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This is what rest of the world looks like USA people! Developers are generally paid enough to get by but not crazy salaries. There are exceptions but required y

This is what rest of the world looks like USA people! Developers are generally paid enough to get by but not crazy salaries. There are exceptions but required you to get through tough interviews. No $200k TC interns out here. It means picking up a trade or just doing a scrum master job or traffic duties become viable alternatives. Developers are caught in stagflation. Buying a property in Sydney metro area (within 90m commute) for example would be challenging for most devs. Prices have tripled and over the frame of 15y while dev salaries or contract rates have not increased.

BoorishBears 2y ago
But I was promised free healthcare and more vacation time makes it all even! (I've always loved that narrative for its optimism. In reality if you have a modicum of self-restraint you can save more money on a US salary than most people are making on a European salary, and tech tends to have excellent healthcare.)
- niemandhier 2y ago
  It does, I did the math when I was offered a 100k+ position in the US. After computing what I would have to pay for: - Piano lessons for the kids - child care - sports clubs - golfing - private tutors - rent / mortgage I concluded that my quality of life would decrease. Europe is crazy cheep for families. The UK is particular, brexit did not do them any good.
  - pedrosorio 2y ago
    > It does, I did the math when I was offered a 100k+ position in the US. 100k+ has been close to the floor for entry level for a while now. Did you do the math on how much you'd earn over 10 years?
    - yoyohello13 2y ago
      100k is the floor? Where do you live? I swear most devs on HN have had their brains addled by inflated salaries.
      - titanomachy 2y ago
        It would be unusual for a new college grad at any well-known tech company in Seattle to make less than $150k right now. Large companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google dominate the market here. If you were starting a software company in Seattle, $100k would probably be enough to interest only the most inexperienced and unqualified candidates. New York City and San Francisco Bay Area are similar or higher. I don't have much experience with the rest of the US.
        fooker 2y ago
        Not just Seattle, I am seeing tech salaries in Denver, SLC, Austin, etc starting from 120-30k nowadays (and growing VERY fast if you stick around for a few years because the smaller cities have trouble keeping experienced engineers from taking a 700k offer from some FAANG company.)
        Manuel_D 2y ago
        Who's getting the 700K FAANG offers? I say this as someone who just took an offer with ~390K TC for an Amazon SDE III or Meta E5 equivalent at FAANG. 10 YoE. Aside from equity value increasing, I don't think 700K without factoring in rising stock prices is common, outside of niche in demand roles.
        fooker 2y ago
        Meta E5 (~4 yoe) is 520k, and E6 is 760k (~7-8 yoe) according to levels.fyi Seems close to what I have seen offered there.
        guessmyname 2y ago
    - rustcleaner 2y ago
      $100 is floor?! Here I am at $36 in Socal! I'm in the wrong line of work...
    - vundercind 2y ago
      Floor’s around $70k-80k for a new grad in my 3rd-tier (but still a couple million population) non-coastal US city. A couple major tech firms you’ve surely heard of are based here, plus some other really big ones you definitely know of if you work in the industries they serve. Not just offices—headquarters. The benefits will be decent, but nothing special, at a big place and dogshit anywhere smaller, so it’s not made up there. You’ll probably have 10 vacation days, maybe like 14 if they pool vacation and sick leave.
    - Propelloni 2y ago
      This sounds like starting up in the USA becomes less viable. And this begs the question why VC is still focused on the USA. 2-3 million dollars in seed money allow me to scale much faster in Europe (and much much faster elsewhere), if only for the fact that the same money I have to pay for an entry level developer in the USA will get me a very senior developer in Europe. Or two, maybe three, juniors.... what do you think?
      - Klonoar 2y ago
