the codebase and make all of the necessary connections. Given a large enough product, that will be out of reach for the majority, due to either dedication or capacity. Hearing about a new feature and instantly knowing the implementation points and consequences instead of having to fumble around parts of the system you're not familiar with is easily '10x,' LOC be damned.
nemothekid 10y ago
>Probably because they don't have the notion of a 10x programmer at all. I don't think the 10x programmer is a valid concept. If a company believes they can easily replace you for that price, then chances are you aren't working on anything that that makes you irreplaceable. Why should an employer pay you more for the same amount of work? I also have reservations about looking at work as "an intimate family-like relationship". It's all families and sunshines until an investor pulls out and its time for layoffs.
- themartorana 10y ago
  Or, you know, until the company isn't profitable anymore. Sorry, your comment just struck me, that layoffs come with loss of investor capital, not in actual revenue and earnings declines.
- vemv 10y ago
  > chances are you aren't working on anything that that makes you irreplaceable. Or, they cannot really appreciate the quality or even the speed of my work. Clueless people abound. > I also have reservations about looking at work as "an intimate family-like relationship" You misread my original sentence - I'm with you on this one!
  - MawNicker 10y ago
    > Or, they cannot really appreciate the quality or even the speed of my work. Clueless people abound. Many "10x programmers" aren't anywhere near 10x faster/better/etc in an environment full of 1x programmers. I think "exponential" would be a better description than 10x. If you watch them in the short term they look similar to the 1x programmers. If you distribute their exponential gains over the whole team then this will always be true. These types are like successful hedge fund managers in the domain of technical investment and debt. If you let them work alone long enough you'll start to see their foresight paying dividends.
    - hexagonc 10y ago
      I think you can easily be a 10x developer, since 10x is relative. Especially in a world awash in bad developers. Just being familiar with the right algorithms and software approaches vis-a-vis your co-workers will do that. I've seen "enterprise" code that was doing tons of string key-value pair lookups using arrays. Just converting those to hashtables could very well speed up the app by 10+ times if the key-value lookups were the bottleneck. I can imagine a poorly performing database program being sped up by 10 times just by having the right person refactor the code to use caching to avoid database reconnections. This is what I think of when I think of a 10x developer; they may not be literally 10x better but their code can be 10x faster or use 1/10th the memory or be 1/10 the size of competing developers.
CamonZ 10y ago
Not only that, another factor to take into account is that very few Spanish companies are willing to sponsor a work visa, and, don't even get me started on the perma-intern scam for professionals with 10years of experience.
gutnor 10y ago
It used to be better - I was looking for work in Spain just before the crisis. A senior dev could easily do 50K, banking positions were 70K and up. Nowadays however, you can't find anything over 35K that is related to development -and- in Spain ( i.e. not a position in Germany) Anyway - Spain does not have a problem of running out of worker, it has a problem of not paying those workers. I have been looking for years to go back to Spain but the job market is just completely unrealistic. I'm highly skeptical of the 200K figure in the article. Of course, job offers in Spain often do not specify the salary at all, but I have regularly seen director level position for about 70-90K.
- gordaco 10y ago
  Another spaniard here, and I can confirm that it absolutely is a problem of not wanting to pay appropriate wages. First, most software companies only offer crappy jobs that don't require specific skills. Most of the job postings are for standard developing positions in very common languages such as Java or Python. Considering how many people finish their degree or their FP (Formación Profesional, courses of about two years oriented towards the job market, and often including internships) each year, and how high the unemplyment rate is, I just don't believe that there aren't enough applicants. Second, a lot of the big companies are what we call cárnicas (roughly, "butcheries"), i.e. companies specialized in outsourcing that pay ridiculous wages (10K a year for an entry level, full-time position where you will get fired if you don't do three hours of overtime a day is not difficult to find). Most developers know better and stay away from these, but because of the unemployment rate, a lot of people end in these places. In other words, those hard-sought qualifications are more or less "will do a specialized job while getting peanuts in return". The article misleads by giving an example of a position with a 200k salary (which I'm also very skeptical of, like gutnor), and fails to mention that it's a very specific position and does not represent the whole set. The only way I could believe that there is an actual shortage of workers, and I still doubt that it's true, is if we took into account that many of the good developers fled to greener pastures a lot of time ago. EDIT: I should also mention that the problem is not that there isn't money and therefore the job market can only offer crappy jobs. On the contrary, most of the big enterprises and especially the cárnicas are very lucrative for their owners. The problem is that there is a very big barrier entry, because these companies strive on public contracts, and because of corruption, new and smaller companies can't stand a chance against the already existing ones.
fovc 10y ago
Is there a good place for hiring Spanish devs to work remote? I'm a native Spanish speaker and this sounds like a great arbitrage opportunity
- vemv 10y ago
  I guess Upwork is the leading place to find freelancers. It's a race to the bottom (i.e. competing with third-world devs) though so that can discourage one. Then there's Linkedin. Personally if I receive a job offer from outside Spain I assume it's clueless recruiter spam. Your message should be extremely clear that you are actively seeking remote developers from abroad.
  - calgoo 10y ago
    Basically yea, LinkedIn, hacker news, local recruiters. When searching or posting an offer, do it in Spanish, if not most Spanish people searching wont find it.
- pvaldes 10y ago
  Nubelo?
davidgerard 10y ago
I'm in London. I've occasionally wondered why we keep hiring Spanish devs ...
- jventura 10y ago
  Interestingly enough, this may be the kind of scenario that you may face in London if the UK really leaves the EU and shut down the free movement of workers, ie, being unable to find skilled workers inside your own borders..
Waterluvian 10y ago
