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> I have no doubts brilliant European engineers are going to work on the hard problems of shipping a next gen chip process and design... In America! Exactly. T

> I have no doubts brilliant European engineers are going to work on the hard problems of shipping a next gen chip process and design... In America! Exactly. The salaries in EU are pitiful.

usr1106 6y ago
Tech salaries in the US are not sustainable. We don't have enough planets to run economies and waste natural resources at that velocity. Well, probably the same is true for the "pitiful" salaries in the EU. Just to a lesser degree.
- neltnerb 6y ago
  Yet tech salaries in Vancouver combined with real estate values make it so that most tech jobs are barely living wage, at least when my partner and I tried hard to make it work some years ago. Even with universal health care (which wasn't quite what they have) it couldn't possibly make up the difference for someone with college debt. I'd argue that if you got a CS degree from an American college you're probably just forced to work in the US simply because the other prospective employees can accept a lower salary due to a lower debt load. Maybe the best of the best can find a way to earn American salaries overseas but I really don't think that's as common as the HN crowd might assume.
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    The situation in Vancouver is caused by out of control immigration quotas. Real estate there is a way to park assets in a safe jurisdiction. Seattle has a much healthier market both for devs and real estate and is only three hours away. Only difference in healthcare is while american top devs get it on top of their compensation packages, canadians pay for it with their prohibitive income tax rates. It's pretty easy to take the total spending percentage that goes to healthcare and multiply it by your income tax to see how much a dev is really paying for healthcare.
  - bpye 6y ago
    I don't think Vancouver is as bad as you make it out to be. No, you will not make the same money here as in Seattle, it's often something like a 1/3rd pay cut. That is not a bad income however, it is easily enough to rent and whilst real estate in Vancouver proper may be expensive there is reliable transit and property in the other cities such as Burnaby, Richmond, Coquitlam etc is significantly less expensive. I'm also not quite sure what you mean with your point about healthcare. MSP premiums were eliminated last year [0], there is now no charge to access medical care. Prescriptions, dental and eye care are all still chargeable, though prescriptions at least are essentially capped through BC Fair Pharmacare [1]. Compared to the US, Canada is much easier for immigration as a tech worker. One can get PR (equivalent of a green card) before landing if they have a sufficient points score, in BC that's fairly easy through the tech PNP [2] and a willing employer. Additionally Vancouver consistently ranks among the top 10 most liveable cities [3]. [0] - https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/health-drug-coverage/msp/bc-residents/premiums https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/health-drug-covera... [1] - https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/health-drug-coverage/pharmacare-for-bc-residents/who-we-cover/fair-pharmacare-plan https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/health-drug-covera... [2] - https://www.welcomebc.ca/Immigrate-to-B-C/B-C-Provincial-Nominee-Program/BC-PNP-Tech-Pilot https://www.welcomebc.ca/Immigrate-to-B-C/B-C-Provincial-Nom... [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Liveability_Ranking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Liveability_Ranking
ATsch 6y ago
That's an understandable reaction if you just look at the raw USD value, but that's very far from the full picture. They are not pitiful when you start adding the costs for housing, healthcare, transportation and the rest of the things that you need to live. Compared to the huge wage increase, the increase in living standard is very minor (and in some regards worse, e.g. the amount of time you lose daily to the car centric infrastructure). The number and quality of available jobs in the SV region was a much bigger factor to everyone I've spoken to that moved from the EU.
- Nursie 6y ago
  They still are pretty pitiful across Europe even after that, compared to Canada and Australia as well as the US. In the UK the problem seems to be the company owner/manager class see software people roughly the same as any other office worker, rather than as skilled producers of products. As a result they pay peanuts, and then are surprised when they get less than stellar results. Not sure what the reason might be elsewhere, but across the rest of the continent the pay seems even worse.
  - kwere 6y ago
    italy is the same and maybe worse (outside of Milan bubble)
- TMWNN 6y ago
  >That's an understandable reaction if you just look at the raw USD value, but that's very far from the full picture. They are not pitiful when you start adding the costs for housing, healthcare, transportation and the rest of the things that you need to live. At $45,284 the US has the highest household net disposable income per capita in the OECD (http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/united-states/ http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/united-states/), where "disposable income" (http://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=46 http://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=46) accounts for healthcare and government benefits.
  - kortilla 6y ago
pietrovismara 6y ago
Global purchase power is a very limited and 100% american way to assess work compensation. In europe we don't care only about the number but about many other factors.
- pertymcpert 6y ago
  Yeah but try buying a house in London with a London salary. It’s even harder than trying to buy one in the Bay Area with a tech salary.

