5 ms·

My dream was to go to California too when I started studying computer science. Then I learned about employment laws, health care and social security in the US.

by ascar 4y ago

My dream was to go to California too when I started studying computer science. Then I learned about employment laws, health care and social security in the US. As a person that had close experience how important these things are when things go wrong even though you might've been a millionaire, I feel pretty confident with my choice to stay in Europe. To anyone that thinks these things don't matter if you earn enough money and safe a fair amount, I wish that they and especially their children never get into a situation that shows them how naive that thought was.

tehlike 4y ago
That doesn't compute. If you work for, say, a FAANG company, you have pretty solid healthcare. Social security is surely limited, but there's good benefits for disability and so on. The amount of money you can make in the US as an experienced engineer is probably 5 fold if not more. Senior engineers are easily pulling 7 figures here, which means even taking into account your cost-of-living, you'll end up fairly ahead.
- ascar 4y ago
  > If you work for, say, a FAANG company, you have pretty solid healthcare. While you're employed. For how many days of sickness does your contract say do they have to keep you employed? Isn't it even employment at will? I don't wanna enter this discussion further. I'm just gonna finish with that I experienced first hand someone making what's today nearly a million a year (in Germany no less!) and ending up on social security within a few years due to sickness and bad investment. And that's with universal health care. A good job, high earnings and decent savings give you leeway, but they will not protect you from tragedy and even more important they will not protect your kids from tragedy that have no fault in whatever happens.
  - amscanne 4y ago
    Not extending the discussion (I’m not the parent commenter), but I think your argument highlights the cultural differences that exist in an interesting way. In the US, independence, self-reliance and optimism are a much bigger part of the common culture. You are considering only worst case scenarios and assuming that the state is the only thing you can rely on. Consider how your view would be different with a more optimistic view of your own luck/ability to recover, and a more pessimistic view of government.
  - tehlike 4y ago
    Could you go leave us for Germany and still get healthcare there? I don't know, just asking. I am not usually planning for worst case and i tend to be optimist, i have a working spouse and i make decent money, and my plan is to be buried here in the US, but if shit hits the fan, and i can no longer work, i will still have healthcare through wife. Even worse case i can always go back to turkey. It's hard but not impossible to make such life changes.
- flexie 4y ago
  But healthcare is just as long as you work for that FAANG. Once you are out, you are on your own. Not so in Germany.
  - junofan 4y ago
    I quit a FAANG job, purchased insurance, and it was pretty easy—just a couple clicks. Are you saying the government auto-enrolls you in Germany?
    - ascar 4y ago
      > Are you saying the government auto-enrolls you in Germany? Kinda. Healthcare is not provided by your employers, but by health care insurances. It is generally mandatory to be insured. The system is split in universal healthcare (payed as a percentage of your salary) and private healthcare (payed from your bank account). Anyone self-employed and earning above a certain threshold can opt to leave the government system and buy private healthcare (gives somewhat better treatment, most notably faster appointments at specialists, as they earn 3-5 times on a privately insured patient). When you leave an employer you remain in the system you were in before. If you were privately insured and end up on social security you will be moved to the government system and they will cover healthcare costs for you. The issue is with "purchasing" insurance. a) you need money, b) what does the health insurance say when you wanna get insurance while having acute expensive health issues? Getting insurance when you are healthy and have money is easy.
      - tehlike 4y ago
        Do you get healthcare when you are not making any money?
        ascar 4y ago
        I'm not sure which situation you are asking about, but generally if you are not earning money and can't afford health care, you should qualify for social security and that covers healthcare, rent, basic needs. In general it's mandatory to have health insurance and changes in employment status don't affect your insurance status. Though it's possible to end up uninsured when you are unable/unwilling to pay, but also do not apply for social security payments (however I believe that's more an active choice than a real risk). As a student for example it's mandatory to get insurance to be enrolled in university. Cost for students that are no longer covered by parents (above age 24 iirc) is close to 100€ per month.
- ascar 4y ago
  > The amount of money you can make in the US as an experienced engineer is probably 5 fold if not more. Senior engineers are easily pulling 7 figures here This statement is inaccurate for most people. The salaries for H1B visa holders are actually public [1] and starting salaries for foreigners are more 100k to 200k and nowhere close to 7 figures. Also the salary levels at FAANGs are mostly known [2] and you have to get very, very far up to even make 7 figures at a fang. An L6 (staff engineer) makes 500k total comp. [1] https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=Software&city=San+Francisco&year=2021 https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=Software&city=San+Fra... [2] https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Amazon,SAP,Google&track=Software%20Engineer# https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Amazon,SAP,Google&track=Soft...
