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Again, what part of the world are you on? Even in Berlin, with all the talks about it becoming a top destination for tech people, I'm yet to hear any 6-figures

Again, what part of the world are you on? Even in Berlin, with all the talks about it becoming a top destination for tech people, I'm yet to hear any 6-figures offer. Even the blockchain companies that were flush with cash were paying 90-95k€ to their top people, maybe a 10-20% performance bonus. Mind you, we are talking about Germany where the tax is ~42% of your income at this bracket if you are single. When I was freelancing, pay was higher, but my best year hit around 130k€ net income, and that only because I deferred a lot of it and got an accountant that advised me to put as much as possible into a private pension fund to have a bigger tax deduction. If I wanted to have that cash in hand, I would've ended up with maybe 80k€? Yes, cost of living is lower (though rapidly rising, and it is not a post-pandemic thing) and there is plenty of social welfare benefits. Especially after having kids, I wouldn't go to the US for a $200k/year job. But to think that this kind of compensation is par for the course shows a huge disconnect from the reality in the rest of world.

shankr 5y ago
yeah as another tech worker in Berlin, reading these salaries on consistent basis is kinda depressing. The 70-80K is like a starting tech salaries in larger part of US. Here in Berlin you have to toll for multiple years and then before you know you have hit the 90-100K ceiling. Just compare Berlin with any big American US city, Berliner's PPP is still quite low. This is after the salary "boom" in Berlin.
- klausa 5y ago
  COVID and companies being more open to hire remotely has partially fixed that, I know of multiple people making 130kE+ in Berlin now, working remotely, with full benefits of being an employee of a German GmbH. I can give you some details via DM if you want.
  - shankr 5y ago
    yeah I won't say no :) Thank you!
  - atalw 5y ago
    Share them with me too! Thanks.
- aidenn0 5y ago
  Straight out of University, I started in the $70-80k range in the US almost 20 years ago outside of SV (but still an expensive area).
y4mi 5y ago
I am pretty sure they're saying $200k before taxes. It's equivalent wage in Germany would be 150k€, as the employer has to pay about 21% on top of the salary for social securities. I agree that these numbers always sound outlandish (I'm from Germany too), but they do seem to be true. Do keep in mind that while the wage gap is bad here, its several times worse in the USA.
- shankr 5y ago
  No 200K doesn't include say things like 401K contribution or health contribution from employer's side. So if you are going to top German salary with employer contribution, you need to do the same with USA salary.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- rglullis 5y ago
  I know it is pre-tax. I also know that there are benefits in Europe that simply do not exist in the US - minimum of 25 days of actual vacation and not that "you may travel for a few days, but you are still on-call" thing that people in the US call "holidays", Elternzeit, etc... But still, no one would claim that is easy to get a 90k€ salary in Germany, or that "if you are not asking that much then what are you doing". For 150, you have to be way above average or you have to running your own business.
  - tick_tock_tick 5y ago
    You have more then 25 days of "real" vacation at all the major tech companies in the USA. Pretty much all the issues that people mention in the USA (healthcare, vacation, maternity leave, etc) are non issues for employees in our industry. The only true risk is becoming unemployable for some reason and losing your job. USA tech might fly higher but can crater way lower.
    - rglullis 5y ago
sciurus 5y ago
I've personally worked with people who I know made 6-figures of total comp in Germany. Checking the relatively-new https://techpays.eu/ https://techpays.eu/, there are plenty of 6-figure entries for Germany. I'm not saying this means it's the norm, just that it's achievable for people whose posts make it to the front page of Hacker News. You mentioned taxes. When people talk about comp in the US, we aren't taking out taxes. Effective tax rate (federal+state+fica) for a single individual making $200k of salary+bonus is ~30% here. That would turn $200k into $140k take home.
- shankr 5y ago
  I think the parent above you is talking without taking out taxes. For 90K, you would pay (taxes+health insurance + pension+unemployment benefit) ~42%. So at the end, what you see in your account ~52K/year. This is as a single person. For family/kids, you can make little bit more.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  30% is just federal. State can add between 0%-10% on top of that. So depending on where you live it may be very close to Germany. Then there's medical insurance, which is usually paid out of a portion of your paycheck. It's optional, but it would be a poor risk/reward tradeoff for even for a young healthy person to not at least have a high deductable plan, which will be another 3-4% of $200k.
  - sciurus 5y ago
    I'll mention this not to disagree with your overall point, but because I've seen it be a source of confusion for some people. In the US federal income tax system, the marginal tax rate varies depending on the tax bracket each dollar of your income falls in. That is, someone making $200k would pay 10% on their first $9,950 of income, 12% on their next $30,575 of income, and so on. They'd only pay a rate above 30% for the last $35,075 of their income. You can plug in numbers and locations at https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes to get a sense of how this plays out.
beberlei 5y ago
