6 ms·

There are thousands of Java developers in the US who make $80,000 a year and live a fantastic life. No leetcode, no Bay Area, no FAANG. Just people writing th

by oars 4y ago

There are thousands of Java developers in the US who make $80,000 a year and live a fantastic life. No leetcode, no Bay Area, no FAANG. Just people writing the code responsible for our banking, travel, supermarkets and many other systems which underpin our society.

cutler 4y ago
$80,000 is hardly the measure of a true professional these days surely?
- pdimitar 4y ago
  Try looking outside of the USA.
danwee 4y ago
I know many developers (over 35 years old) in Europe doing the same (they earn above the average european salary, so like 140K EUR/year or so): Java, no HN, no Linkedin, no FAANG, no leetcode, no switching jobs every 2 years. They have families, they are normal people. If you ask them about monads, they would have no idea (like me) what are you talking about. That's the path I'm heading to (hopefully).
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >they earn above the average european salary, so like 140K EUR/year or so: Java, no HN, no Linkedin, no FAANG, no leetcode, no switching jobs every 2 years Do you have more details about the country and industry? As this is way way above the Java dev salaries in Austria and they'd kill for this kind of money without grinding leetcode. Nobody pays Java devs that kind of money here. Positions like these don't grow on trees and since you say there's no leetcode, Linkedin or big-tech involved, I'm guessing there's other forms of gatekeeping for such a lucrative and easy gig, like having the right industry connections or knowing the right people in order to hear about the openings I would assume, as if they were to advertise this salary on Linkedin or other places they would be drowning in quality applicants, for even less money than that.
- silh 4y ago
  140k a year in most of the countries in the EU would mean you are working in trading/banking or some Big Tech, which means they probably had to do go some of the leetcoding to end up there.
  - dan-robertson 4y ago
    They may be contractors rather than employees.
    - orwin 4y ago
      Contractor do pass f** leetcode tests to enter the banking sector, as well as weird interview about DevOps and agile. The comp is the best though, easily 2x what you do in more 'interesting' avenues. And the code is changing from 95% Java to python/TS/go + 50% Java (gotta keep those Jenkins and airflow going).
- t_mann 4y ago
  140k EUR for a dev role? Normally I'd say you're delusional, but since you say you actually know people who consider that normal, may I ask which country(ies) you're talking about (since it's apparently not Switzerland or Norway, where I might have believed it)? I still have a strong suspicion that either your friends gave you wildly inflated numbers, or you happen to know some serious outliers. Check this out for a reality check - the highest-paying Eurozone country is Germany, with an average dev salary of about 60k, and 76k for seniors: https://blog.helloastra.com/2021/10/18/the-average-software-developer-salary https://blog.helloastra.com/2021/10/18/the-average-software-...
  - richeyryan 4y ago
    That site seems to exclude Ireland entirely, which would I think would come in ahead of Germany for salaries and is both a European and Eurozone country.
    - t_mann 4y ago
      And by how much would you expect it to be ahead? Spoiler alert, I wouldn't set my hopes too high: https://ie.talent.com/salary?job=software+developer https://ie.talent.com/salary?job=software+developer https://de.talent.com/salary?job=software+developer https://de.talent.com/salary?job=software+developer (this says Ireland is almost on par with Germany, which sounds about right)
  - nvarsj 4y ago
    140k is possible, it's probably an outlier though for a perm role. I worked at a SF based start up and that is around the salary they paid EMEA principal engineers. FAANG will pay more than that for a senior engineer (around 200k). As a contractor you can also hit this number pretty easily (it's around 600/day).
    - t_mann 4y ago
      The GP said 140k was at or above the average, while the data suggests that it's an extreme outlier. But tbh I struggle to believe it even for senior roles at a SV start-up. Do you know what the reasoning was for paying so far above the market? Freelancing is a different story.
- albertopv 4y ago
  140k is well above average european salary.
jonahss 4y ago
My friend’s father is a firmware engineer in Bulgaria and he hadn’t even heard of Rust. I’ve noticed that it takes a looong time for technologies to propagate globally
- timeon 4y ago
  Is anyone expecting that most firmware engineers would already hear about Rust?
  - paledot 4y ago
    Depends, if I were writing low-level code like firmware or embedded systems, I would be casting envious eyes and dreaming of the day in 10 years when I'll get to start using it in production code. As a web dev, that's the way I used to view new APIs when I was still marching to the beat of someone else's supported browser list.

