150 replies
1d1h
I went the opposite way (in the UK) and moved from development (mainly C#) to lorry driving (everything from 12T rigids to 44T artics) however in my free time I’m enjoying developing (some RoR, some Golang) more than when I was paid to do it.
Although I’m working more hours (average 50-52 hours a week compared to 38-40), I’m also much better compensated doing HGV driving than I ever was as a developer (although that may reflect more on my skills/level as a developer than anything else)
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.
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.)
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.
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.
Your math is based on you and your partner making 400k-500k/yr lol.
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).
You should probably learn what "average" means if you're getting paid that much to develop software.
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.
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.
The etc in your first sentence is doing a bit of heavy lifting here. There are so many companies in that category now that if you have any specialized software skill (compilers, ML, database engines, OS, systems in general) you can absolutely make that much if you wanted to. If you don't believe me, and have such skills, spend 20-30 days interviewing!
Sure if you are a typical full stack developer you are not going to make that much money unless you get into Google or something.
Also, base salaries are typically not that high, but the total compensation with equity can reach that pretty easily.
I guess in the energy tech industry no one pays that because I’ve been looking, and I have pretty specialized skills.
Makes sense, it's interesting to see this discrepancy between fields.
Could you elaborate what specialized skills though?
I write software systems to control devices in buildings in the context of energy savings, like hvac and charging cars, and also control attached distributed energy resources, like batteries or solar.
See when people say "tech" colloquially it means website and app developers, not us embedded dev hobos.
A friend started working in this space last year. It seems like the usual story here is smaller companies giving you lottery tickets in the form of pre-IPO options. And large established companies paying a bit below market rates.
Quite
https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=ac7c7bbe4f75d28c -- Staff software engineer 160-200k.
https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=4a0886dfc2bbf783 -- 100-150k with need for top-secret clearance
Then in Bay area specifically
https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=2629520bf28dce4d -- Senior staff 175-360k
https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=9822ada0313c9665 -- 150-300k for staff engineer in ML
https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=088b23b29fd809a7 -- Senior 185k
400-500k is way over average for the Bay Area, let alone anywhere else
The range posted is usually just the base pay. For most public companies the total compensation would be ~60-80% more because of the stock. For senior positions, this would sometimes be 2x.
Facebook, Apple and Google are very big companies which hire a lot of very well paid engineers. We're not talking about being an NFL quarterback or something where only a small handful of people will reach that level. Being a big tech engineer is probably the easiest and most achievable path to $500k/year on the planet.
I would have put it differently, but your use of “average” made me wonder what you were thinking as well. I’m still not quite sure. You’re not a hypothetical person whose salary and job prospects are unknown to… you. If you’ve received job offers locally and overseas that would be interesting, but what you’re talking about sounds like speculation.
Yes, I had considered moving to Europe after completing my Phd. The offers were about 1/3rd of US, with a significantly lower potential for growing beyond a few tens of percentages over 5-10 years.
Yeah, that's a pretty massive difference.
If you say something ridiculous and get gently called on it, it does not mean ad hominem.
Ok so you’re in a hot sub-field. Your experience is not typical even at the companies you’ve named. And it’s definitely not typical “after a few years”, unless it’s a new PhD in hot field * top tier company * multiple good reviews. And you’re probably extrapolating the anomalously good stock performance that frankly you have no control over.
Your average Leetcode drone that makes it into those companies is making $300k after 5 years.
Compilers. Not hot, but a bit niche so it sometimes pays well. Not any more than ML or distributed systems specialists.
You can check levels.fyi for averages, don't have to rely on my word.
You are right. So, now the question is: given you are not an 'average leetcode drone' do you work in the US or Europe. I hope this clarifies why competent European computer scientists and engineers move to the US in large numbers.
Wtf? So if you and your partner get a top 1% tech job in the US you can out earn an average job in Europe. No shit!
The math is more like: top 10% of tech jobs in the US would make ~3-4x of top 10% of Europe. And there are so many tech jobs in the US that this top 10% is much larger in number than anywhere else. There's a reason people emigrate to the US from everywhere despite pretty harsh work environment and social security nets.
