Comment by shanwang | Hacker News Reader

Comment by shanwang | Hacker News Reader

Can't open the doc because it's blocked by my employer. But generally the developer wage is very low in Europe compared with US(Bay area).

AFAIK London have the highest salary among european countries, usually handed out by Investment banks and other financial service companies.

In London a tier 1 bank's VP developer will typically get £90k-110k base, plus 15-40% bonus. If you work for a hedge fund, the base is typically 10% higher with 10-20% more bonus. To get a VP job in a bank you usually need 7 year+ experience after graduation.

In contrast the big tech companies in london pays about 10-20% less base salary than banks, far less cash bonus. But depends on which one you are working for, the RSU could be either similar to the states side or a bit less. The signon bonus is usually quite low as well.

Startups in London have very low pay, typically 50-60% of your market value in a bank.

So if you are a top developer with 15 years+ experience, works for a top hedge fund in London, you'll most likely take home < £200k, which is like $260, that's only about average wage for a google senior developer.

> But generally the developer wage is very low in Europe compared with US(Bay area).

Because it usually comes with built-in social security and nationwide health insurance.

> AFAIK London have the highest salary among european countries,

Nope. Scandinavia.

so what are those numbers look like in Scandinavia

In Sweden ~50-55k eur. a year pre-tax is a good salary for a developer with a few years experience. Norway and Denmark pays a bit more.

> Because it usually comes with built-in social security and nationwide health insurance.

That's not the case. Health insurance plays very little role in this. I can go to a private doctor for peanuts. Salaries are low, because companies are "broke" and don't have million dollar funding and you can have a great lifestyle with fifth/tenth of a SV salary.

> Nope. Scandinavia.

Nope, Switzerland.

Nope, Denmark

Switzerland is not EU.

I know that, but you wrote "among european countries" an Switzerland is definitely one of them. It doesn't really make a difference for EU citizens if Switzerland is in or out.

not in the UK you cant :-)

Nope. Scandinavia.

The answer depends very much if you're looking at median salary or 'peak' salary. It also matters if you're talking before or after taxes. Median pre-tax dev. salaries are almost certainly higher in Scandinavia (or at least in Norway and Denmark), but you'll never earn what some of the top devs in finance in London earn.

> Nope. Scandinavia

I don't agree with that, at least not in Sweden. Sweden had one of the flattest wage distributions in the world. Developers make very little here when you compare to other countries and other professions.

In Stockholm there are some companies that pay more, e.g. Google, but not near London.

> Because it usually comes with built-in social security and nationwide health insurance.

That doesn't make any sense. There's social security in the US as well and the company is paying for my health insurance.

edit:

Honestly, why the downvotes? What he was stated was inaccurate and doesn't account for any of the pay differences between the US and Europe.

While taxes in Europe are a bit higher, here is what you get in return:

1. Paid-for healthcare. In the US, I pay close to $2K/month premium for a high-deductible health insurance plan.

2. Subsidized child-care (kindergarten, etc.)

3. Paid-for higher education. That in itself is worth at least $250K/child.

4. Great public transport, which eliminates the need to have more than 1 car (as opposed to 3-4 per household in the US)

5. Decent infrastructure in general (airports, train stations, etc). The US looks like a third-world country.

Also, please keep in mind that while income taxes in the US are a bit lower, they are still significant:

- State tax (usually 5-7%)

- Real-estate taxes. It is not uncommon to pay $1000/month for a very average house in a Boston suburb with good schools.

- "Invisible" taxes, such as excise taxes (cars, oats, etc), alcohol, tobacco, gasoline taxes.

not true in NL, which country are you referring to?

which is paid for by higher taxes

> Because it usually comes with built-in social security and nationwide health insurance.

In what universe do companies offer a lower salary because the country offers a better social safety net?

This is typically the case because the taxes tend to be high in such countries - thus the company compensates by offering a lower salary.

That logic makes no sense. Since health isn’t an employer cost, salaries in Europe should be higher than the US where the employer incurs health/social costs. However, in France “social charges” are incurred by the employer which means that their cost per employee is about double of their actual salary. That means that French employers are paying social charges which finance those who aren’t employed.

In the US:

An employer pays salary + health costs for that employee.

In Europe:

Employer pays salary + health costs for both the employee AND the rest of society. Which means your European salary is subsidizing other people not even related to the company.

On top of that, the employee gets to pay tax rates approaching 50% in many cases.

The average take home pay after factoring out health costs and benefits is dramatically lower than an equivalent position in the US.

Health care isn't the reason for the pay gap. The technology sector in Europe is far smaller than those in the US, these days there isn't a single tech company in the EU can rival those tech giants in the US, so the pay gap makes sense.

If you are a banker or a hedge fund PM working in London, your pay will be on par with or even more than your colleagues in New York.

In the UK in the South you can similar salaries to London without the expense of London. I am a Senior .NET dev can I could get £50-70k. The expense compared to London is about 75%.

Up North in the UK get £40K for a senior dev is pretty hard work but everything costs half as much so it is totally relative to where you are living in the UK. The South is crowded with no infrastructure to handle it (driving in a nightmare).

Gibraltar is probably the best place to go if you can get a Job in Europe. Spain is stupidly cheap. Wages are less than say London, I lived like an absolute king on £27,000.

and for interest a train driver earns 60k for a 4 day week easily 75K with OT

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