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> in Europe devs are slaving away through SCRUM powered meat grinders burning themselves out for a 3% salary increase on a pitiful 40-80k/year There is so much

> in Europe devs are slaving away through SCRUM powered meat grinders burning themselves out for a 3% salary increase on a pitiful 40-80k/year There is so much wrong in this sentence. First, there is no more “meat grinders” in the US than in Europe. I worked at Microsoft and Criteo in Europe, and the slacking there seems to be on par with what OP describes. You mention 40/80k per year being pitiful? This kind of remuneration puts you in the top 10%/5% of France population easily. If your partner manages the same level of salary, you should be even better in the top. > no stock options, without any hope of early retirement You are dreaming. The kind of stock options you get in big tech companies is not what you think. You can expect some hundreds/thousands dollars per year, that need 3/5 year to vest until you can have them in full. European companies would traditionally prefer to give a bit of extra money rather than stock options. > early retirement .... > owning a decent home without a 30 year loan What are you talking about... you earn 40/80k per year. The mortgage rates in France at the moment are amongst the best in the world. You should be able to get a loan at 1% for ~500k for 15 or 30 years without any problem. Also, please, bear in mind that you cannot directly compare US and EU salaries. Your 80k€ gross in e.g. France should be the equivalent of $150k for a US worker; if you account for the same level of medical care and retirement savings. Not much of a difference after you realise this.

