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Comment by bdavisx | Hacker News Reader

When you say "make a living" - how does that compare to a "typical" US developer salary/benefits - say around $120K total compensation? (and yes, I know that's far below a SV total compensation, but you wouldn't have to live in SV for this kind of lifestyle business).

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Just to keep your expectations in check - I work for a major games company in the UK as a C++ programmer and make 25k pounds/year($36k USD). US salaries are an abnormality.

$35K is what a decent developer in India would make. So, your UK seems too low.

Much of the games industry is incredibly low-paying. I felt fairly fortunate to have worked in my 20s for a good game company (where I was paid OK, learned a ton, and we eventually had an exit to Sierra), but I feel like most of my peers at other companies were working for terribly low pay and often under poor management.

GDP per capita in India is $1,498.87 though

As a web developer I frequently get offers for 50k+ in UK you are seriously underpaid

I only see 50k+ offers in London though, and I have no intentions of moving to London. I also don't think it's entirely fair to be comparing web developers to C++, I would say I'm an advanced C++ programmer but I would need to learn how to do web development from scratch, it's not like I can pick up a web development job and just get on with it.

Writing advanced C++ code is more difficult than writing node.js code for sure imo. So having a /2 salary for the most difficult option is meh. I have also had these offers from companies outside of London (don't know about rural areas OK). I think you should research a bit because I really think you are taken advantage of mate.

My first job when I graduated outside of London was 30k. You are seriously underpaid.

Was your first job in the games industry?

Web dev.

I'm still in college, and and an Eastern European country (where the average wage is around 550$). And I still make > 20k USD per year. So yeah, you are underpaid.

That only shows that you are being paid extremely well, not that I am paid poorly. To say that I am underpaid you would have to say - compared to what? To people doing jobs that have absolutely no interest to me? I like my job, I genuinely enjoy it. The money is enough to allow me to live very comfortably. If I lived in London, it would have been a different discussion - but out here, it's not bad at all.

If you don't mind saying, what sort of area in the UK do you live in, where 25k pounds/year is a good salary?

North east. My partner makes 30k(as a web developer, no less) so together we can easily afford to rent a 4-bedroom house, have 2 cars and save enough to get a mortgage soon. On top of that having a job that I really enjoy is just icing on the cake, really not complaining.

Got it, thanks.

Refreshing attitude! Nicely put. Midlands here, and while I always want more 'stuff', reality is I'm quite steady. Still, happy to try new projects a few times a year just in case.

$120k in just salary is common for a regular developer with 3 years experience here. Not even SV

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