For example, a Google IC5/6 in Paris would make between 150k-200k vs ~500-700k in the bay area.
And the bay area apartment would cost $8k/MO for a 3br/2 bath to raise a single kid in.
Yes, it does.
You are likely not going to be renting an apartment with that kind of money, you are just making your landlord rich.
Instead, you put a 200k deposit, pay the same 8k per month as mortgage (approx 1/3rd of your salary is the rule of thumb), and sell the house or apartment after a while. That way, you are not losing any money.
Check https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/mortgage-calculator for confirming these numbers.
… unless the price of properties goes … down
If it goes to zero, it is almost equivalent to have payed rent for 30 years! ;)
If it becomes half, you still have a home to live in rent free.
More likely it doubles every 10-15 years.
The bay area is expensive, but not that expensive. 4-6k/mo in rent will get you a 3-4br in all but the most expensive neighborhoods. You could also rent a house for that much in many nice bay area suburbs.
That’s 150-200k on the earning side. In most European countries this has a bunch of social security pay-in, pension pay-in, employer-side employee tax etc. already paid for via the employer. The “real” wage is often close to double, so 300k-400k vs 500k-700k, which doesn’t sound nearly as grim once you factor in the much better quality of life.
Very much this. Folks tend to compare absolute numbers at the top of their payslip while forgetting all the rest. You don’t get good roads and healthcare out of nothing.
Yes, you can make the math work for you by factoring in subjective criteria like quality of life.
I'm not sure if you are aware but some of the things you mention are also provided by good employers in the US, but they are not obligated to.
A pension is not worth 150k-200k a year in compensation. Also taxes are higher in most of Europe, even taking payroll taxes into account (I assume that's what you mean by social security pay in).
Having worked for Big Tech(TM) in Ireland, I'm a _little_ sceptical of those numbers. There's a big gap, but, at least in the mid levels, it is not _that_ big.
Levels.fyi seems to have paywalled most of their data, so I can't find what Google pay in Paris, but the lowest they show for total compensation for an L6 is $390k, highest $720k. Both of those are serious outliers; median is $550k. While I'm always a bit suspicious of levels.fyi data, I think you're seriously exaggerating how big the gap is, at least in big tech (it can be a lot bigger in small startups).
Let me share my math.
Let's just take one perk I get to enjoy right now: I can afford to live in a high density city block with a long-term average yearly homicide rate below 4 per 100000 inhabitants.
In the U.S. I could replicate this only by purchasing a city block sized campus for myself and then investing in very very good screening of tenants and a private security force.
Based on average salaries of police and municipal infrastructure workers, combined with real estate prices in major U.S. metros, even with a bit of optimization, I couldn't get the cost to go below $2,150,023,240 for the first year (including real estate purchases) and about $1b yearly afterwards. I could maybe go lower by building my own city block somewhere outside a major metro, but I think infrastructure costs would eat that up.
And that's just one perk I got to enjoy: others, such as living within walking distance to my workplace, would be even harder to replicate. Yet others, like the ability to visit a borthel without having to worry about losing my job or going to jail, are nigh impossible.
Sure, there's additional efficiency where one action can help achieve multiple such perks, so let's assume I could replicate the lifestyle I enjoyed for a measlt $1b pa. That's about 8000x the annual income I had when I retired. And US salaries are not even 10x higher than Australian ones, so as far as I can tell, the math is not even close to working out.
(Of course, not everybody cares about these specific perks, and for some the U.S. may be a better fit. They're welcome to emigrate: the ones who don't appear to care enough to vote and keep these policies in place every 3 years, so I doubt anybody's getting the short end of the stick. The point is that it's stupid to compare salary numbers, because a lot of the things people want are trivial conveniences here and still unaffordable for even the richest people in other places, and vice versa.)
This is a little silly. There are many US cities that meet that standard. Seattle's rate is 6/100k which sounds reasonably safe to me. I've never known anyone (and none of my friends knows anyone) who has died by intentional homicide. It's simply not something that we worry about.
Why would this be the case? Major cities have both large tech offices and dense housing. My office has many apartments, townhomes, and single-family homes within walking distance. The neighborhood it's located in is quite livable.