To clarify, 42% of every euro earned above 57919€. Weighted average tax rate is still "just" 27% when earning 100.000€
- tormeh 5y ago
  Depends if you count the cost of statutory health insurance as a de-facto tax, in which case it's closer to 40% again. There's a bit more nuance to this (there's a contribution cap), but if you ever read that taxes in Germany are lower than 40% odds are the speaker is leaving out health insurance. Aside: The neat thing with the statutory health insurance is of course that they have to pay for your treatment, no matter how fucked up your situation is or how little money you have - but if you're healthy and well-paid it's poor value.
  - beberlei 5y ago
    Parent was talking about 42% tax rate, so taxes only. Yes you get deducted more for social services, health insurance, pensions and unemployment insurance push this up to 46% going to the government services when you earn 100k.
lkrubner 5y ago
Europe is a very different system. Suppose I work freelance in New York City, so I make $20,000 a month. $8,000 -- city, state, and federal taxes take 40% $3,500 -- rent $1,500 -- health insurance $4,000 -- care for my elderly mom total: $17,000 In other words, it is easy to make $20,000 a month in New York City and feel like you are barely surviving. I'm grateful I don't have children, as it allows me to take care of my mom. If I did have kids, then some very painful choices would have to be made about care for my mom. Europe is simply a different system.
- maccard 5y ago
  Most of Europe sees you with the same tax rates of roughly 40%, if not higher. Even after rent, tax, and health insurance, your leftover pay is more than a mid to senior engineer will _gross_ before tax and rent in most major European cities. The real outlier there is the care cost. if you didn't have that, you would have 7/month left over (and even after that, you have $36k/year) - that's more than a mid level engineer will gross in the UK.
  - daenz 5y ago
    Why are European engineers paid so low?
    - maccard 5y ago
      Despite a generally higher cost of living in Europe, salaries across the board are lower. A £100k salary in the UK puts you in the 96th percentile for example. It's not just engineers, it's everyone.
      - daenz 5y ago
        This is probably a controversial thing to say, but based on your and other comments in this thread, it seems like the social safety nets aren't worth the lower salaries. Or are they? It seems like non-Americans in this thread are unhappy that their ceilings are lower.
golergka 5y ago
> Again, what part of the world are you on? Doesn't matter. There's plenty of remote (as in worldwide) offers with these figures now. Source: heavily interviewed last July while living in Moscow, Russia. Got several offers in that ballpark, accepted one from "Who's hiring" HN thread. Not a rockstar, just a regular developer.
- rglullis 5y ago
  Congrats! But unless your story can come with many other examples, it should not be counted as representative of any "average" situation from the market at large.
blumomo 5y ago
In Germany you may want to consider that the employer pays another approx. 20% on top of your salary, by law. So if your salary is EUR 100k, your employer actually pays 120k to keep you on board. Money that your employer could otherwise add to your payout as he’s paying all off it anyway _for_ you, right? Now with 42% income tax of a 100k salary, there’s a net of 58k arriving at your bank account over a year. Given that your employer pays 120k, you have actually “lost” 62k (not just 42k) to the government and insurances. With that maths, the _net_ tax (incl. insurances) is actually close to 52%. That is a whopping net +10% taxes from the math in the parent post.
- derhagen 5y ago
  > "Now with 42% income tax of a 100k salary, there’s a net of 58k arriving at your bank account over a year." Oh boy, that's one of those misconceptions I'm really sick of. "The tax is so high, I pay almost half of my salary to the greedy state". No, you certainly don't! And if everyone please spent 5 minutes to understand the difference between the effective tax rate and the marginal tax rate, we'd finally get rid of that pointless discussion. With a 100k salary, there is ~75k net arriving at you bank account, if you're married. If you take care of children, it's even more. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einkommensteuer_(Deutschland)#/media/Datei:ESt_D_Splitting_2018_zvE_bis_120000.svg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einkommensteuer_(Deutschland)#... I live in Norway and pay an 34% effective tax. The highest in the world at my salary level. I don't complain, because tax money is used for an excellent education system, including the best libraries I've ever been to, and not least for my own ~50k€ PhD salary that every single PhD student in town receives. Meanwhile my high school in Germany didn't even have soap dispensers in the bathrooms because highly skilled hacker news readers don't bother to learn the basics of their tax system before they go and vote for corrupt privatization parties that promise lower taxes and cut back public investments. > "Money that your employer could otherwise add to your payout..." Also, please don't mix up taxes, insurance and pension. If you'd prefer to pay for medical expenses yourself, do the math. You don't want that, especially when you have a family.
  - chipotle_coyote 5y ago
    This is also one of my pet peeves. I keep thinking “people do understand progressive taxation, right?”, but in discussions like this, I realize: no, maybe they don’t. If you’re a single filer who makes $180K in the US in 2022, you’re in the 32% tax bracket. But your effective federal tax rate is just over 21% — and that’s assuming you’re only taking the standard deduction.