m0zg 7y ago
>> You mention 40/80k per year being pitiful? This kind of remuneration puts you in the top 10%/5% of France population easily. That just means the rest of the population is poor, not that you should accept less. This is called a fallacy of relative privation. So what if you have to subsist on ramen and can't afford a place to live with less than an hour and a half of commute. Think of all those starving children in Uganda instead. That's how the ruling class shits in your head with propaganda. As a professional you should be able to accomplish the minimum of: raising a couple of kids, buying a residence, putting quality food on the table, and sock away enough to not be poor when it's time to retire. You should aim to make more than enough money to do all of the above while maintaining a first world lifestyle. If you're not able to do that in your profession, that fancy college degree is materially worse than a plumbing or electrical trade school certification.
- snak 7y ago
  While I agree with you on some points, the cost of life in European countries is not the same as USA.
  - m0zg 7y ago
    The taxes are also much higher in Europe, especially on those compliant "upper middle class" techies we're talking about here. For anyone with basic understanding of arithmetics it's not even a question that EU techies are woefully underpaid, which is why all the good ones work in the US or for EU subsidiaries of US companies which actually respect the engineers.
    - brulard 7y ago
      I don't believe this is the case. In central Europe (Poland, Czech, Slovakia, Hungary) you can have < 20 - 25% effective taxes even including basic health insurance. In german speaking countries (Austria, Germany) you get twice the salary but that goes with higher taxes. AFAIK in US just the health insurance is very expensive. EDIT: (using the most tax-effective form of employment, which most of the time is working as a contractor. Being a full-time employee comes with so much higher taxes in EU)
      - rayiner 7y ago
        > AFAIK in US just the health insurance is very expensive. In the US, someone like a programmer would get their health insurance paid for by their employer as additional compensation on top of their already much higher salary. The vast majority of Americans either get health insurance through their employer or are retired and are eligible for Medicare. Employers on average pay 82% of premiums for a single person, leaving on average $1,200 paid by the worker. For someone like a programmer, it’s common for employees to pay the whole premium. When you look at US salaries, that additional compensation is on top of the reported salary. So although health insurance is very expensive, you’re mostly not paying it out of the reported salary.
ChuckNorris89 7y ago
>there is no more “meat grinders” in the US than in Europe. I worked at Microsoft and Criteo in Europe, and the slacking there seems to be on par with what OP describes. That's very specifically anecdotal. Not everyone in Europe works or has the opportunity to work at big wealthy corps like the ones you mentioned. Europe is not as clustered as SV so the quality and pay of jobs varies immensely on your location. I can assure that outside such monopolies like Microsoft where the money comes in regardless if people work or not, the meat grinders are real.
- mattmanser 7y ago
  Oh come on, there are good companies and bad companies in every industry. If you've managed to end up at a bad one you've only yourself to blame.
- Voloskaya 7y ago
  > Not everyone in Europe works or has the opportunity to work at big wealthy corps like the ones you mentioned. Because you think 90% of people in the US works in 'big wealthy corps'? You probably have a skewed opinion based on what you see on hacker news. For the overwhelming majority, the condition are pretty similar to what you describe: A SCRUM point driven job, where you just implement whatever boring BS you are asked for a product you most likely don't care about, with a mediocre pay, and no job security.
rco8786 7y ago
> You can expect some hundreds/thousands dollars per year This is not correct. A senior (meaning L5-L6+, nothing crazy) engineer at a big public tech co will get 6 figures yearly in stock compensation in addition to their salary.
- Galanwe 7y ago
  Sorry, but this is urban legend to me. No saying it does not happen, but that is definitely a very special case. I manage a team of quantitative developers in a Hedge Fund and do between 50 and 100 interviews per year, at senior level. I have head hunter compensation report on the candidates. I see regularly candidates from Google, Amazon, and finance industry. I very rarely see 6 digit bonus for big techs. My experience is that they have a high fixed salary and low 5 digit bonus.
  - nkohari 7y ago
    The parent post was referring to stock-based compensation (ie. RSUs), not bonus. This site might be interesting: https://levels.fyi/ https://levels.fyi/
    - wpietri 7y ago
      Yes, I can confirm that stock-based compensation at brand-name Bay Area tech companies is significant. Those numbers definitely match what I see anecdotally.
  - baby 7y ago
    You're probably not from the bay, check levels.fyi
  - rco8786 7y ago
    I didn’t say anything about a bonus. These are stock packages.
  - thatsenough 7y ago
    > head hunter compensation report You should ask for a refund. Senior engineers at FANG in the Bay Area will typically make over $100k/year in stock. Total compensation of $300k-$400k is pretty normal, and includes salary, stock, and bonus. Netflix is an exception; compensation is mostly or all in cash. The flip side is that, even with $350k/year income, you probably still can't comfortably afford a nice 3-bedroom house in a good neighborhood to raise a family (unless you've already been working in the Bay for a while and saved up a big nest egg, or your spouse makes a similar amount and continues to work full time while you raise a family). Since I moved to the Bay Area, I've realized the high salaries aren't worth it to me. If I were still in my twenties, I could make it work, but as it is, I'd end up paying a truly absurd amount of money for a small, over-priced house, and my entire paycheck would go towards paying the mortgage for the foreseeable future. So I'm looking to transfer to a non-Bay Area office ASAP, even if it means a pay cut.
rayiner 7y ago