This one is probably true. If regular brothel access is a priority, then the US is probably not a good choice. Nevada might be an exception.
I do know people who were hit by a car while crossing residential streets.
I don't know any people who were hit by a car while crossing a highway.
This doesn't mean highways are safer to cross on foot than residential streets.
Similarly, the people who are not murder victims in US cities must change their natural behavior in thousands of costly and humiliating ways so as to not become victims, and all that effort still doesn't keep the murder rate lower than the 30-60s that US downtowns have. Do you mind your own business while a teenager walks out of the grocery store without paying? Congratulations, you won't show up in those homicide stats. But it's not merely the stats that were the problem: it's the amount of social disfunction that it indicates and you won't buy your way out of that by any realistic higher salary.
Similarly, I don't personally know anybody who died of lung cancer, but would also not be keen to wear a respirator so that I can safely eat in a restaurant where people smoke.
Oh, I'm sure there are many such _cities_. But that's not the rate of my city, it's the rate of the high density business district I live in. The city itself has a still lower homicide rate, but it's not relevant. I can't find data about the homicide rate of high-density living downtown areas of Seattle, but I doubt it's lower than that of the city itself.
Because then you have to make your city block purchase in the immediate vicinity of your employer's office, which will further increase costs since you won't be able to choose among the cheapest high density city blocks.
I don’t have access to statistics for specific neighborhoods either, but I’m willing to believe Australia is safer in that respect. Singapore’s rates are so low that they make Australia and the US both look unacceptably dangerous. Perception is relative.
I’m not aware of any humiliating ways that I change my behavior to avoid being murdered, although perhaps if you observed me for a few days you would notice some.
I have never looked into buying an entire city block so can’t comment on that. I’ve been content with a single home so far.
To be clear, I am not looking into buying an entire city block: I am glad I can afford to live the lifestyle I want without having to. This wouldn't be available in the US, which is why the math didn't work out and I didn't move there given the opportunity. And I get salty when people like GP insist that this implies faulty math skills. I'm glad others who have different preferences can live elsewhere and do their own thing, though, especially if I am separated from them by land and water.
Re murder rates: I can't find data for Seattle, but based on data I could find (San José below, LA) I'd expect the rate to be about 10x higher for downtown high-density areas than for the whole city. Which is pretty bad.
Hello, I am an American who has never been murdered. I am curious to learn more about the humiliating ways I have unknowingly modified my behavior to avoid a violent death. Can you be more specific?
Sure, let's be more specific. First of all, do you live in a high density area with a high homicide rate?
If so, answer the following questions.
- Have you ever seen somebody walk out of a convenience store without paying. If so, would you try to say anything disapproving to such a person?
- If you're a woman, have you ever taken an Uber instead of the bus service your taxes subsidize because of safety concerns? If not, has this happened to a partner or friend? Would you let your underage daughter take the bus home from somewhere alone after dark?
- Have you ever had to cross the road because you weren't comfortable walking past somebody standing/lying on the corner?
- It's 3am. A large group of teenagers are having a party in your apartment building. They're still at it and they're very loud. Are you comfortable heading over and asking them to keep it down?
- It's 6pm. A large group of teenagers are hanging out in a public park near your place. You are curious about what they're up to. Are you comfortable walking past them while keeping eye contact with one of them and visibly checking out what they're doing?
- Would you consider walking the streets regularly while wearing an all-red streetwear outfit with a red paisley style bandana? How about a different color,say blue?
- Would you feel safe wandering the neighborhood at night in a drag costume?
- Would you feel safe wearing a black t-shirt with white text announcing that you don't like the music of a popular local rap artist?
If you don't do some otherwise perfectly reasonable and morally activities because it would be irresponsible or unsafe to do so, you're modifying your behavior. If you don't feel that you need to modify your behavior to avoid being a victim of violent crime, chances are it's only because you're very very lucky with your preferences. Some people happen not to want to do any of these activites, of course, but that doesn't change the fact that one can safely engage in them here, but not in any comparable area in the U.S.
