4 ms·

doesn't that depend on where you live, though? A Software Engineer in the bay area gets paid a lot more than a Software Engineer with equivalent experience in

doesn't that depend on where you live, though? A Software Engineer in the bay area gets paid a lot more than a Software Engineer with equivalent experience in the mid-west.

chrisseaton 6y ago
But there's almost nowhere in Canada or Europe where you can get the kind of $750k packages that you see fairly routinely for normal developers at ultra elite companies like Google in the Bay Area. How can Canada or Europe really compete with that?
- myrion 6y ago
  In no small part by not being the US. Currently, no salary would be enough to motivate me to move there, f.ex.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- cosmodisk 6y ago
  $750K is a lot in almost any context for non executives. There are literally thousands upon thousands in Europe who could have those jobs because of the skills they've got,but they choose not to because: they'd rather live in their own country,family dependencies, existing social networking,lack of purely financial motivation and etc.
- ajuc 6y ago
  By being a much more pleasant place to live. I live in one of the less wealthy EU countries. Almost everybody have 26 days of paid leave a year here. If I'm sick it's additional paid leave. University education and healthcare is free. Retirement is handled as well (but you got to save something yourself additionally if you want quality time on retirement). There's a combined year of paid maternity/paternity leave for each kid. Cities are clean and safe, police shoots like 100 bullets a year nationally and usually it's warning shots. There were no mass shootings, ever. Last time police killed someone without obvious explanation it was a huge scandal and it's still discussed 4 years later on national level. I use a car once a month at most, usually I ride a bike or just walk everywhere. There's also public transport that's cheap, clean and dependable (not so great during the pandemic though). There's no social stigma associated with walking/biking or using public transport. Property tax is almost nonexistent, if you work as a senior developer you can buy several flats in a big city, rent them, and live from that, if you wish. You can buy a flat in a big city for about 5 years of average developer's salary. All the costs of living are set for people who earn less than 1/5th of what you earn. You have all the interesting countries right there, you can visit them by bike, car, train, or fly (if you are flexible with the date usually you can find 2-way flights for less than $100 between any 2 places in EU). I mean it would be nice to have millions of USD but if I have to deal with the paperwork, no holidays to speak of, spend hours in traffic every day, and afterwards the only significant difference in quality of life is a few more 0s on my bank account - nah, I'll pass. It would probably be different if I wanted to start a global business.
RandallBrown 6y ago
Looking up average software engineer salaries in Vancouver BC gets you numbers between 70 and 100k CAD. That's about what I was making in a medium (~100k) midwestern city over a decade ago and less than the average software developer there makes now. I'm pretty surprised by how big of a difference it is honestly. Even companies like Amazon and Microsoft in Vancouver were only averaging 100k CAD salaries. (Stock helps, but that would be an extremely low salary just a few hours away in Seattle)
- laurencerowe 6y ago
  Picking MI to stand for the midwest, the median wage for a Software Developer, Applications there is $89,460 vs a US median of $107,510 and CA median of $130,440. https://www.onetonline.org/link/localwages/15-1132.00?st=MI&g=Go https://www.onetonline.org/link/localwages/15-1132.00?st=MI&... There's a much greater spread of wages in the US than in other comparable countries, so it's attractive for those of us towards the higher end of the scale. Coming from the UK though I do miss the feeling of freedom from being able to take a long break between jobs and not having to worry about healthcare.
- holtalanm 6y ago
  I'm currently a software engineer in a midwestern city and the average salary for a software engineer here is only ~75k USD.

doesn't that depend on where you live, though? A Software Engineer in the bay area gets paid a lot more than a Software Engineer with equivalent experience in the mid-west.

chrisseaton 6y ago

But there's almost nowhere in Canada or Europe where you can get the kind of $750k packages that you see fairly routinely for normal developers at ultra elite companies like Google in the Bay Area. How can Canada or Europe really compete with that?

myrion 6y ago
In no small part by not being the US. Currently, no salary would be enough to motivate me to move there, f.ex.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
cosmodisk 6y ago
$750K is a lot in almost any context for non executives. There are literally thousands upon thousands in Europe who could have those jobs because of the skills they've got,but they choose not to because: they'd rather live in their own country,family dependencies, existing social networking,lack of purely financial motivation and etc.
ajuc 6y ago
By being a much more pleasant place to live. I live in one of the less wealthy EU countries. Almost everybody have 26 days of paid leave a year here. If I'm sick it's additional paid leave. University education and healthcare is free. Retirement is handled as well (but you got to save something yourself additionally if you want quality time on retirement). There's a combined year of paid maternity/paternity leave for each kid. Cities are clean and safe, police shoots like 100 bullets a year nationally and usually it's warning shots. There were no mass shootings, ever. Last time police killed someone without obvious explanation it was a huge scandal and it's still discussed 4 years later on national level. I use a car once a month at most, usually I ride a bike or just walk everywhere. There's also public transport that's cheap, clean and dependable (not so great during the pandemic though). There's no social stigma associated with walking/biking or using public transport. Property tax is almost nonexistent, if you work as a senior developer you can buy several flats in a big city, rent them, and live from that, if you wish. You can buy a flat in a big city for about 5 years of average developer's salary. All the costs of living are set for people who earn less than 1/5th of what you earn. You have all the interesting countries right there, you can visit them by bike, car, train, or fly (if you are flexible with the date usually you can find 2-way flights for less than $100 between any 2 places in EU). I mean it would be nice to have millions of USD but if I have to deal with the paperwork, no holidays to speak of, spend hours in traffic every day, and afterwards the only significant difference in quality of life is a few more 0s on my bank account - nah, I'll pass. It would probably be different if I wanted to start a global business.

RandallBrown 6y ago

Looking up average software engineer salaries in Vancouver BC gets you numbers between 70 and 100k CAD. That's about what I was making in a medium (~100k) midwestern city over a decade ago and less than the average software developer there makes now. I'm pretty surprised by how big of a difference it is honestly. Even companies like Amazon and Microsoft in Vancouver were only averaging 100k CAD salaries. (Stock helps, but that would be an extremely low salary just a few hours away in Seattle)

laurencerowe 6y ago
Picking MI to stand for the midwest, the median wage for a Software Developer, Applications there is $89,460 vs a US median of $107,510 and CA median of $130,440. https://www.onetonline.org/link/localwages/15-1132.00?st=MI&g=Go https://www.onetonline.org/link/localwages/15-1132.00?st=MI&... There's a much greater spread of wages in the US than in other comparable countries, so it's attractive for those of us towards the higher end of the scale. Coming from the UK though I do miss the feeling of freedom from being able to take a long break between jobs and not having to worry about healthcare.
holtalanm 6y ago
I'm currently a software engineer in a midwestern city and the average salary for a software engineer here is only ~75k USD.