35 ms·

Tech Compensation in Europe

150 points by gdaramouskas 4y ago

WrtCdEvrydy 4y ago
The worst bit about this is that in Europe, employers don't have to pay for insurance versus the US side yet we still find ways to dick over our European hires by having them come in very low. I've worked at places making 150k USD where the most knowledgeable people I worked with were making 90k GBP in Europe. We lost a lot of people during the great exodus of inflation at the beginning of the "Ukraine training exercises".
- tiborsaas 4y ago
  Here's a list how much employers pay for insurance: https://blog.eurodev.com/social-security-tax-rates-employers-europe-2021#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20the%20social%20security,American%20employers%20are%20used%20to https://blog.eurodev.com/social-security-tax-rates-employers....
  - rr888 4y ago
    Is 45% employer tax for France correct? Ie employer pays €181k for an employee to earn €100k, who then pays 40% income tax and is left with €60k?
    - Hamuko 4y ago
      Not French, but it doesn't sound that weird. I think my grandmother (an accountant) once told me that the general principle is that an employee should be worth at least three times their salary for the employment to make sense financially.
    - bchanudet 4y ago
      You are correct for the first number (181k to 100k), but not the second one, as the income tax is calculated by brackets defined in adavance[1]. A single person with no family winning 100k would have to pay 23k, leaving them with 77k. This is more than twice the average in France[2] and nearly thrice the median salary [3]. [1] : https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F1419 https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F1419 [2] : https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/serie/010752333 https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/serie/010752333 [3] : https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/6436313#titre-bloc-9 https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/6436313#titre-bloc-9
      - rr888 4y ago
        Thanks, I calculated 26.7k leaving 73k, so employee keeps just over 40% of what the employer pays. If you look at income tax in high income tax states the income tax looks similar, so its the payroll taxes and VAT that really is the difference between France and US.
        bchanudet 4y ago
        I may be wrong, but I think there is also a cultural difference: everything here revolves around your gross income. You'll hear "I win 100k a year", not "I win 181k a year". During hiring, you negotiate on the 100k number. Your contract mention this number. In the end, if there is a tax raise on the company part, they have to maintain your salary to the same level, even if it ends up costing them more than before. That'd be also why US salaries seem so high from the outside, but are less impressive once your factor this in.
        ryanwaggoner 4y ago
        This is exactly how it works in the US. Salaries here are listed and negotiated around the gross amount that the employer pays to the employee, without any regard for the employer taxes. The difference is that employer-side taxes on that salary are about ~8% (and most of this is capped at the first $147k), not 45%. Sadly, US salaries don’t just seem much higher than Europe: they are much higher. Take home pay after all taxes for a senior engineer at a large public tech company can commonly be $250k+ per year, in addition to benefits like health insurance and 6+ weeks off once vacation and holidays are taken into account.
    - tiborsaas 4y ago
      Maybe someone from France can confirm it, but in Hungary, the 17% is just part of the whole tax. Here's a much better site explaining it: https://hu.talent.com/en/tax-calculator?salary=100000&from=month&region=Hungary https://hu.talent.com/en/tax-calculator?salary=100000&from=m...
    - vladvasiliu 4y ago
      The employee doesn't pay 40% income tax on a 100k salary. Income tax in France is progressive. You slice your income in brackets, and for each there's a tax rate. Your average tax rate is the average of your brackets. The highest bracket in France is 45% for income above 160k, so for your total income tax rate to be about 40%, it would mean that you make an absolute shitload of money. Income tax brackets, French, but the table is clear enough: https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F1419 https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F1419
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >in Europe, employers don't have to pay for insurance They do in some cases. In France and Austria (I think Germany and others too), the gross salary you negociate to get is actually even higher for the employer as there is a tax the employer must pay on top of that to cover his side of the social contributions. I wish this would be more transparent. What you said applies to places like Denmark, Switzerland, where the employer has to pay no extra taxes.
  - em500 4y ago
    I don't know about Denmark or Switzerland, but in the Netherlands employers certainly have to pay premiums for social (mainly unemployment and disability) insurance.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      Ah sorry then. I thought otherwise.
  - commandlinefan 4y ago
    That happens in America as well, and I don't think people are well aware of it - the employer is required to pay unemployment insurance on top of the salary they pay to each employee. If you collect unemployment, this is where that money comes from.
    - leipert 4y ago
      Usually employees in Germany need to calculate with 1.15 to 1.2x of the salary they negotiate with the employee. The employer needs to match social contributions (retirement, unemployment, health insurance)
- Bayart 4y ago
  > The worst bit about this is that in Europe, employers don't have to pay for insurance versus the US side yet we still find ways to dick over our European hires by having them come in very low. Pardon ? In France the net is about 50% of the super gross paid by the company, much of it social security. And that's before you pay the bloody income tax.
- teh_klev 4y ago