Developers are not fungible. But in my opinion: this "10x" term really has to go away. We need a better way to describe the reality that there's a range in quality and capability for developers that doesn't suggest an order of magnitude. That just means corner cutting.
- igravious 10y ago
  I'm sure technical ability falls on a curve like all other human abilities/activities. Like take weight lifting. Most people will be around the middle. Some will be able to lift heavier, some will be able to lift less. But if two people are training I would not expect one person to lift "10x" the next person. No way, no how.
  - Waterluvian 10y ago
    I'd be proud to be a 1.3x-er
  - imjustsaying 10y ago
    >But if two people are training I would not expect one person to lift "10x" the next person. No way, no how. ... but that's exactly what happens with "technical ability"
- varjag 10y ago
  I've seen order of magnitude differences in performance among developers. The baseline was competent still, mind you; it's just some people are really, really good at their job. And it's not just "oh they put 10x as much LOC while really smart people would focus on proper design": they excel both in theory and practice. A problem however that you can't really see it in the hiring process. Unlike "0.1x developers" whom you can filter with fizzbuzz, they are indistinguishable from a normal, competent engineer in the interviews, and there aren't many of them around. Either way, building your company to depend on being staffed by top performers is a dangerous strategy IMO.
- vemv 10y ago
  10x is not a totally precise term, but it does the job. Specifically it suggests that you can be one level of abstraction above his peers. People may get a little too easily offended (or excited) by "10x".
znq 10y ago
There are few, although not many counter-examples. We run Mobile Jazz [1], which is an international boutique agency with headquarters in Barcelona. We're trying to treat our employees extremely fairly and have managed to gain some of the best talent not only in Spain, but also internationally. Here some of the things we do: - Pay fair salaries: 54k€ / year (before tax) for those that work full-time - We distribute the companies profits every quarter with our employees as bonuses. Although we're planning to retain more of that in the future to reinvest in internal projects. - Everyone can choose to work from wherever they like (one guy is currently traveling around the world with his wife) and you can work as much as you like (as long as it is planned properly in advance). Some people prefer to work less and spend more time with their kids or go kitesurfing. Others decided to reduce to 1/2 time and study again (just for fun) the other 50%. - 3-4 times per year we organize 1-2 month long company retreats [2], where we rent a villa in a nice location with good Internet and work remotely. This year we went to Cape Town and Bali. Last year we went to Thailand and skiing in the Alps. In October we're going to Martinique (Caribbean) - We support our employees with internal project ideas, even the most crazy ones, like the automated Nespresso Ordering Machine [3] or those that have turned into actual products, like Bugfender [4]. Summarized we treat our employees very well and give them a lot of responsibility and autonomy. And it all pays off. Our clients and customer are extremely happy and since inception (2009) we didn't have to make on single outbound sale. All clients came to us through word of mouth and recommendations from existing clients. On top of that it gives me personally a lot of freedom and peace of mind, because I know I can fully trust and rely on our employees. For example just two months ago I completely disconnected and decided to work on a small sailing boat for a month (just for fun, as a life and learning experience) crossing the Pacific from Micronesia to New Caledonia [blog post coming soon]. We're also about to launch a niche entrepreneurial community for similar-minded people called: O4H - Optimizing for Happiness (instead of profit) [5]. Feel free to email me (email address in my HN profile). I'm always happy to connect with like minded people. For those that are looking for a job, check out our Jobs API on our website [1]. Although, to be fair I'd like to mention that we currently don't want to grow a lot more in team size (currently 20 engineers and designers), but rather focus on getting traction with our products. But that will probably change in the future again. Links: - [1]: https://mobilejazz.com/philosophy https://mobilejazz.com/philosophy - [2]: https://optimizingforhappiness.com/remote-office-cape-town-2016/ https://optimizingforhappiness.com/remote-office-cape-town-2... - [3]: https://mobilejazz.com/blog/with-nom-youll-never-be-out-of-coffee-again/ https://mobilejazz.com/blog/with-nom-youll-never-be-out-of-c... - [4]: https://bugfender.com/ https://bugfender.com/ - [5]: https://optimizingforhappiness.com/ https://optimizingforhappiness.com/
holografix 10y ago
Sadly if employers are able to pay so low it's because there's a serious oversupply of devs... On another note how possible is for a non European to get a job in Spain?
tluyben2 10y ago
> around 36000 euros I know a lot of employees or freelancers making a lot more working for companies in Malaga or companies elsewhere; more said it but get projects abroad; worked well for us. A problem here is that you need USPs because in Portugal people are working for a lot less than in Spain, all speak English and very willing to take whatever work. Also less rules; easy to fire people in the first few years. > companies are scared of the mere possibility of their programmers leaving where does that come from? > Tech stacks tend to be years behind San Francisco, That is a problem? I would say that's kind of an advantage? Most programmers would find it more of a problem to learn new stuff all the time.
- vemv 10y ago
  > I know a lot of employees or freelancers making a lot more working for companies in Malaga or companies elsewhere; I talked about the rule - undoubtedly there are exceptions. I once interviewed for a senior position for a prominent Malaga company, and they offered me less than my first job ever here in Barcelona. > Most programmers would find it more of a problem to learn new stuff all the time. One could argue that London/SF programmers do exactly that - and are compensated accordingly! We are in the technology business - by definition those who don't keep up are left behind. Maybe not drastically, but gradually and without you noticing.
  - tluyben2 10y ago
    > We are in the technology business - by definition those who don't keep up are left behind. Maybe not drastically, but gradually and without you noticing. I agree, i'm saying many programmers would not think that a problem as long as the market demands those 'older' technologies. If you read HN or /r/programming you might think you are missing out all the time; if you make E200k+ at BBVA as senior dev you really wouldn't notice any of that. You would be using stuff that hasn't changed massively for over a decade. I would wager that a lot (most) programmers would prefer the latter to the former. Not me, not you, but many would.
