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Comment by fweespeech | Hacker News Reader

To be honest (at least in my experience) if you are really worth $X as a developer, you can generally get your current employer to give you $X if you are proactive about it.

Quitting generally has more to do with:

A) "You (the employer) Waited Until The Exit Interview To Ask What’s Wrong"

B) "You (the employee) Waited Until The Exit Interview To Convey What's Wrong"

Leaving my last job, I told them what I wanted 1-2 years before I actually left (for more money, but that wasn't the primary cause). The CEO basically told me in the exit interview if it was about money, he'd give me another 30% to get me to stay (and they had countered with that before, back when I told them what I needed to stay long term).

Money isn't necessarily the cause. Its the lack of willingness to communicate and meet the other person's needs.

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Some companies have a hard limit on developer salaries. Many will never pay a developer over $200k, even if the developer is that good.

This can come from two reasons:

1. The company doesn't have sufficiently valuable projects to capture the developer's potential. There are a lot of companies which simply don't need very senior developers and hence cannot match the price for a senior developer on the open market.

2. The company perceives developers as second-class relative to management or their core business leaders. Thus, they can never have developers paid more than those core people.

These companies see a very consistent talent pool of mediocre developers (who have been mediocre for a long time) and junior developers who come in and leave after 1-2 years once they realize they can get more elsewhere.

There is no real reason to pay developers (or anyone really) over $200k to be perfectly honest. At $200k/year, if you are valuing money over intangibles you are making terrible life choices imho.

Work less, get out and do fun things more.

I dunno. I work for a company based in the UK, which seems to have much lower pay than the US. I am paid the same as other senior developers at the company, yet my salary by comparison to US standards is quite low ($70k and no benefits since I'm technically a contractor). Otherwise the company is really amazing, so I'm torn.

Expecting countries to match salaries an ocean apart is...unwise. Countries have very different economic situations.

I understand that, but it still hurts.

Stop comparing your salary to the US and start comparing it to India. You can be certain that's what your employer is comparing it to. And as soon as they can get the the same quality of work out of India you'll get the boot.

And how soon do you think that'll be?

Long after it matters to me.

London is its own bubble. The part of the UK I'm in, £35k is the going rate for a senior software developer.

I'm really sorry. :\ That is absurd.

You should be able to find remote work that pays £50k+ relatively easily. Although the whole Brexit thing may make that harder. :\

To me, £70k was more a geographic / economic area issue. Under $50k/£50k you just have to get out.

If you are actually in the UK, you have some amazing benefits that US-based folks don't get in the form of healthcare. I know, yes, technically, you're paying for it in taxes, but it's there for you all the time, regardless of your employment status or ability to pay for an insurance policy.

In addition to more vacation days, maternity leave, etc

Contractors don't get those. In theory they get paid higher as compensation for not getting them, in practice they generally get the same money with less benefits.

Sorry it wasn't clear, I'm actually in the US.

> If you are actually in the UK, you have some amazing benefits that US-based folks don't get in the form of healthcare.

So? That's pretty irrelevant since any good developer job in the US comes with excellent health coverage.

The healthcare that comes with any good developer job is the same healthcare that management thinks is good enough for their employees. It is rarely the case that it is good by objective standards.

And when you lose your job... you lose access to that "excellent health coverage".

Health insurance being so culturally tied to "employment" is ... very problematic.

You don't have to preach that to me (I agree), but it does mean that you shouldn't really consider universal healthcare to be an additional benefit when comparing UK & US developers. The US developer also has healthcare not factored into their salary.

Do you work in London or Cambridge? If so, that's a pretty low salary for a senior developer. In my experience that's mid level range, you're looking at more 70+k ($90k) for senior. That's excluding finance of course, where salaries are astronomical.

This. For highly talented developer it is definitely possible to make 6 digit salary in London at least, not sure about Cambridge.

Sorry, I'm actually in the US. I'm surprised to hear that that's a low salary for the UK, as well.

London only, not to confuse with the UK.

Good luck finding a senior developer for £70k over there.

How would that work? For the company to make a profit, employees by definition have to produce more value than they consume.

> How would that work? For the company to make a profit, employees by definition have to produce more value than they consume.

Most people aren't primarily motivated by money once they are making a full salary as a developer.

PTO, Work/Life Balance, and Geography are more relevant to my life choices than how much I'm paid (to a point, certain areas I've noticed don't pay enough).

https://ycharts.com/companies/GOOG/profit_margin

Alphabet was running a 13.55% margin for its latest quarter.

https://ycharts.com/companies/WMT/profit_margin

Walmart was at a 2.59% profit margin for its latest quarter.

Which of these companies do you think are providing better PTO, Work/Life Balance, etc.?

The reality is intangibles mean more to developers than another 10% salary bump once they are making $150k.

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