The brothels bit is oddly specific, but it's worth mentioning consuming prostitution in many European countries (including some of those with top wages) is illegal.
It's great you gave a clear threshold instead of making it vague. Here are some US cities that would satisfy this criteria according to wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...) : San Diego, San Jose (yeah I'm surprised too..), NYC (also unexpected!), Portland, Seattle.
LOL. That's not the rate of my city, it's the rate of the high density business district I live in. The city itself has a much lower homicide rate, because there are large suburbs where people onpy sleep and nothing ever happens. The homicide rate of Downtown San Jose (the closest equivalent area) is a whopping 41/100k. So not a good look there.
But who is talking about 2 incomes and possibly living even with a partner in one household?
Based on the OPs figures 1 income with the same expenses would be 1m profit, more than income alone in europe.
I don't believe those figures (and they're meaningless for europeans as you can't simply get a job in the US), but if you take them at face value finanically living in the US for a decade is the sensible approach.
Obviously you'd want to leave before your kids went to school
You don't have to believe me, look at the data points. The recipe you are looking for is: senior position at big tech, preferably doing something specialized.
For example: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/facebook/salaries/software-... https://www.levels.fyi/companies/nvidia/salaries/software-en...
We have plenty of Europeans in big tech, though the usual path is either through attending university in the US or intra-company transfers. You can get a job directly if yoy are extraordinary, but I have not seen that happen very often.
We tried this, and the kid refused.
That also works the other way.
An American colleague left Denmark so his children could grow up in the USA, but after about 3 months came back because the children missed their personal freedom. (Freedom to walk/cycle home from school, see friends without needing parents to drive them, etc.)
Yeah makes sense.
I attended a boarding school in a third world country, it was a pretty neat childhood!
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?
100k is the floor? Where do you live? I swear most devs on HN have had their brains addled by inflated salaries.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
It depends.
https://www.levels.fyi/companies/facebook/salaries/software-...
Taking a close look at the data provided in this page, beyond merely considering seniority level and years of experience, reveals a noteworthy trend at Facebook. Many individuals are being hired at level E5 (Senior) with 6-8 years of "relevant" experience, and some even with 10 or more.
Some candidates with fewer years of experience, such as the 4 years you mentioned in your comment, are joining Facebook with PhD or Master degrees, which significantly bolsters their overall qualifications.
We’re not talking about just any programmer with 4 years of experience in web design straight out of a Bootcamp. These individuals are typically Ivy League graduate students with PhDs or Masters, and approximately 4 years of experience at Tier-1, or at the very least, Tier-2 companies (Fortune 500’s).
To illustrate, consider a recent data point submitted to Level/FYI on March 26th, 2024. This individual has been working at Facebook for 4 years and has accumulated a total of 10 years of work experience. Currently specializing in ML/AI, their total compensation amounts to $410,000 (comprising $230,000 in cash per year, along with $180,000 in RSUs per year).
Point taken, you cherry-picked a particular low number from the chart though, you could easily do it the other way and find a E5 making 600k at Meta.
Apple pays a bit below the silicon valley average, I am not quite I understand sure why---they sure have the money. I had a conversation with an Apple recruiter a couple of years ago who assured me this was not the case, and then eventually their offer was ~25% below my contemporary TC.
Also Canada tech salaries are quite a bit below US west coast levels.
I think Jobs once said that they're not willing to pay top market rates because they don't want to attract people strongly and primarily motivated by money.
That's an interesting philosophy that seems to have worked out for them, except maybe in the last few years where they have struggled to get AI talent.
700k is deep into staff+ territory. One needs to complete something unusually noteworthy to cross that line, years of experience alone is not sufficient.
Eh, I would have agreed maybe a decade ago, but the past years have seriously eroded USD buying power[1]. For example, for that 100k in 2014 to be equivalent in 2024, you would need 133k or that your adjusted for inflation dollars are 76K ( and that is BLS ).
100k is the floor, because 100k used to actually mean real money. I no longer think it is. I earn more than that and I believe we are struggling. I don't know how other people manage.
[1]https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=100%2C000.00&y...
I don't think that can be anything but 'lifestyle inflation'? Even if that's one income, supporting spouse and children.
