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I live in EU, earn approx €52,000 as a senior software engineer (whatever that might mean) and live a happy live with a house, mortgage, wife, children, ... Don

I live in EU, earn approx €52,000 as a senior software engineer (whatever that might mean) and live a happy live with a house, mortgage, wife, children, ... Don't consider myself rich, but doing good. Should I change jobs?! $168,000 - $350,000 for a Software Engineer seems outrageous. What am I missing?

tsm 3y ago
That's the US market! And yes, you could earn something like that if you work remotely for an American company. (I moved from Chicago to the UK and took my salary with me. It's been nice!)
- asdadsdad 3y ago
  how did you get a visa w/ a us job?
jabyess 3y ago
That's the upper end of US salaries for engineers, it's definitely not the median. But in general US, tech salaries are higher than every other location. If you can swing it remotely, it might be worth it for you.
bmitc 3y ago
Living in the U.S. will get you a higher salary, not that small of taxes, but then extremely high cost of living. Homes are used by investors as assets to be traded and not lived in by people and we in the U.S. pay privatized costs for literally everything. However, those salaries are indeed extremely high. I am surprised given Figma was purchased by Adobe.
- orochimaaru 3y ago
  That’s a misrepresentation and basically using the Bay Area as a reference point. I’m in Chicago. Starting sw engineer salaries is probably around $90k-$100k. The housing nightmare exists but not as bad - depends on your school district. A good 3000 sq ft house in a suburb palatine/Arlington heights or Buffalo grove is around the $600k-$800k mark. You could obviously go smaller for a lower price.
  - __xor_eax_eax 3y ago
    So a house is 6x a yearly tech salary - that's pretty bad.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - orochimaaru 3y ago
      Starting salary, also if you want one that big. My first house cost me just $230k, which I sold for about $240k. That was about 1800 sq ft.
  - bmitc 3y ago
    Misrepresentation, how exactly? Also, I'm not using the Bay Area as a reference point and have never even been there.
    - orochimaaru 3y ago
      So there is privatized cost for universities. That's actually a major chunk of privatized cost a family with kids will bear. In Illinois, U of I has a total cost of $40k/year (may vary by major) for undergraduate education. The rest of it varies. Health care costs are mostly high deductible plans but a lot of companies proactively add money to your plan to soften that. In general, for a family you're looking at around $7k out of pocket per year. As long as all is good its fine. When there is the unfortunate situation of family members needing medical care you are saddled with the worry of maintaining your job. This is the spot that sucks the most in my opinion. K-12 schools are government funded but you pay property taxes. Here again, depending on where you live you can get excellent schools or not so great ones. But I think that's the situation in most places. The Bay Area maximizes these problems because cost of living is so high there. My point on the misrepresentation was that a lot of places in the US do not have Bay Area cost of living, especially with the real estate. So you can actually have a pretty good quality of life.
ohcmon 3y ago
52k after taxes or before?
- repelsteeltje 3y ago
  before taxes, at 32h/week
bojan 3y ago
Your nickname sounds Dutch, if you are in the Netherlands or Belgium and earn 52k gross as a senior, you are probably being underpaid.
- repelsteeltje 3y ago
  Netherlands. 52k gross, at 32h workweek. I'm aware I could probably earn more, but I don't need it.
faiD9Eet 3y ago
Salary depends on your country (Swiss pays higher wages than Poland), region within your country (South Germany has many more engineering companies and pays higher wages than North Germany) and type of business (banks and high frequency trading companies tend to pay more for a boring onsite experience). That being said: I am a Systems Engineer in South Germany, huge company, 85k€/year, no need to work overtime. I asked myself what salary I would expect from an US company and factored in * paid sick leave * paid child sick leave * minimum 30 days vacation a year * job security * health care prices * ... I would not accept an US position for less than 190k$/year, that is my personal break-even model. Just for your interest: My salary is too low to buy a house and even buying a 4-room-flat and paying it off before retirement in 30years is out of reach. Whatever your model, you will find something that works for you.
- __xor_eax_eax 3y ago
  30 days vacation is wild to me. Almost couldn't put a value on that
  - ecshafer 3y ago
    30 days of vacation seems normal? Most places in finance you're going to get at least 20 days vacation and you get all NYSE holidays off typically. So that's 30. My first software job I had 23 days, could buy an extra week (So 28) plus 10 NYSE holidays so I had 38 total. Because of financial regulations, Finance/Insurance is are both typically in that 20+ range.
    - jeromegv 3y ago
      Definitely not normal or the norm in the US.
    - sgerenser 3y ago
      Yeah, 30 days vacation really isn’t that crazy in the U.S. tech world at least. I currently get 20 days vacation, an extra 5 available to buy, plus ~13 federal holidays off. I went ahead and bought the extra 5 days for this year since an extra 5 days of vacation was worth more than a marginal $3k or so. My previous employer had just switched to an “unlimited PTO” policy and had I not been laid off I planned on taking at least 30 days off.
alfalfasprout 3y ago
Except a house in a dangerous neighborhood in the bay area will cost you $1.5 million or more.
0xevm1 3y ago
you're missing that major markets within the US just started mandating salaries to be disclosed prior information posted on "what salary does <job title> make" websites was just wrong that's pretty much it
- ctvo 3y ago
  > you're missing that major markets within the US just started mandating salaries to be disclosed They post a range, not an exact salary. It's much less useful as it spans entry / mid all the way to staff+. > prior information posted on "what salary does <job title> make" websites was just wrong levels.fyi is pretty accurate.
  - 0xevm1 3y ago
    yes, in which case the parent poster shouldn't have been confused about salaries at all, aside from not looking. there is a major deficiency in Levels data, as they accept a combination of offer letters, W-2's and Yearly Compensation Statements. So for positions with heavy share based compensation combined with market volatility, the W-2's and can be wildly different than an offer letter. This winds up wasting everyone's times, inflated expectation from every starry eyed employee, and bad data in general. There isn't enough data to smooth that out, for most positions or time frames.
Racing0461 3y ago
> live a happy live with a house, mortgage, wife, children I need 600k to have this in san francisco.
- Archelaos 3y ago
  For context: how much do "ordinary" people earn in San Francisco, such as clerks in a warehouse?
  - bmelton 3y ago
    I was going to guess "minimum wage" which is $18.07 in San Francisco, but I decided to actually do a job search for "Warehouse Clerk" and found a nice opening for Disney that includes health insurance and requires no experience. It pays $28 an hour, which works out to about $58,240 a year* * not counting vacation days that may or may not be provided or possibilities for overtime * simple math is $28 * 40 hours per week * 52 weeks per year
    - 0xevm1 3y ago
      eligible for overtime though, adds up and on the plus side you never get to be at home when you do that to worry about what your home is like. halfway sarcastic.
dang 3y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37744010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37744010 and marked it offtopic.
- repelsteeltje 3y ago
  Ah. No problem. Apologies for posting off-topic.