        A cynical take is that VCs still focus on the USA because the environment is far more lax and/or easy to take advantage of. That’s not an easy scenario for other countries that care to counter.
      - mobiuscog 2y ago
        Employee 'rights' are often much stronger outside the USA and so whilst you potentially pay more, you can 'downscale' much quicker as well. Look where most of the tech layoffs happen.
  - fooker 2y ago
    Would you mind sharing your math? I had concluded the opposite if you compound over 5-ish years. With two tech incomes, you'll make approximately 4-5 million in the US counting equity, versus about 1 mil everywhere else except maybe Zurich. US expenses over 5 years would be about 800k-1mil excluding a home which you are likely going to sell for far more than you pay for.
    - readyman 2y ago
      Your math is based on you and your partner making 400k-500k/yr lol.
      - fooker 2y ago
        Yes, that's what we make right now on average. If you work in tech for a few years that's kind of average. We are having a new PhD grad join next month with a 400k TC offer. If you have trouble believing me, check out levels.fyi for (Facebook:E5, Google:L5-6, Nvidia:IC5, Apple ICT5).
        readyman 2y ago
        >Yes, that's what we make right now on average. >If you work in tech for a few years that's kind of average. You should probably learn what "average" means if you're getting paid that much to develop software.
        fooker 2y ago
        The first average is between two people over a few years. The second average is for similar tech jobs. But good job resorting to ad hominem.
        ok_dad 2y ago
        I’ll buy that 400-500k a year is average for Facebook, Apple, Google, etc. It’s absolutely NOT average for companies who aren’t the massive giants that those are. I’ve been in actual tech startups, not Uber for Clowns, and the best salary I’ve seen was an (admittedly very good) $170k for a senior dev position. That’s close to average when I talk to my friends and associates in tech in the valley and beyond.
  - BoorishBears 2y ago
    I'm 30, I can effortlessly save 100k a year after spending money on everything you listed. If you're happier in the EU that's fine, but the math definitely doesn't check out for people focused on finances: even when you take soft benefits into account
    - nasmorn 2y ago
      I made 245k USD before taxes in the EU last year self employed. Most people I know cannot believe how much money I made. To make that money you don’t just need to be an average leet Code drone but negotiate great contracts on your projects and take on and manage a lot of risk. What I am saying is: the math definitely doesn’t check out because apparently someone in my position would be doing 3x in the US
  - bobthepanda 2y ago
    are piano lessons, private tutors, and sports clubs regularly affordable in Europe? those hardly sound like government provided services
    - tyfon 2y ago
      Most of it is government provided here in Norway. My daughtes do (private) piano lessons and theatre and it's organized and paid by the muni. Sports clubs might have a small fee for equipment, but it's also heavily sponsored by the government, the national lottery etc. For the things not free you can often have them paid for if you are in the low income brackets, and some places just give credit for those types of activity to all children. The reasoning is that children of low income families shouldn't be excluded.
      - fooker 2y ago
        A lot of US public schools provide this, but the quality can be questionable in/around large metros.
    - mokkol 2y ago
      Here in Spain, I pay €35/month for weekly piano lessons for my daughter. She loves it and we are really happy with her teacher as well. All from the public music school.
  - ta1243 2y ago
    > The UK is particular, brexit did not do them any good. No shit. That's why working people voted to remain. That's why young people voted to remain. That's why educated people voted to remain. The majority of people in the UK today that voted, voted to remain. Far more leave voters have died in the last 8 years than remain voters.
- admissionsguy 2y ago
  Few people realise that the EU countries and the US are no longer in the same wealth category. There is a 50% difference in GDP per capita between Germany and the USA, for example. It's not a matter of offering benefits in kind instead of money, but rather a fundamental difference in resources available.