  - closeparen 4y ago
    H1Bs pull the same salaries as everyone else, always the real money is in equity.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - tehlike 4y ago
    When I say senior engineer, i don't mean e5 senior engineer. You can get there within a year or two. You can get to e6 in what it takes to do PhD.
    - ascar 4y ago
      Well, you can also stay at L5 forever. It's a terminal level afterall. L6 typically needs at least 9 years of experience and the majority of people will never reach it. And at L6 you make half of 7 figures. L5 still make great money and it is a multiple of what you get outside of SV. Just inflating to 7 figures is a bit exaggerated Edit: this comment from 6 months ago provides a bit of inside view on getting L6 at Google https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28965492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28965492
      - tehlike 4y ago
- leetcrew 4y ago
  > Senior engineers are easily pulling 7 figures here, which means even taking into account your cost-of-living, you'll end up fairly ahead. senior engineers are not "easily pulling" that amount anywhere. that's way outside the senior engineer band at FAANGs/unicorns. you need to be at staff/principal level to get outside of the mid six figures, which is very hard even if you already have a job at one of those companies. that said, I do kinda agree otherwise. if you are making $200k (typical senior at normal company, between junior/mid-level at FAANG) and are a remotely frugal person, it would take a very unlucky series of events to get to "broke". the risk exists, but from a strictly materialistic viewpoint, the increased upside more than makes up for it.
  - tehlike 4y ago
    Yup, expected value is much more. 200k tend to be near starting band these days, and within 5-6 years where you tend to be the healthiest in your life assuming new grad, you can reach 600+ band.
- astura 4y ago
  So if something goes tragically wrong and you're unable to do your job not only do you lose your source of income you also lose your healthcare. I know drastically inflated incomes is the lingua franca of online discussion, but "easily pulling 7 figures" is a bit much, don't you think?
  - tehlike 4y ago
    Do you always plan for the worst case? If this is true, could you simply take your money and go back to your home country and still reasonably live there? I don't always plan for the worst case, I tend to be optimistic, and if something bad comes up, i improvise. Also if you are a family and your spouse works, this is some sort of hedging for the scenario you mentioned.
    - abledon 4y ago
      The giorgioz comment chain starts from considering all software engineers in Europe moving to US, but then is narrowed down by your definition of 'you' (when i think you mean 'I'), in that 'you' all your examples use, is a person who 1. has a wife with a steady job in US with good health benefits, 2. can achieve senior engineering level E6 in FAANG in 1-2 years... This is immediately like dropping the discussion down to 0.01% of the original chain lol
      - tehlike 4y ago
        Fair, but you are over-exaggerating. Here is what it looks like. - I started working in 2012. - I didn't come here married - I married another Turkish woman a few years later, she couldn't work until she were able to get EAD which was probably around 2015/6. H1B spouses couldn't work at the time. - We got audited for our greencard, and there were frictions in the process for whatever reason. It was no where near as bad as it is for an Indian - we were still able to complete it in about 2 years. - During greencard process, she got EAD, it took a bit of time as a foreigner educated/non-engineer person find a FTE job. This meant she was on a contract job to build her US resume, and she had to renew every 6 months or so. It is fairly stressful for a person at the beginning of her career in a foreign country and you have to provide support. It also didn't allow us a backup healthcare in case I was out of work. - I didn't get to 6 in 1-2 years, it took 4, and that was on the faster side at google. It could have been faster at FB, but that's not the point. All of these are progression in life, nothing is given to you. You can't assume the worst case, because in the worst case everyone is dead tomorrow. I took a bet to come to US(after a US school, on H1B). I didn't think of what'd have happened if i lost my job, i don't really stress over one of us losing job anymore. If it happens, we deal with it. We always have. Risk and consequences of losing everything early on is much lower. You don't have expenses, you don't have dependents. You take a bet, and you start building a life. This is why I suggest everyone to do it as soon as possible if they want to leave their home countries. You start reducing your risk in some things (by getting married) while you increase risk in some others (like getting a bad divorce etc), you add more financial stress if you have a kid, but you have other joys you add through it and so on. This is not a me story, this is a story that's replicable for most people in FAANG jobs...
junofan 4y ago
Can’t you just go back if things go wrong? I don’t understand why your downside isn’t limited.
giorgioz 4y ago
Software engineers that go to the USA do the H1B visa which only very big employers can offer. Those big employers always offer very good health care plans. You are compensated far more than you would earn in Europe so being laid off is not a problem given with one month salary you can leave off for several months and you will have plenty of other employers trying to hire you given you already have the H1B visa.

