4 ms·

Five separate companies cannot be described as having a meaningful monopoly between them. And there are hundreds of companies that pay at that level in the US,

Five separate companies cannot be described as having a meaningful monopoly between them. And there are hundreds of companies that pay at that level in the US, not just FAANG. Reality is European workers are under-paid, not US workers over-paid. Also curious what you think is different in Australia? Are software salaries there like in the US and above somewhere like London?

gumby 4y ago
> Reality is European workers are under-paid, not US workers over-paid. My point was that European workers are paid in proportion to how they are valued by their employer. If they wrote transformational software their employer wouldn't understand its value and it would either just be shipped without a lot of thought, or ignored. Come to think of it this may be why so much great open source software comes out of Europe. If European companies threatened by the digital transition realized their looming doom and actually decided to do something about it, the salaries would rise as a consequence.
- lokar 4y ago
  In fact, faang and hf finance (us based) pay quite well in parts of Europe, same as in sf/NYC.
geodel 4y ago
The question is why and how. There is no point is arguing "low" European salaries unless someone shows European companies are more profitable and they save a nice chunk of money by paying less to S/w engineers. Not very familiar with Australia. But thinking that high paying company like Atlassian which produces a very crappy software which I unfortunately deal daily. To me it shows high pay does not guarantee good quality software which many(not you) seems to be arguing here.
- sgjohnson 4y ago
  > Not very familiar with Australia. But thinking that high paying company like Atlassian which produces a very crappy software which I unfortunately deal daily. To me it shows high pay does not guarantee good quality software which many(not you) seems to be arguing here. That's a different problem. That's because you, the user, are not a customer of Atlassian. Companies and their micromanagers, however, love JIRA. Microsoft is in the same boat. Virtually no users of their products are actually their customers. That's how you get away with producing very crappy software, even if you hire the top talent.
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    > Microsoft is in the same boat. Virtually no users of their products are actually their customers. That's how you get away with producing very crappy software, even if you hire the top talent. Such a weird logic. You’re saying that Microsoft produces crappy software even though they hire too talent. And they get away with it because the people who buy it don’t use it (i.e. by extension don’t care if they’re spending their money wisely)?
    - chrisseaton 4y ago
      Microsoft isn’t a top-payer like Google et al.
      - chihuahua 4y ago
        Sad but true.
    - sgjohnson 4y ago
      > by extension don’t care if they’re spending their money wisely What's wise for the management isn't necessarily wise for end-users. You can buy a product that's great for your business needs, that the users will absolutely hate. Both of those things can be true at the same time.
  - kareemsabri 4y ago
    > Microsoft is in the same boat. Virtually no users of their products are actually their customers. Apple has less than 10% of the PC market. What do you think the rest of them are running?
- dmitriid 4y ago
  > unless someone shows European companies are more profitable They are. Most US "innovative competitive startups" are losing hundreds of millions, and often billions of dollars a year, for decades. Europe (thankfully) doesn't want to do that. And "grossly underpaid software developers" enjoy a high quality of life on par with the rest of the population (universal healthcare, extended parental leave, vacations etc.)
  - gumby 4y ago
    > Most US "innovative competitive startups" are losing hundreds of millions, and often billions of dollars a year, for decades. That isn’t actually true. A few certainly are, and they make great press fodder. But most don’t have that luxury. Actually it’s a burden: you suffer much more dilution.
    - dmitriid 4y ago
      > That isn’t actually true. A few certainly are, and they make great press fodder The ones HN like to point at usually are. E.g. basically all of YCombinator companies. > But most don’t have that luxury. Thise that don't have the luxury are likely to have salaries more in line with European counterparts.

gumby 4y ago

> Reality is European workers are under-paid, not US workers over-paid. My point was that European workers are paid in proportion to how they are valued by their employer. If they wrote transformational software their employer wouldn't understand its value and it would either just be shipped without a lot of thought, or ignored. Come to think of it this may be why so much great open source software comes out of Europe. If European companies threatened by the digital transition realized their looming doom and actually decided to do something about it, the salaries would rise as a consequence.

lokar 4y ago
In fact, faang and hf finance (us based) pay quite well in parts of Europe, same as in sf/NYC.

geodel 4y ago

The question is why and how. There is no point is arguing "low" European salaries unless someone shows European companies are more profitable and they save a nice chunk of money by paying less to S/w engineers. Not very familiar with Australia. But thinking that high paying company like Atlassian which produces a very crappy software which I unfortunately deal daily. To me it shows high pay does not guarantee good quality software which many(not you) seems to be arguing here.

sgjohnson 4y ago
> Not very familiar with Australia. But thinking that high paying company like Atlassian which produces a very crappy software which I unfortunately deal daily. To me it shows high pay does not guarantee good quality software which many(not you) seems to be arguing here. That's a different problem. That's because you, the user, are not a customer of Atlassian. Companies and their micromanagers, however, love JIRA. Microsoft is in the same boat. Virtually no users of their products are actually their customers. That's how you get away with producing very crappy software, even if you hire the top talent.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  > Microsoft is in the same boat. Virtually no users of their products are actually their customers. That's how you get away with producing very crappy software, even if you hire the top talent. Such a weird logic. You’re saying that Microsoft produces crappy software even though they hire too talent. And they get away with it because the people who buy it don’t use it (i.e. by extension don’t care if they’re spending their money wisely)?
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    Microsoft isn’t a top-payer like Google et al.
    - chihuahua 4y ago
      Sad but true.
  - sgjohnson 4y ago
    > by extension don’t care if they’re spending their money wisely What's wise for the management isn't necessarily wise for end-users. You can buy a product that's great for your business needs, that the users will absolutely hate. Both of those things can be true at the same time.
- kareemsabri 4y ago
  > Microsoft is in the same boat. Virtually no users of their products are actually their customers. Apple has less than 10% of the PC market. What do you think the rest of them are running?
dmitriid 4y ago
> unless someone shows European companies are more profitable They are. Most US "innovative competitive startups" are losing hundreds of millions, and often billions of dollars a year, for decades. Europe (thankfully) doesn't want to do that. And "grossly underpaid software developers" enjoy a high quality of life on par with the rest of the population (universal healthcare, extended parental leave, vacations etc.)
- gumby 4y ago
  > Most US "innovative competitive startups" are losing hundreds of millions, and often billions of dollars a year, for decades. That isn’t actually true. A few certainly are, and they make great press fodder. But most don’t have that luxury. Actually it’s a burden: you suffer much more dilution.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    > That isn’t actually true. A few certainly are, and they make great press fodder The ones HN like to point at usually are. E.g. basically all of YCombinator companies. > But most don’t have that luxury. Thise that don't have the luxury are likely to have salaries more in line with European counterparts.