> Also, please, bear in mind that you cannot directly compare US and EU salaries. Your 80k€ gross in e.g. France should be the equivalent of $150k for a US worker; if you account for the same level of medical care and retirement savings. Not much of a difference after you realise this. What makes you think that? As to retirement savings, American retirement payments replace 70% of working income on average, versus 60% in France: https://www.etk.fi/wp-content/uploads/PaG2017EN.jpg https://www.etk.fi/wp-content/uploads/PaG2017EN.jpg. The US retirement system is one of the better ones in the OECD. Like the U.K., Germany, Netherlands, and Sweden, the U.S. has a two-pillar system, with a public pillar and a defined contribution (i.e. 401k) pillar. The public system alone pays out about as much in absolute terms as in France. (60% of French pre-retirement income ~= 40% of US per-retirement income.) Adding in the tax-advantaged defined-contribution component (but excluding other private investment income) makes the total income replacement one of the highest in the OECD. Of course, at the end of the day, a programmer is going to be a “net contributor” to the retirement system in both countries. The French person will pay (percentage wise) much higher social insurance tax to get a bigger (percentage wise) public pension check, while the American person will make a 401k contribution plus a lower social insurance tax. At the end of the day, that doesn’t have any effect on the comparison of 80k euros being less than $150k, because retirement savings will come out of both numbers. As to healthcare, programmers are going to be among the 65% of American workers who get healthcare through their employer. That means that, on top of their salary, they get additional compensation in the form of employer-paid healthcare premiums. Meanwhile, the French person will pay for healthcare in the form of higher taxes out of that 80k euros. Although Americans spend twice as much on healthcare as French, that isn’t relevant to this comparison, because for the American the additional part is paid by the employer on top of the $150k. It’s not something you subtract out. (Put differently, the 80k euros versus 150k comparison understates the difference, because the American salary includes $10-15k in additional health benefits.) Finally, cost of living is about the same in France as in the US.
- genS3 7y ago
  I totally agree. Having lived through both systems and countries with similar salaries than the one you mention. France is a scam. Europe is a scam. Companie are not entitled to anything they make you either enter some traditional companies with very little benefits (definitly no 401k, discounted movie tickets at best) or they make you enter startup world giving you shitting fictional "stocks" that definitely won't make you a millionaire even if the company hits a multi-billion dollar valuation. You know what else? people managing, doing PM, all the soft skills jobs are better paid in france than dev jobs and better viewed overall. unlike in USA where people pay for the technical skills, engineers compensations in europe are low. somehow we still an old country dominated by old money and the rule that only the elites can get chunks of the companies even tho they are not the one slaving. There are a few exceptions to this but those companies moved their HQ and their core in USA to get away from all this BS. such as Datadog or even Docker. oh and regarding price of accomodation paris is much more expensive than NYC. new york not being only manhattan and brooklyn for people who like to compare even modern apartments in LIC sell for half of what a 200year old apartment would sell in paris.
pedrosorio 7y ago
> The kind of stock options you get in big tech companies is not what you think. You can expect some hundreds/thousands dollars per year, that need 3/5 year to vest until you can have them in full. Did you mean tens/hundreds of thousands per year? Vesting monthly or quarterly? Because that's what "big tech companies" pay just in stocks in the Bay Area. https://www.levels.fyi/ https://www.levels.fyi/
jaynetics 7y ago
> You mention 40/80k per year being pitiful? This kind of remuneration puts you in the top 10%/5% of France population easily. These numbers are surely off. Must be more like 40%/10%. And I'd bet that a double-digit percentage of devs earn less than 40k and only very few earn 80k. Factor in that this is a job that is concentrated in big cities with a high cost of living, and these numbers don't look that great.
- wazoox 7y ago
  Average net salary in France hovers at 2300€/month, median net salary is ~1800€/month. At ~3200€/month you're straight in the high 10% from official statistics.
  - jaynetics 7y ago
    Anything I found suggested slightly higher values, but maybe official stats can only be found by googling in French? Either way, I think all the GPs were talking about gross values. So if 1800 net is, say, 2800 gross, that is 35k/yr. In that case 40k is fairly close to the median and probably not in the top 25%.
    - wazoox 7y ago
      Indeed. :)
christophilus 7y ago
> Your 80k€ gross in e.g. France should be the equivalent of $150k for a US worker I hear this a lot, but if you're earning $150K in the US, you almost certainly have 100% medical coverage. At least, I do, and everyone I know does. The US medical system is broken, but it's OK for high-income earners. It's the low-to-middle income folks who are really hurt by it. > retirement savings Again, if you're earning $150K in the US, you probably have a nice 401K and stock options. If you're smart with your money, you can probably retire in 10 years. Again, anecdotal, but I know many who've done just that.
- Galanwe 7y ago
  Just to be clear, I don't want to enter any kind of comparison between EU and US pension/medical systems here! All I'm saying, is that contribution to e.g. a 401k will be done after the $150k (even though the employer will contribute with e.g. 1:1 ratio). Whereas in EU the retirement contribution is already done before the 80k euro. Actually, MANY other contributions will happen before that 80k EUR. Thus, you cannot compare _directly_ EU and US salaries, you need to adjust for a rough estimate of everything that was already deducted from the EU 80k! This is why I mention that it is more _fair_ to compare EU super-gross against US gross, because both are expressed before the heavy medical/unemployment/retirement contributions.
  - xyzzyz 7y ago
    Whereas in EU the retirement contribution is already done before the 80k euro. Actually, MANY other contributions will happen before that 80k EUR. Exactly same thing is true in the US. 401k is on top of Social Security retirement benefits. Employees pay 6.2% of their salary (up to $127,000 cap) into Social Security, and the employers pay matching 6.2% on top of the gross salary. The 401k is in addition to Social Security benefits, and the Social Security benefits are already higher than the French retirement benefits.
- tstrimple 7y ago
  > I hear this a lot, but if you're earning $150K in the US, you almost certainly have 100% medical coverage. I'm not sure how true this is anymore. I made a bit more than this at Microsoft, and my medical benefits were "100% covered" by Microsoft. But that still amounts to thousands of dollars in deductibles and copays per year out of pocket.
redisman 7y ago
This guy (parent) took two data-points and extrapolated like he had just figured out how two continents work.

