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Careful what you wish for. The US has no guaranteed paternity/maternity leave, and the majority of workplaces have less than a month of vacation time. Then ther

Careful what you wish for. The US has no guaranteed paternity/maternity leave, and the majority of workplaces have less than a month of vacation time. Then there is the healthcare system.

deleted 6y ago
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JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
The U.S. Wage, minus paying for your own health care, minus saving for your own (p|m)aternity leave, is still greater than the European wage, at least for the Software Engineering career track. The calculation is probably more favorable to traditional middle class jobs in Europe.
- deleted 6y ago
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- deleted 6y ago
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- giantg2 6y ago
  I wonder what the pension/retirement system differences would like like too.
digianarchist 6y ago
I don't think any of these reasons explain why European SWE salaries are so low and I don't think they need to be compromised in order to raise wages.
- tolbish 6y ago
  Care to elaborate?
  - digianarchist 6y ago
    I don’t buy the idea that employing people in Europe is so expensive because of these benefit programs that wages are lowered to compensate. Some of those costs aren’t even borne by the employer.
quantumofalpha 6y ago
> Then there is the healthcare system. European healthcare systems are not exactly dream come true either. Range of treatments available/covered and waiting times can be significantly behind the US. US healthcare is actually great for an SWE making bank at a FAANG & co. Just not that amazing for common folks > The US has no guaranteed paternity/maternity leave Top tech companies all have those, it's a fairly cheap perk to provide to attract the talent > and the majority of workplaces have less than a month of vacation time I have just 20 days here in UK (on top of public holidays) too
- pjhol 6y ago
  I don't really recognise the first concern you raise, but that might also be due to the fact that viewing all European countries as the same in this regard might be overgeneralising.
  - quantumofalpha 6y ago
    Yeah there's certainly some differences between countries, but in most of Europe it seems to me healthcare is directly or indirectly largely run by the government. Whereas in US (and also Switzerland, btw, has which US-like model but without most of downsides) it's privately run. This causes difference in incentives to doctors. In the latter systems, doctors are incentivized to spend more time on you, spare no expense, get you the best treatment possible, but it is not cheap. In the former, they are incentivized to do the bare minimum
- giantg2 6y ago
  I agree that the healthcare system isn't a dream from what I hear. The main thing I see with the parent's comment though is that in the US you might be making $100k, but paying $15-20k in insurance costs. Whereas you might only be making $80k in the EU but you don't have that same insurance costs. I see this as being the same cost (ignoring the other factors per the OPs request) but just hiding the cost from the employee. Same sort of thing can be seen in the US if you compare the taxes a regular employee pays and a self employed person pays.
abstractbarista 6y ago
On the upside, in the USA, if you can find that 'sweet spot' company that is paying well, good healthcare, and good time off, you can make bank without overworking. I'm sure these exist all around the world, but perhaps they could be more common in the USA when compared to the EU, given the generally lower EU net wages we're talking about.
- scsilver 6y ago
  Its seems the obvious thing do is build a career in the US and half retire in a foreign country with good free healthcare and affordable rent. Rent out the american real estate bought over the course of the career and have that income pay for the European rent(which in my experience seems much lower).
  - dualthro 6y ago
    Dual citizen here, that's precisely my plan. Just found out a couple weeks ago (from HN) how in the Netherlands and Germany you can request to work 4 days a week instead of 5, for 20% less gross pay, I guess its a smaller cut after taxes because you might drop down a tax bracket. As long as the company has 15+ employees. I partied a ton in my early twenties so I'm early in my career despite my age, but the plan is to live very frugally and buy several 2 family houses in low CoL areas to rent out. Then after 5 ish years depending on if I have a family or what, semi retire to Europe.
novok 6y ago
The american average vacation time is not the reality at tech firms. I easily get 1 month or more of vacation working at a large one. Same with 3-6mo+parental leave being very common along with fairly decent healthcare because your employed by a wealthy company. Things that are not good for the average american is not the reality for the average big-tech software engineer and you have to compare apples to apples.
- tolbish 6y ago
  The average among technical workers is around 15 days/year according to the BLS. Where are you getting your data from?
  - novok 6y ago
    I talk to others who work at big tech firms. That survey probably also includes such stars as tata, infosys, random IT firms and places you wouldn't call SV style software. Yes, you shouldn't move from europe to work at such places. What everyone is implying is working in SV or FANG tier places.