tsm 3y ago

That's the US market! And yes, you could earn something like that if you work remotely for an American company. (I moved from Chicago to the UK and took my salary with me. It's been nice!)

asdadsdad 3y ago
how did you get a visa w/ a us job?

jabyess 3y ago

That's the upper end of US salaries for engineers, it's definitely not the median. But in general US, tech salaries are higher than every other location. If you can swing it remotely, it might be worth it for you.

bmitc 3y ago

Living in the U.S. will get you a higher salary, not that small of taxes, but then extremely high cost of living. Homes are used by investors as assets to be traded and not lived in by people and we in the U.S. pay privatized costs for literally everything. However, those salaries are indeed extremely high. I am surprised given Figma was purchased by Adobe.

orochimaaru 3y ago
That’s a misrepresentation and basically using the Bay Area as a reference point. I’m in Chicago. Starting sw engineer salaries is probably around $90k-$100k. The housing nightmare exists but not as bad - depends on your school district. A good 3000 sq ft house in a suburb palatine/Arlington heights or Buffalo grove is around the $600k-$800k mark. You could obviously go smaller for a lower price.
- __xor_eax_eax 3y ago
  So a house is 6x a yearly tech salary - that's pretty bad.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - orochimaaru 3y ago
    Starting salary, also if you want one that big. My first house cost me just $230k, which I sold for about $240k. That was about 1800 sq ft.
- bmitc 3y ago
  Misrepresentation, how exactly? Also, I'm not using the Bay Area as a reference point and have never even been there.
  - orochimaaru 3y ago
    So there is privatized cost for universities. That's actually a major chunk of privatized cost a family with kids will bear. In Illinois, U of I has a total cost of $40k/year (may vary by major) for undergraduate education. The rest of it varies. Health care costs are mostly high deductible plans but a lot of companies proactively add money to your plan to soften that. In general, for a family you're looking at around $7k out of pocket per year. As long as all is good its fine. When there is the unfortunate situation of family members needing medical care you are saddled with the worry of maintaining your job. This is the spot that sucks the most in my opinion. K-12 schools are government funded but you pay property taxes. Here again, depending on where you live you can get excellent schools or not so great ones. But I think that's the situation in most places. The Bay Area maximizes these problems because cost of living is so high there. My point on the misrepresentation was that a lot of places in the US do not have Bay Area cost of living, especially with the real estate. So you can actually have a pretty good quality of life.

