4 ms·

Attitudes to wages vary so much. A German ex-colleague of mine here in London is convinced we (SWE's) are all underpaid. An Estonian ex-colleague on the other h

by nly 5y ago

Attitudes to wages vary so much. A German ex-colleague of mine here in London is convinced we (SWE's) are all underpaid. An Estonian ex-colleague on the other hand offhandedly described our profession as overpaid. I mention nationalities because I think it is a factor in their attitudes. Interestingly the latter ex-colleague was on 20% less TC than me despite doing the exact same job, and having 5 years seniority. More formal seniority levels and wage transparency would help workers a great deal in my view. SWE salaries in London seem to be booming

DeathArrow 5y ago
Can you kindly explain what SWE and TC mean?
- smcl 5y ago
  SWE = Software Engineer TC = Total Compensation
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tupshin 5y ago
  Software engineer and total compensation, respectively.
nvarsj 5y ago
I think it’s because of the government moves that have effectively shut down a huge swath of prior contracting gigs (where SWEs got paid decently, albeit as freelancers). These experienced engineers are not going to work for 70k/year like suckers, er perms, were doing 5 years ago. Combined with rising TCs at FAANG, and a shortage of experienced engineers, overall wages have gone up significantly in the last 2-3 years.
smcl 5y ago
I think that nationality angle is interesting but I believe it's only incidental. For example I tend to sympathise with this idea that in some cases IT workers are overpaid compared to other professions, but I'm from a relatively wealthy country (Scotland). When you have lived somewhere that has lower wages overall, but you have worked in a highly paid profession in a wealthy country then you're going to be quite keenly aware of the gap in compensation. So if you've seen the wages a janitor, shopkeeper, cleaner or even schoolteacher in Estonia makes and reflect on the fact that Facebook, Google devs in London will likely be on over $100k/year then yeah it's not unreasonable to conclude that we are overpaid. London and Estonia are much different places with different salary expectations and living costs so you can't really expect them to be identical (not least across different jobs) but I think it's unavoidable that anyone with experience of both will make the comparison. Sorry for picking on London and Estonia here, it wasn't personal :) I the same would apply to San Francisco vs Budapest or Frankfurt vs Manila or Oslo vs Rosario etc etc
TeMPOraL 5y ago
> Attitudes to wages vary so much. They're probably relative to the costs of living. There's a job offer I looked at a while ago (just moments before the pandemic started), for a company in London. The pay was typical for non-FAANG companies. I did some math on it, and quickly discovered that: - If I can do the job remotely from Poland, I'm instantly becoming a high-earner. There are jobs locally that pay comparably, but they're the ones other people point at when they say SWEs are overpaid. - If I have to move to London, the pay is shit. I'd be moving with my family (wife and then a 1yo daughter). I'd have to rent out a smallish 2-room apartment on the other side of London, with 40-60 minutes commute one way (bus -> metro -> bus), and the pay would barely cover rent + daycare for the kid, meaning if we wanted to eat something more ambitious than ramen, my wife would have to either stay at home (forging daycare), or find a decent job herself. Forget saving any money. Now, it's not currency power difference - it's cost of living difference. The little bits of money we'd be able to save if we reduced our standards of living hard wouldn't translate to much spending power back in Poland either way. After doing the math, I've decided the value add of being in London vs. being in Kraków (a major city in Poland, with an active tech community) is not worth the reduction of quality of life, and near-complete drain of disposable income. I double-downed on remote work, enjoying costs-of-living arbitrage for as long as I can. (And it's a matter of time before this ends. While the pandemic dramatically increased the choice in remote work jobs, it also put the topic of CoL arbitrage in the spotlight, so now businesses have it easier to coordinate and capture the surplus for themselves instead, under the guise of employee fairness.) EDIT: also your German colleague might be a special case, because AFAIK in Germany, software jobs are underpaid compared to the rest of the world, even accounting for currency power and costs of living. A German colleague of mine, working for a German software company servicing industry clients, once complained to me that he's sad that on - in his opinion decent, for Germany - software salary he can barely afford to keep the family afloat, and that's with his wife also working, whereas a "bad, no-good" relative of his earns way more than that doing occasional construction work...

by nly 5y ago

DeathArrow 5y ago

Can you kindly explain what SWE and TC mean?

smcl 5y ago
SWE = Software Engineer TC = Total Compensation
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tupshin 5y ago
Software engineer and total compensation, respectively.

nvarsj 5y ago

I think it’s because of the government moves that have effectively shut down a huge swath of prior contracting gigs (where SWEs got paid decently, albeit as freelancers). These experienced engineers are not going to work for 70k/year like suckers, er perms, were doing 5 years ago. Combined with rising TCs at FAANG, and a shortage of experienced engineers, overall wages have gone up significantly in the last 2-3 years.

smcl 5y ago

I think that nationality angle is interesting but I believe it's only incidental. For example I tend to sympathise with this idea that in some cases IT workers are overpaid compared to other professions, but I'm from a relatively wealthy country (Scotland). When you have lived somewhere that has lower wages overall, but you have worked in a highly paid profession in a wealthy country then you're going to be quite keenly aware of the gap in compensation. So if you've seen the wages a janitor, shopkeeper, cleaner or even schoolteacher in Estonia makes and reflect on the fact that Facebook, Google devs in London will likely be on over $100k/year then yeah it's not unreasonable to conclude that we are overpaid. London and Estonia are much different places with different salary expectations and living costs so you can't really expect them to be identical (not least across different jobs) but I think it's unavoidable that anyone with experience of both will make the comparison. Sorry for picking on London and Estonia here, it wasn't personal :) I the same would apply to San Francisco vs Budapest or Frankfurt vs Manila or Oslo vs Rosario etc etc

TeMPOraL 5y ago

> Attitudes to wages vary so much. They're probably relative to the costs of living. There's a job offer I looked at a while ago (just moments before the pandemic started), for a company in London. The pay was typical for non-FAANG companies. I did some math on it, and quickly discovered that: - If I can do the job remotely from Poland, I'm instantly becoming a high-earner. There are jobs locally that pay comparably, but they're the ones other people point at when they say SWEs are overpaid. - If I have to move to London, the pay is shit. I'd be moving with my family (wife and then a 1yo daughter). I'd have to rent out a smallish 2-room apartment on the other side of London, with 40-60 minutes commute one way (bus -> metro -> bus), and the pay would barely cover rent + daycare for the kid, meaning if we wanted to eat something more ambitious than ramen, my wife would have to either stay at home (forging daycare), or find a decent job herself. Forget saving any money. Now, it's not currency power difference - it's cost of living difference. The little bits of money we'd be able to save if we reduced our standards of living hard wouldn't translate to much spending power back in Poland either way. After doing the math, I've decided the value add of being in London vs. being in Kraków (a major city in Poland, with an active tech community) is not worth the reduction of quality of life, and near-complete drain of disposable income. I double-downed on remote work, enjoying costs-of-living arbitrage for as long as I can. (And it's a matter of time before this ends. While the pandemic dramatically increased the choice in remote work jobs, it also put the topic of CoL arbitrage in the spotlight, so now businesses have it easier to coordinate and capture the surplus for themselves instead, under the guise of employee fairness.) EDIT: also your German colleague might be a special case, because AFAIK in Germany, software jobs are underpaid compared to the rest of the world, even accounting for currency power and costs of living. A German colleague of mine, working for a German software company servicing industry clients, once complained to me that he's sad that on - in his opinion decent, for Germany - software salary he can barely afford to keep the family afloat, and that's with his wife also working, whereas a "bad, no-good" relative of his earns way more than that doing occasional construction work...