  - leipert 2y ago
    The GDP per capita in the US is (85k USD) and in Germany (54k USD) nominal. That’s about 57% higher. At PPP (purchase power parity) 85k US vs 67k Germany, which “only” is a 27% difference. Denmark rates at 68k / 77k. So much closer. Norway is tricky to compare and Netherlands, Ireland and Switzerland are tax havens. - Nominal: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(no... - PPP: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP...
    - varjag 2y ago
      These estimates are really approximate and depend on the exchange rate. The lowest rate of NOK/USD on my memory was 5.6 and the highest nearly 12. Developer salaries in Norway are decent as Europe goes but if you want to make money hand over fist there's no other place like America. Yes even with all the old world perks imaginable.
    - admissionsguy 2y ago
      The population of Denmark is equal to that of Wisconsin. If we look at Denmark simply because it's among the richest EU countries, it might be more appropriate to compare it with the richest US states. Taking the top 5 state (California), we get $100k vs $68k (nominal), again ca 50%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- datascienced 2y ago
  Outsiders have the disadvantage of needing a visa but the advantage of a $2k excess (the cost of the return flight) for unlimited chronic condition management. Obviously ER is different as you can’t go home quickly. Once you return home you might get to keep the job while in the hone country and rake it in.
- lannisterstark 2y ago
  >I've always loved that narrative for its optimism Despite all the European love, most of Europe (and rather, most of the world) is pretty poor compared to US.
- mchaver 2y ago
  Well, I also like that my neighbors and community also have access to no-pay-at-point-of-use healthcare, low cost education options and guaranteed time off. Makes for a relatively relaxed and content population! If you don't invest in (or put up lots of barriers to) the health and education of the entire community, then you are going to have an unhealthy and uneducated community. That's not to say we don't have many problems, but in my personal experience it's a lot less than the US in those regards.
  - Nextgrid 2y ago
    > have access to no-pay-at-point-of-use healthcare This really depends on the country. In the UK you need to go private and pay if you want any kind of timely healthcare.
draw_down 2y ago
[dead]
oooyay 2y ago
> This is what rest of the world looks like USA people! This statement really depends on whatever part of the USA you're in and what kind of work you do. > No $200k TC interns out here. I haven't seen that yet, but I think an SF-based intern (if they were paid for the whole year) would make roughly $120k. There are plenty of people living in the Bay who haven't lived there 10 years who comparatively take home very little. All that to say, I don't think we need to dice up and turn the developer market against itself. We've all been affected by wage stagnation, the rising cost of metros, and the threat that we must live in them or else. Labor movements are good for all laborers, etc etc etc
- datascienced 2y ago
  I hope from the comments people seek higher wages for their worth - if everyone did this it would create a force pushing up dev salaries. The tech profits can more than handle this and smaller shops would have to stop doing inefficient stuff. I think cheaper devs allows laziness in thinking. Just throw a bigger team at it, see if it sticks.
datascienced 2y ago
Edit: stagflation is the wrong word I think as that means high unemployment. I wouldn’t say that is the case, just suppressed wages.
devjab 2y ago
While what you say is sort of true, developers are paid better than what you made it sound like for me. The difference is perhaps that professions like truck drivers and a lot of tradeskills are compensated very well because there is a general lack of people in those professions. We also have very strong unions (and legislation because of it) in those areas, so it’s not easy to “displace” (is this the right English word?) truck drivers with cheap foreign labour in a lot of EU countries. Unlike professions like plumbers, however, IT personal is becoming increasingly easy to come by. And since they never really formed unions, the so called golden days are over for a lot of IT professionals. Maybe excluding hardcore IT operations, networking and at least for now developers. I wouldn’t be able to earn what I do as a truck driver though. Maybe half with more hours? Interestingly enough I didn’t get there by being rewarded for any work. I got there by switching jobs.