m0zg 7y ago

>> You mention 40/80k per year being pitiful? This kind of remuneration puts you in the top 10%/5% of France population easily. That just means the rest of the population is poor, not that you should accept less. This is called a fallacy of relative privation. So what if you have to subsist on ramen and can't afford a place to live with less than an hour and a half of commute. Think of all those starving children in Uganda instead. That's how the ruling class shits in your head with propaganda. As a professional you should be able to accomplish the minimum of: raising a couple of kids, buying a residence, putting quality food on the table, and sock away enough to not be poor when it's time to retire. You should aim to make more than enough money to do all of the above while maintaining a first world lifestyle. If you're not able to do that in your profession, that fancy college degree is materially worse than a plumbing or electrical trade school certification.

snak 7y ago
While I agree with you on some points, the cost of life in European countries is not the same as USA.
- m0zg 7y ago
  The taxes are also much higher in Europe, especially on those compliant "upper middle class" techies we're talking about here. For anyone with basic understanding of arithmetics it's not even a question that EU techies are woefully underpaid, which is why all the good ones work in the US or for EU subsidiaries of US companies which actually respect the engineers.
  - brulard 7y ago
    I don't believe this is the case. In central Europe (Poland, Czech, Slovakia, Hungary) you can have < 20 - 25% effective taxes even including basic health insurance. In german speaking countries (Austria, Germany) you get twice the salary but that goes with higher taxes. AFAIK in US just the health insurance is very expensive. EDIT: (using the most tax-effective form of employment, which most of the time is working as a contractor. Being a full-time employee comes with so much higher taxes in EU)
    - rayiner 7y ago
      > AFAIK in US just the health insurance is very expensive. In the US, someone like a programmer would get their health insurance paid for by their employer as additional compensation on top of their already much higher salary. The vast majority of Americans either get health insurance through their employer or are retired and are eligible for Medicare. Employers on average pay 82% of premiums for a single person, leaving on average $1,200 paid by the worker. For someone like a programmer, it’s common for employees to pay the whole premium. When you look at US salaries, that additional compensation is on top of the reported salary. So although health insurance is very expensive, you’re mostly not paying it out of the reported salary.

ChuckNorris89 7y ago

>there is no more “meat grinders” in the US than in Europe. I worked at Microsoft and Criteo in Europe, and the slacking there seems to be on par with what OP describes. That's very specifically anecdotal. Not everyone in Europe works or has the opportunity to work at big wealthy corps like the ones you mentioned. Europe is not as clustered as SV so the quality and pay of jobs varies immensely on your location. I can assure that outside such monopolies like Microsoft where the money comes in regardless if people work or not, the meat grinders are real.

mattmanser 7y ago
Oh come on, there are good companies and bad companies in every industry. If you've managed to end up at a bad one you've only yourself to blame.
Voloskaya 7y ago
> Not everyone in Europe works or has the opportunity to work at big wealthy corps like the ones you mentioned. Because you think 90% of people in the US works in 'big wealthy corps'? You probably have a skewed opinion based on what you see on hacker news. For the overwhelming majority, the condition are pretty similar to what you describe: A SCRUM point driven job, where you just implement whatever boring BS you are asked for a product you most likely don't care about, with a mediocre pay, and no job security.

rco8786 7y ago

> You can expect some hundreds/thousands dollars per year This is not correct. A senior (meaning L5-L6+, nothing crazy) engineer at a big public tech co will get 6 figures yearly in stock compensation in addition to their salary.