_mikz 10y ago
We are on Ruby, Sinatra, Rails, Nginx, Lua & not afraid of new technologies. Our open positions are on https://www.3scale.net/about/jobs/ https://www.3scale.net/about/jobs/ We're based in Barcelona, but had remote workers in the past and still might be opened to that after some warmup time. On some hiring sites we were publically posting 50k EUR for Senior Backend Developer. Being here for 5 years I can say there is plenty of growth space for good developers. Cheers.
- franciscop 10y ago
  But the problem I see is that the top people you might want would have no problem finding a similar position in a US company for 2x-3x that salary. So what how do you compete in the global economy with a 50+% salary cut? Do most of your developers only speak Spanish? Or do they have their roots firmly set in Spain (family/friends/relationships)?
  - tluyben2 10y ago
    > finding a similar position in a US company for 2x-3x that salary Remote or ? Because I don't think it's that easy to find them remote with (often) hampered English language skills and very different interviews than we have here in Europe. And moving to the US is also not that easy even if you have a job, partially because it's a life altering decision which moves you far away from family. For a lot of people that's not worth the increase. Edit: also, it is really cheap, depending on where you (want to) live to buy houses. So your 'compared low' salary actually brings you quite far. I am a weirdo in that regard though (at least compared to most on HN); I don't like living in cities. But even there it's not expensive if you look in the right places. Exceptions are there ofcourse yadayada.
    - franciscop 10y ago
      > "with (often) hampered English" I am sorry I was talking about the best people, and I haven't yet met anyone who is really great technically but has hampered English skills. > "Remote or ?" / "And moving to the US is also not that easy even if you have a job, partially because it's a life altering decision which moves you far away from family. For a lot of people that's not worth the increase." Totally agree, that is why some people choose to stay even if it's not the best for their career. The salary is definitely not the only reason to move out of Spain in Tech.
Bombthecat 10y ago
In Germany wages went down. More than people want to admit. I don't know where they pull the numbers from that wages increased. A former company I worked with went to shit. So the best ones are leaving first. All, of, them, earn less now. I'm the only one getting more now. And they are seniors mostly with a ton of experience and dozens of projects under there belt...
plafl 10y ago
For a senior developer, let's say 10 year working experience, there are some jobs above 50k but they are an small percentage. If I were a fresh graduate, or senior willing to relocate, my advice for any spanish engineer would be to move out of Spain: better salaries, better working conditions and better working culture overall. The EU it's a huge opportunity, don't limit yourself.
JustSomeNobody 10y ago
>We all are perceived as 'equal' or even replaceable. Sadly, this wil be the norm everywhere eventually.
flexie 10y ago
36,000 euro in, say, Valencia, that's close to 100,000 dollars in San Francisco when adjusting for purchasing power. Not great but certainly not that bad either. For someone with three years experience. I know a team of developers south of Valencia who make way more than that. They work out of a mansion with an infinity pool. Doing simple websites. Whereas 36,000 euro in Southern Spain (where the unemployment is high) is not fantastic, it doesn't seem all that bad. In few industries employees would complain about that. And how many years of university education do you need to get to there: often none.
- saalweachter 10y ago
  The wages for a programmer in Indiana aren't bad in context, either. I still chose to move to New York for a better paying job there. Why? Well, firstly, it's a real kick in the pants to get paid half what you could elsewhere, even if you're paying rent and eating out for half the price. Secondly, computers, student loans, automobiles, and AWS services cost the same whether I'm in New York or Indiana, so I'd rather get paid twice as much, thank you very much. It's amazing how often "structural unemployment" is just "we don't want to pay what people want to be paid".
- NetStrikeForce 10y ago
  > I know a team of developers south of Valencia who make way more than that. They work out of a mansion with an infinity pool. Doing simple websites. Sounds like a great setup to raise a family... not. Just saying, what sounds amazing for young and single white guys might not be great for the rest of the population. Wouldn't it be better if each of them could have their own flat and privacy for the same price?
  - flexie 10y ago
    Oh, I was talking about their office. They live elsewhere. Several in their 40s.
JWLong 10y ago
I found a neat hack for making sure that employees don't leave me like yesterday's lunch: pay above market rate.
albertop 10y ago
Why do you think market for software developers is so poor in Spain?
mcv 10y ago
> Also, companies are scared of the mere possibility of their programmers leaving. Have they ever considered that programmers might be less likely to leave if they got a decent salary? I've got to say, much of this sounds familiar. In Netherland, I used to hear companies complain that it was so hard to find technical people (programming and otherwise). At the same time, the jobs I saw didn't really pay all that much. The solution is simple: pay better, and people will come. The problem is that in Netherland, management is/was seen as better, more important, higher status and deserving of better pay than programming. So for a programmer to move on beyond a certain point, he'd have to go into management. If programming jobs were seen as equal to management (in status and pay), programmers would have no reason to switch. Netherland is very much a management-oriented culture, for some reason. Another is education. Politicians always kept talking about the knowledge economy, while at the same time cutting costs for education, and there was not a particular stimulus for technical education. And students are more likely to choose something management-related when they think there's more money there. I'm talking somewhat in the past tense, because it feels to me like things have changed. I made enormous jumps in income over the past couple of years (could be because of the switch to freelancing and mostly working for banks since then), and the management-over-tech attitude seems to have diminished a bit (though that could be because of Scrum, which emphasizes empowered development teams and makes management somewhat redundant at times). I don't have any recent data on this, though. Maybe it's just my personal situation that has gotten better.