Tade0 2y ago
In outsourcing destination regions like South America, the European eastern block(my location), India and SEA, software engineers still make multiples of the average wage for the region. It's the geopolitical west that's largely stuck in this situation, but IIRC that has been the case for a while now - when I was considering emigration around eight years ago I noticed that the salary differences are not as huge as I thought and in some places (like Germany) it's just a job like any other.
- Log_out_ 2y ago
  Mysterious why Germany has no software mega Corp, ever so mysterious, it's almost like everything software is linear in Germany meanwhile it's exponential somewhere else. I propose the theory that there is a massive object beneath cal to blame.
  - sangnoir 2y ago
    > Mysterious why Germany has no software mega Corp, I hear SAP is kind of a big deal.
    - sim7c00 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - Log_out_ 2y ago
      Got to make me a rock made of physics to tie me down to the real.
piltdownman 2y ago
Truck (Lorry) Driving in the UK paying what it does is an economic aberration caused by Brexit and Covid 19 - e.g. 16,000 fewer EU nationals working as HGV drivers in the year ending March 2021. In the end they had a shortage of nearly 100,000 drivers and had to massively incentivise new entrants to the industry. It's a complete outlier as far as blue collar vs white collar jobs in the UK/EU for the most part. https://www.bbc.com/news/57810729 https://www.bbc.com/news/57810729 That said, overall the EU is paying somewhere around €80-120k for Senior Developers in the HCOL areas and as low as €45k in places like Spain. Overall, individual Contributor salaries outstripping even minor middle management is rare below architect or principal outside of FAANG. This leads to the situation the commenter above identifies - that fairly vacuous softer-skill based IT Roles like Scrum Master or ART or Release Manager out-earn the median Engineer and are seen as a viable alternative for motivated people.
- gadders 2y ago
  IR35 rules were a big factor as well, making it less lucrative for people to be self-employed truck drivers. It also paid better to be a delivery driver for Amazon than a truck driver.
- psunavy03 2y ago
  Those "vacuous" roles exist to ensure that the dev team isn't lighting company money on fire working on the wrong thing, or crippled by inefficient bureaucracy which is also lighting money on fire. Which isn't "vacuous;" there is value in saving the company money.
  - brailsafe 2y ago
    If that's what they do
    - psunavy03 2y ago
      Some strong "junior developer" vibes here . . . nontechnical roles are not automatically fluff, and meetings are not automatically wastes of time.
jayphen 2y ago
Average senior engineer salary in Sydney is around AUD180k. There is no trade you can pick up that would get close to that. It’s true that living anywhere near the Sydney metro is unaffordable though, even on a 180k salary.
Shocka1 2y ago
200k TC for an intern is a nice cherry pick in SF or Silicon Valley maybe, but definitely at the extreme top end of the spectrum. Coastal money definitely doesn't speak for the rest of the US - there is a huge amount of space between California and NYC with developers making just enough to get by. Interviews have always been tough for development positions in the US, whether it's a 60k out of college position in the Midwest or more senior position for a coastal company making the big bucks. It is possible to get lucky and not have to be whiteboarded, but much of the time an applicant is getting grilled. Although it's obviously objective, I completely agree when comparing to a country like India. However, I'm not so sure it's as huge of a difference as what you are implying when comparing Western countries to non-coastal US developers. I've long since graduated, but if I were still in school and not too far into a CS degree I would probably drop out and be an electrician or plumber, freelancing application development on the side if I still had the energy.

