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Comment by candiodari | Hacker News Reader

If you had any idea what scientists make in the EU, you'd see

1) why this is happening

2) why this effort won't change a thing

They could, you know, pay competitive wages. Ridiculous suggestion, I know, at this point that'd be a 5x and more (500% and more) raise.

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I fully agree.

German media constantly complains about "IT expert shortage" yet salaries grow like 3% per year. So IMO it's either not a shortage or the German industry doesn't know how to attract good people.

To put some data points there (in EUR)

1. Germany Uni Doctorate Position: 32k, 22k after deductions

2. Germany AI / Data Scientist Position: 80k, 50k after deductions

3. Luxembourg Uni Doctorate Position: 32k, 26k after deductions

4. Luxembourg AI / Data Scientist Position: 80k, 60k after deductions

Source: Friends and family and me

The above two countries belong arguably to the economical top tier, yet they can hardly compete with a US Senior Software developer (>= 100k$?)

Now imagine how the non-top tier countries fare (i.e., 80% of the EU population)

I was an AI researcher and now work as ML/AI/Data Scientist consultant (mostly for non-European companies) and I yet have to see that European job offer of 120k€ per year, hell, make that 100k€.

Another datapoint for perspective, from the Czech Republic (also an EU country):

* PhD stipend: €3.3k / year (untaxed)

* median CZ salary: €13k / year, €11k after taxes

* data scientist: €30k / year, €22k after taxes (royalty! although still below a doctorate student in Germany, apparently)

€30k buys you a hell of a lot more in the Czech Republic than in Hamburg or Munich.

Or in some cases, a hell of a lot less :-)

Little known fact: people from CZ routinely travel to Germany for shopping. It's not just for the cheaper prices (electronics, drugstore), but even where the prices are comparable, for the much higher quality of products (dairy, food).

The most expensive country I've lived in was Romania, where the salaries are even lower than CZ. This trend of higher salaries => cheaper and better goods is rather counter-intuitive (though services are cheaper, to be fair).

Consumer goods are about the same between CZ and DE, I think what OP meant is things like housing or healthcare, that is much cheaper in CZ.

This is because of cheap German supermarkets (Aldi, Lidl) with ruthless efficiency dictating prices for the German market.

There is also the issue that food manufacturers have been selling products with different ingredients but the same packaging in Eastern Europe compared to the ones they sell in Western Europe.

It might be counter-intuitive but, on the contrary, high salaries and cheap goods are effects of economic power.

Contrast it with powerless people that have low income and pay relatively high prices for basic goods or rent: the stereotypical coal miner from 1800, people in prison, poor people in some western countries...

I’m in the UK, intending to move out for obvious reasons (would’ve gone a year ago but relative got an Alzheimer’s diagnosis early 2017). Considering Berlin, Silicon Valley, or a PhD just about anywhere if the cost is in my range.

Once healthcare (at NHS level) and rent are accounted for, $100k in Silicon Valley isn’t as good as £37k in the UK. Germany has more expensive healthcare than the UK’s NHS, but significantly lower rent and overall is only slightly more expensive than the UK… unless you intend to eventually buy a house, in which case it’s suddenly much cheaper.

> I’m in the UK, intending to move out for obvious reasons

I thought you meant pay by this, but then you include Berlin in your list of potential places... Is there other reasons I'm missing out on? Genuinely curious

I think he's talking about the upcoming Brexit :)

Brexit. I could go on for ages about specifics, but experience says that nobody outside the UK really cares (it’s so 2016), and nobody inside the UK is changing their minds.

Haha! Oh right. I'm an immigrant in the UK myself. Curious as to why the natives would leave :)

Ah! Partly the total incompetence of the people who are in charge of making Brexit happen, partly because I don’t trust the UK government with human rights unless bound by international convention (a bind which looks like it will be a lot weaker after Brexit).

It’s unfortunate, really, there’s a lot of nice stuff in the UK too. And I know I’ll miss it.

They just put someone in the pen for 8 months for having a laser jammer on their car and flipping cameras the bird.

I'd be making my way toward the door, as well.

Europeans always seem to forget that well-paying white collar jobs in the US (e.g. tech) usually have good to amazing health insurance. My health insurance is fortunately in what I would consider the "amazing" category and I highly doubt I would get better care via the NHS - the cost would be the same (I pay nothing, not even copays) but I have access to some of the world's best hospitals and even onsite clinics... and this is a benefit that I receive before tax, so it's not coming out of that hypothetical $100k figure.

Furthermore as it seems most tech jobs in the UK are in London, I don't think the rents are different enough to make up for the discrepancy in pay.

From my research into working abroad in the past, it seems that only Australia and Switzerland could compare to the US developer market.

> $100k in Silicon Valley isn’t as good as £37k in the UK

I don't know about the UK but I know a number of excellent engineers in other european countries that refused offers to move to Seattle or California over healthcare, housing and personal safety.

Maybe it's just me but that's just bullshit. Sorry to say, but IF you've got a great private healthcare provider US healthcare is superior. Obamacare didn't change that at all.

How much does it cost to get zero excess (copay? Not sure the terminology in the US. Where you pay nothing other than the insurance premium) for all hospital and doctor visits, including home visits and ambulance use, and up to £8.80 excess (less if you need lots) for any prescription medicine?

