5 ms·

I have an impression that one of the main selling points for Berlin particularly is the cheap labour - experienced engineers salaries are within 50-60K EUR rang

by zerr 11y ago

I have an impression that one of the main selling points for Berlin particularly is the cheap labour - experienced engineers salaries are within 50-60K EUR range... Some time ago, Berlin had a reputation as a cheap place to live, and "poor but sexy". I think this is no longer the case.

walshemj 11y ago
Compared to sv all of Europe has cheap engineers. Googles starting salary would be considered very good for a senior developer.
- tormeh 11y ago
  I'm reading up on some computer science literature right now, and the American dominance in the field is utterly complete. I don't know what's wrong with the European (and rest of the world's) approach, but it's surprisingly bad at CS research. I'm guessing the underlying causes are the same.
  - nbraem 11y ago
    I thought a lot of compiler and kernel research came from Europe?
    - tormeh 11y ago
      I should have qualified my statements a lot more. I'm just reading up on research in deterministic multithreading, and I've only seen American universities on the papers I'm reading for a long time and I was being hyperbolic. Yes, there is lots of interesting research and development in Europe. For example, static analysis of actor systems is a mostly European thing.
    - walshemj 11y ago
      Not to mention Colossus, Baby and the Z series from Germany
  - wongarsu 11y ago
    As a data point on American dominance, wikipedia lists 1090 (notable) American computer scientists. Next is Britain with just 192 listed computer scientists and then Germany with 135. Canada is the only other country to even reach a three digit number. [1] But I suspect the dominating cause for the wage difference is simply that European wages across most industries generally are just lower than American wages. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Computer_scientists_by_nationality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Computer_scientists_by...
- wlievens 11y ago
  Google starting salary is more than I will ever make (as an employee) and I'm in fact doing very well for my age group, in Belgium that is.
  - nbraem 11y ago
    You're absolutely right, I moved to Belgium a few years ago from SV. The only way to make a decent salary, is to become self-employed.
    - wlievens 11y ago
      Decent pay isn't hard, it's just not great :-)
- smil 11y ago
  In Sweden, you'd be stoned to death if someone found out you made $150K, or more, as an engineer.
  - tormeh 11y ago
    You're clearly exaggerating. You'd only be stoned to death if you bragged about it.
    - rehtona 11y ago
      $150k is really a ridiculous amount of money in Sweden. Not that living expenses are low or anything, but most of life's big expenses are taken care of already: you get a real pension, universal health care, paid for university (no need to save up for your kids), long vacations, 16 months parental leave, cheap child care ($150/month) etc. So $60k is actually plenty. Also, a year or two ago, $60k was $80. The exchange rate is unpredictable.
      - smil 11y ago
        You probably won't be getting any (liveable) pension and in the near future we may see tuition fees for university studies.
  - walshemj 11y ago
    Haven's above cant have one of those greasy engineers getting over themselves don't they know their place in life is cutting the grass at bag end :-). Obviously the famous "I know my place" sketch works as well in Sweden as it does in the UK.
- k-mcgrady 11y ago
  >> "Compared to sv all of Europe has cheap engineers" Salaries are often set relative to cost of living. e.g. I get paid more as an engineer in London than I do in my hometown but the difference is almost equal to the difference in cost of living. Therefore comparing an SV salary to 'Europe' isn't easy as there are very rich European cities as well as very poor ones. SV and in particular SF has an incredibly high cost of living compared with pretty much anywhere in Europe so it's not easy to compare SF salaries to even those in more expensive European cities like London.
  - walshemj 11y ago
    SF is just as expensive housing wise as London or Paris. Ok London has better transport links than SF but that isn't cheap either.
    - k-mcgrady 11y ago
      I know that was my point :) SF is MORE expensive than the most expensive cities (London, Paris) in Europe. So looking at the high salaries in SF and comparing them to salaries in London/Paris isn't a fair comparison.
      - walshemj 11y ago
        Actually I worded that wrong London is more expensive than SF and housing in the UK as a LOT more expensive than the USA property taxes are lower though
        k-mcgrady 11y ago
        From what I can see online rental prices in SF are definitely more expensive than London. I know a lot of/most consumer goods are cheaper in the US but then you have to factor in health insurance and transport (which is much better in London). Overall I guess the salary difference isn't completely justified by cost of living differences however in London working hours seem to be kept in most places (9am-6pm) and we get more holidays (typically 20 days + bank holidays - about 8 per year -) whereas people in the valley seem to get fewer holidays and work longer hours. Maybe that perception is wrong but if correct maybe that is what justifies the higher salary.
smikhanov 11y ago
Compared to Silicon Valley even London is full of cheap talent -- on Angel.co one can routinely see job openings offering £35-45K.
- justincormack 11y ago
  You wont keep staff for long at these rates, if you even manage to hire anyone.
playing_colours 11y ago
From my anectodal experience from hiring and talking with recruiters, the salaries are growing. More startups appearing, more investments coming to yesterday's startups lead to the shortage of (good) engineers, even with growing migration to Berlin. Say Java / Scala senior developers are now 60-75K, and some companies give more, experienced frontend guys pretty close to these numbers as well. There are also said to be some companies, particularly under Rocket Internet's umbrella, that try to beat down salaries by actively hiring and relocating developers from outside the EU / lower income countries.
s3nnyy 11y ago
I can only agree; if you optimize for money, Berlin does not pay. As a junior developer with a master in CS from a top European school, the offers I got from Berlin were around laughable 40k Euro for a web-dev gig. 40.000 Euro gross amounts to 2000 Euro per month in net-salary. My living costs in Berlin would be around 800 Euro. I chose to go to Zurich instead. Here, I am making 92.000 CHF also as a junior web-dev. Due to the low taxes, my net-salary is 6.500 CHF and I live on 1300 CHF all-in. Zurich is the only place in Europe where salaries are comparable to NYC or the Bay-Area. If you are interested in moving here to work in IT, shoot me a mail. Contact details can be found in my HN profile. Alternatively, check out my medium-story: "Eight reasons why I moved to Switzerland" (http://goo.gl/EIX4UX http://goo.gl/EIX4UX).
- crdb 11y ago
  I second this anecdotal evidence. It's a very tight real estate market but somehow, cheap compared to salaries, with high quality options and a high quality of life. Thanks to EasyJet, Swiss (the airline), and the always great Swiss public transport, you're also next to a budget hub (ZRH) allowing you easy access to the rest of Europe. I moved cos my next job took me to Geneva (which is nowhere near as nice) but remember the city fondly. Switzerland is generally a wonderful country to live in and work, if you can cope with not being in a culture hub (which is the only real drawback, relatively easily mitigated by weekends elsewhere).
  - s3nnyy 11y ago
    The events that are important to me are about technology, UX, design, business and entrepreneurship. There are plenty events happening covering these topics. Usually, I am attending two to four meetups per week. Also, people tend to forget that Zurich has 320.000 inhabitants and one should account for this when comparing it to mega-cities like Berlin, which is literally ten times bigger.
- pantalaimon 11y ago
  I still rather live in Berlin than anywhere else - money isn't everything.
- 11y ago
wink 11y ago
For whatever definition of "cheap labour" you want to use. Berlin might pay a little less, but starting at 40k and going to 50/60k as you are longer in the field is pretty typical for most of Germany. This is in German, but sounds good enough as a quick overview: http://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/beruf-und-buero/buero-special/gehaltsuebersicht-fuer-2014-tabelle-it-berufe/8934336-5.html http://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/beruf-und-buero/buer... Examples: software developer, 3-5 yrs exp, 51-60k software developer, 6-9 yrs exp, 60-73k