BoorishBears 2y ago

But I was promised free healthcare and more vacation time makes it all even! (I've always loved that narrative for its optimism. In reality if you have a modicum of self-restraint you can save more money on a US salary than most people are making on a European salary, and tech tends to have excellent healthcare.)

niemandhier 2y ago
It does, I did the math when I was offered a 100k+ position in the US. After computing what I would have to pay for: - Piano lessons for the kids - child care - sports clubs - golfing - private tutors - rent / mortgage I concluded that my quality of life would decrease. Europe is crazy cheep for families. The UK is particular, brexit did not do them any good.
- pedrosorio 2y ago
  > It does, I did the math when I was offered a 100k+ position in the US. 100k+ has been close to the floor for entry level for a while now. Did you do the math on how much you'd earn over 10 years?
  - yoyohello13 2y ago
    100k is the floor? Where do you live? I swear most devs on HN have had their brains addled by inflated salaries.
    - titanomachy 2y ago
      It would be unusual for a new college grad at any well-known tech company in Seattle to make less than $150k right now. Large companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google dominate the market here. If you were starting a software company in Seattle, $100k would probably be enough to interest only the most inexperienced and unqualified candidates. New York City and San Francisco Bay Area are similar or higher. I don't have much experience with the rest of the US.
      - fooker 2y ago
        Not just Seattle, I am seeing tech salaries in Denver, SLC, Austin, etc starting from 120-30k nowadays (and growing VERY fast if you stick around for a few years because the smaller cities have trouble keeping experienced engineers from taking a 700k offer from some FAANG company.)
        Manuel_D 2y ago
        Who's getting the 700K FAANG offers? I say this as someone who just took an offer with ~390K TC for an Amazon SDE III or Meta E5 equivalent at FAANG. 10 YoE. Aside from equity value increasing, I don't think 700K without factoring in rising stock prices is common, outside of niche in demand roles.
        fooker 2y ago
        Meta E5 (~4 yoe) is 520k, and E6 is 760k (~7-8 yoe) according to levels.fyi Seems close to what I have seen offered there.
        guessmyname 2y ago
  - rustcleaner 2y ago
    $100 is floor?! Here I am at $36 in Socal! I'm in the wrong line of work...
  - vundercind 2y ago
    Floor’s around $70k-80k for a new grad in my 3rd-tier (but still a couple million population) non-coastal US city. A couple major tech firms you’ve surely heard of are based here, plus some other really big ones you definitely know of if you work in the industries they serve. Not just offices—headquarters. The benefits will be decent, but nothing special, at a big place and dogshit anywhere smaller, so it’s not made up there. You’ll probably have 10 vacation days, maybe like 14 if they pool vacation and sick leave.
  - Propelloni 2y ago
    This sounds like starting up in the USA becomes less viable. And this begs the question why VC is still focused on the USA. 2-3 million dollars in seed money allow me to scale much faster in Europe (and much much faster elsewhere), if only for the fact that the same money I have to pay for an entry level developer in the USA will get me a very senior developer in Europe. Or two, maybe three, juniors.... what do you think?
    - Klonoar 2y ago
      A cynical take is that VCs still focus on the USA because the environment is far more lax and/or easy to take advantage of. That’s not an easy scenario for other countries that care to counter.
    - mobiuscog 2y ago
      Employee 'rights' are often much stronger outside the USA and so whilst you potentially pay more, you can 'downscale' much quicker as well. Look where most of the tech layoffs happen.
- fooker 2y ago
  Would you mind sharing your math? I had concluded the opposite if you compound over 5-ish years. With two tech incomes, you'll make approximately 4-5 million in the US counting equity, versus about 1 mil everywhere else except maybe Zurich. US expenses over 5 years would be about 800k-1mil excluding a home which you are likely going to sell for far more than you pay for.
  - readyman 2y ago
    Your math is based on you and your partner making 400k-500k/yr lol.
    - fooker 2y ago
      Yes, that's what we make right now on average. If you work in tech for a few years that's kind of average. We are having a new PhD grad join next month with a 400k TC offer. If you have trouble believing me, check out levels.fyi for (Facebook:E5, Google:L5-6, Nvidia:IC5, Apple ICT5).
      - readyman 2y ago
        >Yes, that's what we make right now on average. >If you work in tech for a few years that's kind of average. You should probably learn what "average" means if you're getting paid that much to develop software.
        fooker 2y ago
        The first average is between two people over a few years. The second average is for similar tech jobs. But good job resorting to ad hominem.
        ok_dad 2y ago