And cover for your family, partner and kids.

And absolute cover for all pre-existing conditions.

And it will cover you in retirement or if your employer closes down or anything else like that.

The ones you get as a tech worker will do all 3. Cover for entire family, including pre-existing, and you can continue the cover after you quit/are fired.

While I don't disagree with your argument, the disparity is not quite that high (talking about Germany).

A Uni Doctorate Position in Germany is 44k in the first year, ~49k from the second year (EUR before deductions) as per official TVL13 tariff. You are probably referring to the fact that it's common for PhD students to have 'half' or '3/4' positions, but afaik in CS, and especially AI, full positions are the norm.

The Industry figures seem on point.

There might also be a difference between the Länder.

Case in point: A friend and colleague of mine had a full position in Dresden (AI) and he got a little more than 30k (AFAIR before deductions). That was around 2009 I guess.

Maybe in high rent cities (Munich, ...) it's different?

There is a difference between east and west Germany, but not specifically between the Länder.

In 2009 you would have gotten (before deductions) ~34873 in the east and ~37852 in the west. In 2018 it is ~45863 in the east and ~45900 in the west. This is all assuming a full-time E13 position.

Source (German): http://oeffentlicher-dienst.info/tv-l/west/

I think this framing is a bit misleading. Salaries aren't exogenous, they track productivity. If a data scientist in Germany is making half of what he would be making in SV, it's because he's much less productive in Germany. Changing this isn't simply a matter of paying more to attract better talent, it's a much deeper issue.

Actually, as someone who's actually been an academic in Western Europe, I'd say the reverse is true. Certainly mathematical ability is better in Western Europe (on average). The top, no doubt, SV's top performers far exceed those Europe has (perhaps because a decent part of them are from Europe, and those weren't selected randomly. I mean to some extent that's fun because I actually know almost 10% of the top ones. From working with them before they went to the US).

But average among the population, even at universities, no doubt whatsoever, Europeans are better at math than USians. But for the top, the brain drain makes the playing field very unequal.

Besides, it's not just ability of people at universities itself. Money for programs is also very different. The US military supports US research ... and in Europe ... it's also the US military that supports research (but obviously not equally, and I must say, I find it hard to blame them for that). And in the US you regularly see academics pay for their own organizations outside of the direct academic context. Obviously that works better with better pay. There are government grants, but it doesn't compare to US university endowments (or however they sponsor that). Many of the people "brain drained" didn't leave until they were 10 years into their academic career, out of frustration of just not fighting on a level playing field just because their governments just don't support them.

If German universities paid the same, and stopped the brain drain, I have very little doubt they would exceed the output of SV. But with the current levels of people leaving, never going to happen. And to be fair, Germany's universities are nowhere near as bad as Southern Europe's universities, and even those are far ahead of most of Eastern Europe. That doesn't mean there isn't the occasional great person working there, there is, but most of the good ones leave.

Note, research and scientific staff is equally underpaid, if not more, in the US.

Since fundamental physics and bioinformatics have been mentioned several times in this thread, if you're curious, look into salaries at places like the National Laboratories, or even independent labs like the Allen Institute.

The market distortion in the field of AI/ML isn't as simple as poor wages in academic research. There are many strong European industries that could benefit from more AI/ML and that can definitely afford attractive salaries. Those jobs already exist around the German car makers for instance. Unfortunately, there's always more money to be made selling ads.

What are some major reasons?

Is it because of the culture of not valuing software as much as 'hard' engineering or just lower average GDP per capita? (I read someone commenting that pay for software engineers in Japan and Korea are similarly uncompetitive for the former reason.) Swiss pay is supposed to be quite competitive with American, and other Western European countries are right around their borders.

> Is it because of the culture of not valuing software as much as 'hard' engineering

No - they are paid about equally.

Here is a table (German text, does not matter, the table is clear enough): https://www.ingenieur.de/karriere/gehalt/wie-viel-verdienen-...

"Engineers with >2 years experience by sector", from top to bottom: chemistry/pharmaceuticals, automobile, energy, IT, mech. engineering, electronics, engineering and planning offices, construction

As you can see IT actually is right in the middle.

European countries and companies are less likely to go big or go home in my experience. The USA has the expression, "bet the farm" and American leaders like to use it frequently. I can't think of any European equivalent saying off the top of my head. That results in bigger bets, bigger payouts when they succeed, more capital to invest in even bigger bets, etc.

The UK case of DeepMind is a good example. A big bet by British standards - lots of money raised and spent on pure research with no business model to drive it. By British standards that's incredibly brave and/or reckless. Yet a successful gamble, sold for half a billion dollars. But, sold to an American company literally called Alpha bet.

>I read someone commenting that pay for software engineers in Japan and Korea are similarly uncompetitive for the former reason.

Pay for software engineers in China is actually more competitive than in Japan/Korea, in spite of China's GDP per capita being much lower. I suspect a key difference is the presence of many startups and large tech companies, something that Japan and Korea seem to lack.

Places like EMBL or ESO are comparatively well paid, much better than at universities. Still less than in industry, but that's the case everywhere.

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