by vemv 10y ago

charlesdm 10y ago

Have you considered working remotely for a US company? I know a guy making €7 or 8,000 per month, after tax, living in Paris. Best of both worlds: amazing quality of living, cheap cost of living + healthcare, lots of spending (or investing) money! Seems to be working well for him.

jules 10y ago
Is the cost of living in Paris less than a normal US city?
- fchollet 10y ago
  Paris is much less expensive than the bay area, but more expensive than the average US city. In fact, it's barely less expensive than NYC, one of the most expensive US cities. Also, if you are working remotely you cannot command a bay area salary.
  - gorkemyurt 10y ago
    So you are saying NYC is much less expensive than Bay Area?
    - fchollet 10y ago
      Yes. Specifically, rents are much higher in SF/SV than in NYC. SF has even higher rent than Manhattan. Most of NYC (not Manhattan or Williamsburg) can be quite reasonable.
      - feklar 10y ago
        Does SF gave rent brokers you have to go through? Manhattan you have to pay first/last rent to a broker plus deposit you need around 8-$12k to sign any lease up front
        JBReefer 10y ago
        Brokers fee is one month, not two, and the outer boroughs are much cheaper.
        dlandis 10y ago
        Broker's fees of 15% or even 20% seemed to be fairly common last time I was looking in Manhattan several years ago. It's definitely not pegged at one month anymore nowadays even in Brooklyn.
      - eshvk 10y ago
        I moved from SF to Manhattan and found the prices and the process of finding an apartment easier. Most of my San Francisco friends dare not move or move to Oakland. People move here in NYC all the time, paying roughly the same in rent accounting for yearly inflation related increases.
      - cylinder 10y ago
        No not really. Anywhere "reasonable" will have poor quality housing and 1hr commutes on the horrible subway system.
- g4k 10y ago
  No.
- charlesdm 10y ago
  In this case, not much. I was referring to Spain wrt the cost of living, my bad.
vemv 10y ago
Thanks for the reminder! Of course from time to time I consider the possibility. There's no particular reason why I don't give it a shot, other than the global competition for US remote gigs. Probably it's easier when you specialise in a niche language - which I'm doing lately!
agumonkey 10y ago
Is he a very special kind of dev ? Why would an US company go to that length to hire someone.
- smsm42 10y ago
  I know a lot of US companies hiring remotely. Two reasons: 1) costs (you're not competing with Google and Facebook on salary, at least not directly) and somewhat related 2) bigger applicant pool. This is especially true if you're looking for specific skills - much easier to find somebody if you're looking at 10x market. For many developer positions, having a person in the office is not much better than having remote employee, and may be both more expensive. You don't really have to be "very special", just plain good, and there are a lot of good developers all over the globe.
  - emilburzo 10y ago
    Where does one find these companies? Almost all remote job posts that I find end with "(US only)" Example: https://hnjobs.emilburzo.com/#remote%20%22us%20only%22 https://hnjobs.emilburzo.com/#remote%20%22us%20only%22
    - AndyNemmity 10y ago
      Usually people get the job while in the US, become well liked and needed, then move where ever they damn well please.
      - rurban 10y ago
        Or have to move because of H1B which ends after 3 years, and it's pure luck to get an extension in time. That's how I ended back in Germany doing remote for US.
    - smsm42 10y ago
      Unfortunately I can't give good advice as I know most of these people after they were hired, and didn't ask them how they were hired. I know there are companies doing that, and social networks are also very useful in it, otherwise there are companies like http://www.safeguardworld.com/ http://www.safeguardworld.com/ (just one I know, not a recommendation since I never worked with it, but I know some people who did and found good remote jobs) which usually help connecting employers and employees.
muse900 10y ago
I find that salary excessive tbh. I understand working remotely for a US company and get a US based salary, truth is that the companies that will do that are mostly startups and I don't think they have the funds for high end salaries. Except if you are a genius dev and they do need you and you go off and tell them that you want to work from home and live in another Country. I do think though you can get jobs that pay around 2000-3000 euros a month when working remotely, although you have to be very patient as it is some kind of contracting, I mean you won't exactly get all the employment rights you would get if you lived and worked at the country that the company is set.
- themartorana 10y ago
  2000-3000 Euro/month is incredibly low. Fresh devs around here go for $50k+ annually, and experience costs 6 figures easily (and I'm in Philadelphia, I'm not talking SF/NY numbers). Edit (pressed submit early): some companies use remote workers to reduce costs, but I wouldn't expect to pay such a low $36k max in Europe. Remote, if managed well, is just as good as in-house. You're not worth significantly less.
  - yulaow 10y ago
    You have to consider that here in a lot of sud-west EU states 3000e/month allow you to live VERY GOOD even in the main cities. Cost of life here is extremly low compared to that of SV.
    - gleenn 10y ago
      I think that's very true, but it still seems a little crazy that you're doing the same work and getting paid 20-25% of a SV job.
      - yulaow 10y ago
        It depends also on how many hours do you work. Here is pretty common you never go over 38hours week, and if you have to you are compensated very well (1.5~2.5 x normal hour rate). For what I read (but probably there is a little bias in it) in SV there is a partially workcentered style of life when you have to work often >60h with a salaried contract (that, btw, here in EU they do not exist... you are paid with an explicit amount of hours per week in your contract). For example reading the book of Elon Musk it seems he asks constantly for 80/90h/w working also on the weekend. Consider also that. Oh and also you have not to pay anything for healtcare. Basically, as other have already said, if you manage to live in Italy-France-Spain-Portugal-Germany and you are capable to get a remote work for a company in US you will have a incredibly high level of life here.
13of40 10y ago
Same here. I know at least 4 people who are making six figure (US) salaries working for a US company from Europe. All for the same company and it's kind of hard to get in, but still...
- radicality 10y ago
  What's the company if I may ask? Or at least the niche. Thanks!
- pyvpx 10y ago
  how did they come across these remote-friendly positions?
tluyben2 10y ago
Most of my friends find those hard to get; seems the way US guys do interviews is very unlike here.
hibikir 10y ago
Amazing remote jobs exist: I have one. The problem is to find a company that has those remote jobs AND will hire people they don't have a huge background on. I know a recruiter at a company like that that worked on a point system: Barring a recommendation, to pass his bar you had to have 5 years of experience in the industry for what he considered a major tech company, a degree from a top university, and a history of promotions during those years. So he is fine with hiring all over the world, as long as you had already worked at trendy Silicon Valley companies for a while (In practice, using them as a recruiting filter). So, for all intents and purposes, the only people passing that bar would be people that already had a great job. Someone with talent but without pedigree would not even get an interview.