        I’ll buy that 400-500k a year is average for Facebook, Apple, Google, etc. It’s absolutely NOT average for companies who aren’t the massive giants that those are. I’ve been in actual tech startups, not Uber for Clowns, and the best salary I’ve seen was an (admittedly very good) $170k for a senior dev position. That’s close to average when I talk to my friends and associates in tech in the valley and beyond.
- BoorishBears 2y ago
  I'm 30, I can effortlessly save 100k a year after spending money on everything you listed. If you're happier in the EU that's fine, but the math definitely doesn't check out for people focused on finances: even when you take soft benefits into account
  - nasmorn 2y ago
    I made 245k USD before taxes in the EU last year self employed. Most people I know cannot believe how much money I made. To make that money you don’t just need to be an average leet Code drone but negotiate great contracts on your projects and take on and manage a lot of risk. What I am saying is: the math definitely doesn’t check out because apparently someone in my position would be doing 3x in the US
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  are piano lessons, private tutors, and sports clubs regularly affordable in Europe? those hardly sound like government provided services
  - tyfon 2y ago
    Most of it is government provided here in Norway. My daughtes do (private) piano lessons and theatre and it's organized and paid by the muni. Sports clubs might have a small fee for equipment, but it's also heavily sponsored by the government, the national lottery etc. For the things not free you can often have them paid for if you are in the low income brackets, and some places just give credit for those types of activity to all children. The reasoning is that children of low income families shouldn't be excluded.
    - fooker 2y ago
      A lot of US public schools provide this, but the quality can be questionable in/around large metros.
  - mokkol 2y ago
    Here in Spain, I pay €35/month for weekly piano lessons for my daughter. She loves it and we are really happy with her teacher as well. All from the public music school.
- ta1243 2y ago
  > The UK is particular, brexit did not do them any good. No shit. That's why working people voted to remain. That's why young people voted to remain. That's why educated people voted to remain. The majority of people in the UK today that voted, voted to remain. Far more leave voters have died in the last 8 years than remain voters.
admissionsguy 2y ago
Few people realise that the EU countries and the US are no longer in the same wealth category. There is a 50% difference in GDP per capita between Germany and the USA, for example. It's not a matter of offering benefits in kind instead of money, but rather a fundamental difference in resources available.
- leipert 2y ago
  The GDP per capita in the US is (85k USD) and in Germany (54k USD) nominal. That’s about 57% higher. At PPP (purchase power parity) 85k US vs 67k Germany, which “only” is a 27% difference. Denmark rates at 68k / 77k. So much closer. Norway is tricky to compare and Netherlands, Ireland and Switzerland are tax havens. - Nominal: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(no... - PPP: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP...
  - varjag 2y ago
    These estimates are really approximate and depend on the exchange rate. The lowest rate of NOK/USD on my memory was 5.6 and the highest nearly 12. Developer salaries in Norway are decent as Europe goes but if you want to make money hand over fist there's no other place like America. Yes even with all the old world perks imaginable.
  - admissionsguy 2y ago
    The population of Denmark is equal to that of Wisconsin. If we look at Denmark simply because it's among the richest EU countries, it might be more appropriate to compare it with the richest US states. Taking the top 5 state (California), we get $100k vs $68k (nominal), again ca 50%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
datascienced 2y ago
Outsiders have the disadvantage of needing a visa but the advantage of a $2k excess (the cost of the return flight) for unlimited chronic condition management. Obviously ER is different as you can’t go home quickly. Once you return home you might get to keep the job while in the hone country and rake it in.
lannisterstark 2y ago
>I've always loved that narrative for its optimism Despite all the European love, most of Europe (and rather, most of the world) is pretty poor compared to US.
mchaver 2y ago
Well, I also like that my neighbors and community also have access to no-pay-at-point-of-use healthcare, low cost education options and guaranteed time off. Makes for a relatively relaxed and content population! If you don't invest in (or put up lots of barriers to) the health and education of the entire community, then you are going to have an unhealthy and uneducated community. That's not to say we don't have many problems, but in my personal experience it's a lot less than the US in those regards.
- Nextgrid 2y ago
  > have access to no-pay-at-point-of-use healthcare This really depends on the country. In the UK you need to go private and pay if you want any kind of timely healthcare.