  In the UK (still part of the European geographical area despite the Brexit foot shooting), employers pay a "National Insurance" contribution over and above the employee's salary i.e. it's not deducted from your salary. Employees also have their own national insurance contribution which is deducted along with income tax.
- Macha 4y ago
  At least here in ireland, the legal mandated contribution to the public health system is called Employer's PRSI, and usually most big tech employers will pay for private health insurance also (albeit private health insurance is priced much more reasonably here, due to needing to compete with the public system with its capped patient costs).
WJW 4y ago
Trimodal distribution in full display there, wow. Also, the "anonymization" of companies is so specific as to be almost useless. There's only one ride sharing company with an office in Amsterdam AFAIK, just as there are not all that many internationally operating social networks there. It would be better to just spell out the names I think.
- gregdoesit 4y ago
  Working on more generic anonymized names! The goal is not to guess which ones these companies are.
bandris 4y ago
Tax returns should be public. Like in Norway. That would sort out all kinds of "payment gap" issues as well.
- dijit 4y ago
  Tax returns are public in Sweden too. I would guess it's the same in Denmark (even if they're not quite as socialist); Perhaps Finland. But the majority of tech in Europe is: Dublin, Berlin and Amsterdam. AFAIK none of those have host countries which publicly disclose tax information;
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >But the majority of tech in Europe is: Dublin, Berlin and Amsterdam. And Zurich and London (non-EU).
    - dijit 4y ago
      Ah yes, I totally forgot the non-EU ones. Zurich IME is more in line with Californian salaries though.
      - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
        While being more expensive than California.
        hiq 4y ago
        You can't compare Zurich with California. According to Wikipedia, California is 10 times as big as Switzerland. Rent is usually the biggest part of expenses and the prices are crazier in the SV than in Zurich (the city). Maybe you were not referring to the SV, but then you have places 30min away (by train) from Zurich that are also way cheaper.
  - ptr 4y ago
    Sweden and Denmark don’t differ in how much “socialist” they are. Also, they’re not socialist countries.
ochronus 4y ago
Super nice to see this becoming public finally!! Great stuff, I'm excited to see the clarity and transparency this will bring to the table.
- madduci 4y ago
  I can't believe that people working as Software Engineer in Berlin Area is getting paid 300k+ €. This might be realistic for people working 100% for San Francisco companies
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
Weird to generalize this over "Europe", since you better live in very specific countries/cities in the UK, Switzerland, Ireland, Netherlands, Luxembourg or Germany, otherwise those salary ranges are completely meaningless to you/your employers, especially the Tier 3 wages. Better naming would be "Compensation across Europe's biggest tech hubs".
- tiborsaas 4y ago
  Since the EU is a free market for employees with no immigration laws and mostly using the same currency, it's not weird at all.
  - mustafa_pasi 4y ago
    Only if you ignore the cost of moving, which is enormous. Basically dropping your whole life to get maybe 20k€ more, abroad. If you are happy with your life, not even 150k€ would justify a move because good money ain't going to buy you the same friends and family.
    - tiborsaas 4y ago
      I don't understand what you mean by enormous costs. Yes, permanent moving is not exactly cheap, but it depends very much on the individual's life situation: age, social connections, home ownership, having a car, furniture all matters and all differs. Based on this one might move with a single backpack or it might take a few months to prepare. Most companies are happy to pay your relocation costs and / or get you a place till you find one on your own. You can also fly rather cheaply if you miss your family, so this reads very weird to me.
      - mustafa_pasi 4y ago
        I couldn't give a rat's ass about relocation costs, or furniture, or even home ownership tbh. Those are all relatively minimal costs. But if you have a nice life, a nice social circle of friends, ...etc, do not take all that for granted. You won't magically get all that back once you move. You probably never will to be honest. You will meet other people but building a social life from scratch in a new country is hard and you will end up with a lot of shallow relationships, or maybe nothing at all. But it really depends on your personal situation. If you are a 20 year old nerd with barely any social life to begin with, go ahead. It might even improve your life.
schnitzelstoat 4y ago
It'll be interesting when they add Southern Europe. I've seen adverts for experienced developers that pay €35k. And life isn't that much cheaper in the cities here.
- wing-_-nuts 4y ago
  I've always wondered about this. You'll see cities with very high real estate prices and rents, and the median salary will not be sufficient to afford either. It makes me wonder why this is sustainable?
- bibaheu 4y ago
  I keep getting calls from recruiters offering 30k€ in North Spain, but they are hurting, as nowadays everybody is getting better deals thanks to remote work.
  - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
    so I guess this is annual, not monthly? Or is there some other division of salary that I haven't thought of?
    - nicoburns 4y ago
      Yes, this is annual.
- Ueland 4y ago
  That sounds ...very low, right? Given that it will be very easy to get twice that(and more) in northern Europe.
  - schnitzelstoat 4y ago
    Yep - the decent companies tend to pay like €60-70k though. It's really bimodal, like in OP's post. The big multinationals tend to pay decent wages and the others pay a pittance.
  - 4y ago
userm0d 4y ago
Just wanted to say thanks for putting this together. Looking forward too seeing the dataset grow.
- Varqu 4y ago