Jare 10y ago

Leaving aside the validity of the 10x programmer concept, the company still needs to be able to extract that extra performance in actual value. Most software jobs in Spain don't have productivity of that kind. Almost no companies here develop software products or services whose effectiveness translates directly into revenue. Very few of those who have tried have had any sort of long-term success.

vemv 10y ago
I agree that measuring productivity is a hard, universal problem. While I don't claim to commit 10x more LOCs, I do write exceptional abstractions that allow me to get things done in a quick, robust way. I've met far too many 'senior' developers blatantly breaking DRY because they don't really know/use all features $language or $framework has to offer.
- tmptmp 10y ago
  You don't have to claim "10x more LOC", if your abstractions are powerful enough to capture a vast breadth of situations in an elegant and not-an-over-inefficient manner. If you could achieve this feat, I'd say you are already a 10x type programmer. It's good you are better at abstraction, you may not be 10x but you may be 5x/4x and that's significant. LOC is the worst measure of productivity, but sadly, most managers (mainly, the excel sheet type managers) find it easy because they can use LOC in their shitty formulas.
- jfoster 10y ago
  I think you're missing Jare's point. You don't need an amazingly powerful engine in your car to go at 20 miles/hour, just as companies don't need 10x programmers to work on the types of software problems that Jare asserts Spanish companies are working on.
  - lightbendover 10y ago
    In my experience, the real '10x' productivity bump comes from engineers who can internalize huge swaths of the codebase and make all of the necessary connections. Given a large enough product, that will be out of reach for the majority, due to either dedication or capacity. Hearing about a new feature and instantly knowing the implementation points and consequences instead of having to fumble around parts of the system you're not familiar with is easily '10x,' LOC be damned.

nemothekid 10y ago

>Probably because they don't have the notion of a 10x programmer at all. I don't think the 10x programmer is a valid concept. If a company believes they can easily replace you for that price, then chances are you aren't working on anything that that makes you irreplaceable. Why should an employer pay you more for the same amount of work? I also have reservations about looking at work as "an intimate family-like relationship". It's all families and sunshines until an investor pulls out and its time for layoffs.