by oars 4y ago

cutler 4y ago

$80,000 is hardly the measure of a true professional these days surely?

pdimitar 4y ago
Try looking outside of the USA.

danwee 4y ago

I know many developers (over 35 years old) in Europe doing the same (they earn above the average european salary, so like 140K EUR/year or so): Java, no HN, no Linkedin, no FAANG, no leetcode, no switching jobs every 2 years. They have families, they are normal people. If you ask them about monads, they would have no idea (like me) what are you talking about. That's the path I'm heading to (hopefully).

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>they earn above the average european salary, so like 140K EUR/year or so: Java, no HN, no Linkedin, no FAANG, no leetcode, no switching jobs every 2 years Do you have more details about the country and industry? As this is way way above the Java dev salaries in Austria and they'd kill for this kind of money without grinding leetcode. Nobody pays Java devs that kind of money here. Positions like these don't grow on trees and since you say there's no leetcode, Linkedin or big-tech involved, I'm guessing there's other forms of gatekeeping for such a lucrative and easy gig, like having the right industry connections or knowing the right people in order to hear about the openings I would assume, as if they were to advertise this salary on Linkedin or other places they would be drowning in quality applicants, for even less money than that.
silh 4y ago
140k a year in most of the countries in the EU would mean you are working in trading/banking or some Big Tech, which means they probably had to do go some of the leetcoding to end up there.
- dan-robertson 4y ago
  They may be contractors rather than employees.
  - orwin 4y ago
    Contractor do pass f** leetcode tests to enter the banking sector, as well as weird interview about DevOps and agile. The comp is the best though, easily 2x what you do in more 'interesting' avenues. And the code is changing from 95% Java to python/TS/go + 50% Java (gotta keep those Jenkins and airflow going).
t_mann 4y ago
140k EUR for a dev role? Normally I'd say you're delusional, but since you say you actually know people who consider that normal, may I ask which country(ies) you're talking about (since it's apparently not Switzerland or Norway, where I might have believed it)? I still have a strong suspicion that either your friends gave you wildly inflated numbers, or you happen to know some serious outliers. Check this out for a reality check - the highest-paying Eurozone country is Germany, with an average dev salary of about 60k, and 76k for seniors: https://blog.helloastra.com/2021/10/18/the-average-software-developer-salary https://blog.helloastra.com/2021/10/18/the-average-software-...
- richeyryan 4y ago
  That site seems to exclude Ireland entirely, which would I think would come in ahead of Germany for salaries and is both a European and Eurozone country.
  - t_mann 4y ago
    And by how much would you expect it to be ahead? Spoiler alert, I wouldn't set my hopes too high: https://ie.talent.com/salary?job=software+developer https://ie.talent.com/salary?job=software+developer https://de.talent.com/salary?job=software+developer https://de.talent.com/salary?job=software+developer (this says Ireland is almost on par with Germany, which sounds about right)
- nvarsj 4y ago
  140k is possible, it's probably an outlier though for a perm role. I worked at a SF based start up and that is around the salary they paid EMEA principal engineers. FAANG will pay more than that for a senior engineer (around 200k). As a contractor you can also hit this number pretty easily (it's around 600/day).
  - t_mann 4y ago
    The GP said 140k was at or above the average, while the data suggests that it's an extreme outlier. But tbh I struggle to believe it even for senior roles at a SV start-up. Do you know what the reasoning was for paying so far above the market? Freelancing is a different story.
albertopv 4y ago
140k is well above average european salary.

jonahss 4y ago

My friend’s father is a firmware engineer in Bulgaria and he hadn’t even heard of Rust. I’ve noticed that it takes a looong time for technologies to propagate globally

timeon 4y ago
Is anyone expecting that most firmware engineers would already hear about Rust?
- paledot 4y ago
  Depends, if I were writing low-level code like firmware or embedded systems, I would be casting envious eyes and dreaming of the day in 10 years when I'll get to start using it in production code. As a web dev, that's the way I used to view new APIs when I was still marching to the beat of someone else's supported browser list.