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Comment by ohthehugemanate | Hacker News Reader

I am continually surprised that _anyone_ in tech signs employment contracts in Europe. If you're good, and know how to work well remotely, contract work at 130-150€/hr is plentiful. Working 32 (billable) hrs/wk with 6 weeks vacation - more or less what you'd do as an Employee - that's an income between 190-220k. But every employment contract I've heard of here (France and Germany) maxes out at 90-100k for even director level positions.

I'm still shocked by it every time. Especially since the same person who makes you that offer will complain that it's so hard to find talent. What a surprise! Who would think, it's hard to hire people by offering less than half their market rate.

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>> If you're good, and know how to work well remotely, contract work at 130-150€/hr is plentiful

What kind of work ? if you have a phd you can't have research work that way can you ?

Hey there,

Londoner here feeling quite constrained with salaries, curious where you find 130-150/hr remote gigs. Mostly through a personal network? Or a recruiter? Really curious.

Same here. I would love to find those remote gigs at that price. I am contracting in London in the data space and would jump at the opportunity to work remotely for that amount.

There definitely is a very real salary ceiling in the tech world in London.

How do you like contracting?

I'm on salary at the moment, but it would take a lot for me to make anything near what the day rates for 3/6 month contracts are paying.

I am really liking contracting. It is just a different way of working compared to permanent but I prefer it. I am ex consulting so like the ability to have new projects / clients on a 3 to 6 month basis. It also allows for a lot of freedom.

One thing to remember though is that those day rates do get taxed pretty much the same as a permanent job if you pay all your earnings out to yourself. The tax laws have closed a lot of the loop holes.

I would be very happy to discuss contracting further if you were interested. Drop me an email if you want.

There are always extraordinary claims like this in big threads about salaries, but they never seem to be backed up.

My guess is it is mostly unusual situations which can't be easily explained or replicated.

On LinkedIn, set your region filter to bay area, look for remote.

Try using stack overflows job search tools, set to remote.

Try angel.co, be upfront about wanting remote.

I have an employment contract (in the UK, still just about part of Europe) because I like stability, and building up expertise in one thing rather than chopping and changing every year or two, and because the set of companies doing the kind of work I like doing isn't really that large. Raw salary isn't everything...

I can't speak about other European countries, but in France, an employment contract gives you an insane amount of security. If you're made redundant, you get paid 60-70% of your salary for up to 2 years, you get loads of paid maternity leave. You get a nice state-funded pension. You get free healthcare (including dental and glasses). You get 100% sick-leave coverage. You get mandatory training. You get access to job promotions inside companies. It's much easier to get a mortgage or just to rent. And you don't have to also work on finding the contracts. So, you need to more than double your salary to get the equivalent billable rate, and that's assuming you never have issues finding work to do.

You know what else gives you insane amount of security? Insane amount of money in your bank account :)

If you are working on B2B contract, making 750 euros per day you'll quickly accumulate savings, and having 100-200k euro in your bank account allows you to not be worried about where to find your next contract.

Also, if you are running business in Europe you are still paying social security fees for yourself, so you still get that "free" healthcare, pension, and even sick leave coverage.

As per mortgage, you still can have it (although with all your savings you'll probably never need it), provided that you run your business for at least a year and have regular cash flow.

The one disadvantage is that leadership roles and promotions are usually reserved for permanent employees, although some companies employ team leads or PMs on B2B contracts as well.

In my case, I'm a Latin American not willing to live in the USA or in my home country, and my visa in Europe is tied to having a job. Hope this helps you getting different viewpoints :)

What I always find difficult is - as fresh graduate, where would I start?

I have no experience (besides internships) and no connections.

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