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We are getting absolutely fleeced by our American counterparts and paying higher taxes on top. Yet we're every bit as good developers, DevOps Engineers, SREs, y

We are getting absolutely fleeced by our American counterparts and paying higher taxes on top. Yet we're every bit as good developers, DevOps Engineers, SREs, you name it in tech. And cost of living in US metro areas vs Europe does not even begin to explain why. I wish we'd collectively take a harder stance on the bargaining line because it is insane to me we be paid half, a third less and then shell out very high taxes on top (OK Bulgaria you get a pass).

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
In the states, we'd be getting paid less if the companies should get away with it. And in the states, we definitely don't collectively bargain. So something else is the issue.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
  Yes, there are hardly any European companies with FAANG level profitability. Thats it.
  - tough 3y ago
    VC Money is US mostly too Europe-founded startups end up in delaware because of ycombinator and all the SF money that does have an apetite for high risk startups unlike europe. Here we waste billions on shady govt mandated stuff and thats' it
  - KptMarchewa 3y ago
    No, that's mainly lack of single consumer market, and the markets being too small to meaningfully start B2C companies.
    - MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
      You mean like Spotify, that started in the large and populous country of Sweden?
      - woobar 3y ago
        GP was talking about companies with FAANG levels of profitability. Maybe we should bring up Spotify when they are profitable. [1] [1] https://www.wallstreetzen.com/stocks/us/nyse/spot/earnings https://www.wallstreetzen.com/stocks/us/nyse/spot/earnings
        MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
        You got me there.
      - ChuckNorris89 3y ago
        Spotify started from the start as a global company and had US VC money. That's however the exception from the rule.
woobar 3y ago
You can't have your cake and eat it too. You like your social safety net? You like stronger worker protection? Long vacations? Someone has to pay for all of it. Either through higher taxes or lower wages.
- emptysongglass 3y ago
  I have to take out salary insurance because welfare benefits wouldn't even begin to cover living expenses. You have such a thing in the US too. In Denmark, it's easy to fire and easy to hire (let at hyre og fyre [1]) so what am I liking here? At US Google I understand it's 30 days paid time off a calendar year: that's the same standard as Europe. Yet Google will happily pay the same role less than half when hired here. I've done my research: this is cultural inertia, as another commenter alluded to. "We pay this much because that's what the market rate is for [country in Europe]". [1] https://www.detdanskearbejdsmarked.dk/den-danske-model/portraet-af-den-danske-model/let-at-hyre-og-fyre/ https://www.detdanskearbejdsmarked.dk/den-danske-model/portr...
  - thefourthchime 3y ago
    I don't have an answer for this, but I know that in Poland, there are numerous engineering offices located outside of Warsaw. Engineers in these offices are paid well compared to the average Polish salary. These variations in compensation are influenced by market forces. While engineers may be more affordable in Europe, there are trade-offs to consider. One such trade-off is the significant time zone difference between California and Europe, making synchronization challenging. Additionally, cultural synchronization can be difficult, and there is significant value in having teams that share the same figurative and literal language.
  - woobar 3y ago
    You are comparing outliners (big tech with huge salaries and outstanding benefits) with every employer in Western(?) Europe. How much does it cost to provide 6 weeks of vacation to everyone in the country? The senior engineer in Europe will have to support more people through taxes. The market rates are lower because there is no market. FTA I only recognize one European company with somewhat global reach (booking.com). Europe doesn't have multiple companies trying risky businesses and competing for the top talent. European values (focus on equality, stability, WLB, etc) are in part responsible for this.
majikaja 3y ago
Why not just change career?
adam_arthur 3y ago