  I will take the chance to add our datasets as well (we are running tech job boards with mandatory salary brackets). The data is based on what the companies advertise, and the data size is of around 2000 salaries for each country: - Switzerland: https://swissdevjobs.ch/salaries/all/all https://swissdevjobs.ch/salaries/all/all - Germany: https://germantechjobs.de/en/salaries/all/all https://germantechjobs.de/en/salaries/all/all - UK: https://devitjobs.uk/salaries/all/all https://devitjobs.uk/salaries/all/all - Romania: https://devjob.ro/en/salaries/all/all https://devjob.ro/en/salaries/all/all Important to add that we don't catch the whole spectrum of the market (missing FAANG-like and some top international startups), so basically our 90 percentile will be probably an 80 percentile if you add those. I think it's important to also have this perspective, because not everyone has the determination & luck to go through the whole interview process at FAANG-like companies.
  - yrgulation 4y ago
    > - Romania: https://devjob.ro/en/salaries/ https://devjob.ro/en/salaries/ Interesting. The avg salary after tax in romania is 11k ron, around 2300 eur. Tax and national insurance for permanent employees in that country is around 45-50%. So the average pay is around 4400 eur. More than the german average of 45k per year before tax.
dijit 4y ago
I and everyone I know are severely underpaid, or this site is a bit wrong.
- The_Colonel 4y ago
  If it's any consolation, people with above average incomes are more likely to fill these sites, so I think they are skewed upwards.
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    People also lie, often even to themselves.
- f6v 4y ago
  Wayfair, Amazon, and MS probably pay above the market. But I heard 100k+ is typical for senior SE. While 80k has been on the higher end just 2-3 years ago. That’s for Berlin.
  - botch_san 4y ago
    Here in Austria 60k-65k is pretty high end for a senior SE... I should probably move to Germany.
- Jyaif 4y ago
  I'm with you. At Thales (big french tech company), AFAIU there's essentially no way of reaching 60kEUR/year without becoming a manager. And even then, reaching 100K requires climbing a lot more levels.
  - piaste 4y ago
    > At Thales (big french tech company), AFAIU there's essentially no way of reaching 60kEUR/year without becoming a manager. You're probably thinking of after-tax salary, also known as take-home pay (5k/month in your example). Salary is almost always discussed in pre-tax terms, because two employees with the same salary can get very different tax deductions based on their family situation etc. This website is no exception, as far as I can see. (Of course, this makes sense when comparing within the same country. When comparing different countries, tax rates are already different before you consider discounts.)
secfirstmd 4y ago
Really needs Ireland in here
- zuhayeer 4y ago
  We've collected some data for Ireland here: https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Ireland/ https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Ireland/
shmatt 4y ago
This is why I dislike the fight against location based pay in the U.S. People are heated about how they add the same value whether in SF or Kentucky, but forget there are people even more valuable than them getting paid significantly less. If you are fighting against location based pay, you should be asking your employer to pay all employees on similar teams worldwide the same
- mbg721 4y ago
  What do you tell your Kentucky-based employees at that point? "Look, 30 cents a week is our business model. You don't see Harbaglarb in Racetothebottomland complaining,"??
  - pydry 4y ago
    Thats pretty much what happened to most US based labor-intensive industry. It all seemed to work fine for US business leaders until it slowly started dawning on politicians that their "free trade" schtick created a colossal national security risk in the form of enormously fragile multicontinent supply chains.
  - akmarinov 4y ago
    Well yeah, if Harbaglarb does the same job as the Kentucky person why shouldn’t they be paid the same?
    - mbg721 4y ago
      From a rational economic standpoint, they should, but that isn't the fight that the anti-Harbaglarbers wanted; there's an assumption that there's culture in common between SF and KY that gets lost somewhere overseas to the cheapest bidder.
      - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
        It wouldn't get lost if you didn't go for the cheapest bidder. And you don't have to go as far as paying US salaries to get that talent as well. Eastern Europe is full of top devs who who work remotely for SV companies and understand US culture (New Yorkers couldn't believe I was a foreigner) and deliver value, while being paid half of what their US team members are getting and are (mostly) happy with that since 80k-150k is still way more than what local companies pay there.
gregdoesit 4y ago
Hi! I'm building this website, but I did not submit this show HN here. I don't think the site is ready for such a submission, it's currently in alpha - very clearly marked. It's not even beta-ready yet! The data set so far is small - limited to a few countries - and we're working behind the scenes. There are also lots of known issues, and a few data issues. I'm hoping this site will help people in tech get a better sense on tech compensation outside regions where there's better compensation transparency like the US. I started this site after I saw the impact of my article on the trimodal compensation model had [1], but got many questions on what companies pay "Tier 3" or "Tier 2" packages in various countries. So, to reiterate: this is heavily WIP, we've got lots of work to do, and we're planning to add more countries, one at a time. Eventually covering all of Europe, and then beyond! One day I hope it will be ready for a proper "Show HN" submission. That day is not today :) Also, I reached out to dang to remove it from Show HN as it’s not submitted by someone who did the project (and not ready for such a submission) [1] https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-salaries-in-the-netherlands-and-europe/ https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-sala...
