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For a plain senior software engineer position (no matter if you have 8 years of experience or 20), I would say no. The glass ceiling is at around 80K for the va
by lmarcos 6y ago
For a plain senior software engineer position (no matter if you have 8 years of experience or 20), I would say no. The glass ceiling is at around 80K for the vast majority of tech companies in Berlin and Germany (excluding the top 5% of companies).
But if you get into management, I think 100K is doable for a senior position.
Other alternative is to be a Principal Engineer (or Head of Engineering).
- brianwawok 6y agoThis is wild to me. What makes a developer in Europe earn so much less?
- imposterr 6y agoSupply and demand I would venture.
- eggsmediumrare 6y agoI have the same question about Canada.
- stu2b50 6y agoCanada is even more puzzling. You can cross the border from Vancouver to Seattle and triple your salary, pay less in income taxes, and live in a city with less rent. All over less than 100 miles.
- umvi 6y agoHow much of the Canadian salary is taken in taxes?
- nexus2045 6y agoFor me (in BC), around 25-30% and I'm slightly below 100k. The deduction is usually a little more than if you use those online tax calculators.
- theflyinghorse 6y agoFor me ends up being 28%-ish percent if my math is correct. Ether way 25-30% is a good ballpark
- ttul 6y agoI suppose that people really value being in Canada.
- theflyinghorse 6y agoSome of us do, but I think majority would hop on an airplane at a drop of a hat. Indeed, if it weren't for pandemic I myself would be looking to move to the US. Staying in Canada is very hard to justify for a software dev.
- brianwawok 6y agoIt is weird, right? Same time zone as the US, so you can't use the argument "Europe has easier access to eastern European / Indian developers in the proper time zone"... I don't think this happens across all trades either. Last I looked, a mechanic would make similar money in either country.
- davedx 6y agoSupply and demand mostly. The EU means companies have access to vast pools of talent across the whole bloc and beyond. There are not as many huge purely tech companies like FAANG here.
- pmoriarty 6y ago"Supply and demand mostly. The EU means companies have access to vast pools of talent across the whole bloc and beyond." I don't think that's it. I was looking for work in Europe 20 years ago, and they had very few tech people there back then compared to the US, and were desperate to import talent from other countries. However, their salaries were still very low compared to the US.
- balfirevic 6y agoI would seem they weren't desperate enough, would it not? From Wikipedia [0]: A demand schedule [...] represents the amount of a certain good that buyers are willing and able to purchase at various prices. That demand is large at low salaries but low at higher salaries just means that demand isn't very high (or as high as it is in US). [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand
- pmoriarty 6y agoMaybe so, but 20 years ago it wasn't a case of having "vast talent pools" in the EU, as they just didn't exist. Also, there are limits to what companies can afford to pay while still having a viable business model. They can be maximally desperate for talent, but still limited to paying only up to a certain amount.
- balfirevic 6y ago> Also, there are limits to what companies can afford to pay while still having a viable business model. They can be maximally desperate for talent, but still limited to paying only up to a certain amount. That's part of the demand curve, as commonly understood in economics, even if we might colloquially say that "there is a large demand".
- franczesko 6y agoHigh taxes, but on the other hand you receive: a top-notch public healthcare, arguably one of the best standards of living in the world (good ratio of earnings vs. expenses, strong labor law, relatively affordable rental prices).
- ashtonian 6y agoLol worth 100k?
- mopsi 6y agoYes. Nobody in Europe can even believe that things like ambulance rides could be anything but free. Those stories sound like depressing dystopia from a post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie.
- kasey_junk 6y agoFor nearly all US tech. workers an ambulance ride will be free or a nominal deductible.
- tptacek 6y agoWait, what? No. That is definitely not true. We have very good insurance, and every ambulance ride has cost a fortune.
- kasey_junk 6y agoYou have insurance where an ambulance ride doesn’t just apply to your deductible? I believe it but have never had an insurance plan like that.
- tptacek 6y agoI've had insurance from Arbor (Blue Cross) pre-ACA, from Erin's job at the Latin School (Blue Cross) pre-ACA, from Matasano (United), from BCBS on the ACA marketplace (and now at Fly, but that doesn't matter b/c...) and ambulance trips in all 4 of those, and all of them cost a fortune. Later Erin also points out that beyond the deductible cost, your ambulance has to be in-network, or it's not covered at all --- that bit our family too. I'm a defender of our insurance system, weird as that sounds, but even I won't try to stick up for how we handle ambulances.
- mrtksn 6y agoIt's not just software developers, generally people don't make much more or much less money than one another. There are exceptions of course but in general the low level job earns you the min wage and as your career improves you earn 1.2X, 1.5X, 2X, 3X and if you are a big deal you may earn 4X-5X and that's it as employee. It's not even about the taxes and I don't think it's about the supply and demand too. In Europe, including the UK, there are not many high growth VC funded companies, so most companies operate on thin margins and there's not much room to wiggle. That said, even 200GBP/EUR increase on your salary usually goes long way.
- knowhy 6y agoEmployers pay half of social security, health insurance and stuff like that on top of the salary. The costs for a company to hire one employee for 60k gross is about 75k. US dollar does not equal Euro. 75k Euro is currently around 92k USD. The difference is not that big.
- balfirevic 6y agoI'm not from US, but my understanding is that when people quote the US salary figure it also doesn't include all costs that employer has to hire an employee.
- doopy1 6y agoCorrect. It costs's a lot to hire a new employee. I'd say for a small/medium size company hiring an engineer in the 100k-200k range, the cost of hiring is easily at least 6 months of that person's salary if not more.