themartorana 10y ago
Or, you know, until the company isn't profitable anymore. Sorry, your comment just struck me, that layoffs come with loss of investor capital, not in actual revenue and earnings declines.
vemv 10y ago
> chances are you aren't working on anything that that makes you irreplaceable. Or, they cannot really appreciate the quality or even the speed of my work. Clueless people abound. > I also have reservations about looking at work as "an intimate family-like relationship" You misread my original sentence - I'm with you on this one!
- MawNicker 10y ago
  > Or, they cannot really appreciate the quality or even the speed of my work. Clueless people abound. Many "10x programmers" aren't anywhere near 10x faster/better/etc in an environment full of 1x programmers. I think "exponential" would be a better description than 10x. If you watch them in the short term they look similar to the 1x programmers. If you distribute their exponential gains over the whole team then this will always be true. These types are like successful hedge fund managers in the domain of technical investment and debt. If you let them work alone long enough you'll start to see their foresight paying dividends.
  - hexagonc 10y ago
    I think you can easily be a 10x developer, since 10x is relative. Especially in a world awash in bad developers. Just being familiar with the right algorithms and software approaches vis-a-vis your co-workers will do that. I've seen "enterprise" code that was doing tons of string key-value pair lookups using arrays. Just converting those to hashtables could very well speed up the app by 10+ times if the key-value lookups were the bottleneck. I can imagine a poorly performing database program being sped up by 10 times just by having the right person refactor the code to use caching to avoid database reconnections. This is what I think of when I think of a 10x developer; they may not be literally 10x better but their code can be 10x faster or use 1/10th the memory or be 1/10 the size of competing developers.

CamonZ 10y ago

Not only that, another factor to take into account is that very few Spanish companies are willing to sponsor a work visa, and, don't even get me started on the perma-intern scam for professionals with 10years of experience.

gutnor 10y ago

It used to be better - I was looking for work in Spain just before the crisis. A senior dev could easily do 50K, banking positions were 70K and up. Nowadays however, you can't find anything over 35K that is related to development -and- in Spain ( i.e. not a position in Germany) Anyway - Spain does not have a problem of running out of worker, it has a problem of not paying those workers. I have been looking for years to go back to Spain but the job market is just completely unrealistic. I'm highly skeptical of the 200K figure in the article. Of course, job offers in Spain often do not specify the salary at all, but I have regularly seen director level position for about 70-90K.

gordaco 10y ago
Another spaniard here, and I can confirm that it absolutely is a problem of not wanting to pay appropriate wages. First, most software companies only offer crappy jobs that don't require specific skills. Most of the job postings are for standard developing positions in very common languages such as Java or Python. Considering how many people finish their degree or their FP (Formación Profesional, courses of about two years oriented towards the job market, and often including internships) each year, and how high the unemplyment rate is, I just don't believe that there aren't enough applicants. Second, a lot of the big companies are what we call cárnicas (roughly, "butcheries"), i.e. companies specialized in outsourcing that pay ridiculous wages (10K a year for an entry level, full-time position where you will get fired if you don't do three hours of overtime a day is not difficult to find). Most developers know better and stay away from these, but because of the unemployment rate, a lot of people end in these places. In other words, those hard-sought qualifications are more or less "will do a specialized job while getting peanuts in return". The article misleads by giving an example of a position with a 200k salary (which I'm also very skeptical of, like gutnor), and fails to mention that it's a very specific position and does not represent the whole set. The only way I could believe that there is an actual shortage of workers, and I still doubt that it's true, is if we took into account that many of the good developers fled to greener pastures a lot of time ago. EDIT: I should also mention that the problem is not that there isn't money and therefore the job market can only offer crappy jobs. On the contrary, most of the big enterprises and especially the cárnicas are very lucrative for their owners. The problem is that there is a very big barrier entry, because these companies strive on public contracts, and because of corruption, new and smaller companies can't stand a chance against the already existing ones.

fovc 10y ago

Is there a good place for hiring Spanish devs to work remote? I'm a native Spanish speaker and this sounds like a great arbitrage opportunity

vemv 10y ago
I guess Upwork is the leading place to find freelancers. It's a race to the bottom (i.e. competing with third-world devs) though so that can discourage one. Then there's Linkedin. Personally if I receive a job offer from outside Spain I assume it's clueless recruiter spam. Your message should be extremely clear that you are actively seeking remote developers from abroad.
- calgoo 10y ago
  Basically yea, LinkedIn, hacker news, local recruiters. When searching or posting an offer, do it in Spanish, if not most Spanish people searching wont find it.
pvaldes 10y ago
Nubelo?

davidgerard 10y ago

I'm in London. I've occasionally wondered why we keep hiring Spanish devs ...

jventura 10y ago
Interestingly enough, this may be the kind of scenario that you may face in London if the UK really leaves the EU and shut down the free movement of workers, ie, being unable to find skilled workers inside your own borders..

Waterluvian 10y ago

Developers are not fungible. But in my opinion: this "10x" term really has to go away. We need a better way to describe the reality that there's a range in quality and capability for developers that doesn't suggest an order of magnitude. That just means corner cutting.

igravious 10y ago
I'm sure technical ability falls on a curve like all other human abilities/activities. Like take weight lifting. Most people will be around the middle. Some will be able to lift heavier, some will be able to lift less. But if two people are training I would not expect one person to lift "10x" the next person. No way, no how.
- Waterluvian 10y ago
  I'd be proud to be a 1.3x-er
- imjustsaying 10y ago
  >But if two people are training I would not expect one person to lift "10x" the next person. No way, no how. ... but that's exactly what happens with "technical ability"
varjag 10y ago
I've seen order of magnitude differences in performance among developers. The baseline was competent still, mind you; it's just some people are really, really good at their job. And it's not just "oh they put 10x as much LOC while really smart people would focus on proper design": they excel both in theory and practice. A problem however that you can't really see it in the hiring process. Unlike "0.1x developers" whom you can filter with fizzbuzz, they are indistinguishable from a normal, competent engineer in the interviews, and there aren't many of them around. Either way, building your company to depend on being staffed by top performers is a dangerous strategy IMO.
vemv 10y ago
10x is not a totally precise term, but it does the job. Specifically it suggests that you can be one level of abstraction above his peers. People may get a little too easily offended (or excited) by "10x".