- angarg12 4y ago
  Hi Gergely, thanks for bringing salary transparency to the EU! Some of those numbers make me consider moving back ;) Since this is early stage here is something for your consideration: so far I'm not very keen on how many of these websites account for equity/RSU in the salary information. For example, during my first 4 years at FAANG, my salary increased 50% due to stock appreciation alone. But the I faced a cliff where my comp went down after the 4th year. How to represent this data accurately? If I introduce my comp at hire I'll discount how much I truly earned during that period. But if I introduce my data on the 4th year that'll give a distorted view of how much engineers at that level usually make. It will also discount the fact that my salary went down afterwards. I don't know the answer but it feels difficult to capture with a single number a compensation package with a large and very volatile component.
  - gregdoesit 4y ago
    Thanks! This is a tricky one as you already pointed it out. I’m voting for simplicity: capturing the number in the point of time, and also capturing whether the equity component has appreciated or depreciated. My bet is that having the date of the submission plus data on whether this was a new offer plus the indicator of how the equity changed will give a good enough sense for the sake of using this data.
pavlov 4y ago
It seems a bit controversial to include private company equity in total compensation. For example, for Estonia, the highest TC is Bolt, but about 26% of the compensation is actually stock in this unlisted unicorn. Presumably that stock price is computed from the last funding round. Who knows what Bolt's valuation will be in the next round? That equity might be marked down 50% or more, and you still can't sell it until the company does an IPO one day (which would probably be many years from now when the IPO market is alive again). I think it would be really useful to add a "Company is publicly listed" boolean column, so you'd immediately know if the equity is liquid. Latest funding round (e.g. Series B) would also be interesting information because that helps calibrate expectations around equity and a company's staying power in general.
- gregdoesit 4y ago
  I'm building the site (but I didn't submit this Show HN). The private part of the shares are clearly marked as private in details, and there's an explainer eg at [1]. I do think it's important to include private equity in packages. My Uber stock package turned out to be worth a lot of money once the company went public. I now have friends at Databricks with massive packages - which can go up or down, and are dependent on an IPO. But this is very important information in my view. [1] https://techpays.com/details/bbkzjx1e6mhj6ynm8yhhu https://techpays.com/details/bbkzjx1e6mhj6ynm8yhhu
  - pavlov 4y ago
    Oh, cool, thanks! I didn't notice it's already there in the job posting's details. How about promoting this flag to a column in the high-level grid display? It's pretty interesting, and would allow you to get a quick overview of the ratio of startups vs established companies. I imagine this would look rather different for Estonia vs Luxembourg, for example. You are right about the importance of this information. But it would be even more useful if the latest funding round was included. Equity in a Series F has a very different risk/reward profile compared to equity in a seed round company.
    - gregdoesit 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
muxator 4y ago
Info: this does not work in Firefox (102 on linux, but that's a detail) with content blocking enabled, because Firefox does not allow to load jQuery from google's CDN. > The resource at “https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.5.1/jquery.min.js” https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.5.1/jquery.mi... was blocked because content blocking is enabled. And then there are cascading errors.
- gregdoesit 4y ago
  Thanks! Another reason this is still in alpha - I was not ready for someone to submit this to HN just yet. Wow, how the world changed from using Google's CDNs to having to host it yourself. I just pushed a fix to move the script to the local domain. It will be live in a few minutes.
  - muxator 4y ago
    Thanks, all good now!
- solardev 4y ago
  Is that a default setting in Firefox? To not allow third-party scripts from CDNs? That seems like it would break an awful lot of sites.
theodric 4y ago
I'd love to share my comp, but as the only person in my country at my rank in my department (at a 100k-person global company!) I might as well just post it on LinkedIn.
jacknews 4y ago
I was going to slam you for negotiating a laughable "up to €45,000 per year", but then realised it was 'up to €45,000 more per year". Carry on.
BrandoElFollito 4y ago
I think the list of roles is missing the IT ones, and the infosec ones as well
zuhayeer 4y ago
We've also started adding international support on Levels.fyi. For some additional data points, you can check out some of our pages for Europe. Here are some countries I didn't see covered: Ireland: https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Ireland/ https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Ireland/ UK: https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/United-Kingdom/ https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/United-Kin... Switzerland: https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Switzerland/ https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Switzerlan... France: https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/France/ https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/France/ Spain: https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Spain/ https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Spain/ Also a whole bunch of other locations, which you can browse here under the International section: https://levels.fyi/locations/ https://levels.fyi/locations/
dang 4y ago
Please don't put "Show HN" on projects you didn't create. Show HN is specifically for sharing your own work: https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html. We've taken Show HN off the title now.

