7 ms·

Base salary is higher in the US just because there’s more demand and less supply. Big tech firms + tech startups + majority of engineering depts/HQs in the US m

Base salary is higher in the US just because there’s more demand and less supply. Big tech firms + tech startups + majority of engineering depts/HQs in the US means competition is high for software engineering talent. I’ve worked in the U.K. and speaking with many data scientists from other parts of Europe, they say that the real data science work is just non-existent elsewhere and pays less.

barrkel 7y ago
The US has more supply, not less. But the demand is even higher. Supply and demand around industry verticals in geographic hubs like SV doesn't follow simplistic supply & demand laws. More labour means more fuel for starting fires, and lots of fires require more fuel to grow, throwing off more and more heat (profit); meanwhile, if you're in a fuel-scarce region, to pursue the metaphor, it may not be possible to start a fire at all. Salaries are high because the companies have global scale and are competing with other companies with global scale, but they can only be global scale because they have lots of labour supply, and they only have that because they're co-located and can utilize fungibility in the labour market. There's little need for data scientists in small local companies.
- tixocloud 7y ago
  Sorry. When I mentioned less supply, it was in reference to the US market having high demand but insufficient supply so yes, agreed. The environment in the US is just at a different level compared to everywhere else.
raverbashing 7y ago
For data scientist positions, I wonder how many of those are created and hired for but management still doesn't know what to do with the data they produce. (Or even how good and/or actionable the data is)
- tixocloud 7y ago
  Very experimental at this stage although my role is leadership around getting things to production. Data is actionable but a lot of processes/frameworks need to be developed for people to feel comfortable with AI/ML being just a regular part of business process.

barrkel 7y ago

The US has more supply, not less. But the demand is even higher. Supply and demand around industry verticals in geographic hubs like SV doesn't follow simplistic supply & demand laws. More labour means more fuel for starting fires, and lots of fires require more fuel to grow, throwing off more and more heat (profit); meanwhile, if you're in a fuel-scarce region, to pursue the metaphor, it may not be possible to start a fire at all. Salaries are high because the companies have global scale and are competing with other companies with global scale, but they can only be global scale because they have lots of labour supply, and they only have that because they're co-located and can utilize fungibility in the labour market. There's little need for data scientists in small local companies.

tixocloud 7y ago
Sorry. When I mentioned less supply, it was in reference to the US market having high demand but insufficient supply so yes, agreed. The environment in the US is just at a different level compared to everywhere else.

raverbashing 7y ago

For data scientist positions, I wonder how many of those are created and hired for but management still doesn't know what to do with the data they produce. (Or even how good and/or actionable the data is)

tixocloud 7y ago
Very experimental at this stage although my role is leadership around getting things to production. Data is actionable but a lot of processes/frameworks need to be developed for people to feel comfortable with AI/ML being just a regular part of business process.