4 ms·

I had a friend work as snr. engineer at a startup taking a pay cut down to 80k, then went to work for big US tech company presumably for a significantly higher

I had a friend work as snr. engineer at a startup taking a pay cut down to 80k, then went to work for big US tech company presumably for a significantly higher salary. All in Amsterdam (with some time remote). Certainly no senior dev in Amsterdam worth their salt would need to work for €55k or even probably €65k unless they chose to work at a startup that cannot pay competitive rate, or have other priorities Edit I should add I'm also earning well above that as snr engineer in Amsterdam at a startup.

tharkun__ 6y ago
So this info is a bit old since I haven't been there in a while. When I was working for a contracting company back in Germany maybe 10 years ago, the standard rate they would charge for us was around 75EUR. That's 156kEUR. This is what the "general contractor" is paid by the huge corporation. Not sure how much of that goes to the individual contractor and will depend on negotiation. Also there were some people that were billed at higher rates but obviously they would try and keep the number of those low. Also keep in mind that from that you would have to pay all of the health and employment insurance premiums yourself. If your employer pays you 65kEUR they pay quite a bit on top of that in employment insurance health insurance etc.
- benhurmarcel 6y ago
  To give you an idea, a company I work for pays contractor companies around 40-50€/h so about 75k€/year, and out of that the contributor gets about 30k€ before taxes. Also, your 75€/h gives about 125-130k€/year, not 156k. So those guys would probably get paid 50-60k€ before taxes.
  - tharkun__ 6y ago
    Not sure where you are. The example I gave was in Germany as mentioned. Where's yours? I guess it depends on how you calculate as well: My calculation was a simple 75EUR per hour * 40 hours per week * 52 weeks a year to arrive at 156k. We could also go with 75EUR per hour * 8 hours a day * 255 business days in 2021 (I chose Hesse as the state as that's where Frankfurt is located, home to lots of banks and such, i.e. lots of contracting). That's 153k. Since you're a contractor, choose how many weeks of vacation you wanna give yourself and subtract. If you as a contractor get only 30k before taxes, then something is seriously wrong. I worked for a contracting company back when and that's what the rates are based on. I was an internal employee for them and I got paid more than the 30k you quote. I doubt an actual external contractor that we just placed would get less or just on par of what us employees got. That would not make any financial sense, as they would have to pay their own taxes, insurance etc. from it, while we don't.
    - benhurmarcel 6y ago
      Sorry, I was talking about contracting companies that provide work hours with their own employees, who are on contract. Companies like Altran for example. I counted around 215-220 days of work per year for an employee. When counting holidays and so on that's about what you get in my experience in several European countries (mainly France and Spain, but also Germany where rates are higher it's true). And yes, those employees get paid less than the internal employees of their customer. That's why they're often young. Concerning freelance contractors, they get the full 100k€+ a year, but they then about half is going away in taxes. Still it's significantly more than employees, which compensates for the instability.
      - tharkun__ 6y ago
        That makes much more sense now. So just a little difference in understanding/definition of "contractor" :) And I can definitely corroborate the "young" part as well. We had some external contractors that we placed with our clients that made less than the 75EUR (IIRC maybe 60EUR or something) but they were young and/or from Eastern Europe.

tharkun__ 6y ago

So this info is a bit old since I haven't been there in a while. When I was working for a contracting company back in Germany maybe 10 years ago, the standard rate they would charge for us was around 75EUR. That's 156kEUR. This is what the "general contractor" is paid by the huge corporation. Not sure how much of that goes to the individual contractor and will depend on negotiation. Also there were some people that were billed at higher rates but obviously they would try and keep the number of those low. Also keep in mind that from that you would have to pay all of the health and employment insurance premiums yourself. If your employer pays you 65kEUR they pay quite a bit on top of that in employment insurance health insurance etc.

benhurmarcel 6y ago
To give you an idea, a company I work for pays contractor companies around 40-50€/h so about 75k€/year, and out of that the contributor gets about 30k€ before taxes. Also, your 75€/h gives about 125-130k€/year, not 156k. So those guys would probably get paid 50-60k€ before taxes.
- tharkun__ 6y ago
  Not sure where you are. The example I gave was in Germany as mentioned. Where's yours? I guess it depends on how you calculate as well: My calculation was a simple 75EUR per hour * 40 hours per week * 52 weeks a year to arrive at 156k. We could also go with 75EUR per hour * 8 hours a day * 255 business days in 2021 (I chose Hesse as the state as that's where Frankfurt is located, home to lots of banks and such, i.e. lots of contracting). That's 153k. Since you're a contractor, choose how many weeks of vacation you wanna give yourself and subtract. If you as a contractor get only 30k before taxes, then something is seriously wrong. I worked for a contracting company back when and that's what the rates are based on. I was an internal employee for them and I got paid more than the 30k you quote. I doubt an actual external contractor that we just placed would get less or just on par of what us employees got. That would not make any financial sense, as they would have to pay their own taxes, insurance etc. from it, while we don't.
  - benhurmarcel 6y ago
    Sorry, I was talking about contracting companies that provide work hours with their own employees, who are on contract. Companies like Altran for example. I counted around 215-220 days of work per year for an employee. When counting holidays and so on that's about what you get in my experience in several European countries (mainly France and Spain, but also Germany where rates are higher it's true). And yes, those employees get paid less than the internal employees of their customer. That's why they're often young. Concerning freelance contractors, they get the full 100k€+ a year, but they then about half is going away in taxes. Still it's significantly more than employees, which compensates for the instability.
    - tharkun__ 6y ago
      That makes much more sense now. So just a little difference in understanding/definition of "contractor" :) And I can definitely corroborate the "young" part as well. We had some external contractors that we placed with our clients that made less than the 75EUR (IIRC maybe 60EUR or something) but they were young and/or from Eastern Europe.