In socal, the dev interns I was managing a couple years ago were paid $50/hr. That is a bit over $100k/yr
"had their brains addled"... no need to be mean
https://tomazweiss.github.io/blog/so_2023_compensation/
Are you sure it's not just a coping mechanism (I can't find the right word, sorry), for those who didn't get those salaries to say this line?
Even in PHX my company offers 95k as starting base for junior devs.
Entry level for my job in the Bay Area was 110K salary an about a other 70K in RSUs. This was 2015. Granted this was probably above average, as it was a medium sized but highly regarded company.
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.
$100 is floor?! Here I am at $36 in Socal! I'm in the wrong line of work...
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?
are piano lessons, private tutors, and sports clubs regularly affordable in Europe? those hardly sound like government provided services
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.
A lot of US public schools provide this, but the quality can be questionable in/around large metros.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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_(no...
- PPP: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP...
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.
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_territ...
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.
This really depends on the country. In the UK you need to go private and pay if you want any kind of timely healthcare.
Despite all the European love, most of Europe (and rather, most of the world) is pretty poor compared to US.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
This statement really depends on whatever part of the USA you're in and what kind of work you do.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Edit: stagflation is the wrong word I think as that means high unemployment. I wouldn’t say that is the case, just suppressed wages.
I am consistently enjoying myself more when doing coding side projects, than anything at work. I think that's just ... sort of normal when your profession and your hobby are the same thing - when you don't have any boss except yourself.
I've heard with lorry driving there are issues with vibrations causing physical harm eventually? Maybe that is nonsense?
If you don't mind me asking how much were you earning as a developer and how much do you earn driving lorries?
I’ve not had any issues with vibrations but I’ve not been driving perhaps long enough?
That said, the newer generation of trucks are so smooth I don’t think that’s as much of an issue as it may have been in previous generations.
Wage wise, working as a developer in the UK (working for small consultancies, not startups etc) my wage topped out at around 38k - last year driving I earnt 46k and this year with promotion (from rigid to articulated vehicles) and annual payrise, plus assuming I work a similar amount of hours I’m estimating 52-55k (all before tax)
I’ll never understand why developers there make less than the US. It’s not like they aren’t providing similar scale/leverage to a business.
I hear it is much harder to fire in Europe. One of my colleagues (based is US) is trying to fire an obvious underperformer; and I hear only tidbits; but it is quite difficult. Imagine your risk of being fired decreased 90%, would you be willing to take a slightly smaller salary? Of course when you (the employee) do not trust the company / government, you are also willing to be more mercenary and jump at smallest opportunities, so companies in US probably have to pay a bit more to keep the talent.
It varies country by country. The UK is basically at-will for the first two years, and it becomes more difficult after that.
From knowing people who've fired people before, in the UK people seem to overestimate how hard it is to fire someone.
No I wouldn’t because I’m good at what I do (at least reasonably so) and I have an emergency fund. There is no safety net in the US for those between 18-65 for the most part.
Why would anyone give a shit about it being harder to get fired when it comes to salary? In what kind of distorted world do you live in? I will never understand how you guys come up with these stories. Like, why exactly do you need to fire the guy through the hardest way possible, when you could just fire them the normal way? Like, you're complaining that your own culture is holding you back, because you can't live out your power trip fantasy by telling the guy to put his stuff in a box while a security guard is forcing him out of the building in the most obnoxious way. That type of firing in Germany is reserved for people who have committed crimes on the job.
Because we don't need to set away money for medical care, retirement, the education of our kids and a host of other expenses, the government takes care of that, and our housing costs are far lower than in the US.
Oh and we have public transport that actually works and walkable cities, so at least in urban areas where you find the techies, we don't need a big-ass gas guzzling SUV to get to work or to go and grab some basic groceries. We go to work on the subway/streetcar, and we walk by foot or use a bike to go and shop groceries.
Americans always boast about how much they earn compared to us (Western) Europeans, but IME when you make them break down their monthly budget, it usually turns out that after deducting fixed costs, we are roughly the same in purchasing power, and we're happier on top of that as we don't have to fear a random hospital visit might leave us with a 10k$ bill.