shankr 5y ago

yeah as another tech worker in Berlin, reading these salaries on consistent basis is kinda depressing. The 70-80K is like a starting tech salaries in larger part of US. Here in Berlin you have to toll for multiple years and then before you know you have hit the 90-100K ceiling. Just compare Berlin with any big American US city, Berliner's PPP is still quite low. This is after the salary "boom" in Berlin.

klausa 5y ago
COVID and companies being more open to hire remotely has partially fixed that, I know of multiple people making 130kE+ in Berlin now, working remotely, with full benefits of being an employee of a German GmbH. I can give you some details via DM if you want.
- shankr 5y ago
  yeah I won't say no :) Thank you!
- atalw 5y ago
  Share them with me too! Thanks.
aidenn0 5y ago
Straight out of University, I started in the $70-80k range in the US almost 20 years ago outside of SV (but still an expensive area).

y4mi 5y ago

I am pretty sure they're saying $200k before taxes. It's equivalent wage in Germany would be 150k€, as the employer has to pay about 21% on top of the salary for social securities. I agree that these numbers always sound outlandish (I'm from Germany too), but they do seem to be true. Do keep in mind that while the wage gap is bad here, its several times worse in the USA.

shankr 5y ago
No 200K doesn't include say things like 401K contribution or health contribution from employer's side. So if you are going to top German salary with employer contribution, you need to do the same with USA salary.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
rglullis 5y ago
I know it is pre-tax. I also know that there are benefits in Europe that simply do not exist in the US - minimum of 25 days of actual vacation and not that "you may travel for a few days, but you are still on-call" thing that people in the US call "holidays", Elternzeit, etc... But still, no one would claim that is easy to get a 90k€ salary in Germany, or that "if you are not asking that much then what are you doing". For 150, you have to be way above average or you have to running your own business.
- tick_tock_tick 5y ago
  You have more then 25 days of "real" vacation at all the major tech companies in the USA. Pretty much all the issues that people mention in the USA (healthcare, vacation, maternity leave, etc) are non issues for employees in our industry. The only true risk is becoming unemployable for some reason and losing your job. USA tech might fly higher but can crater way lower.
  - rglullis 5y ago

sciurus 5y ago

I've personally worked with people who I know made 6-figures of total comp in Germany. Checking the relatively-new https://techpays.eu/ https://techpays.eu/, there are plenty of 6-figure entries for Germany. I'm not saying this means it's the norm, just that it's achievable for people whose posts make it to the front page of Hacker News. You mentioned taxes. When people talk about comp in the US, we aren't taking out taxes. Effective tax rate (federal+state+fica) for a single individual making $200k of salary+bonus is ~30% here. That would turn $200k into $140k take home.

shankr 5y ago
I think the parent above you is talking without taking out taxes. For 90K, you would pay (taxes+health insurance + pension+unemployment benefit) ~42%. So at the end, what you see in your account ~52K/year. This is as a single person. For family/kids, you can make little bit more.
ineedasername 5y ago
30% is just federal. State can add between 0%-10% on top of that. So depending on where you live it may be very close to Germany. Then there's medical insurance, which is usually paid out of a portion of your paycheck. It's optional, but it would be a poor risk/reward tradeoff for even for a young healthy person to not at least have a high deductable plan, which will be another 3-4% of $200k.
- sciurus 5y ago
  I'll mention this not to disagree with your overall point, but because I've seen it be a source of confusion for some people. In the US federal income tax system, the marginal tax rate varies depending on the tax bracket each dollar of your income falls in. That is, someone making $200k would pay 10% on their first $9,950 of income, 12% on their next $30,575 of income, and so on. They'd only pay a rate above 30% for the last $35,075 of their income. You can plug in numbers and locations at https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes to get a sense of how this plays out.