znq 10y ago

There are few, although not many counter-examples. We run Mobile Jazz [1], which is an international boutique agency with headquarters in Barcelona. We're trying to treat our employees extremely fairly and have managed to gain some of the best talent not only in Spain, but also internationally. Here some of the things we do: - Pay fair salaries: 54k€ / year (before tax) for those that work full-time - We distribute the companies profits every quarter with our employees as bonuses. Although we're planning to retain more of that in the future to reinvest in internal projects. - Everyone can choose to work from wherever they like (one guy is currently traveling around the world with his wife) and you can work as much as you like (as long as it is planned properly in advance). Some people prefer to work less and spend more time with their kids or go kitesurfing. Others decided to reduce to 1/2 time and study again (just for fun) the other 50%. - 3-4 times per year we organize 1-2 month long company retreats [2], where we rent a villa in a nice location with good Internet and work remotely. This year we went to Cape Town and Bali. Last year we went to Thailand and skiing in the Alps. In October we're going to Martinique (Caribbean) - We support our employees with internal project ideas, even the most crazy ones, like the automated Nespresso Ordering Machine [3] or those that have turned into actual products, like Bugfender [4]. Summarized we treat our employees very well and give them a lot of responsibility and autonomy. And it all pays off. Our clients and customer are extremely happy and since inception (2009) we didn't have to make on single outbound sale. All clients came to us through word of mouth and recommendations from existing clients. On top of that it gives me personally a lot of freedom and peace of mind, because I know I can fully trust and rely on our employees. For example just two months ago I completely disconnected and decided to work on a small sailing boat for a month (just for fun, as a life and learning experience) crossing the Pacific from Micronesia to New Caledonia [blog post coming soon]. We're also about to launch a niche entrepreneurial community for similar-minded people called: O4H - Optimizing for Happiness (instead of profit) [5]. Feel free to email me (email address in my HN profile). I'm always happy to connect with like minded people. For those that are looking for a job, check out our Jobs API on our website [1]. Although, to be fair I'd like to mention that we currently don't want to grow a lot more in team size (currently 20 engineers and designers), but rather focus on getting traction with our products. But that will probably change in the future again. Links: - [1]: https://mobilejazz.com/philosophy https://mobilejazz.com/philosophy - [2]: https://optimizingforhappiness.com/remote-office-cape-town-2016/ https://optimizingforhappiness.com/remote-office-cape-town-2... - [3]: https://mobilejazz.com/blog/with-nom-youll-never-be-out-of-coffee-again/ https://mobilejazz.com/blog/with-nom-youll-never-be-out-of-c... - [4]: https://bugfender.com/ https://bugfender.com/ - [5]: https://optimizingforhappiness.com/ https://optimizingforhappiness.com/

holografix 10y ago

Sadly if employers are able to pay so low it's because there's a serious oversupply of devs... On another note how possible is for a non European to get a job in Spain?

tluyben2 10y ago

> around 36000 euros I know a lot of employees or freelancers making a lot more working for companies in Malaga or companies elsewhere; more said it but get projects abroad; worked well for us. A problem here is that you need USPs because in Portugal people are working for a lot less than in Spain, all speak English and very willing to take whatever work. Also less rules; easy to fire people in the first few years. > companies are scared of the mere possibility of their programmers leaving where does that come from? > Tech stacks tend to be years behind San Francisco, That is a problem? I would say that's kind of an advantage? Most programmers would find it more of a problem to learn new stuff all the time.

vemv 10y ago
> I know a lot of employees or freelancers making a lot more working for companies in Malaga or companies elsewhere; I talked about the rule - undoubtedly there are exceptions. I once interviewed for a senior position for a prominent Malaga company, and they offered me less than my first job ever here in Barcelona. > Most programmers would find it more of a problem to learn new stuff all the time. One could argue that London/SF programmers do exactly that - and are compensated accordingly! We are in the technology business - by definition those who don't keep up are left behind. Maybe not drastically, but gradually and without you noticing.
- tluyben2 10y ago
  > We are in the technology business - by definition those who don't keep up are left behind. Maybe not drastically, but gradually and without you noticing. I agree, i'm saying many programmers would not think that a problem as long as the market demands those 'older' technologies. If you read HN or /r/programming you might think you are missing out all the time; if you make E200k+ at BBVA as senior dev you really wouldn't notice any of that. You would be using stuff that hasn't changed massively for over a decade. I would wager that a lot (most) programmers would prefer the latter to the former. Not me, not you, but many would.