I feel this comment's characterizations of both the US and Europe are both basically wrong (or at least, they would require significant qualifications to be reasonable).
I grew up in a suburb of a relatively dense Western European city with ~250k people. The city has buses, but everyone I know gets to work by car. Horrible traffic - 15 mile highway commutes take 45 minutes in the morning. When I was growing up I went to school by car. Nowadays when my father needs groceries he drives for 5 minutes (rather than walk for 15).
Since moving to the US I haven't driven at all - though I live in New York, so it's obviously a special case. For healthcare, "a random hospital visit might leave us with a 10k$ bill" doesn't exist for tech workers - as anyone who's actually worked in tech in the US would know. It's true that the US healthcare has severe access problems for a large portion of the population. But those problems are non-existent for tech workers with employer insurance and bounded out-of-pocket costs.
House prices in the UK are awful. The health system is dire. The education system (in Scotland at least) is awful too (I know several teachers here who will tell you the same, and the international ratings speak for themselves. Tax is high, salaries for tech are way lower than US too. State pensions are chump change.
By some estimates, the US is home to 50% of world's globally reaching corporations. Software written at those companies has giant business implications (thanks to those companies' scale), and thus the devs can be better compensated for their work.
If this was the reason then UK developers working for US companies would be paid better
Not neccessarily. Companies just pay each country's market wages. The difference between US and UK is that large amount of developer positions with high return on investment (for the company) pushes US market wages upwards - all those megacorps are competing for a limited pool of US people, and can afford to compete on salaries.
Worse than the physical harm caused from working at a desk?
I've never driven a Lorry, but I did drive for a living, and also drive long distances regularly.
But I find my car seat much more comfortable than my desk chair, and my posture much better in the car than one I can maintain while sitting at a desk and typing.
Of course, if you're doing very long drives you may not get as many opportunities to stand up and stretch your legs, but I'd imagine lorry drivers would have this opportunity once every hour or so.
If so, why not to get different chair (perhaps used car chair) and set it up the same way as it setup in the car?
The way I sit while driving is very different from typing
Typing I'm not able to recline and comfortably type. It's possibly a different chair, desk, keyboard, and monitor setup could help with this but I'm self-employed right now and not able to shell that out for what would amount to experiments which I don't expect to be particularly fruitful.
I have worked in a number of offices and with a variety of setups when employers were footing the bill, and have yet to find one that was significantly more comfortable than my current setup.
When driving I'm in much more of a relaxed reclining position and just steering. Long distances I can add cruise control to the mix. Making minor adjustments to the steering wheel is completely different from the wrist/fingertip stress of typing, and good posture when working at a desk requires being more upright, which in my experience ends up putting more stress on my back and neck also.
I've just returned from a 10 day trip across Europe. 5 days to destination. 5 days there. 5 days back. I've been back for 2 weeks now and I think I've only just "recovered" from the drive. The cognitive load of the German autobahn. Trying to understand the road markings in different countries. Rain one day. Snow the next. Glaring sunshine the next.
Now, sitting in my home office in a comfy chair with no vibrations, no continuous noise and no apparent imminent potential for death is most definitely my preferred way to spend 8 hours a day.
Next year is going to be a stay-cation!
I mean... have you considered a _train_? :)
Modern trucks (at least European-style cab-over trucks) have extremely soft ride quality. The truck itself has airbag suspension, plus an additional suspension system built into the seat. You do get jostled about a bit, but the movement is very slow and floaty. I'm not aware of any reports of vibration-related harm.
I've come to realise that actually coding is the part of software development I enjoy the least, and in many staff software engineer positions, that is basically entirely what you are doing
Other people are doing the fun/interesting stuff, project managers, product owners, scrum masters, etc etc are doing all of the fun interesting figuring out/thinking, and then it's just your job to code it.
When you work on side projects, you get to wear all of those other hats and it's way more rewarding
Actually coding is the domain of mid level and senior engineers. Staff engineers architect, design technical strategy, collaborate across teams. A proper staff engineer might only see code during review or a proof of concept.