> I have no doubts brilliant European engineers are going to work on the hard problems of shipping a next gen chip process and design... In America! Exactly. The salaries in EU are pitiful.

usr1106 6y ago

Tech salaries in the US are not sustainable. We don't have enough planets to run economies and waste natural resources at that velocity. Well, probably the same is true for the "pitiful" salaries in the EU. Just to a lesser degree.

neltnerb 6y ago
Yet tech salaries in Vancouver combined with real estate values make it so that most tech jobs are barely living wage, at least when my partner and I tried hard to make it work some years ago. Even with universal health care (which wasn't quite what they have) it couldn't possibly make up the difference for someone with college debt. I'd argue that if you got a CS degree from an American college you're probably just forced to work in the US simply because the other prospective employees can accept a lower salary due to a lower debt load. Maybe the best of the best can find a way to earn American salaries overseas but I really don't think that's as common as the HN crowd might assume.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  The situation in Vancouver is caused by out of control immigration quotas. Real estate there is a way to park assets in a safe jurisdiction. Seattle has a much healthier market both for devs and real estate and is only three hours away. Only difference in healthcare is while american top devs get it on top of their compensation packages, canadians pay for it with their prohibitive income tax rates. It's pretty easy to take the total spending percentage that goes to healthcare and multiply it by your income tax to see how much a dev is really paying for healthcare.
- bpye 6y ago
  I don't think Vancouver is as bad as you make it out to be. No, you will not make the same money here as in Seattle, it's often something like a 1/3rd pay cut. That is not a bad income however, it is easily enough to rent and whilst real estate in Vancouver proper may be expensive there is reliable transit and property in the other cities such as Burnaby, Richmond, Coquitlam etc is significantly less expensive. I'm also not quite sure what you mean with your point about healthcare. MSP premiums were eliminated last year [0], there is now no charge to access medical care. Prescriptions, dental and eye care are all still chargeable, though prescriptions at least are essentially capped through BC Fair Pharmacare [1]. Compared to the US, Canada is much easier for immigration as a tech worker. One can get PR (equivalent of a green card) before landing if they have a sufficient points score, in BC that's fairly easy through the tech PNP [2] and a willing employer. Additionally Vancouver consistently ranks among the top 10 most liveable cities [3]. [0] - https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/health-drug-coverage/msp/bc-residents/premiums https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/health-drug-covera... [1] - https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/health-drug-coverage/pharmacare-for-bc-residents/who-we-cover/fair-pharmacare-plan https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/health-drug-covera... [2] - https://www.welcomebc.ca/Immigrate-to-B-C/B-C-Provincial-Nominee-Program/BC-PNP-Tech-Pilot https://www.welcomebc.ca/Immigrate-to-B-C/B-C-Provincial-Nom... [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Liveability_Ranking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Liveability_Ranking

ATsch 6y ago

That's an understandable reaction if you just look at the raw USD value, but that's very far from the full picture. They are not pitiful when you start adding the costs for housing, healthcare, transportation and the rest of the things that you need to live. Compared to the huge wage increase, the increase in living standard is very minor (and in some regards worse, e.g. the amount of time you lose daily to the car centric infrastructure). The number and quality of available jobs in the SV region was a much bigger factor to everyone I've spoken to that moved from the EU.

Nursie 6y ago
They still are pretty pitiful across Europe even after that, compared to Canada and Australia as well as the US. In the UK the problem seems to be the company owner/manager class see software people roughly the same as any other office worker, rather than as skilled producers of products. As a result they pay peanuts, and then are surprised when they get less than stellar results. Not sure what the reason might be elsewhere, but across the rest of the continent the pay seems even worse.
- kwere 6y ago
  italy is the same and maybe worse (outside of Milan bubble)
TMWNN 6y ago
>That's an understandable reaction if you just look at the raw USD value, but that's very far from the full picture. They are not pitiful when you start adding the costs for housing, healthcare, transportation and the rest of the things that you need to live. At $45,284 the US has the highest household net disposable income per capita in the OECD (http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/united-states/ http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/united-states/), where "disposable income" (http://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=46 http://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=46) accounts for healthcare and government benefits.
- kortilla 6y ago

pietrovismara 6y ago

Global purchase power is a very limited and 100% american way to assess work compensation. In europe we don't care only about the number but about many other factors.

pertymcpert 6y ago
Yeah but try buying a house in London with a London salary. It’s even harder than trying to buy one in the Bay Area with a tech salary.