4 ms·

I do think that European salaries are slowly breaking the mold. I'm being employed by a German company, where the lower end of a managements salary on those cha

I do think that European salaries are slowly breaking the mold. I'm being employed by a German company, where the lower end of a managements salary on those charts is the minimum norm for a backend developer. I know that this is the 'avg' salary of course, but when I specified to recruiters that I would not settle for less than 80-90k EUR with 5 years of experience, I still got enough job interviews (in Germany). I still wonder whether I got a too good of a deal, or whether tides for European developers are changing.

BlargMcLarg 4y ago
I suspect it really depends on who you come in contact with. Native market I still see massive amounts of penny pinchers looking for top talent while doing almost everything they can to stall the important details for as long as possible. Yes, that means rather rushed job interviews filled with questions and lengthy processes to not even have any idea what the entire package will be prior to getting an offer, only for that offer to be middling and mediocre. Location also matters. Several locations pay far better than others, sometimes for no reason whatsoever beyond culture. CoL in several big cities isn't that much worse than the ones with relatively big tech salaries, especially for those willing to transit, hybrid roles and such. Yet the pay can easily be 25% less or worse. As for getting bites from beyond the native market or low quality global / continental markets, no clue. Guess my profile just isn't sharp enough.
- TurboHaskal 4y ago
  > Native market I still see massive amounts of penny pinchers looking for top talent while doing almost everything they can to stall the important details for as long as possible. Yes, that means rather rushed job interviews filled with questions and lengthy processes to not even have any idea what the entire package will be prior to getting an offer, only for that offer to be middling and mediocre. I have noticed this trend as of late and while normally I would say it is the candidate's fault for not asking these questions early on, it is not as if you had any chance to do so as the first interview rounds are done with engineers and potential colleagues. They want to leave the big money talk to the end, and that, coupled with the hesitancy to even post salary ranges, can make for really frustrating and disappointing experiences after exhausting hiring processes.
  - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
    Even if you did have a chance, problem is it's still a numbers game. For every developer not willing to go through that process, odds are they will find 5 who will, while having their current employees accept doing more work than they realistically should to offset cases of 'nobody wants to be hired'. When the inevitable burnouts come in, managers seem to just ignore it and accept it for what it as 'that's just part of life' or something. For every company willing to disclose things upfront prior to the first interview, there will be a few dozen who'd rather do the whole song and dance trying to stick to their culture or worse, proactively use sunken cost fallacies to reel you in. Of course the more experience you have, the more you can fight against this. But I suspect even most seniors struggle with this. Many would rather jump ship to management / pseudo-management or accept things as is than talk and fight back together.
mhitza 4y ago
What are the taxes like in Germany? Post taxes to what amount does 80-90k come down to?
- vodoohooo 4y ago
  approximately half
- usr1106 4y ago
  Taxes is not the only one, social security fees are quite high too. That might sound bad for a healthy young person. However, when you end up of no longer able to work for whatever reason, the likelyhood to end up under bridge is much lower than in many other countries. And even if you get cancer the hospital bills you have to pay yourself will be marginal. My father who is 88 had 2 bigger surgeries last year basically for free. And it's been more than 20 years that he has paid those fees that might sound high to others the last time.

BlargMcLarg 4y ago

I suspect it really depends on who you come in contact with. Native market I still see massive amounts of penny pinchers looking for top talent while doing almost everything they can to stall the important details for as long as possible. Yes, that means rather rushed job interviews filled with questions and lengthy processes to not even have any idea what the entire package will be prior to getting an offer, only for that offer to be middling and mediocre. Location also matters. Several locations pay far better than others, sometimes for no reason whatsoever beyond culture. CoL in several big cities isn't that much worse than the ones with relatively big tech salaries, especially for those willing to transit, hybrid roles and such. Yet the pay can easily be 25% less or worse. As for getting bites from beyond the native market or low quality global / continental markets, no clue. Guess my profile just isn't sharp enough.

TurboHaskal 4y ago
> Native market I still see massive amounts of penny pinchers looking for top talent while doing almost everything they can to stall the important details for as long as possible. Yes, that means rather rushed job interviews filled with questions and lengthy processes to not even have any idea what the entire package will be prior to getting an offer, only for that offer to be middling and mediocre. I have noticed this trend as of late and while normally I would say it is the candidate's fault for not asking these questions early on, it is not as if you had any chance to do so as the first interview rounds are done with engineers and potential colleagues. They want to leave the big money talk to the end, and that, coupled with the hesitancy to even post salary ranges, can make for really frustrating and disappointing experiences after exhausting hiring processes.
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  Even if you did have a chance, problem is it's still a numbers game. For every developer not willing to go through that process, odds are they will find 5 who will, while having their current employees accept doing more work than they realistically should to offset cases of 'nobody wants to be hired'. When the inevitable burnouts come in, managers seem to just ignore it and accept it for what it as 'that's just part of life' or something. For every company willing to disclose things upfront prior to the first interview, there will be a few dozen who'd rather do the whole song and dance trying to stick to their culture or worse, proactively use sunken cost fallacies to reel you in. Of course the more experience you have, the more you can fight against this. But I suspect even most seniors struggle with this. Many would rather jump ship to management / pseudo-management or accept things as is than talk and fight back together.

mhitza 4y ago

What are the taxes like in Germany? Post taxes to what amount does 80-90k come down to?

vodoohooo 4y ago
approximately half
usr1106 4y ago
Taxes is not the only one, social security fees are quite high too. That might sound bad for a healthy young person. However, when you end up of no longer able to work for whatever reason, the likelyhood to end up under bridge is much lower than in many other countries. And even if you get cancer the hospital bills you have to pay yourself will be marginal. My father who is 88 had 2 bigger surgeries last year basically for free. And it's been more than 20 years that he has paid those fees that might sound high to others the last time.