5 ms·

I've been wondering why German Software Engineers are paid so much more.

foepys 5y ago
Funny that you say that, in fact I was waiting for someone to say it, because pay is considerably higher in companies with a works council than without. Tech companies are famous for lacking works councils. You can go to your works council and request to see the salary and bonus structure for your peers that work the same job as you. Exactly the thing that is being shut down in the OP. So instead of making a point about how a works council lowers tech workers' pay, you made a point for creating them.
- Longhanks 5y ago
  No, he makes a point for leaving Germany for higher pay. As a talented individual, one needs not rely on unions to fight for some mediocre salary everyone gets, one can negotiate it on their own and get a salary worth the skills. Talents leaving the country is an actual problem (for Germany, not the software engineers), no wonder there’s a term for the shortage: The famous Fachkräftemangel.
  - kennywinker 5y ago
    And yet most of those same "talented individuals" are having their wages kneecapped by wage fixing (https://time.com/76655/google-apple-settle-wage-fixing-lawsuit/ https://time.com/76655/google-apple-settle-wage-fixing-lawsu...), lack of wage transparency (this article), etc. The system we have (in north america) benefits a handful of individuals at the expense of MOST people. That's not a good system. Also, speaking as a Canadian, we've got plenty of "brain drain" here, and it's not because we've got socialist labour laws - because for the most part we don't.
    - noir_lord 5y ago
      > The system we have (in north america) benefits a handful of individuals at the expense of MOST people. That's not a good system. The US system can be summarised as "Fuck you, I got mine". That said if we are honest we have to discover the positives of an individualist system vs a more collective system. One of which is that exceptional people do on average do better than they would in a more collective system. It's whether those people doing better is sufficient to offset all the people doing worse that is the debate and I think on balance no, it's not. That said I'm also not one of those exceptional people either (not many of us here actually are) so that will colour my view, I'm a decent to good developer who writes stuff that works, provides value and gets paid so to me strong worker protections whether enforced by government or union make sense otherwise the power is all on the other side of the table.
      - VirusNewbie 5y ago
        Well if you think that some combination of being exceptional, or being hardworking + a bit lucky, or some such gets you further in the US than other places, then you can bet that the exceptional and hardworking people are going to end up coming to the US.
  - f1refly 5y ago
    The Fachkräftemangel is largely driven by pay, not by actual shortages. Nearly all software companies have open positions for a software engineer with masters degree and 10 years of experience with sap, haskell and c++, 36k anually before taxes. All those open positions go into official statistics where they appear to the public as some kind of shortage. The labour market is okay and migration statistics show that it's apparently not worth leaving germany for the better off except for migrating to austria and switzerland.
gruez 5y ago
/s?
- VirusNewbie 5y ago
  Yes it was sarcasm considering American engineers in the top third of pay absolutely dwarf even the highest paid german engineers unless they are working for an American FAANG.
nosianu 5y ago
Funny you ask that, because people in Germany's software sector are about the least organized ones. (German) https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Viel-Arbeit-wenig-Mitsprache-IT-Beschaeftigte-sind-kaum-organisiert-2454967.html https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Viel-Arbeit-wenig-Mi... Also, there is nothing special about software developers in Germany. They don't fare any worse than other technical staff. The biggest predictor for pay is the size of the company. Having worked in the US for almost a decade, having seen a lot of different software companies because of my role, and now, long back in Germany, working for a new software company that I own a sizable part of (co-founded between "veterans" of the software industry), and looking at my country with new eyes after coming back from the US (and it took me quite a few years to come to the conclusions): It seems obvious to me (now) that overall the US is quite a bit richer than Germany (questions about wealth distribution, inefficient health care, and education notwithstanding). Software in particular is not exactly a strong suit of my country. We don't have the scale, we don't have the investments, we don't have the expertise (comparing the levels between US and Germany), we don't have the same kind of market outlooks to justify similar wages. That last bit is just my own conclusion based on my own thoughts and observations, I did not study the subject. Even just walking around in what are supposed to be the best parts of my big city, after having seen much of the US where I traveled a lot and looked at many places and neighborhoods because I really liked exploring them, I am damn sure US "wealthy" is on another level to German wealth. I'm not looking at the top 1%, but top third or quarter. Below that it's harder to say, and when including questions of safety net or health the comparison is different - but we were talking about well-paid software engineers. In my opinion, we (Germans) are not nearly in as good a position as we think or are told about ourselves. I think software engineers (and engineers in generell) simply can't be paid that much more here. It's not that all the money goes to somebody else, it's not there to begin with. For example, the EU and the US as a market are not comparable. It is much easier to sell to all of the US than to even sell to just a few countries within the EU. It may be not too hard legally and logistically, but culturally the EU countries really are completely different countries. Germany is not exactly known as an exporter of software either, apart from SAP.

