7 ms·

European developers don't need to live in areas though, where they have to pay 2 million dollars for a house and they have social security and health care. This

by myspy 6y ago

European developers don't need to live in areas though, where they have to pay 2 million dollars for a house and they have social security and health care. This lessens your argument.

jonfw 6y ago
US developers don't have to live in those areas either, to still earn significantly more than EU developers earn.
ChuckNorris89 6y ago
Social security and healthcare is definitely awesome, but have you checked house prices near big German cities like Munich? They're much closer to Bay Area prices while salaries are very far away. Europeans who keep tooting that "we don't need US salaries" tend to be the more privileged ones who will also inherit a house from their boomer parents and take it for granted, so they don't feel the stress of the rat race with skyrocketing house prices and income inequality. So no, we DO want better paying jobs and lower taxes otherwise we'll go back to a feudalistic society where a select few own the housing and means of production through inheritance and everyone else and their offspring will forever be stuck working for the upper class so they can consume their products and pay them rent. In most of the US, learning leet-code offers one a meritocratic lift up to the upper class while in most of Europe(except the East) it does not.
- rusk 6y ago
  > have you checked house prices near big German cities like Munich? People generally don’t buy but rent and the rental market is set in such a way as not to gouge people. Still expensive but salaries are relatively high and in all other respects costs of living is very reasonable
- balfirevic 6y ago
  > while in most of Europe(except the East) it does not. Wait, something doesn't add up here. I see many programmers migrating from eastern to western Europe, but not the other way around. It is true that programming as a profession will offer comparatively higher standard of living in eastern Europe (when compared to other professions), but that's because the overall standard of living is lower than it is in the west.
  - betaby 6y ago
    A lot of people move from Eastern Europe to Western because the political (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine) and LGBT (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland) reasons, not money.
    - balfirevic 6y ago
      I'm aware, but that's not related to my comment, unless you're actually claiming that programmers have lower standard of living in the western Europe compared to eastern Europe (which I believe to be false).
      - betaby 6y ago
        Belarus, Ukraine, Russia have low taxation for the salaries in IT (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus_High_Technologies_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus_High_Technologies_Park) To have your own 2-3 room flat in Minsk (Capital) by the age of 35 is pretty common for Belarusian programmers and basically unheard in the West. So yes, I can argue that programmers can have higher standards of life at home than your typical "tech hub" like London, Munchen or Dublin.
    - tsimionescu 6y ago
      Not at all. By far the biggest engine of emigration is money. In my country (Romania) there are millions of people working in western Europe (2 million in Spain, 1 million in Italy, probably something similar in the UK + Germany + France). A large number of them are parents who leave their children at home and work for most of the year there to gather money. Even if you're talking about just software devs, people still move to the west for higher salaries, though I believe there is more movement towards the US, especially since the software industry has a lot of local branches of US companies. But I can tell you from the ground that at least the common perception is that you are generally going to be wealthier as a software developer in western Europe than in Romania, even though in Romania software devs tend to be much better off than the majority of the workforce (and even though software devs in Romania don't pay income tax on their salaries, which is a nice 15% rebate).
majidazimi 6y ago
I live and work in Munich and I have to pay half a million euros for a 25m^2 box. EU is cheaper than US is a fallacy.
- balfirevic 6y ago
  Wow, really? 20000 EUR per square meter, for small apartment in Munich? That's... more than I expected.
  - majidazimi 6y ago
    Even if it's half cheaper, a family house of 80-100m^2 costs beyond 600K which is way beyond affordability range of a couple both working as software engineers let alone people with non-tech jobs.
    - mrep 6y ago
      Why is that? Like, on the US west coast, ballooning home prices makes sense because their cities are in valleys with a fixed amount of land, but munich looks like it has a bunch of farmland around it that could be converted into housing increasing supply and thus decreasing prices. This coming from someone in chicagoland which has 9.5 million people but housing isn't crazy because the metro area sprawls 30-40 miles out into what used to farmland.
      - thehashrocket 6y ago
        If we keep plowing over farmland to build suburbs where will the farming get done?
        majidazimi 6y ago
        Build taller. Skyscraper has been invented long time ago.
        elindbe2 6y ago
        In areas not close to Munich?
briandear 6y ago
A developer in low-cost Houston, Texas still makes double or triple of what a developer in Paris, France makes.
CalRobert 6y ago
The causality is backwards. European developers are unable to bid 2 million dollars for a house, which is why they're still cheap (compared to the bay). Give it time though! The Dublin NIMBYs scream and shout anytime anyone tries to build anything, and then wonder why only tech workers can afford to live in the city centre.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
wil421 6y ago
The US Bureau of Labor and Stats says the total number of Software Developers in the US is 1.4 million. Only about 475k (1/3) live in high COL states, California, Virginia, New York, and Washington.[1] The median salary is about $106k a year which isn’t too far from €100k a year. I am not sure if these wages include non-salary comp. [1] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151256.htm#st https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151256.htm#st

by myspy 6y ago

European developers don't need to live in areas though, where they have to pay 2 million dollars for a house and they have social security and health care. This lessens your argument.