Careful what you wish for. The US has no guaranteed paternity/maternity leave, and the majority of workplaces have less than a month of vacation time. Then there is the healthcare system.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago

The U.S. Wage, minus paying for your own health care, minus saving for your own (p|m)aternity leave, is still greater than the European wage, at least for the Software Engineering career track. The calculation is probably more favorable to traditional middle class jobs in Europe.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
giantg2 6y ago
I wonder what the pension/retirement system differences would like like too.

digianarchist 6y ago

I don't think any of these reasons explain why European SWE salaries are so low and I don't think they need to be compromised in order to raise wages.

tolbish 6y ago
Care to elaborate?
- digianarchist 6y ago
  I don’t buy the idea that employing people in Europe is so expensive because of these benefit programs that wages are lowered to compensate. Some of those costs aren’t even borne by the employer.

quantumofalpha 6y ago

> Then there is the healthcare system. European healthcare systems are not exactly dream come true either. Range of treatments available/covered and waiting times can be significantly behind the US. US healthcare is actually great for an SWE making bank at a FAANG & co. Just not that amazing for common folks > The US has no guaranteed paternity/maternity leave Top tech companies all have those, it's a fairly cheap perk to provide to attract the talent > and the majority of workplaces have less than a month of vacation time I have just 20 days here in UK (on top of public holidays) too

pjhol 6y ago
I don't really recognise the first concern you raise, but that might also be due to the fact that viewing all European countries as the same in this regard might be overgeneralising.
- quantumofalpha 6y ago
  Yeah there's certainly some differences between countries, but in most of Europe it seems to me healthcare is directly or indirectly largely run by the government. Whereas in US (and also Switzerland, btw, has which US-like model but without most of downsides) it's privately run. This causes difference in incentives to doctors. In the latter systems, doctors are incentivized to spend more time on you, spare no expense, get you the best treatment possible, but it is not cheap. In the former, they are incentivized to do the bare minimum
giantg2 6y ago
I agree that the healthcare system isn't a dream from what I hear. The main thing I see with the parent's comment though is that in the US you might be making $100k, but paying $15-20k in insurance costs. Whereas you might only be making $80k in the EU but you don't have that same insurance costs. I see this as being the same cost (ignoring the other factors per the OPs request) but just hiding the cost from the employee. Same sort of thing can be seen in the US if you compare the taxes a regular employee pays and a self employed person pays.

abstractbarista 6y ago

On the upside, in the USA, if you can find that 'sweet spot' company that is paying well, good healthcare, and good time off, you can make bank without overworking. I'm sure these exist all around the world, but perhaps they could be more common in the USA when compared to the EU, given the generally lower EU net wages we're talking about.

scsilver 6y ago
Its seems the obvious thing do is build a career in the US and half retire in a foreign country with good free healthcare and affordable rent. Rent out the american real estate bought over the course of the career and have that income pay for the European rent(which in my experience seems much lower).
- dualthro 6y ago
  Dual citizen here, that's precisely my plan. Just found out a couple weeks ago (from HN) how in the Netherlands and Germany you can request to work 4 days a week instead of 5, for 20% less gross pay, I guess its a smaller cut after taxes because you might drop down a tax bracket. As long as the company has 15+ employees. I partied a ton in my early twenties so I'm early in my career despite my age, but the plan is to live very frugally and buy several 2 family houses in low CoL areas to rent out. Then after 5 ish years depending on if I have a family or what, semi retire to Europe.

novok 6y ago

The american average vacation time is not the reality at tech firms. I easily get 1 month or more of vacation working at a large one. Same with 3-6mo+parental leave being very common along with fairly decent healthcare because your employed by a wealthy company. Things that are not good for the average american is not the reality for the average big-tech software engineer and you have to compare apples to apples.

tolbish 6y ago
The average among technical workers is around 15 days/year according to the BLS. Where are you getting your data from?
- novok 6y ago
  I talk to others who work at big tech firms. That survey probably also includes such stars as tata, infosys, random IT firms and places you wouldn't call SV style software. Yes, you shouldn't move from europe to work at such places. What everyone is implying is working in SV or FANG tier places.