- balfirevic 6y agoThat too, of course, but I didn't mean expenses like office space, training etc. but things like additional benefits/insurance that employer pays in addition to salary that can be considered part of compensation package but don't get paid to the employee.
- kasey_junk 6y agoTypically the employer cost in the US for an employee is between 1.5-3x their salary cost because the employer is paying things like health care and taxes.
- balfirevic 6y agoWhoa, that's a huge range. Do you know what number is typical for (higher paid, 100K+) tech workers?
- 6y ago
- mosselman 6y agoIt isn't less. The quality of life in Europe, the northern countries like Germany and the Netherlands, let alone Sweden, Norway is far higher than that in the US. This comes at a cost, but it is up to you to determine whether it is worth it. Don't get me wrong, the US is great and there is probably a lot of room for nuance in what I am saying here and I am most likely wrong. So take this with a grain of salt: Things that seem better in Europe (most developed countries in Europe at least): universal health care, better privacy protections, better political situation (seeing as the US is a flawed democracy [1]), and many other quality of life things [2]. You could argue that if you are rich, these things touch you way less in the US, which is true. But I also like not having to drive through poverty on my way to drop off my kids somewhere. I also enjoy knowing that where I live people don't end up in the streets due to getting some illness because of fictionally high health care costs. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index
- pc86 6y agoNot to nitpick but even taking that democracy index at face value, the US is .05 from the same category as all those countries you mention. It's not nearly as stark a comparison as you seem to be implying.
- GordonS 6y agoAs a European, I would say the US is very different from Europe. Yes, they are similar in economic terms, but the social attitudes, economic attitudes and worldview feel starkly different. Of course the US is big place, and this varies among states, but still.
- burntoutfire 6y agoThat may be the case, but as a software dev in the US, you're actually the beneficiary (via your very high salary) of the dog-eat-dog market economics that dominate the US. Whereas in Europe, as a developer you're just expected to be content with a mediocre salary, like everybody else. The only escape out of it (in Europe) seems to be the contracting market for senior people, where the rates are on par with US non-FAANG salaries.
- nicoburns 6y agoIt's the US and specifically the Bay Area that's the outlier here. Because it has a few hugely rich tech companies and is pumped full of VC cash.
- balfirevic 6y agoI find it really funny how often European and US developers are incredulous of each other's salaries :)
- umvi 6y agoFor some reason Japan pays software developers peanuts as well, which I don't get since some of my favorite software comes from Japan (Nintendo, FromSoftware, Square Enix, Sony)
- ingvul 6y agoIt's just different. Why would developers in Europe make the same money as developers in China/US/Argentina? Different places, different salaries. Personally I envy the high salaries in the US (for devs) but I wouldn't move to the US because in Europe I got 30 days of vacation plus public holidays (which makes around 45 days off per year... paid) working full-time (35 hours/week)... and anyway, if one wants to make serious money as a developer, the only way is to bootstrap your own SaSS; working for others (in Europe or in US) only gets you so far.
- volgo 6y agoThat's wild... As much as I love to complain about the bay area, being able to go upwards of $500k for an individual contributor keeps me here. Even taking into account of increased medical costs and crappy public transport, still very much worth it. Don't think there's any place it on Earth that pays this much
- mrich 6y agoWhat would be the job description/daily tasks of an individual contributor with such compensation?
- giantg2 6y agoBe able to code better than God. Then give God's code a review.
- koenbok 6y agoIt's good to have a place like that. It's hard that it can take much more then you wish for, from not feeling productive all the way to taking all of the fun out of building. Watch out for that if you can. Also, Berlin is a pretty awesome place pushing some very cool things, both in and outside of venture tech.
- giantg2 6y ago"... upwards of $500k for an individual contributor ..." Sucks that I suck. Edit: Why are you down voting? I suck and will never make that sort of money.
- quickthrower2 6y agoBut if you want or need 500k I’m guessing your list of potential companies to work for is small, and you’d have to work for a FAANG style co.
- TheDom 6y agoNot necessarily, the market is very competitive here. But to get to $500k TC as an IC (<= L5), your company will have to do well to increase the value of your grants by ~50-100%. But that is not uncommon or unrealistic.
- thurn 6y agoBut... why are you excluding the top 5% of companies? That seems like it's precisely the answer to this question, there are several large companies with engineers in Berlin that pay in this range. levels.fyi shows numerous data points of L5 engineers at Amazon's Berlin office getting ~€110,000 for example.
- mamon 6y agoI would guess that GP doesn't feel qualified... Earning a shitload of money once you've joined FAANG is the easy part, hard part is getting hired by FAANG in the first place.
- ingvul 6y agoI guess it's because not everybody can work at the top 5% of companies. Not only because the entry level is higher than on average companies... it's also a question of physics: the top 5% of companies cannot hire 100% of the pool of developers. So, the vast majority of developers out there (including HN) will never work for a top 5% company.
- DasIch 6y agoI’m a senior engineer at a large Berlin company and I make 82k. We have a program to share salaries between employees internally, based on that and conversations with my lead I understand that I’m not at the top of the salary band. You can probably make 90k before you’d need a promotion to principal engineer or switch to management. Our company is also not aiming to pay above average salaries, as explained company wide by people on a VP-level. Context: 4 years of work experience.
- fileeditview 6y agoAlso reflects my experience. There are big companies in Germany where you can basically stay forever and auto-progress into the ~100k range even as a "plain" software engineer. However while still holding this title you will have more tasks that require leadership.