by ascar 4y ago

tehlike 4y ago

That doesn't compute. If you work for, say, a FAANG company, you have pretty solid healthcare. Social security is surely limited, but there's good benefits for disability and so on. The amount of money you can make in the US as an experienced engineer is probably 5 fold if not more. Senior engineers are easily pulling 7 figures here, which means even taking into account your cost-of-living, you'll end up fairly ahead.

ascar 4y ago
> If you work for, say, a FAANG company, you have pretty solid healthcare. While you're employed. For how many days of sickness does your contract say do they have to keep you employed? Isn't it even employment at will? I don't wanna enter this discussion further. I'm just gonna finish with that I experienced first hand someone making what's today nearly a million a year (in Germany no less!) and ending up on social security within a few years due to sickness and bad investment. And that's with universal health care. A good job, high earnings and decent savings give you leeway, but they will not protect you from tragedy and even more important they will not protect your kids from tragedy that have no fault in whatever happens.
- amscanne 4y ago
  Not extending the discussion (I’m not the parent commenter), but I think your argument highlights the cultural differences that exist in an interesting way. In the US, independence, self-reliance and optimism are a much bigger part of the common culture. You are considering only worst case scenarios and assuming that the state is the only thing you can rely on. Consider how your view would be different with a more optimistic view of your own luck/ability to recover, and a more pessimistic view of government.
- tehlike 4y ago
  Could you go leave us for Germany and still get healthcare there? I don't know, just asking. I am not usually planning for worst case and i tend to be optimist, i have a working spouse and i make decent money, and my plan is to be buried here in the US, but if shit hits the fan, and i can no longer work, i will still have healthcare through wife. Even worse case i can always go back to turkey. It's hard but not impossible to make such life changes.
flexie 4y ago
But healthcare is just as long as you work for that FAANG. Once you are out, you are on your own. Not so in Germany.
- junofan 4y ago
  I quit a FAANG job, purchased insurance, and it was pretty easy—just a couple clicks. Are you saying the government auto-enrolls you in Germany?
  - ascar 4y ago
    > Are you saying the government auto-enrolls you in Germany? Kinda. Healthcare is not provided by your employers, but by health care insurances. It is generally mandatory to be insured. The system is split in universal healthcare (payed as a percentage of your salary) and private healthcare (payed from your bank account). Anyone self-employed and earning above a certain threshold can opt to leave the government system and buy private healthcare (gives somewhat better treatment, most notably faster appointments at specialists, as they earn 3-5 times on a privately insured patient). When you leave an employer you remain in the system you were in before. If you were privately insured and end up on social security you will be moved to the government system and they will cover healthcare costs for you. The issue is with "purchasing" insurance. a) you need money, b) what does the health insurance say when you wanna get insurance while having acute expensive health issues? Getting insurance when you are healthy and have money is easy.
    - tehlike 4y ago
      Do you get healthcare when you are not making any money?
      - ascar 4y ago
        I'm not sure which situation you are asking about, but generally if you are not earning money and can't afford health care, you should qualify for social security and that covers healthcare, rent, basic needs. In general it's mandatory to have health insurance and changes in employment status don't affect your insurance status. Though it's possible to end up uninsured when you are unable/unwilling to pay, but also do not apply for social security payments (however I believe that's more an active choice than a real risk). As a student for example it's mandatory to get insurance to be enrolled in university. Cost for students that are no longer covered by parents (above age 24 iirc) is close to 100€ per month.
ascar 4y ago
> The amount of money you can make in the US as an experienced engineer is probably 5 fold if not more. Senior engineers are easily pulling 7 figures here This statement is inaccurate for most people. The salaries for H1B visa holders are actually public [1] and starting salaries for foreigners are more 100k to 200k and nowhere close to 7 figures. Also the salary levels at FAANGs are mostly known [2] and you have to get very, very far up to even make 7 figures at a fang. An L6 (staff engineer) makes 500k total comp. [1] https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=Software&city=San+Francisco&year=2021 https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=Software&city=San+Fra... [2] https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Amazon,SAP,Google&track=Software%20Engineer# https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Amazon,SAP,Google&track=Soft...
- closeparen 4y ago
  H1Bs pull the same salaries as everyone else, always the real money is in equity.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tehlike 4y ago
