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It was hard to read this... You'd need to write code that produces unicorn pastries to be able to go anywhere near such numbers here in Europe.. But the saddes

It was hard to read this... You'd need to write code that produces unicorn pastries to be able to go anywhere near such numbers here in Europe.. But the saddest thing about most dev jobs is that even the outcome can literally make companies millions/billions, the devs are rarely awarded for it. Take sales,for instance. You sell a few million worth of licencing and you get a nice comp.. As a dev, you write code that speeds up a process by 20%, the company increases profit margins and you get..well, a trip to a conference, if you are lucky.. Citadel is a good example,where even devs can earn substantial amounts off successful trading strategies,but then it's still a US company with only a handful of people working for them.

pc86 6y ago
America, if you can refer to it in a monolithic context, has decided that individualism, self-reliance, entrepreneurship, etc. trump a lot of things. Almost no social safety net (barely enough to prevent you from starving or dying in the street, and not much more, and most of that won't even come from the government but from faith-based charity), but yeah if you're a software developer you might be able to make an extra $50-75k/yr compared to Europe. But how much are you going to have in student loans? I graduated in '08 with about $22k and that was a lot back then. What's someone graduating last year or this year going to graduate with? There's pros and cons to both approaches, both at individual and societal levels, but I rarely hear Europeans acknowledge why US companies can pay its developers so much more.
- cosmodisk 6y ago
  I'm happy to discuss those 'why'. The cost of student loans or lack of social safety net hardly warrants higher salaries. This is probably more related to the availability of the specialists (immigration rules, the local supply of devs coming from universities,etc).Very few companies even in the US can pay 200-300K salaries to devs,most don't come anywhere near that.My main point is that European companies are less likely to reward employees,even though their contributions far exceed the costs. Similar trends are seen in other fields: recently, top tier law firms in London complained that the US companies with divisions in London can push graduate salaries to £100K. The same market,yet very different willingness to pay.
  - foogazi 6y ago
    > Similar trends are seen in other fields: recently, top tier law firms in London complained The takeaway for me is “complained”. If it’s the same market why the difference in “willingness to pay”? Are they holding on to higher margins or have higher costs?
    - cosmodisk 6y ago
      Not an expert in legal field but from my understanding, the US law firms moving to London was akin to a wake up call for the local firms that were very comfy.I think the US firms that tend to focus on high end services, whenever they open a shop abroad, the salaries tend to be higher. I'm already seeing this in my home country,where some firms pay 2-3 times the going local rate and the local firms would never ever pay that much.
  - pc86 6y ago
    > Very few companies even in the US can pay 200-300K salaries to devs I would definitely agree with that. $200-300k is an outlier in the US, but $120k is an outlier in Europe, even for Staff-level engineers.

pc86 6y ago

America, if you can refer to it in a monolithic context, has decided that individualism, self-reliance, entrepreneurship, etc. trump a lot of things. Almost no social safety net (barely enough to prevent you from starving or dying in the street, and not much more, and most of that won't even come from the government but from faith-based charity), but yeah if you're a software developer you might be able to make an extra $50-75k/yr compared to Europe. But how much are you going to have in student loans? I graduated in '08 with about $22k and that was a lot back then. What's someone graduating last year or this year going to graduate with? There's pros and cons to both approaches, both at individual and societal levels, but I rarely hear Europeans acknowledge why US companies can pay its developers so much more.

cosmodisk 6y ago
I'm happy to discuss those 'why'. The cost of student loans or lack of social safety net hardly warrants higher salaries. This is probably more related to the availability of the specialists (immigration rules, the local supply of devs coming from universities,etc).Very few companies even in the US can pay 200-300K salaries to devs,most don't come anywhere near that.My main point is that European companies are less likely to reward employees,even though their contributions far exceed the costs. Similar trends are seen in other fields: recently, top tier law firms in London complained that the US companies with divisions in London can push graduate salaries to £100K. The same market,yet very different willingness to pay.
- foogazi 6y ago
  > Similar trends are seen in other fields: recently, top tier law firms in London complained The takeaway for me is “complained”. If it’s the same market why the difference in “willingness to pay”? Are they holding on to higher margins or have higher costs?
  - cosmodisk 6y ago
    Not an expert in legal field but from my understanding, the US law firms moving to London was akin to a wake up call for the local firms that were very comfy.I think the US firms that tend to focus on high end services, whenever they open a shop abroad, the salaries tend to be higher. I'm already seeing this in my home country,where some firms pay 2-3 times the going local rate and the local firms would never ever pay that much.
- pc86 6y ago
  > Very few companies even in the US can pay 200-300K salaries to devs I would definitely agree with that. $200-300k is an outlier in the US, but $120k is an outlier in Europe, even for Staff-level engineers.