Wild! Coding, for me, is the fun part - implementing the solution, once I've come up with one.
I've never looked at a product owner or a scrum master and thought to myself, "man, those guys get to have all the fun." I've more often thought, "wow, they have to answer to three people, two of whom are assholes, who have four opinions on how things should be done between them."
Not really related to your points but I feel that separating design and implementation is a mistake; the people designing and implementing should be, if not the same people, then certainly in the same room, and in constant contact.
So it could be that, if you’re in a world where you aren’t getting to do any of the fun figuring-out stuff, perhaps that’s a problem with the workplace structure rather than with programming generally.
I enjoy a bit of everything, and am apparently lucky to have been able to do it for a long time.
Opposite for me. Much rather code an abomination than hash out the abomination in meetings all day with scrum “masters”, product “owners”, and software “engineers”.
I think for me it’s not having a time pressure - if it takes me 2 weeks spending 2 hours a day to implement something there’s no issue when it’s just projects for myself (I’ve basically written a PWA for tracking my pay, hours, rest time etc which I use every day, and implement a new feature I decide would be useful when it comes up, so kind of the ultimate dog-fooding)
I' m the opposite. I put myself under 2 week sprints at home. Imagine someone is working on the same idea and put pressure on myself to get done and release.
At work I hold things an extra day or more so I have something easy to say at the standup. Stands ups at work force this slow pace because it sounds better and is easier for others to follow.
For me, I enjoy programming but just as a tool. I enjoy it like I do my table saw.
But I use my table saw because I want to build certain stuff. Maybe a cabinet or something. You would never catch me using my table saw or programming “just for fun.”
And if I’m not enjoying what I’m building, it’s not like the tool will somehow make it enjoyable.
To share an opposite anecdata: After many years of coding side projects and work projects, I no longer get a kick out of side projects. They just don’t scratch the itch anymore. They just pale in interestingness/size/complexity compared to what I get to do at work and if I wanted a big enough side project to scratch the itch, then it would require a team to get done and wouldn’t be a side project.
Nah, that reflects on the U.K. - developers are generally miserably underpaid, and there’s a massive shortage of freight drivers since Brexit for no apparent reason whatsoever.
Surpringly the shortage of drivers is not actually a thing anymore (during Covid perhaps) but the large number of people who got their HGV license when the government changed the rules during Covid has actually caused pay rates to drastically fall due to their being more drivers looking for work than work available.
I think that's maybe not _that_ surprising, because freight in _general_ in the UK is in decline. The UK Dept of Transport does not expect freight tonnage to rise to 2019 levels in the foreseeable future. This is partially due to the decline of the land bridge (since Brexit, far more freight to Ireland goes by sea instead of through the UK), but also due to a decline in UK trade in general post-Brexit.
A decline in the UK in general post-Brexit, although brexit is more of a symptom of a larger decline.
The main reason is that most drivers were Eastern European and since freedom of movement ended it has become significantly harder for them to come and work as freely as they could before. Covid is also a factor afaik.
Though I otherwise agree with you that developers (or rather white collar careers in general with the exception of certain finance roles) are not particularly well paid in many instances in the UK.
I believe the users comment was deeply sarcastic and they are in underlying agreement with your assertion
I think you're right - I'm embarassed to have not picked up on that.
OP salary at 38k is pretty low.
From my experience that's in line with people doing "body rentals" for agencies under threat of being deported or because they couldn't find another job.
I think he could have doubled that with a bit of work on resume / negotiation skills.
Sure, still lower than US but life in the UK is way cheaper, so it works out unless your earning potential is mid-high 3 digits.
I'm not sure it's specific to body shops. Frankly some higher-end "body shops" (aka agencies) do actually pay quite well.
This salary sadly seems normal for a non-tech business.
Nowadays I'm not sure, especially if you actually need any of the services the government is supposed to provide but is no longer able to (healthcare, etc). Private healthcare expenses quickly adds up.
Worth pointing out that among non-US countries, the UK has among the highest developer pay. This isn't the UK under-paying, it's the US being a massive outlier.
Truck drivers in the USA can easily make well into the six figures as owner operators. It’s not gonna compete with FAANG (except maybe on oilfields?), but it’s a very good living.