ohcmon 3y ago

52k after taxes or before?

repelsteeltje 3y ago
before taxes, at 32h/week

bojan 3y ago

Your nickname sounds Dutch, if you are in the Netherlands or Belgium and earn 52k gross as a senior, you are probably being underpaid.

repelsteeltje 3y ago
Netherlands. 52k gross, at 32h workweek. I'm aware I could probably earn more, but I don't need it.

faiD9Eet 3y ago

Salary depends on your country (Swiss pays higher wages than Poland), region within your country (South Germany has many more engineering companies and pays higher wages than North Germany) and type of business (banks and high frequency trading companies tend to pay more for a boring onsite experience). That being said: I am a Systems Engineer in South Germany, huge company, 85k€/year, no need to work overtime. I asked myself what salary I would expect from an US company and factored in * paid sick leave * paid child sick leave * minimum 30 days vacation a year * job security * health care prices * ... I would not accept an US position for less than 190k$/year, that is my personal break-even model. Just for your interest: My salary is too low to buy a house and even buying a 4-room-flat and paying it off before retirement in 30years is out of reach. Whatever your model, you will find something that works for you.

__xor_eax_eax 3y ago
30 days vacation is wild to me. Almost couldn't put a value on that
- ecshafer 3y ago
  30 days of vacation seems normal? Most places in finance you're going to get at least 20 days vacation and you get all NYSE holidays off typically. So that's 30. My first software job I had 23 days, could buy an extra week (So 28) plus 10 NYSE holidays so I had 38 total. Because of financial regulations, Finance/Insurance is are both typically in that 20+ range.
  - jeromegv 3y ago
    Definitely not normal or the norm in the US.
  - sgerenser 3y ago
    Yeah, 30 days vacation really isn’t that crazy in the U.S. tech world at least. I currently get 20 days vacation, an extra 5 available to buy, plus ~13 federal holidays off. I went ahead and bought the extra 5 days for this year since an extra 5 days of vacation was worth more than a marginal $3k or so. My previous employer had just switched to an “unlimited PTO” policy and had I not been laid off I planned on taking at least 30 days off.

alfalfasprout 3y ago

Except a house in a dangerous neighborhood in the bay area will cost you $1.5 million or more.

0xevm1 3y ago

you're missing that major markets within the US just started mandating salaries to be disclosed prior information posted on "what salary does <job title> make" websites was just wrong that's pretty much it

ctvo 3y ago
> you're missing that major markets within the US just started mandating salaries to be disclosed They post a range, not an exact salary. It's much less useful as it spans entry / mid all the way to staff+. > prior information posted on "what salary does <job title> make" websites was just wrong levels.fyi is pretty accurate.
- 0xevm1 3y ago
  yes, in which case the parent poster shouldn't have been confused about salaries at all, aside from not looking. there is a major deficiency in Levels data, as they accept a combination of offer letters, W-2's and Yearly Compensation Statements. So for positions with heavy share based compensation combined with market volatility, the W-2's and can be wildly different than an offer letter. This winds up wasting everyone's times, inflated expectation from every starry eyed employee, and bad data in general. There isn't enough data to smooth that out, for most positions or time frames.

Racing0461 3y ago

> live a happy live with a house, mortgage, wife, children I need 600k to have this in san francisco.

Archelaos 3y ago
For context: how much do "ordinary" people earn in San Francisco, such as clerks in a warehouse?
- bmelton 3y ago
  I was going to guess "minimum wage" which is $18.07 in San Francisco, but I decided to actually do a job search for "Warehouse Clerk" and found a nice opening for Disney that includes health insurance and requires no experience. It pays $28 an hour, which works out to about $58,240 a year* * not counting vacation days that may or may not be provided or possibilities for overtime * simple math is $28 * 40 hours per week * 52 weeks per year
  - 0xevm1 3y ago
    eligible for overtime though, adds up and on the plus side you never get to be at home when you do that to worry about what your home is like. halfway sarcastic.

dang 3y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37744010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37744010 and marked it offtopic.

repelsteeltje 3y ago
Ah. No problem. Apologies for posting off-topic.