Galanwe 7y ago
Sorry, but this is urban legend to me. No saying it does not happen, but that is definitely a very special case. I manage a team of quantitative developers in a Hedge Fund and do between 50 and 100 interviews per year, at senior level. I have head hunter compensation report on the candidates. I see regularly candidates from Google, Amazon, and finance industry. I very rarely see 6 digit bonus for big techs. My experience is that they have a high fixed salary and low 5 digit bonus.
- nkohari 7y ago
  The parent post was referring to stock-based compensation (ie. RSUs), not bonus. This site might be interesting: https://levels.fyi/ https://levels.fyi/
  - wpietri 7y ago
    Yes, I can confirm that stock-based compensation at brand-name Bay Area tech companies is significant. Those numbers definitely match what I see anecdotally.
- baby 7y ago
  You're probably not from the bay, check levels.fyi
- rco8786 7y ago
  I didn’t say anything about a bonus. These are stock packages.
- thatsenough 7y ago
  > head hunter compensation report You should ask for a refund. Senior engineers at FANG in the Bay Area will typically make over $100k/year in stock. Total compensation of $300k-$400k is pretty normal, and includes salary, stock, and bonus. Netflix is an exception; compensation is mostly or all in cash. The flip side is that, even with $350k/year income, you probably still can't comfortably afford a nice 3-bedroom house in a good neighborhood to raise a family (unless you've already been working in the Bay for a while and saved up a big nest egg, or your spouse makes a similar amount and continues to work full time while you raise a family). Since I moved to the Bay Area, I've realized the high salaries aren't worth it to me. If I were still in my twenties, I could make it work, but as it is, I'd end up paying a truly absurd amount of money for a small, over-priced house, and my entire paycheck would go towards paying the mortgage for the foreseeable future. So I'm looking to transfer to a non-Bay Area office ASAP, even if it means a pay cut.

rayiner 7y ago

> Also, please, bear in mind that you cannot directly compare US and EU salaries. Your 80k€ gross in e.g. France should be the equivalent of $150k for a US worker; if you account for the same level of medical care and retirement savings. Not much of a difference after you realise this. What makes you think that? As to retirement savings, American retirement payments replace 70% of working income on average, versus 60% in France: https://www.etk.fi/wp-content/uploads/PaG2017EN.jpg https://www.etk.fi/wp-content/uploads/PaG2017EN.jpg. The US retirement system is one of the better ones in the OECD. Like the U.K., Germany, Netherlands, and Sweden, the U.S. has a two-pillar system, with a public pillar and a defined contribution (i.e. 401k) pillar. The public system alone pays out about as much in absolute terms as in France. (60% of French pre-retirement income ~= 40% of US per-retirement income.) Adding in the tax-advantaged defined-contribution component (but excluding other private investment income) makes the total income replacement one of the highest in the OECD. Of course, at the end of the day, a programmer is going to be a “net contributor” to the retirement system in both countries. The French person will pay (percentage wise) much higher social insurance tax to get a bigger (percentage wise) public pension check, while the American person will make a 401k contribution plus a lower social insurance tax. At the end of the day, that doesn’t have any effect on the comparison of 80k euros being less than $150k, because retirement savings will come out of both numbers. As to healthcare, programmers are going to be among the 65% of American workers who get healthcare through their employer. That means that, on top of their salary, they get additional compensation in the form of employer-paid healthcare premiums. Meanwhile, the French person will pay for healthcare in the form of higher taxes out of that 80k euros. Although Americans spend twice as much on healthcare as French, that isn’t relevant to this comparison, because for the American the additional part is paid by the employer on top of the $150k. It’s not something you subtract out. (Put differently, the 80k euros versus 150k comparison understates the difference, because the American salary includes $10-15k in additional health benefits.) Finally, cost of living is about the same in France as in the US.