by zerr 11y ago

walshemj 11y ago

Compared to sv all of Europe has cheap engineers. Googles starting salary would be considered very good for a senior developer.

tormeh 11y ago
I'm reading up on some computer science literature right now, and the American dominance in the field is utterly complete. I don't know what's wrong with the European (and rest of the world's) approach, but it's surprisingly bad at CS research. I'm guessing the underlying causes are the same.
- nbraem 11y ago
  I thought a lot of compiler and kernel research came from Europe?
  - tormeh 11y ago
    I should have qualified my statements a lot more. I'm just reading up on research in deterministic multithreading, and I've only seen American universities on the papers I'm reading for a long time and I was being hyperbolic. Yes, there is lots of interesting research and development in Europe. For example, static analysis of actor systems is a mostly European thing.
  - walshemj 11y ago
    Not to mention Colossus, Baby and the Z series from Germany
- wongarsu 11y ago
  As a data point on American dominance, wikipedia lists 1090 (notable) American computer scientists. Next is Britain with just 192 listed computer scientists and then Germany with 135. Canada is the only other country to even reach a three digit number. [1] But I suspect the dominating cause for the wage difference is simply that European wages across most industries generally are just lower than American wages. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Computer_scientists_by_nationality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Computer_scientists_by...
wlievens 11y ago
Google starting salary is more than I will ever make (as an employee) and I'm in fact doing very well for my age group, in Belgium that is.
- nbraem 11y ago
  You're absolutely right, I moved to Belgium a few years ago from SV. The only way to make a decent salary, is to become self-employed.
  - wlievens 11y ago
    Decent pay isn't hard, it's just not great :-)
smil 11y ago
In Sweden, you'd be stoned to death if someone found out you made $150K, or more, as an engineer.
- tormeh 11y ago
  You're clearly exaggerating. You'd only be stoned to death if you bragged about it.
  - rehtona 11y ago
    $150k is really a ridiculous amount of money in Sweden. Not that living expenses are low or anything, but most of life's big expenses are taken care of already: you get a real pension, universal health care, paid for university (no need to save up for your kids), long vacations, 16 months parental leave, cheap child care ($150/month) etc. So $60k is actually plenty. Also, a year or two ago, $60k was $80. The exchange rate is unpredictable.
    - smil 11y ago
      You probably won't be getting any (liveable) pension and in the near future we may see tuition fees for university studies.
- walshemj 11y ago
  Haven's above cant have one of those greasy engineers getting over themselves don't they know their place in life is cutting the grass at bag end :-). Obviously the famous "I know my place" sketch works as well in Sweden as it does in the UK.
k-mcgrady 11y ago
>> "Compared to sv all of Europe has cheap engineers" Salaries are often set relative to cost of living. e.g. I get paid more as an engineer in London than I do in my hometown but the difference is almost equal to the difference in cost of living. Therefore comparing an SV salary to 'Europe' isn't easy as there are very rich European cities as well as very poor ones. SV and in particular SF has an incredibly high cost of living compared with pretty much anywhere in Europe so it's not easy to compare SF salaries to even those in more expensive European cities like London.
- walshemj 11y ago
  SF is just as expensive housing wise as London or Paris. Ok London has better transport links than SF but that isn't cheap either.
  - k-mcgrady 11y ago
    I know that was my point :) SF is MORE expensive than the most expensive cities (London, Paris) in Europe. So looking at the high salaries in SF and comparing them to salaries in London/Paris isn't a fair comparison.
    - walshemj 11y ago
      Actually I worded that wrong London is more expensive than SF and housing in the UK as a LOT more expensive than the USA property taxes are lower though
      - k-mcgrady 11y ago
        From what I can see online rental prices in SF are definitely more expensive than London. I know a lot of/most consumer goods are cheaper in the US but then you have to factor in health insurance and transport (which is much better in London). Overall I guess the salary difference isn't completely justified by cost of living differences however in London working hours seem to be kept in most places (9am-6pm) and we get more holidays (typically 20 days + bank holidays - about 8 per year -) whereas people in the valley seem to get fewer holidays and work longer hours. Maybe that perception is wrong but if correct maybe that is what justifies the higher salary.

