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If you're European it's one of the few options you've got. I find it odd though that people make so much less compared to their US counterparts. Does anyone kno

If you're European it's one of the few options you've got. I find it odd though that people make so much less compared to their US counterparts. Does anyone know why that is?

tasubotadas 5y ago
Lack of competition and venture funding
- dbetteridge 5y ago
  Also different employer expenses per employee, I don't know them off the top of my head but the UK tax levels are pretty high.
  - swarnie 5y ago
    High and only getting higher, along with insane housing costs in that area its not an attractive proposal unless you plan to use the experience to move somewhere else.
    - dbetteridge 5y ago
      Basically the way I did things. 2.5 years in London to level up my skills and work in a few startups, then buggering back off to Australia for CoL that while still expensive is less than London and much better weather and similar salaries to London.
  - tasubotadas 5y ago
    45% tax
    - mattmanser 5y ago
      That's not the employer tax rate. They pay like 13% national insurance. The rest of the tax is paid by the employee. And the 45% rate is only on any earnings OVER £150k. So the money eart less than that is at lower rates.
      - JonChesterfield 5y ago
        60% between 100k and 125k, then 40% to 150k, then 45% beyond that. Which is weird and hidden behind incrementally removing the 'personal allowance'. Threshold is probably 100 + (personal allowance)*2 where that was 12.5ish last I looked. Also some state support (childcare maybe?) evaporates at 100, which is fairly similar to another tax.
blululu 5y ago
Putting aside the clear invitation to dunk on Euros the answer is pretty straightforward: 1.) The market rate on software engineering is lower in Europe. There are probably some cultural factors at play here (larger talent pool, less entrepreneurship). 2.) Taxes are a bit higher and the company must foot the bill even if that doesn’t show up in your take home directly.
- JonChesterfield 5y ago
  UK employer national insurance is cheap compared to US health insurance. 1) sounds right.
bakuninsbart 5y ago
Here in Germany an employee costs substantially more due to various laws and regulations. For example, assuming an employee has a salary of 4000€/month before taxes, the employer is required to pay 7.3% to health insurance, 1.3% to long-term care insurance and 1.5% to unemployment insurance. There are also substantially more bank holidays (on average 10), and an additional minimum of 20 days of paid leave. Sick leave is generally paid,too, and for at least the first week fully paid by the employer.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Dave3of5 5y ago
Mostly money, there's plenty of start-up's in europe but the funding is much less than that from USA VC's. There are exceptions to this rule but overall funding is less.
- JonChesterfield 5y ago
  That is true but weird in itself. Much harder to raise large amounts of capital from European sources. Means we end up with European companies funded by American VC.
dec0dedab0de 5y ago
It's probably not as big of a difference when you get away from silicon valley which is a special case. And I think one major reason silicon valley salaries are so high because non-compete clauses are invalid, so people can jump to a competitor at a moments notice if they are offered more money. Another thing I've heard is that many European countries have rules on how to terminate an employee, and most states in the US you can just fire someone at any time for almost any reason, or no reason. So in the US a high salary is essentially a short term risk that can be removed immediately if the company hits a financial downturn. US employees know that there is no loyalty from the company, and in-turn are constantly looking for new positions that pay more.
lacker 5y ago
I find it odd though that people make so much less compared to their US counterparts. Does anyone know why that is? It's just supply and demand. When I was working at Facebook they figured out what salary ranges they should pay in each country by doing a survey of how much software engineers were making and picking a target percentile. I might misremember but I believe Facebook was trying to pay 90th percentile salaries. Then every once in a while they would redo the survey, maybe you tweak it if an office has a hard time hiring, etc, but that's the core logic. I heard anecdotally that Google did it similarly. So in London the market is just paying software engineers less than they make in California, and so the large tech companies follow that market.
- sjg007 5y ago
  They call this cost of labor. Makes you realize how much of a cog you really are.

If you're European it's one of the few options you've got. I find it odd though that people make so much less compared to their US counterparts. Does anyone know why that is?

tasubotadas 5y ago

Lack of competition and venture funding

dbetteridge 5y ago
Also different employer expenses per employee, I don't know them off the top of my head but the UK tax levels are pretty high.
- swarnie 5y ago
  High and only getting higher, along with insane housing costs in that area its not an attractive proposal unless you plan to use the experience to move somewhere else.
  - dbetteridge 5y ago
    Basically the way I did things. 2.5 years in London to level up my skills and work in a few startups, then buggering back off to Australia for CoL that while still expensive is less than London and much better weather and similar salaries to London.
- tasubotadas 5y ago
  45% tax
  - mattmanser 5y ago
    That's not the employer tax rate. They pay like 13% national insurance. The rest of the tax is paid by the employee. And the 45% rate is only on any earnings OVER £150k. So the money eart less than that is at lower rates.
    - JonChesterfield 5y ago
      60% between 100k and 125k, then 40% to 150k, then 45% beyond that. Which is weird and hidden behind incrementally removing the 'personal allowance'. Threshold is probably 100 + (personal allowance)*2 where that was 12.5ish last I looked. Also some state support (childcare maybe?) evaporates at 100, which is fairly similar to another tax.

blululu 5y ago

Putting aside the clear invitation to dunk on Euros the answer is pretty straightforward: 1.) The market rate on software engineering is lower in Europe. There are probably some cultural factors at play here (larger talent pool, less entrepreneurship). 2.) Taxes are a bit higher and the company must foot the bill even if that doesn’t show up in your take home directly.

JonChesterfield 5y ago
UK employer national insurance is cheap compared to US health insurance. 1) sounds right.

bakuninsbart 5y ago

Here in Germany an employee costs substantially more due to various laws and regulations. For example, assuming an employee has a salary of 4000€/month before taxes, the employer is required to pay 7.3% to health insurance, 1.3% to long-term care insurance and 1.5% to unemployment insurance. There are also substantially more bank holidays (on average 10), and an additional minimum of 20 days of paid leave. Sick leave is generally paid,too, and for at least the first week fully paid by the employer.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Dave3of5 5y ago

Mostly money, there's plenty of start-up's in europe but the funding is much less than that from USA VC's. There are exceptions to this rule but overall funding is less.

JonChesterfield 5y ago
That is true but weird in itself. Much harder to raise large amounts of capital from European sources. Means we end up with European companies funded by American VC.

dec0dedab0de 5y ago

It's probably not as big of a difference when you get away from silicon valley which is a special case. And I think one major reason silicon valley salaries are so high because non-compete clauses are invalid, so people can jump to a competitor at a moments notice if they are offered more money. Another thing I've heard is that many European countries have rules on how to terminate an employee, and most states in the US you can just fire someone at any time for almost any reason, or no reason. So in the US a high salary is essentially a short term risk that can be removed immediately if the company hits a financial downturn. US employees know that there is no loyalty from the company, and in-turn are constantly looking for new positions that pay more.

lacker 5y ago

I find it odd though that people make so much less compared to their US counterparts. Does anyone know why that is? It's just supply and demand. When I was working at Facebook they figured out what salary ranges they should pay in each country by doing a survey of how much software engineers were making and picking a target percentile. I might misremember but I believe Facebook was trying to pay 90th percentile salaries. Then every once in a while they would redo the survey, maybe you tweak it if an office has a hard time hiring, etc, but that's the core logic. I heard anecdotally that Google did it similarly. So in London the market is just paying software engineers less than they make in California, and so the large tech companies follow that market.

sjg007 5y ago
They call this cost of labor. Makes you realize how much of a cog you really are.