9 ms·

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 t

by 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
  And that’s not even specific to tech salaries. A typical Bay Area TC of $250-400k for a senior engineer will also include great healthcare so there is basically no competition in any European location. You have to specifically want to live in a European city for the culture/walkability/etc or else there is just no reason to take tech jobs there.
  - lumost 6y ago
    You can get the walkability side in any of northeastern cities such as NYC, Boston, and to a lesser extent D.C. Pay is comparable to the Bay given the cost of living difference.
    - Bahamut 6y ago
      Comparable is generally not true - the difference is maybe ~$30k at best in DC vs. the Bay Area for example, but DC compensation is nowhere near what you can get in the Bay Area. The only thing in the US that beats it it seems is NYC area finance (i.e. hedge funds).
  - zorpner 6y ago
    > A typical Bay Area TC of $250-400k for a senior engineer will also include great healthcare Notionally, yes, but in reality it will be the same blighted hellscape of insurance denials, out-of-network complexity, and lack of consistency as everyone else's healthcare in America. You can hire someone to help you navigate it, which is a remarkable economic construct.
  - stiray 6y ago
    You have actually addressed the actual issue here but from wrong perspective. Culture is the issue here. EU tries to live, USA tries to earn. If the only thing that interests you is money then yes, probably USA is the right direction. Of all the people that I know that went working outside of their country, they were mostly going to EU companies (or USA companies in Europe), sometimes to the Asia. None left for USA. On the other side I know a CTO that left USA for Europe and bought a small property in France where he lives with whole family. This shows very well in environmental laws, gdpr, protection of workers, actually having friends, nature, having hill-climbing organizations that aren't only lobist groups to be actually allowed to climb the mountains, public transport, able to drink spring water in center of capital city, most people working 40h/week max, actually do use their vacations in one piece, free education, maternity leave measured in years not months (yes under a year too but not month or two),... So it depends on the personal cultural preference. Some people just love the money and things they can buy with it, maybe even power that it brings and surely a lot of such people are also in EU. The difference is in the percentage of population although Hollywood did great job at exporting the view of world trough money glasses. --- Regarding the topic. EU was quite satisfied with buying processors from the States, it was also happy with using Windows, Android, Apple thing. The problem is, as in every other thing, USA corporations became vampires that wants to eat you alive from pure greed and systemic addiction to blood (endless growth). It has become imperative to produce our own processors as you can no longer trust USA or China to not shovel inside some spying equipment. Well the times have changed and it is no longer an option to buy it from USA/China, so EU has moved forward and dont worry, we will have our own chips our own phones and operating system (linux, sailfish or something else...). EU is an elephant and it needs a lot of coordination of muscles to move its legs but once it starts moving... I am sorry, I would love to just use the USA/China products and not re-develop hardware (based on what we know now, maybe not dragging 40 years old anchor of previous development with me), not having a need for GDPR, but they have both just screwed everything up from pure greed. Now we need to fix it and a lot of time and resources will have to go that way. But we will eventually fix it.
bennysonething 6y ago
Honestly, I looked into this for myself a few years ago. I always hear this health care, holidays cost of living argument. It just doesn't add up. Europe's salaries are just too low.

by ATsch 6y ago

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
And that’s not even specific to tech salaries. A typical Bay Area TC of $250-400k for a senior engineer will also include great healthcare so there is basically no competition in any European location. You have to specifically want to live in a European city for the culture/walkability/etc or else there is just no reason to take tech jobs there.
- lumost 6y ago
  You can get the walkability side in any of northeastern cities such as NYC, Boston, and to a lesser extent D.C. Pay is comparable to the Bay given the cost of living difference.
  - Bahamut 6y ago
    Comparable is generally not true - the difference is maybe ~$30k at best in DC vs. the Bay Area for example, but DC compensation is nowhere near what you can get in the Bay Area. The only thing in the US that beats it it seems is NYC area finance (i.e. hedge funds).
- zorpner 6y ago
  > A typical Bay Area TC of $250-400k for a senior engineer will also include great healthcare Notionally, yes, but in reality it will be the same blighted hellscape of insurance denials, out-of-network complexity, and lack of consistency as everyone else's healthcare in America. You can hire someone to help you navigate it, which is a remarkable economic construct.
- stiray 6y ago
  You have actually addressed the actual issue here but from wrong perspective. Culture is the issue here. EU tries to live, USA tries to earn. If the only thing that interests you is money then yes, probably USA is the right direction. Of all the people that I know that went working outside of their country, they were mostly going to EU companies (or USA companies in Europe), sometimes to the Asia. None left for USA. On the other side I know a CTO that left USA for Europe and bought a small property in France where he lives with whole family. This shows very well in environmental laws, gdpr, protection of workers, actually having friends, nature, having hill-climbing organizations that aren't only lobist groups to be actually allowed to climb the mountains, public transport, able to drink spring water in center of capital city, most people working 40h/week max, actually do use their vacations in one piece, free education, maternity leave measured in years not months (yes under a year too but not month or two),... So it depends on the personal cultural preference. Some people just love the money and things they can buy with it, maybe even power that it brings and surely a lot of such people are also in EU. The difference is in the percentage of population although Hollywood did great job at exporting the view of world trough money glasses. --- Regarding the topic. EU was quite satisfied with buying processors from the States, it was also happy with using Windows, Android, Apple thing. The problem is, as in every other thing, USA corporations became vampires that wants to eat you alive from pure greed and systemic addiction to blood (endless growth). It has become imperative to produce our own processors as you can no longer trust USA or China to not shovel inside some spying equipment. Well the times have changed and it is no longer an option to buy it from USA/China, so EU has moved forward and dont worry, we will have our own chips our own phones and operating system (linux, sailfish or something else...). EU is an elephant and it needs a lot of coordination of muscles to move its legs but once it starts moving... I am sorry, I would love to just use the USA/China products and not re-develop hardware (based on what we know now, maybe not dragging 40 years old anchor of previous development with me), not having a need for GDPR, but they have both just screwed everything up from pure greed. Now we need to fix it and a lot of time and resources will have to go that way. But we will eventually fix it.

bennysonething 6y ago

Honestly, I looked into this for myself a few years ago. I always hear this health care, holidays cost of living argument. It just doesn't add up. Europe's salaries are just too low.