smikhanov 11y ago

Compared to Silicon Valley even London is full of cheap talent -- on Angel.co one can routinely see job openings offering £35-45K.

justincormack 11y ago
You wont keep staff for long at these rates, if you even manage to hire anyone.

playing_colours 11y ago

From my anectodal experience from hiring and talking with recruiters, the salaries are growing. More startups appearing, more investments coming to yesterday's startups lead to the shortage of (good) engineers, even with growing migration to Berlin. Say Java / Scala senior developers are now 60-75K, and some companies give more, experienced frontend guys pretty close to these numbers as well. There are also said to be some companies, particularly under Rocket Internet's umbrella, that try to beat down salaries by actively hiring and relocating developers from outside the EU / lower income countries.

s3nnyy 11y ago

I can only agree; if you optimize for money, Berlin does not pay. As a junior developer with a master in CS from a top European school, the offers I got from Berlin were around laughable 40k Euro for a web-dev gig. 40.000 Euro gross amounts to 2000 Euro per month in net-salary. My living costs in Berlin would be around 800 Euro. I chose to go to Zurich instead. Here, I am making 92.000 CHF also as a junior web-dev. Due to the low taxes, my net-salary is 6.500 CHF and I live on 1300 CHF all-in. Zurich is the only place in Europe where salaries are comparable to NYC or the Bay-Area. If you are interested in moving here to work in IT, shoot me a mail. Contact details can be found in my HN profile. Alternatively, check out my medium-story: "Eight reasons why I moved to Switzerland" (http://goo.gl/EIX4UX http://goo.gl/EIX4UX).

crdb 11y ago
I second this anecdotal evidence. It's a very tight real estate market but somehow, cheap compared to salaries, with high quality options and a high quality of life. Thanks to EasyJet, Swiss (the airline), and the always great Swiss public transport, you're also next to a budget hub (ZRH) allowing you easy access to the rest of Europe. I moved cos my next job took me to Geneva (which is nowhere near as nice) but remember the city fondly. Switzerland is generally a wonderful country to live in and work, if you can cope with not being in a culture hub (which is the only real drawback, relatively easily mitigated by weekends elsewhere).
- s3nnyy 11y ago
  The events that are important to me are about technology, UX, design, business and entrepreneurship. There are plenty events happening covering these topics. Usually, I am attending two to four meetups per week. Also, people tend to forget that Zurich has 320.000 inhabitants and one should account for this when comparing it to mega-cities like Berlin, which is literally ten times bigger.
pantalaimon 11y ago
I still rather live in Berlin than anywhere else - money isn't everything.
11y ago

wink 11y ago

For whatever definition of "cheap labour" you want to use. Berlin might pay a little less, but starting at 40k and going to 50/60k as you are longer in the field is pretty typical for most of Germany. This is in German, but sounds good enough as a quick overview: http://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/beruf-und-buero/buero-special/gehaltsuebersicht-fuer-2014-tabelle-it-berufe/8934336-5.html http://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/beruf-und-buero/buer... Examples: software developer, 3-5 yrs exp, 51-60k software developer, 6-9 yrs exp, 60-73k