genS3 7y ago
I totally agree. Having lived through both systems and countries with similar salaries than the one you mention. France is a scam. Europe is a scam. Companie are not entitled to anything they make you either enter some traditional companies with very little benefits (definitly no 401k, discounted movie tickets at best) or they make you enter startup world giving you shitting fictional "stocks" that definitely won't make you a millionaire even if the company hits a multi-billion dollar valuation. You know what else? people managing, doing PM, all the soft skills jobs are better paid in france than dev jobs and better viewed overall. unlike in USA where people pay for the technical skills, engineers compensations in europe are low. somehow we still an old country dominated by old money and the rule that only the elites can get chunks of the companies even tho they are not the one slaving. There are a few exceptions to this but those companies moved their HQ and their core in USA to get away from all this BS. such as Datadog or even Docker. oh and regarding price of accomodation paris is much more expensive than NYC. new york not being only manhattan and brooklyn for people who like to compare even modern apartments in LIC sell for half of what a 200year old apartment would sell in paris.

pedrosorio 7y ago

> The kind of stock options you get in big tech companies is not what you think. You can expect some hundreds/thousands dollars per year, that need 3/5 year to vest until you can have them in full. Did you mean tens/hundreds of thousands per year? Vesting monthly or quarterly? Because that's what "big tech companies" pay just in stocks in the Bay Area. https://www.levels.fyi/ https://www.levels.fyi/

jaynetics 7y ago

> You mention 40/80k per year being pitiful? This kind of remuneration puts you in the top 10%/5% of France population easily. These numbers are surely off. Must be more like 40%/10%. And I'd bet that a double-digit percentage of devs earn less than 40k and only very few earn 80k. Factor in that this is a job that is concentrated in big cities with a high cost of living, and these numbers don't look that great.

wazoox 7y ago
Average net salary in France hovers at 2300€/month, median net salary is ~1800€/month. At ~3200€/month you're straight in the high 10% from official statistics.
- jaynetics 7y ago
  Anything I found suggested slightly higher values, but maybe official stats can only be found by googling in French? Either way, I think all the GPs were talking about gross values. So if 1800 net is, say, 2800 gross, that is 35k/yr. In that case 40k is fairly close to the median and probably not in the top 25%.
  - wazoox 7y ago
    Indeed. :)

christophilus 7y ago

> Your 80k€ gross in e.g. France should be the equivalent of $150k for a US worker I hear this a lot, but if you're earning $150K in the US, you almost certainly have 100% medical coverage. At least, I do, and everyone I know does. The US medical system is broken, but it's OK for high-income earners. It's the low-to-middle income folks who are really hurt by it. > retirement savings Again, if you're earning $150K in the US, you probably have a nice 401K and stock options. If you're smart with your money, you can probably retire in 10 years. Again, anecdotal, but I know many who've done just that.

Galanwe 7y ago
Just to be clear, I don't want to enter any kind of comparison between EU and US pension/medical systems here! All I'm saying, is that contribution to e.g. a 401k will be done after the $150k (even though the employer will contribute with e.g. 1:1 ratio). Whereas in EU the retirement contribution is already done before the 80k euro. Actually, MANY other contributions will happen before that 80k EUR. Thus, you cannot compare _directly_ EU and US salaries, you need to adjust for a rough estimate of everything that was already deducted from the EU 80k! This is why I mention that it is more _fair_ to compare EU super-gross against US gross, because both are expressed before the heavy medical/unemployment/retirement contributions.
- xyzzyz 7y ago
  Whereas in EU the retirement contribution is already done before the 80k euro. Actually, MANY other contributions will happen before that 80k EUR. Exactly same thing is true in the US. 401k is on top of Social Security retirement benefits. Employees pay 6.2% of their salary (up to $127,000 cap) into Social Security, and the employers pay matching 6.2% on top of the gross salary. The 401k is in addition to Social Security benefits, and the Social Security benefits are already higher than the French retirement benefits.
tstrimple 7y ago
> I hear this a lot, but if you're earning $150K in the US, you almost certainly have 100% medical coverage. I'm not sure how true this is anymore. I made a bit more than this at Microsoft, and my medical benefits were "100% covered" by Microsoft. But that still amounts to thousands of dollars in deductibles and copays per year out of pocket.

redisman 7y ago

This guy (parent) took two data-points and extrapolated like he had just figured out how two continents work.