150 points by gdaramouskas 4y ago

The worst bit about this is that in Europe, employers don't have to pay for insurance versus the US side yet we still find ways to dick over our European hires by having them come in very low. I've worked at places making 150k USD where the most knowledgeable people I worked with were making 90k GBP in Europe. We lost a lot of people during the great exodus of inflation at the beginning of the "Ukraine training exercises".

tiborsaas 4y ago
Here's a list how much employers pay for insurance: https://blog.eurodev.com/social-security-tax-rates-employers-europe-2021#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20the%20social%20security,American%20employers%20are%20used%20to https://blog.eurodev.com/social-security-tax-rates-employers....
- rr888 4y ago
  Is 45% employer tax for France correct? Ie employer pays €181k for an employee to earn €100k, who then pays 40% income tax and is left with €60k?
  - Hamuko 4y ago
    Not French, but it doesn't sound that weird. I think my grandmother (an accountant) once told me that the general principle is that an employee should be worth at least three times their salary for the employment to make sense financially.
  - bchanudet 4y ago
    You are correct for the first number (181k to 100k), but not the second one, as the income tax is calculated by brackets defined in adavance[1]. A single person with no family winning 100k would have to pay 23k, leaving them with 77k. This is more than twice the average in France[2] and nearly thrice the median salary [3]. [1] : https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F1419 https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F1419 [2] : https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/serie/010752333 https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/serie/010752333 [3] : https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/6436313#titre-bloc-9 https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/6436313#titre-bloc-9
    - rr888 4y ago
      Thanks, I calculated 26.7k leaving 73k, so employee keeps just over 40% of what the employer pays. If you look at income tax in high income tax states the income tax looks similar, so its the payroll taxes and VAT that really is the difference between France and US.
      - bchanudet 4y ago
        I may be wrong, but I think there is also a cultural difference: everything here revolves around your gross income. You'll hear "I win 100k a year", not "I win 181k a year". During hiring, you negotiate on the 100k number. Your contract mention this number. In the end, if there is a tax raise on the company part, they have to maintain your salary to the same level, even if it ends up costing them more than before. That'd be also why US salaries seem so high from the outside, but are less impressive once your factor this in.
        ryanwaggoner 4y ago
        This is exactly how it works in the US. Salaries here are listed and negotiated around the gross amount that the employer pays to the employee, without any regard for the employer taxes. The difference is that employer-side taxes on that salary are about ~8% (and most of this is capped at the first $147k), not 45%. Sadly, US salaries don’t just seem much higher than Europe: they are much higher. Take home pay after all taxes for a senior engineer at a large public tech company can commonly be $250k+ per year, in addition to benefits like health insurance and 6+ weeks off once vacation and holidays are taken into account.
  - tiborsaas 4y ago
    Maybe someone from France can confirm it, but in Hungary, the 17% is just part of the whole tax. Here's a much better site explaining it: https://hu.talent.com/en/tax-calculator?salary=100000&from=month&region=Hungary https://hu.talent.com/en/tax-calculator?salary=100000&from=m...
  - vladvasiliu 4y ago
    The employee doesn't pay 40% income tax on a 100k salary. Income tax in France is progressive. You slice your income in brackets, and for each there's a tax rate. Your average tax rate is the average of your brackets. The highest bracket in France is 45% for income above 160k, so for your total income tax rate to be about 40%, it would mean that you make an absolute shitload of money. Income tax brackets, French, but the table is clear enough: https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F1419 https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F1419
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>in Europe, employers don't have to pay for insurance They do in some cases. In France and Austria (I think Germany and others too), the gross salary you negociate to get is actually even higher for the employer as there is a tax the employer must pay on top of that to cover his side of the social contributions. I wish this would be more transparent. What you said applies to places like Denmark, Switzerland, where the employer has to pay no extra taxes.
- em500 4y ago
  I don't know about Denmark or Switzerland, but in the Netherlands employers certainly have to pay premiums for social (mainly unemployment and disability) insurance.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    Ah sorry then. I thought otherwise.
- commandlinefan 4y ago
  That happens in America as well, and I don't think people are well aware of it - the employer is required to pay unemployment insurance on top of the salary they pay to each employee. If you collect unemployment, this is where that money comes from.
  - leipert 4y ago
    Usually employees in Germany need to calculate with 1.15 to 1.2x of the salary they negotiate with the employee. The employer needs to match social contributions (retirement, unemployment, health insurance)
Bayart 4y ago
> The worst bit about this is that in Europe, employers don't have to pay for insurance versus the US side yet we still find ways to dick over our European hires by having them come in very low. Pardon ? In France the net is about 50% of the super gross paid by the company, much of it social security. And that's before you pay the bloody income tax.
teh_klev 4y ago
In the UK (still part of the European geographical area despite the Brexit foot shooting), employers pay a "National Insurance" contribution over and above the employee's salary i.e. it's not deducted from your salary. Employees also have their own national insurance contribution which is deducted along with income tax.
Macha 4y ago
At least here in ireland, the legal mandated contribution to the public health system is called Employer's PRSI, and usually most big tech employers will pay for private health insurance also (albeit private health insurance is priced much more reasonably here, due to needing to compete with the public system with its capped patient costs).