_mikz 10y ago

We are on Ruby, Sinatra, Rails, Nginx, Lua & not afraid of new technologies. Our open positions are on https://www.3scale.net/about/jobs/ https://www.3scale.net/about/jobs/ We're based in Barcelona, but had remote workers in the past and still might be opened to that after some warmup time. On some hiring sites we were publically posting 50k EUR for Senior Backend Developer. Being here for 5 years I can say there is plenty of growth space for good developers. Cheers.

franciscop 10y ago
But the problem I see is that the top people you might want would have no problem finding a similar position in a US company for 2x-3x that salary. So what how do you compete in the global economy with a 50+% salary cut? Do most of your developers only speak Spanish? Or do they have their roots firmly set in Spain (family/friends/relationships)?
- tluyben2 10y ago
  > finding a similar position in a US company for 2x-3x that salary Remote or ? Because I don't think it's that easy to find them remote with (often) hampered English language skills and very different interviews than we have here in Europe. And moving to the US is also not that easy even if you have a job, partially because it's a life altering decision which moves you far away from family. For a lot of people that's not worth the increase. Edit: also, it is really cheap, depending on where you (want to) live to buy houses. So your 'compared low' salary actually brings you quite far. I am a weirdo in that regard though (at least compared to most on HN); I don't like living in cities. But even there it's not expensive if you look in the right places. Exceptions are there ofcourse yadayada.
  - franciscop 10y ago
    > "with (often) hampered English" I am sorry I was talking about the best people, and I haven't yet met anyone who is really great technically but has hampered English skills. > "Remote or ?" / "And moving to the US is also not that easy even if you have a job, partially because it's a life altering decision which moves you far away from family. For a lot of people that's not worth the increase." Totally agree, that is why some people choose to stay even if it's not the best for their career. The salary is definitely not the only reason to move out of Spain in Tech.

Bombthecat 10y ago

In Germany wages went down. More than people want to admit. I don't know where they pull the numbers from that wages increased. A former company I worked with went to shit. So the best ones are leaving first. All, of, them, earn less now. I'm the only one getting more now. And they are seniors mostly with a ton of experience and dozens of projects under there belt...

plafl 10y ago

For a senior developer, let's say 10 year working experience, there are some jobs above 50k but they are an small percentage. If I were a fresh graduate, or senior willing to relocate, my advice for any spanish engineer would be to move out of Spain: better salaries, better working conditions and better working culture overall. The EU it's a huge opportunity, don't limit yourself.

JustSomeNobody 10y ago

>We all are perceived as 'equal' or even replaceable. Sadly, this wil be the norm everywhere eventually.

flexie 10y ago

36,000 euro in, say, Valencia, that's close to 100,000 dollars in San Francisco when adjusting for purchasing power. Not great but certainly not that bad either. For someone with three years experience. I know a team of developers south of Valencia who make way more than that. They work out of a mansion with an infinity pool. Doing simple websites. Whereas 36,000 euro in Southern Spain (where the unemployment is high) is not fantastic, it doesn't seem all that bad. In few industries employees would complain about that. And how many years of university education do you need to get to there: often none.

saalweachter 10y ago
The wages for a programmer in Indiana aren't bad in context, either. I still chose to move to New York for a better paying job there. Why? Well, firstly, it's a real kick in the pants to get paid half what you could elsewhere, even if you're paying rent and eating out for half the price. Secondly, computers, student loans, automobiles, and AWS services cost the same whether I'm in New York or Indiana, so I'd rather get paid twice as much, thank you very much. It's amazing how often "structural unemployment" is just "we don't want to pay what people want to be paid".
NetStrikeForce 10y ago
> I know a team of developers south of Valencia who make way more than that. They work out of a mansion with an infinity pool. Doing simple websites. Sounds like a great setup to raise a family... not. Just saying, what sounds amazing for young and single white guys might not be great for the rest of the population. Wouldn't it be better if each of them could have their own flat and privacy for the same price?
- flexie 10y ago
  Oh, I was talking about their office. They live elsewhere. Several in their 40s.

JWLong 10y ago

I found a neat hack for making sure that employees don't leave me like yesterday's lunch: pay above market rate.

albertop 10y ago

Why do you think market for software developers is so poor in Spain?

mcv 10y ago

> Also, companies are scared of the mere possibility of their programmers leaving. Have they ever considered that programmers might be less likely to leave if they got a decent salary? I've got to say, much of this sounds familiar. In Netherland, I used to hear companies complain that it was so hard to find technical people (programming and otherwise). At the same time, the jobs I saw didn't really pay all that much. The solution is simple: pay better, and people will come. The problem is that in Netherland, management is/was seen as better, more important, higher status and deserving of better pay than programming. So for a programmer to move on beyond a certain point, he'd have to go into management. If programming jobs were seen as equal to management (in status and pay), programmers would have no reason to switch. Netherland is very much a management-oriented culture, for some reason. Another is education. Politicians always kept talking about the knowledge economy, while at the same time cutting costs for education, and there was not a particular stimulus for technical education. And students are more likely to choose something management-related when they think there's more money there. I'm talking somewhat in the past tense, because it feels to me like things have changed. I made enormous jumps in income over the past couple of years (could be because of the switch to freelancing and mostly working for banks since then), and the management-over-tech attitude seems to have diminished a bit (though that could be because of Scrum, which emphasizes empowered development teams and makes management somewhat redundant at times). I don't have any recent data on this, though. Maybe it's just my personal situation that has gotten better.