Funny that you say that, in fact I was waiting for someone to say it, because pay is considerably higher in companies with a works council than without. Tech companies are famous for lacking works councils. You can go to your works council and request to see the salary and bonus structure for your peers that work the same job as you. Exactly the thing that is being shut down in the OP. So instead of making a point about how a works council lowers tech workers' pay, you made a point for creating them.

Longhanks 5y ago
No, he makes a point for leaving Germany for higher pay. As a talented individual, one needs not rely on unions to fight for some mediocre salary everyone gets, one can negotiate it on their own and get a salary worth the skills. Talents leaving the country is an actual problem (for Germany, not the software engineers), no wonder there’s a term for the shortage: The famous Fachkräftemangel.
- kennywinker 5y ago
  And yet most of those same "talented individuals" are having their wages kneecapped by wage fixing (https://time.com/76655/google-apple-settle-wage-fixing-lawsuit/ https://time.com/76655/google-apple-settle-wage-fixing-lawsu...), lack of wage transparency (this article), etc. The system we have (in north america) benefits a handful of individuals at the expense of MOST people. That's not a good system. Also, speaking as a Canadian, we've got plenty of "brain drain" here, and it's not because we've got socialist labour laws - because for the most part we don't.
  - noir_lord 5y ago
    > The system we have (in north america) benefits a handful of individuals at the expense of MOST people. That's not a good system. The US system can be summarised as "Fuck you, I got mine". That said if we are honest we have to discover the positives of an individualist system vs a more collective system. One of which is that exceptional people do on average do better than they would in a more collective system. It's whether those people doing better is sufficient to offset all the people doing worse that is the debate and I think on balance no, it's not. That said I'm also not one of those exceptional people either (not many of us here actually are) so that will colour my view, I'm a decent to good developer who writes stuff that works, provides value and gets paid so to me strong worker protections whether enforced by government or union make sense otherwise the power is all on the other side of the table.
    - VirusNewbie 5y ago
      Well if you think that some combination of being exceptional, or being hardworking + a bit lucky, or some such gets you further in the US than other places, then you can bet that the exceptional and hardworking people are going to end up coming to the US.
- f1refly 5y ago
  The Fachkräftemangel is largely driven by pay, not by actual shortages. Nearly all software companies have open positions for a software engineer with masters degree and 10 years of experience with sap, haskell and c++, 36k anually before taxes. All those open positions go into official statistics where they appear to the public as some kind of shortage. The labour market is okay and migration statistics show that it's apparently not worth leaving germany for the better off except for migrating to austria and switzerland.

gruez 5y ago

/s?

VirusNewbie 5y ago
Yes it was sarcasm considering American engineers in the top third of pay absolutely dwarf even the highest paid german engineers unless they are working for an American FAANG.

nosianu 5y ago

Funny you ask that, because people in Germany's software sector are about the least organized ones. (German) https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Viel-Arbeit-wenig-Mitsprache-IT-Beschaeftigte-sind-kaum-organisiert-2454967.html https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Viel-Arbeit-wenig-Mi... Also, there is nothing special about software developers in Germany. They don't fare any worse than other technical staff. The biggest predictor for pay is the size of the company. Having worked in the US for almost a decade, having seen a lot of different software companies because of my role, and now, long back in Germany, working for a new software company that I own a sizable part of (co-founded between "veterans" of the software industry), and looking at my country with new eyes after coming back from the US (and it took me quite a few years to come to the conclusions): It seems obvious to me (now) that overall the US is quite a bit richer than Germany (questions about wealth distribution, inefficient health care, and education notwithstanding). Software in particular is not exactly a strong suit of my country. We don't have the scale, we don't have the investments, we don't have the expertise (comparing the levels between US and Germany), we don't have the same kind of market outlooks to justify similar wages. That last bit is just my own conclusion based on my own thoughts and observations, I did not study the subject. Even just walking around in what are supposed to be the best parts of my big city, after having seen much of the US where I traveled a lot and looked at many places and neighborhoods because I really liked exploring them, I am damn sure US "wealthy" is on another level to German wealth. I'm not looking at the top 1%, but top third or quarter. Below that it's harder to say, and when including questions of safety net or health the comparison is different - but we were talking about well-paid software engineers. In my opinion, we (Germans) are not nearly in as good a position as we think or are told about ourselves. I think software engineers (and engineers in generell) simply can't be paid that much more here. It's not that all the money goes to somebody else, it's not there to begin with. For example, the EU and the US as a market are not comparable. It is much easier to sell to all of the US than to even sell to just a few countries within the EU. It may be not too hard legally and logistically, but culturally the EU countries really are completely different countries. Germany is not exactly known as an exporter of software either, apart from SAP.