Comment by dmarucco | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dmarucco | Hacker News Reader

This is certainly an intresting post and i likethe OP attitude. We should be totally transparent about our compensation as he did. Salary is just the result of a negotiation, nothing else, in the majority of cases it does not reflect anything more than your "perceived" value.

White male born in the '88 in Italy. I have a bachelor degree and working since 2008. Here in Italy is quite uncommon to have big jumps in salaries if you want to stay in the "Technical" position.

However it's quite common to have "food stamps" for lunch as benefit ( range between 5€ to 8€ )

2008 - 18000 €/year - Junior Software Developer - Consulting Firm A

2009 - 19000 €/year - Software Developer - Consulting Firm A

2010 - 20000 €/year - Software Developer - Consulting Firm A

2011 - 21000 €/year - Software Developer - Consulting Firm A

2012 - 23000 €/year - Senior Software Developer - Online booking startup (No stock options)

2013 - 25000 €/year - Senior Software Developer - Consulting Firm B

2014 - 25000 €/year - Senior Software Developer - Consulting Firm B

2015 - 28000 €/year - Technical Lead - Consulting Firm B

2016 - 30000 €/year - Technical Lead - Consulting Firm B

2017 - 32000 €/year - Technical Lead - Consulting Firm C

2018 - 32000 €/year - Technical Lead / Solution Architect / Whatever - Consulting Firm C

Get on Upwork, you will make more after ~2 years of developing your reputation.

Is that your personal experience? I read almost only negative opinions about Upwork, and it's seems another broken solution looking for a problem to solve.

Work for Toronto-based company. Most of our developers work remote (in S. America, Europe, Asia, etc) and were discovered via Upwork.

We've been growing, so all the good devs have been retained long term (12-24 months and counting). IOW, if you're good (decent tech chops + strong English communication), you can find long-term engagements via upwork in places that pay well.

The best engineers are likely not using that. Most of them get burned, and you're mostly left with engineers that are reallly good at marketing. I could be wrong. I tried it for a few months. I only got one question, and I basically helped a guy understand docker for free during the evaluation. I guess someone needs to start an upwork for serious people.

We did churn our share of low performers at the beginning. I'd say 5 of the first 10 hires stuck (most of the churn was us terminating the relationship). The ones that stayed were able to refer a friend or two.

Also, another downside: fraud. We ran into 2-3 folks who were operating outright scams, ranging from an agency posing as an individual, to identity / account theft.

Are these figures after taxes/INPS/health insurance etc.?

Sorry i didn't say that all those figures are Before Taxes. I live in northen italy in a place where living is not too much expensive.

As a local could you tell me: is it true what they say that work in IT in northern Italy is mainly in Milan and maaaaybe in Verona and Ferrara?

I wanted to move to Bologna, but I had trouble finding any interesting offers.

I don't know about Verona and Ferrara but i can confirm that IT work (in northern Italy) is mainly in Milan. But to live in Milan is quite expensive. You can also check job offers in Turin.

Be also aware that in Italy there are mostly consulting firms, and really few product companies, even if in the last years something is changing...

Ok. Thank you for all the information.

Isn't 32k a bit low for a laureato with 10year experience?

https://www.hays.it/cs/groups/hays_common/@it/@content/docum...

Italian here too, 1978. Salary is after taxes:

1999 - 12000 €/year - Junior sysadm @ ISP (startup)

2002 - 19000 €/year - Sysadmin @ large ISP

Then I had issues paying my bills and mortgage, so I moved to Ireland

2007 - 42000 €/year - Senior Sysadmin @ small R&D company

2008 - 45000 €/year - Network Engineer @ large multinational

2009 - 52000 €/year - Senior Sysadmin @ fintech company

2010 - 65000 €/year - Senior Sysadm @ US startup based in IE

2012 - 70000 €/year - Devops Engineer @ US startup based in IE

2015 - 80000 €/year - Technical Lead @ remote job

Now - 90000 €/year as TechOps Lead for another remote position.

If I where you I'd try at least ranking up your salary moving out of Italy, then with the connections you make you can easily double or triple your salary. JM2EC.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com