jonfw 6y ago

US developers don't have to live in those areas either, to still earn significantly more than EU developers earn.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago

Social security and healthcare is definitely awesome, but have you checked house prices near big German cities like Munich? They're much closer to Bay Area prices while salaries are very far away. Europeans who keep tooting that "we don't need US salaries" tend to be the more privileged ones who will also inherit a house from their boomer parents and take it for granted, so they don't feel the stress of the rat race with skyrocketing house prices and income inequality. So no, we DO want better paying jobs and lower taxes otherwise we'll go back to a feudalistic society where a select few own the housing and means of production through inheritance and everyone else and their offspring will forever be stuck working for the upper class so they can consume their products and pay them rent. In most of the US, learning leet-code offers one a meritocratic lift up to the upper class while in most of Europe(except the East) it does not.

rusk 6y ago
> have you checked house prices near big German cities like Munich? People generally don’t buy but rent and the rental market is set in such a way as not to gouge people. Still expensive but salaries are relatively high and in all other respects costs of living is very reasonable
balfirevic 6y ago
> while in most of Europe(except the East) it does not. Wait, something doesn't add up here. I see many programmers migrating from eastern to western Europe, but not the other way around. It is true that programming as a profession will offer comparatively higher standard of living in eastern Europe (when compared to other professions), but that's because the overall standard of living is lower than it is in the west.
- betaby 6y ago
  A lot of people move from Eastern Europe to Western because the political (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine) and LGBT (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland) reasons, not money.
  - balfirevic 6y ago
    I'm aware, but that's not related to my comment, unless you're actually claiming that programmers have lower standard of living in the western Europe compared to eastern Europe (which I believe to be false).
    - betaby 6y ago
      Belarus, Ukraine, Russia have low taxation for the salaries in IT (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus_High_Technologies_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus_High_Technologies_Park) To have your own 2-3 room flat in Minsk (Capital) by the age of 35 is pretty common for Belarusian programmers and basically unheard in the West. So yes, I can argue that programmers can have higher standards of life at home than your typical "tech hub" like London, Munchen or Dublin.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    Not at all. By far the biggest engine of emigration is money. In my country (Romania) there are millions of people working in western Europe (2 million in Spain, 1 million in Italy, probably something similar in the UK + Germany + France). A large number of them are parents who leave their children at home and work for most of the year there to gather money. Even if you're talking about just software devs, people still move to the west for higher salaries, though I believe there is more movement towards the US, especially since the software industry has a lot of local branches of US companies. But I can tell you from the ground that at least the common perception is that you are generally going to be wealthier as a software developer in western Europe than in Romania, even though in Romania software devs tend to be much better off than the majority of the workforce (and even though software devs in Romania don't pay income tax on their salaries, which is a nice 15% rebate).

majidazimi 6y ago

I live and work in Munich and I have to pay half a million euros for a 25m^2 box. EU is cheaper than US is a fallacy.

balfirevic 6y ago
Wow, really? 20000 EUR per square meter, for small apartment in Munich? That's... more than I expected.
- majidazimi 6y ago
  Even if it's half cheaper, a family house of 80-100m^2 costs beyond 600K which is way beyond affordability range of a couple both working as software engineers let alone people with non-tech jobs.
  - mrep 6y ago
    Why is that? Like, on the US west coast, ballooning home prices makes sense because their cities are in valleys with a fixed amount of land, but munich looks like it has a bunch of farmland around it that could be converted into housing increasing supply and thus decreasing prices. This coming from someone in chicagoland which has 9.5 million people but housing isn't crazy because the metro area sprawls 30-40 miles out into what used to farmland.
    - thehashrocket 6y ago
      If we keep plowing over farmland to build suburbs where will the farming get done?
      - majidazimi 6y ago
        Build taller. Skyscraper has been invented long time ago.
      - elindbe2 6y ago
        In areas not close to Munich?

briandear 6y ago

A developer in low-cost Houston, Texas still makes double or triple of what a developer in Paris, France makes.

CalRobert 6y ago

The causality is backwards. European developers are unable to bid 2 million dollars for a house, which is why they're still cheap (compared to the bay). Give it time though! The Dublin NIMBYs scream and shout anytime anyone tries to build anything, and then wonder why only tech workers can afford to live in the city centre.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

wil421 6y ago

The US Bureau of Labor and Stats says the total number of Software Developers in the US is 1.4 million. Only about 475k (1/3) live in high COL states, California, Virginia, New York, and Washington.[1] The median salary is about $106k a year which isn’t too far from €100k a year. I am not sure if these wages include non-salary comp. [1] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151256.htm#st https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151256.htm#st