beberlei 5y ago

To clarify, 42% of every euro earned above 57919€. Weighted average tax rate is still "just" 27% when earning 100.000€

tormeh 5y ago
Depends if you count the cost of statutory health insurance as a de-facto tax, in which case it's closer to 40% again. There's a bit more nuance to this (there's a contribution cap), but if you ever read that taxes in Germany are lower than 40% odds are the speaker is leaving out health insurance. Aside: The neat thing with the statutory health insurance is of course that they have to pay for your treatment, no matter how fucked up your situation is or how little money you have - but if you're healthy and well-paid it's poor value.
- beberlei 5y ago
  Parent was talking about 42% tax rate, so taxes only. Yes you get deducted more for social services, health insurance, pensions and unemployment insurance push this up to 46% going to the government services when you earn 100k.

lkrubner 5y ago

Europe is a very different system. Suppose I work freelance in New York City, so I make $20,000 a month. $8,000 -- city, state, and federal taxes take 40% $3,500 -- rent $1,500 -- health insurance $4,000 -- care for my elderly mom total: $17,000 In other words, it is easy to make $20,000 a month in New York City and feel like you are barely surviving. I'm grateful I don't have children, as it allows me to take care of my mom. If I did have kids, then some very painful choices would have to be made about care for my mom. Europe is simply a different system.

maccard 5y ago
Most of Europe sees you with the same tax rates of roughly 40%, if not higher. Even after rent, tax, and health insurance, your leftover pay is more than a mid to senior engineer will _gross_ before tax and rent in most major European cities. The real outlier there is the care cost. if you didn't have that, you would have 7/month left over (and even after that, you have $36k/year) - that's more than a mid level engineer will gross in the UK.
- daenz 5y ago
  Why are European engineers paid so low?
  - maccard 5y ago
    Despite a generally higher cost of living in Europe, salaries across the board are lower. A £100k salary in the UK puts you in the 96th percentile for example. It's not just engineers, it's everyone.
    - daenz 5y ago
      This is probably a controversial thing to say, but based on your and other comments in this thread, it seems like the social safety nets aren't worth the lower salaries. Or are they? It seems like non-Americans in this thread are unhappy that their ceilings are lower.

golergka 5y ago

> Again, what part of the world are you on? Doesn't matter. There's plenty of remote (as in worldwide) offers with these figures now. Source: heavily interviewed last July while living in Moscow, Russia. Got several offers in that ballpark, accepted one from "Who's hiring" HN thread. Not a rockstar, just a regular developer.

rglullis 5y ago
Congrats! But unless your story can come with many other examples, it should not be counted as representative of any "average" situation from the market at large.

blumomo 5y ago

In Germany you may want to consider that the employer pays another approx. 20% on top of your salary, by law. So if your salary is EUR 100k, your employer actually pays 120k to keep you on board. Money that your employer could otherwise add to your payout as he’s paying all off it anyway _for_ you, right? Now with 42% income tax of a 100k salary, there’s a net of 58k arriving at your bank account over a year. Given that your employer pays 120k, you have actually “lost” 62k (not just 42k) to the government and insurances. With that maths, the _net_ tax (incl. insurances) is actually close to 52%. That is a whopping net +10% taxes from the math in the parent post.

derhagen 5y ago
> "Now with 42% income tax of a 100k salary, there’s a net of 58k arriving at your bank account over a year." Oh boy, that's one of those misconceptions I'm really sick of. "The tax is so high, I pay almost half of my salary to the greedy state". No, you certainly don't! And if everyone please spent 5 minutes to understand the difference between the effective tax rate and the marginal tax rate, we'd finally get rid of that pointless discussion. With a 100k salary, there is ~75k net arriving at you bank account, if you're married. If you take care of children, it's even more. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einkommensteuer_(Deutschland)#/media/Datei:ESt_D_Splitting_2018_zvE_bis_120000.svg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einkommensteuer_(Deutschland)#... I live in Norway and pay an 34% effective tax. The highest in the world at my salary level. I don't complain, because tax money is used for an excellent education system, including the best libraries I've ever been to, and not least for my own ~50k€ PhD salary that every single PhD student in town receives. Meanwhile my high school in Germany didn't even have soap dispensers in the bathrooms because highly skilled hacker news readers don't bother to learn the basics of their tax system before they go and vote for corrupt privatization parties that promise lower taxes and cut back public investments. > "Money that your employer could otherwise add to your payout..." Also, please don't mix up taxes, insurance and pension. If you'd prefer to pay for medical expenses yourself, do the math. You don't want that, especially when you have a family.
- chipotle_coyote 5y ago
  This is also one of my pet peeves. I keep thinking “people do understand progressive taxation, right?”, but in discussions like this, I realize: no, maybe they don’t. If you’re a single filer who makes $180K in the US in 2022, you’re in the 32% tax bracket. But your effective federal tax rate is just over 21% — and that’s assuming you’re only taking the standard deduction.