Pay always comes down to supply and demand of labor, not value added. If you have a button that earns $1m a press, its a pretty valuable role to press it, but you can also hire literally anyone to do it. So pay for pressing the button can be quite low despite large value creation. Now, if only one person is eligible to press the button, he can easily negotiate up to $1m a press for himself. Same work, lower supply of labor. For a long time, in person work and demand for people in SF Bay area led to major wage inflation in US tech jobs. I was there through the 2010s and saw firsthand what seemed to be 15-20% wage inflation YoY for many years. With remote work that future is looking more tenuous. There are lower cultural barriers to having teams collocated in different timezones now that most people are remote in general. So wages are likely to normalize somewhat over time… likely flatish in nominal terms for US workers, but down in real terms until other locales catch up. There’s still going to be a preference to hire US workers in a remote world, but the effect is going to weaken a lot. Such high pay in real terms for people with minimal YoE is going to be considered an aberration in retrospect
- pokepim 3y ago
  Good point, we are seeing a lot of layoffs in bay area amand other HCoL locations in the US but at the same time hiring is still going strong in Eastern Europe and India. Typical outsourcing destinations where you can get a developer for fraction of the price. We can debate about quality but for sure countries like Poland have lots of developers that are on a par with best ones in Bay area
anonzzzies 3y ago
It is not ok, but I cannot see it change soon. You can change things though for yourself at least, however, people seem to not want to change and want the government to fix things for them. I expect that as well when I vote for a party that has this on their program, but I know it won’t happen. I have always (since begin 90s) made Silicon Valley wages in the EU, but that takes some effort; hard bargaining, being cocky (consistently overselling yourself; I am not particularly talented as a programmer but I always get paid more than most of my colleagues, including ones in management), having an agency (which made wfh possible for the past 30+ years, so I don’t need to throw my money away on renting/buying in a city), being smart with taxes, smart investing and not live in a big, expensive country or city. From my salary alone I am over Silicon Valley higher bracket earners and that’s salary. Most Silicon Valley posts say they earn $x but that’s including stock options etc. It is really more that EU people seem very risk averse and waiting for ‘things to improve’ by some type of magic. I might be a cynical old guy, but I accepted they won’t and you have to do it yourself. Which means you need to make some sacrifices to make it work more like the US but with the benefits of the EU (mostly; simply healthcare without needing insurance, free uni and working 4 days or less with a lot of vacation and still making more than most Americans). I realise you and most others here will do things to change the way you live, that is fine, but then things will remain the same and your gov or the eu gov is not going to change that. The options are already there if you search and they have always been like that in IT at least.
akvadrako 3y ago
You can earn close to the average American techie in the EU, either by getting one of the better jobs here or working remotely for US/Canadian companies. Both of those options get you in $150K base range, which is what most roles in the US offer. Getting $250K is also attainable if you freelance, which is better than 90% of companies in the US pay.
- ChuckNorris89 3y ago
  Which European companies in which countries pay 250k for freelancers? I've never seen anything like that in my area. Top I saw was about 170k a year but then you gotta pay taxes on that, pay for healthcare and pension contributions out of pocket, account and budget for vacation days and sick leave and the 170k become much much less in take home pay.
  - akvadrako 3y ago
    This is in the Netherlands. $250K with 4 weeks vacation at 40 hours/week is about 120 EUR / hour, which is slightly above average somewhere like a bank. Healthcare is only about €1300 / year. You can choose to build a pension, but you save on taxes compared to regular employees and can deduct things like business internet and electronics, so it's pretty close to the same in a regular salary.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago

In the states, we'd be getting paid less if the companies should get away with it. And in the states, we definitely don't collectively bargain. So something else is the issue.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
Yes, there are hardly any European companies with FAANG level profitability. Thats it.
- tough 3y ago
  VC Money is US mostly too Europe-founded startups end up in delaware because of ycombinator and all the SF money that does have an apetite for high risk startups unlike europe. Here we waste billions on shady govt mandated stuff and thats' it
- KptMarchewa 3y ago
  No, that's mainly lack of single consumer market, and the markets being too small to meaningfully start B2C companies.
  - MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
    You mean like Spotify, that started in the large and populous country of Sweden?
    - woobar 3y ago
      GP was talking about companies with FAANG levels of profitability. Maybe we should bring up Spotify when they are profitable. [1] [1] https://www.wallstreetzen.com/stocks/us/nyse/spot/earnings https://www.wallstreetzen.com/stocks/us/nyse/spot/earnings
      - MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
        You got me there.
    - ChuckNorris89 3y ago
      Spotify started from the start as a global company and had US VC money. That's however the exception from the rule.

woobar 3y ago

You can't have your cake and eat it too. You like your social safety net? You like stronger worker protection? Long vacations? Someone has to pay for all of it. Either through higher taxes or lower wages.

emptysongglass 3y ago
I have to take out salary insurance because welfare benefits wouldn't even begin to cover living expenses. You have such a thing in the US too. In Denmark, it's easy to fire and easy to hire (let at hyre og fyre [1]) so what am I liking here? At US Google I understand it's 30 days paid time off a calendar year: that's the same standard as Europe. Yet Google will happily pay the same role less than half when hired here. I've done my research: this is cultural inertia, as another commenter alluded to. "We pay this much because that's what the market rate is for [country in Europe]". [1] https://www.detdanskearbejdsmarked.dk/den-danske-model/portraet-af-den-danske-model/let-at-hyre-og-fyre/ https://www.detdanskearbejdsmarked.dk/den-danske-model/portr...
- thefourthchime 3y ago
  I don't have an answer for this, but I know that in Poland, there are numerous engineering offices located outside of Warsaw. Engineers in these offices are paid well compared to the average Polish salary. These variations in compensation are influenced by market forces. While engineers may be more affordable in Europe, there are trade-offs to consider. One such trade-off is the significant time zone difference between California and Europe, making synchronization challenging. Additionally, cultural synchronization can be difficult, and there is significant value in having teams that share the same figurative and literal language.
- woobar 3y ago
  You are comparing outliners (big tech with huge salaries and outstanding benefits) with every employer in Western(?) Europe. How much does it cost to provide 6 weeks of vacation to everyone in the country? The senior engineer in Europe will have to support more people through taxes. The market rates are lower because there is no market. FTA I only recognize one European company with somewhat global reach (booking.com). Europe doesn't have multiple companies trying risky businesses and competing for the top talent. European values (focus on equality, stability, WLB, etc) are in part responsible for this.

majikaja 3y ago

Why not just change career?

adam_arthur 3y ago

Pay always comes down to supply and demand of labor, not value added. If you have a button that earns $1m a press, its a pretty valuable role to press it, but you can also hire literally anyone to do it. So pay for pressing the button can be quite low despite large value creation. Now, if only one person is eligible to press the button, he can easily negotiate up to $1m a press for himself. Same work, lower supply of labor. For a long time, in person work and demand for people in SF Bay area led to major wage inflation in US tech jobs. I was there through the 2010s and saw firsthand what seemed to be 15-20% wage inflation YoY for many years. With remote work that future is looking more tenuous. There are lower cultural barriers to having teams collocated in different timezones now that most people are remote in general. So wages are likely to normalize somewhat over time… likely flatish in nominal terms for US workers, but down in real terms until other locales catch up. There’s still going to be a preference to hire US workers in a remote world, but the effect is going to weaken a lot. Such high pay in real terms for people with minimal YoE is going to be considered an aberration in retrospect

pokepim 3y ago
Good point, we are seeing a lot of layoffs in bay area amand other HCoL locations in the US but at the same time hiring is still going strong in Eastern Europe and India. Typical outsourcing destinations where you can get a developer for fraction of the price. We can debate about quality but for sure countries like Poland have lots of developers that are on a par with best ones in Bay area

anonzzzies 3y ago

It is not ok, but I cannot see it change soon. You can change things though for yourself at least, however, people seem to not want to change and want the government to fix things for them. I expect that as well when I vote for a party that has this on their program, but I know it won’t happen. I have always (since begin 90s) made Silicon Valley wages in the EU, but that takes some effort; hard bargaining, being cocky (consistently overselling yourself; I am not particularly talented as a programmer but I always get paid more than most of my colleagues, including ones in management), having an agency (which made wfh possible for the past 30+ years, so I don’t need to throw my money away on renting/buying in a city), being smart with taxes, smart investing and not live in a big, expensive country or city. From my salary alone I am over Silicon Valley higher bracket earners and that’s salary. Most Silicon Valley posts say they earn $x but that’s including stock options etc. It is really more that EU people seem very risk averse and waiting for ‘things to improve’ by some type of magic. I might be a cynical old guy, but I accepted they won’t and you have to do it yourself. Which means you need to make some sacrifices to make it work more like the US but with the benefits of the EU (mostly; simply healthcare without needing insurance, free uni and working 4 days or less with a lot of vacation and still making more than most Americans). I realise you and most others here will do things to change the way you live, that is fine, but then things will remain the same and your gov or the eu gov is not going to change that. The options are already there if you search and they have always been like that in IT at least.

akvadrako 3y ago

You can earn close to the average American techie in the EU, either by getting one of the better jobs here or working remotely for US/Canadian companies. Both of those options get you in $150K base range, which is what most roles in the US offer. Getting $250K is also attainable if you freelance, which is better than 90% of companies in the US pay.

ChuckNorris89 3y ago
Which European companies in which countries pay 250k for freelancers? I've never seen anything like that in my area. Top I saw was about 170k a year but then you gotta pay taxes on that, pay for healthcare and pension contributions out of pocket, account and budget for vacation days and sick leave and the 170k become much much less in take home pay.
- akvadrako 3y ago
  This is in the Netherlands. $250K with 4 weeks vacation at 40 hours/week is about 120 EUR / hour, which is slightly above average somewhere like a bank. Healthcare is only about €1300 / year. You can choose to build a pension, but you save on taxes compared to regular employees and can deduct things like business internet and electronics, so it's pretty close to the same in a regular salary.