WJW 4y ago

Trimodal distribution in full display there, wow. Also, the "anonymization" of companies is so specific as to be almost useless. There's only one ride sharing company with an office in Amsterdam AFAIK, just as there are not all that many internationally operating social networks there. It would be better to just spell out the names I think.

gregdoesit 4y ago
Working on more generic anonymized names! The goal is not to guess which ones these companies are.

bandris 4y ago

Tax returns should be public. Like in Norway. That would sort out all kinds of "payment gap" issues as well.

dijit 4y ago
Tax returns are public in Sweden too. I would guess it's the same in Denmark (even if they're not quite as socialist); Perhaps Finland. But the majority of tech in Europe is: Dublin, Berlin and Amsterdam. AFAIK none of those have host countries which publicly disclose tax information;
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >But the majority of tech in Europe is: Dublin, Berlin and Amsterdam. And Zurich and London (non-EU).
  - dijit 4y ago
    Ah yes, I totally forgot the non-EU ones. Zurich IME is more in line with Californian salaries though.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      While being more expensive than California.
      - hiq 4y ago
        You can't compare Zurich with California. According to Wikipedia, California is 10 times as big as Switzerland. Rent is usually the biggest part of expenses and the prices are crazier in the SV than in Zurich (the city). Maybe you were not referring to the SV, but then you have places 30min away (by train) from Zurich that are also way cheaper.
- ptr 4y ago
  Sweden and Denmark don’t differ in how much “socialist” they are. Also, they’re not socialist countries.

ochronus 4y ago

Super nice to see this becoming public finally!! Great stuff, I'm excited to see the clarity and transparency this will bring to the table.

madduci 4y ago
I can't believe that people working as Software Engineer in Berlin Area is getting paid 300k+ €. This might be realistic for people working 100% for San Francisco companies

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

Weird to generalize this over "Europe", since you better live in very specific countries/cities in the UK, Switzerland, Ireland, Netherlands, Luxembourg or Germany, otherwise those salary ranges are completely meaningless to you/your employers, especially the Tier 3 wages. Better naming would be "Compensation across Europe's biggest tech hubs".

tiborsaas 4y ago
Since the EU is a free market for employees with no immigration laws and mostly using the same currency, it's not weird at all.
- mustafa_pasi 4y ago
  Only if you ignore the cost of moving, which is enormous. Basically dropping your whole life to get maybe 20k€ more, abroad. If you are happy with your life, not even 150k€ would justify a move because good money ain't going to buy you the same friends and family.
  - tiborsaas 4y ago
    I don't understand what you mean by enormous costs. Yes, permanent moving is not exactly cheap, but it depends very much on the individual's life situation: age, social connections, home ownership, having a car, furniture all matters and all differs. Based on this one might move with a single backpack or it might take a few months to prepare. Most companies are happy to pay your relocation costs and / or get you a place till you find one on your own. You can also fly rather cheaply if you miss your family, so this reads very weird to me.
    - mustafa_pasi 4y ago
      I couldn't give a rat's ass about relocation costs, or furniture, or even home ownership tbh. Those are all relatively minimal costs. But if you have a nice life, a nice social circle of friends, ...etc, do not take all that for granted. You won't magically get all that back once you move. You probably never will to be honest. You will meet other people but building a social life from scratch in a new country is hard and you will end up with a lot of shallow relationships, or maybe nothing at all. But it really depends on your personal situation. If you are a 20 year old nerd with barely any social life to begin with, go ahead. It might even improve your life.

schnitzelstoat 4y ago

It'll be interesting when they add Southern Europe. I've seen adverts for experienced developers that pay €35k. And life isn't that much cheaper in the cities here.

wing-_-nuts 4y ago
I've always wondered about this. You'll see cities with very high real estate prices and rents, and the median salary will not be sufficient to afford either. It makes me wonder why this is sustainable?
bibaheu 4y ago
I keep getting calls from recruiters offering 30k€ in North Spain, but they are hurting, as nowadays everybody is getting better deals thanks to remote work.
- bryanrasmussen 4y ago
  so I guess this is annual, not monthly? Or is there some other division of salary that I haven't thought of?
  - nicoburns 4y ago
    Yes, this is annual.
Ueland 4y ago
That sounds ...very low, right? Given that it will be very easy to get twice that(and more) in northern Europe.
- schnitzelstoat 4y ago
  Yep - the decent companies tend to pay like €60-70k though. It's really bimodal, like in OP's post. The big multinationals tend to pay decent wages and the others pay a pittance.
- 4y ago

userm0d 4y ago

Just wanted to say thanks for putting this together. Looking forward too seeing the dataset grow.