draw_down 2y ago

[dead]

oooyay 2y ago

> This is what rest of the world looks like USA people! This statement really depends on whatever part of the USA you're in and what kind of work you do. > No $200k TC interns out here. I haven't seen that yet, but I think an SF-based intern (if they were paid for the whole year) would make roughly $120k. There are plenty of people living in the Bay who haven't lived there 10 years who comparatively take home very little. All that to say, I don't think we need to dice up and turn the developer market against itself. We've all been affected by wage stagnation, the rising cost of metros, and the threat that we must live in them or else. Labor movements are good for all laborers, etc etc etc

datascienced 2y ago
I hope from the comments people seek higher wages for their worth - if everyone did this it would create a force pushing up dev salaries. The tech profits can more than handle this and smaller shops would have to stop doing inefficient stuff. I think cheaper devs allows laziness in thinking. Just throw a bigger team at it, see if it sticks.

datascienced 2y ago

Edit: stagflation is the wrong word I think as that means high unemployment. I wouldn’t say that is the case, just suppressed wages.

devjab 2y ago

While what you say is sort of true, developers are paid better than what you made it sound like for me. The difference is perhaps that professions like truck drivers and a lot of tradeskills are compensated very well because there is a general lack of people in those professions. We also have very strong unions (and legislation because of it) in those areas, so it’s not easy to “displace” (is this the right English word?) truck drivers with cheap foreign labour in a lot of EU countries. Unlike professions like plumbers, however, IT personal is becoming increasingly easy to come by. And since they never really formed unions, the so called golden days are over for a lot of IT professionals. Maybe excluding hardcore IT operations, networking and at least for now developers. I wouldn’t be able to earn what I do as a truck driver though. Maybe half with more hours? Interestingly enough I didn’t get there by being rewarded for any work. I got there by switching jobs.

Tade0 2y ago

In outsourcing destination regions like South America, the European eastern block(my location), India and SEA, software engineers still make multiples of the average wage for the region. It's the geopolitical west that's largely stuck in this situation, but IIRC that has been the case for a while now - when I was considering emigration around eight years ago I noticed that the salary differences are not as huge as I thought and in some places (like Germany) it's just a job like any other.

Log_out_ 2y ago
Mysterious why Germany has no software mega Corp, ever so mysterious, it's almost like everything software is linear in Germany meanwhile it's exponential somewhere else. I propose the theory that there is a massive object beneath cal to blame.
- sangnoir 2y ago
  > Mysterious why Germany has no software mega Corp, I hear SAP is kind of a big deal.
  - sim7c00 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - Log_out_ 2y ago
    Got to make me a rock made of physics to tie me down to the real.

piltdownman 2y ago

Truck (Lorry) Driving in the UK paying what it does is an economic aberration caused by Brexit and Covid 19 - e.g. 16,000 fewer EU nationals working as HGV drivers in the year ending March 2021. In the end they had a shortage of nearly 100,000 drivers and had to massively incentivise new entrants to the industry. It's a complete outlier as far as blue collar vs white collar jobs in the UK/EU for the most part. https://www.bbc.com/news/57810729 https://www.bbc.com/news/57810729 That said, overall the EU is paying somewhere around €80-120k for Senior Developers in the HCOL areas and as low as €45k in places like Spain. Overall, individual Contributor salaries outstripping even minor middle management is rare below architect or principal outside of FAANG. This leads to the situation the commenter above identifies - that fairly vacuous softer-skill based IT Roles like Scrum Master or ART or Release Manager out-earn the median Engineer and are seen as a viable alternative for motivated people.

gadders 2y ago
IR35 rules were a big factor as well, making it less lucrative for people to be self-employed truck drivers. It also paid better to be a delivery driver for Amazon than a truck driver.
psunavy03 2y ago
Those "vacuous" roles exist to ensure that the dev team isn't lighting company money on fire working on the wrong thing, or crippled by inefficient bureaucracy which is also lighting money on fire. Which isn't "vacuous;" there is value in saving the company money.
- brailsafe 2y ago
  If that's what they do
  - psunavy03 2y ago
    Some strong "junior developer" vibes here . . . nontechnical roles are not automatically fluff, and meetings are not automatically wastes of time.

jayphen 2y ago

Average senior engineer salary in Sydney is around AUD180k. There is no trade you can pick up that would get close to that. It’s true that living anywhere near the Sydney metro is unaffordable though, even on a 180k salary.

Shocka1 2y ago

200k TC for an intern is a nice cherry pick in SF or Silicon Valley maybe, but definitely at the extreme top end of the spectrum. Coastal money definitely doesn't speak for the rest of the US - there is a huge amount of space between California and NYC with developers making just enough to get by. Interviews have always been tough for development positions in the US, whether it's a 60k out of college position in the Midwest or more senior position for a coastal company making the big bucks. It is possible to get lucky and not have to be whiteboarded, but much of the time an applicant is getting grilled. Although it's obviously objective, I completely agree when comparing to a country like India. However, I'm not so sure it's as huge of a difference as what you are implying when comparing Western countries to non-coastal US developers. I've long since graduated, but if I were still in school and not too far into a CS degree I would probably drop out and be an electrician or plumber, freelancing application development on the side if I still had the energy.