And of course if you’re good at running yourself as a business you have the skills to run other drivers too if you choose to invest in a fleet.
Heck, for a while Amazon was paying people to quit and start trucking.
I thought about making the same move but quickly dropped the idea when I see this:
The average salary for a truck driver is $24.98 per hour in Montréal, QC.
That's less than a third of my cash compensation.
I do wish getting a non programming laid back day job so that I can program happily in my free time. I kinda gave up the idea to find a programming job that I love to do -- it's just technically too tough to get into one of those low level programming jobs.
Are you average?
Average on what? I'm sure my truck driving skill is less than the average truck drivers.
Are you away from home much? Do you have a spouse and/or kids?
I don’t do nights out or away, so I’m home every night (morning as I work 3pm until I’m done, generally 1-2am, sometimes 5am)
No spouse or kids which probably helps and is why I don’t mind picking up overtime and extra shifts
What's the max someone can earn as a HGV driver in the UK?
I’d guesstimate if you were in a high-demand/niche role with a high hourly rate, plus you can max out your hours each week, probably around £65k?
Interesting! Do you enjoy the lorry driving? I've thought about it but one of my concerns is having to manoeuvre around tiny village high streets (lived in a village where houses were regularly hit!) Is there much of that? Are you under a lot of pressure to deliver in super tight time frames? And how long did it take you to get your HGV licence? Cheers.
It takes surprisingly little time to get used to the size - that said I’m more confident I the rigid vehicles than the artics in terms of tighter manoeuvring. Most of my work is trunking however so distribution centre to distribution centre, generally at most 5miles from a motorway, for customer deliveries I do have to take some smaller country roads, which are nerve-racking at first but now I’ll take much more confidently.
I enjoy being left alone with podcasts for the first 4-6hours of my shift and music for the rest, I tend to talk to the office 3 times a shift - once when I get my keys, once to find out what (if anything) is getting loaded for a second run and finally to hand my keys in - all in all 10mins interaction with “management” over a 10hr shift suits me fine.
Time wise, taking my Thursday shift - I’m booked at Heathrow airport to deliver at 7pm, if I’m 30-45mins late there’s no issues, but I generally leave to get there at 1840 so even if roads are bad I’m still “on-time” - after that I have a collection (anytime after 1900) which has to be at the customer (2hrs drive) by 0200 and I’m generally there by 2200 - I am lucky in the company I work for leave plenty of time for everything including breaks, I know other places run you around and try to get 10hrs work done in 8.
In terms of time for license, I had 4 days training for my rigid (anything over 7.5T with a trailer upto 750kg) with test on the last day which I passed first time, I then drove them for 6 months for my current employer and then again had 4 days training and test on the 5th for artics (anything over 7.5T with a trailer over 750kg) which I passed first time (thanks in part to driving rigids for 6months and being generally confident with the size etc of the vehicle)
Ironically, in an industry that highly regulates working times...
Yes, work is covered under both the Working Time Directive (which I’ve opted out of the night work limit and the 48hr working week) and the EU Drivers Hours rules - work are hot on infringements for exceeding working hours but more so on breaches of driving hours or insufficient rest hours.
Yeah, from my point of view we're going to need more 38 year-olds starting new careers as developers to replace those of us that started at 28 and are ready to move on. I'm about 13 years in, but have been burned out for at least 5 years and I'm finally ready to admit it. Get me out of here.
The best thing I ever did for my love of programming was moving (temporarily) into management. All of a sudden I was spending 10-15 hours weekly in nights and weekends writing more code than I previously had been in 40 working hours. It's amazing what a combination of a) working on your own things that you're more passionate about and b) not spending 20-25 hours coding already will do for your motivation.
I appreciate stories like this as a reminder that it is never too late to make a change in your life that is right for you. Some folks stick to their comforts and avoid such a big life change out of fear - but sometimes the temporary discomfort can lead to greater fulfillment in the long-run.
Whether your coming from or going to lorry driving - or any other job role, keep telling your story and maybe your path will be an inspiration for someone going through their own jaded, burn-out experience.