Varqu 4y ago
I will take the chance to add our datasets as well (we are running tech job boards with mandatory salary brackets). The data is based on what the companies advertise, and the data size is of around 2000 salaries for each country: - Switzerland: https://swissdevjobs.ch/salaries/all/all https://swissdevjobs.ch/salaries/all/all - Germany: https://germantechjobs.de/en/salaries/all/all https://germantechjobs.de/en/salaries/all/all - UK: https://devitjobs.uk/salaries/all/all https://devitjobs.uk/salaries/all/all - Romania: https://devjob.ro/en/salaries/all/all https://devjob.ro/en/salaries/all/all Important to add that we don't catch the whole spectrum of the market (missing FAANG-like and some top international startups), so basically our 90 percentile will be probably an 80 percentile if you add those. I think it's important to also have this perspective, because not everyone has the determination & luck to go through the whole interview process at FAANG-like companies.
- yrgulation 4y ago
  > - Romania: https://devjob.ro/en/salaries/ https://devjob.ro/en/salaries/ Interesting. The avg salary after tax in romania is 11k ron, around 2300 eur. Tax and national insurance for permanent employees in that country is around 45-50%. So the average pay is around 4400 eur. More than the german average of 45k per year before tax.

dijit 4y ago

I and everyone I know are severely underpaid, or this site is a bit wrong.

The_Colonel 4y ago
If it's any consolation, people with above average incomes are more likely to fill these sites, so I think they are skewed upwards.
- willcipriano 4y ago
  People also lie, often even to themselves.
f6v 4y ago
Wayfair, Amazon, and MS probably pay above the market. But I heard 100k+ is typical for senior SE. While 80k has been on the higher end just 2-3 years ago. That’s for Berlin.
- botch_san 4y ago
  Here in Austria 60k-65k is pretty high end for a senior SE... I should probably move to Germany.
Jyaif 4y ago
I'm with you. At Thales (big french tech company), AFAIU there's essentially no way of reaching 60kEUR/year without becoming a manager. And even then, reaching 100K requires climbing a lot more levels.
- piaste 4y ago
  > At Thales (big french tech company), AFAIU there's essentially no way of reaching 60kEUR/year without becoming a manager. You're probably thinking of after-tax salary, also known as take-home pay (5k/month in your example). Salary is almost always discussed in pre-tax terms, because two employees with the same salary can get very different tax deductions based on their family situation etc. This website is no exception, as far as I can see. (Of course, this makes sense when comparing within the same country. When comparing different countries, tax rates are already different before you consider discounts.)

secfirstmd 4y ago

Really needs Ireland in here

zuhayeer 4y ago
We've collected some data for Ireland here: https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Ireland/ https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Ireland/

shmatt 4y ago

This is why I dislike the fight against location based pay in the U.S. People are heated about how they add the same value whether in SF or Kentucky, but forget there are people even more valuable than them getting paid significantly less. If you are fighting against location based pay, you should be asking your employer to pay all employees on similar teams worldwide the same

mbg721 4y ago
What do you tell your Kentucky-based employees at that point? "Look, 30 cents a week is our business model. You don't see Harbaglarb in Racetothebottomland complaining,"??
- pydry 4y ago
  Thats pretty much what happened to most US based labor-intensive industry. It all seemed to work fine for US business leaders until it slowly started dawning on politicians that their "free trade" schtick created a colossal national security risk in the form of enormously fragile multicontinent supply chains.
- akmarinov 4y ago
  Well yeah, if Harbaglarb does the same job as the Kentucky person why shouldn’t they be paid the same?
  - mbg721 4y ago
    From a rational economic standpoint, they should, but that isn't the fight that the anti-Harbaglarbers wanted; there's an assumption that there's culture in common between SF and KY that gets lost somewhere overseas to the cheapest bidder.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      It wouldn't get lost if you didn't go for the cheapest bidder. And you don't have to go as far as paying US salaries to get that talent as well. Eastern Europe is full of top devs who who work remotely for SV companies and understand US culture (New Yorkers couldn't believe I was a foreigner) and deliver value, while being paid half of what their US team members are getting and are (mostly) happy with that since 80k-150k is still way more than what local companies pay there.

gregdoesit 4y ago

Hi! I'm building this website, but I did not submit this show HN here. I don't think the site is ready for such a submission, it's currently in alpha - very clearly marked. It's not even beta-ready yet! The data set so far is small - limited to a few countries - and we're working behind the scenes. There are also lots of known issues, and a few data issues. I'm hoping this site will help people in tech get a better sense on tech compensation outside regions where there's better compensation transparency like the US. I started this site after I saw the impact of my article on the trimodal compensation model had [1], but got many questions on what companies pay "Tier 3" or "Tier 2" packages in various countries. So, to reiterate: this is heavily WIP, we've got lots of work to do, and we're planning to add more countries, one at a time. Eventually covering all of Europe, and then beyond! One day I hope it will be ready for a proper "Show HN" submission. That day is not today :) Also, I reached out to dang to remove it from Show HN as it’s not submitted by someone who did the project (and not ready for such a submission) [1] https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-salaries-in-the-netherlands-and-europe/ https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-sala...