  When I say senior engineer, i don't mean e5 senior engineer. You can get there within a year or two. You can get to e6 in what it takes to do PhD.
  - ascar 4y ago
    Well, you can also stay at L5 forever. It's a terminal level afterall. L6 typically needs at least 9 years of experience and the majority of people will never reach it. And at L6 you make half of 7 figures. L5 still make great money and it is a multiple of what you get outside of SV. Just inflating to 7 figures is a bit exaggerated Edit: this comment from 6 months ago provides a bit of inside view on getting L6 at Google https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28965492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28965492
    - tehlike 4y ago
leetcrew 4y ago
> Senior engineers are easily pulling 7 figures here, which means even taking into account your cost-of-living, you'll end up fairly ahead. senior engineers are not "easily pulling" that amount anywhere. that's way outside the senior engineer band at FAANGs/unicorns. you need to be at staff/principal level to get outside of the mid six figures, which is very hard even if you already have a job at one of those companies. that said, I do kinda agree otherwise. if you are making $200k (typical senior at normal company, between junior/mid-level at FAANG) and are a remotely frugal person, it would take a very unlucky series of events to get to "broke". the risk exists, but from a strictly materialistic viewpoint, the increased upside more than makes up for it.
- tehlike 4y ago
  Yup, expected value is much more. 200k tend to be near starting band these days, and within 5-6 years where you tend to be the healthiest in your life assuming new grad, you can reach 600+ band.
astura 4y ago
So if something goes tragically wrong and you're unable to do your job not only do you lose your source of income you also lose your healthcare. I know drastically inflated incomes is the lingua franca of online discussion, but "easily pulling 7 figures" is a bit much, don't you think?
- tehlike 4y ago
  Do you always plan for the worst case? If this is true, could you simply take your money and go back to your home country and still reasonably live there? I don't always plan for the worst case, I tend to be optimistic, and if something bad comes up, i improvise. Also if you are a family and your spouse works, this is some sort of hedging for the scenario you mentioned.
  - abledon 4y ago
    The giorgioz comment chain starts from considering all software engineers in Europe moving to US, but then is narrowed down by your definition of 'you' (when i think you mean 'I'), in that 'you' all your examples use, is a person who 1. has a wife with a steady job in US with good health benefits, 2. can achieve senior engineering level E6 in FAANG in 1-2 years... This is immediately like dropping the discussion down to 0.01% of the original chain lol
    - tehlike 4y ago
      Fair, but you are over-exaggerating. Here is what it looks like. - I started working in 2012. - I didn't come here married - I married another Turkish woman a few years later, she couldn't work until she were able to get EAD which was probably around 2015/6. H1B spouses couldn't work at the time. - We got audited for our greencard, and there were frictions in the process for whatever reason. It was no where near as bad as it is for an Indian - we were still able to complete it in about 2 years. - During greencard process, she got EAD, it took a bit of time as a foreigner educated/non-engineer person find a FTE job. This meant she was on a contract job to build her US resume, and she had to renew every 6 months or so. It is fairly stressful for a person at the beginning of her career in a foreign country and you have to provide support. It also didn't allow us a backup healthcare in case I was out of work. - I didn't get to 6 in 1-2 years, it took 4, and that was on the faster side at google. It could have been faster at FB, but that's not the point. All of these are progression in life, nothing is given to you. You can't assume the worst case, because in the worst case everyone is dead tomorrow. I took a bet to come to US(after a US school, on H1B). I didn't think of what'd have happened if i lost my job, i don't really stress over one of us losing job anymore. If it happens, we deal with it. We always have. Risk and consequences of losing everything early on is much lower. You don't have expenses, you don't have dependents. You take a bet, and you start building a life. This is why I suggest everyone to do it as soon as possible if they want to leave their home countries. You start reducing your risk in some things (by getting married) while you increase risk in some others (like getting a bad divorce etc), you add more financial stress if you have a kid, but you have other joys you add through it and so on. This is not a me story, this is a story that's replicable for most people in FAANG jobs...

junofan 4y ago

Can’t you just go back if things go wrong? I don’t understand why your downside isn’t limited.

giorgioz 4y ago

Software engineers that go to the USA do the H1B visa which only very big employers can offer. Those big employers always offer very good health care plans. You are compensated far more than you would earn in Europe so being laid off is not a problem given with one month salary you can leave off for several months and you will have plenty of other employers trying to hire you given you already have the H1B visa.