angarg12 4y ago
Hi Gergely, thanks for bringing salary transparency to the EU! Some of those numbers make me consider moving back ;) Since this is early stage here is something for your consideration: so far I'm not very keen on how many of these websites account for equity/RSU in the salary information. For example, during my first 4 years at FAANG, my salary increased 50% due to stock appreciation alone. But the I faced a cliff where my comp went down after the 4th year. How to represent this data accurately? If I introduce my comp at hire I'll discount how much I truly earned during that period. But if I introduce my data on the 4th year that'll give a distorted view of how much engineers at that level usually make. It will also discount the fact that my salary went down afterwards. I don't know the answer but it feels difficult to capture with a single number a compensation package with a large and very volatile component.
- gregdoesit 4y ago
  Thanks! This is a tricky one as you already pointed it out. I’m voting for simplicity: capturing the number in the point of time, and also capturing whether the equity component has appreciated or depreciated. My bet is that having the date of the submission plus data on whether this was a new offer plus the indicator of how the equity changed will give a good enough sense for the sake of using this data.

pavlov 4y ago

It seems a bit controversial to include private company equity in total compensation. For example, for Estonia, the highest TC is Bolt, but about 26% of the compensation is actually stock in this unlisted unicorn. Presumably that stock price is computed from the last funding round. Who knows what Bolt's valuation will be in the next round? That equity might be marked down 50% or more, and you still can't sell it until the company does an IPO one day (which would probably be many years from now when the IPO market is alive again). I think it would be really useful to add a "Company is publicly listed" boolean column, so you'd immediately know if the equity is liquid. Latest funding round (e.g. Series B) would also be interesting information because that helps calibrate expectations around equity and a company's staying power in general.

gregdoesit 4y ago
I'm building the site (but I didn't submit this Show HN). The private part of the shares are clearly marked as private in details, and there's an explainer eg at [1]. I do think it's important to include private equity in packages. My Uber stock package turned out to be worth a lot of money once the company went public. I now have friends at Databricks with massive packages - which can go up or down, and are dependent on an IPO. But this is very important information in my view. [1] https://techpays.com/details/bbkzjx1e6mhj6ynm8yhhu https://techpays.com/details/bbkzjx1e6mhj6ynm8yhhu
- pavlov 4y ago
  Oh, cool, thanks! I didn't notice it's already there in the job posting's details. How about promoting this flag to a column in the high-level grid display? It's pretty interesting, and would allow you to get a quick overview of the ratio of startups vs established companies. I imagine this would look rather different for Estonia vs Luxembourg, for example. You are right about the importance of this information. But it would be even more useful if the latest funding round was included. Equity in a Series F has a very different risk/reward profile compared to equity in a seed round company.
  - gregdoesit 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

muxator 4y ago

Info: this does not work in Firefox (102 on linux, but that's a detail) with content blocking enabled, because Firefox does not allow to load jQuery from google's CDN. > The resource at “https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.5.1/jquery.min.js” https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.5.1/jquery.mi... was blocked because content blocking is enabled. And then there are cascading errors.

gregdoesit 4y ago
Thanks! Another reason this is still in alpha - I was not ready for someone to submit this to HN just yet. Wow, how the world changed from using Google's CDNs to having to host it yourself. I just pushed a fix to move the script to the local domain. It will be live in a few minutes.
- muxator 4y ago
  Thanks, all good now!
solardev 4y ago
Is that a default setting in Firefox? To not allow third-party scripts from CDNs? That seems like it would break an awful lot of sites.

theodric 4y ago

I'd love to share my comp, but as the only person in my country at my rank in my department (at a 100k-person global company!) I might as well just post it on LinkedIn.

jacknews 4y ago

I was going to slam you for negotiating a laughable "up to €45,000 per year", but then realised it was 'up to €45,000 more per year". Carry on.

BrandoElFollito 4y ago

I think the list of roles is missing the IT ones, and the infosec ones as well

zuhayeer 4y ago

We've also started adding international support on Levels.fyi. For some additional data points, you can check out some of our pages for Europe. Here are some countries I didn't see covered: Ireland: https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Ireland/ https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Ireland/ UK: https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/United-Kingdom/ https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/United-Kin... Switzerland: https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Switzerland/ https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Switzerlan... France: https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/France/ https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/France/ Spain: https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Spain/ https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Spain/ Also a whole bunch of other locations, which you can browse here under the International section: https://levels.fyi/locations/ https://levels.fyi/locations/

dang 4y ago

Please don't put "Show HN" on projects you didn't create. Show HN is specifically for sharing your own work: https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html. We've taken Show HN off the title now.