Ask HN: Anyone making 200k as a software engineer outside the US? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Anyone making 200k as a software engineer outside the US?

89 pointsilcavallo95 comments

Best salaries I have seen in Switzerland/London are around 140K CHF or £120k as permanent or 650-700 per day as contractor. That is around 155k USD permie and roughly the same considering 10 months employment as contractor. This is a quite rare and top salary in both market but seems a fairly common salary in Bay Area/NYC. Never seen anything above that here in Europe.

Also the big bonus/shares culture is not as prevalent in Europe.

Anyone here making more than that or knows anyone that does?

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Earning around 75000 usd/year as a software dev in Denmark. Very relaxed work, fun days, flexible time, no education, paid house and car in cash, never loaned, still got more money into my account each month than I know what to do with, it just accumulates, live a very comfortable life, never looks at prices when shopping, never in need of anything. Profoundly confused why one would focus on obtaining such excessive salary.

It gives you the freedom to do what you want. If you had unlimited amounts of money, would you still work at your current job, or would you do something else?

Earning 200k vs 75k won't give me any measurable increase in freedom to do what I want. Earning 2M for a while might. Earning 200M once would definitely.

Freedom to do what you want does not increase linearly with income.

For example, one step is "Not affording any car" Now, affording any car allows way more freedom than not affording any car. A used, but good condition car can be a major improvement from a less reliable car, but it's not as major an improvement than car vs no car, but it comes with only a slight increase in income. A brand new car presents even less relative improvement from a good-condition used car, but requires a significant increase in income. A brand new exotic sports car is at the other end of the spectrum from "any car at all", an order of magnitude higher price for no practical value at all, but some increase in some kind of personal fulfillment or measure of success. Diminishing returns indeed. This applies to homes, goods, leisure activities.

So, unless you can get to the point of being "fuck you" rich, salary does not really matter.

It's not like 200k would grant me significantly more leisure time, probably quite the opposite, I'd be expected to work more and harder, for what? being able to buy the luxury car instead of just a normal car? Nah.

> So, unless you can get to the point of being "fuck you" rich, salary does not really matter.

That's the main point of having a high salary for a lot of people.

200K will allow you to work almost 3X less in the long run

Unless you want to work for the rest of your life, you either earn more now, or keep earning for a longer period.

It's about achieving freedom

So obviously this is from a lightning fast google but I saw figures putting m2 of property prices away from the center of cities being $3.4k. That combined with what a 50% tax rate makes me surprised you paid a house and car off in cash unless the house is small (perhaps you don't have dependents too?) and you've been at that earning rate for a long time?

I'm not disputing, I'm impressed and being debt free is an amazing luxury to have!

As contractor you should be easily reach 900 -1000chf a day, especially in Zürich area. 650-700 a day is more or less what you can get in Paris but in euro without too much a problem.

Moreover, I have seen eastern Europe nearshore at these rates. I believe that outside of finance and middle management you'll have a hard time to breach 150kCHF.

Myself, I don't have much skills, basically no degree, French side of Switzerland in an easy going consultancy firm and earning 120k I think I could get 130 but not much more than this without freelancing...

As long as I can see myself sitting on the bench 2-3months without being fired, I don't see a point ot leave.

700€ in Paris as a contractor is possible, but it's equivalent to about 400€ as an employee..

Come to Shenzhen, you will see, salaries like Tencent, alibaba, can offer are much higher than SV, in the conditions of you should be expertise in some technical area, and good background, like google, facebook, etc working experience. what they offer can be at least double companies, like google, facebook, can offer in the same technical level.

You're also working twice the hours, no thanks. 996? No one is actually productive when you're working for that long.

Not in these places.

This is unfortunately a common phenomenon where people from countries in the west see negative press about another country and assume its a universal issue. Often thats not true - companies like Alibaba, Tencent, and many others are willing to bend over backwards to get the best talent.

There's a lot of other companies that want their employees to work overtime, but thats probably true in a lot of countries - probably even in the US.

I wish there was some way of balancing the news coming out of countries - without resorting to censorship. It would remove a lot of prejudice,

The way to remove prejudice is to educate people like you are doing. Fundamentally, it is expected that the rest of the world sees less news about your country than you do. That's how news works.

It would behove us all to expect and believe that a country is usually more nuanced than the extremes that make it across a border.

Jack Ma of Alibaba endorsed 996 - https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/04/15/busi....

"If we find things we like, 996 is not a problem," Ma said in a blog post Sunday on Chinese social media site Weibo. "If you don't like [your work], every minute is torture," he added.

I agree with this sentiment, I happen to work 996 on my own stuff mainly because I love it. I know a lot of people who have jobs and pour themselves into it because they love what they do as well.

I'd say its only an issue once you are being punished for not working 996.

You missed the other part.

"I personally think that 996 is a huge blessing," he said. "How do you achieve the success you want without paying extra effort and time?"

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the point you're trying to make regarding how Jack Ma might be part of the problem.

But its not really a "China" problem. There's a lot of startups and mature companies in the US that have similarly aggressive personalities at the helm who demand a lot from their employees.

My main point was the notion that people are assuming that its universal in China, when its not always true (whether its more prevalent than in the US or not - i dont know).

The only reason I'm even making this point was because how grandparent to my comment made a simple comment about how companies in Shenzen pay a lot, and the response to that was a blanket "but 996" when that might not be true.

Especially in the US, I'd say. US have pretty long hours compared to Europe.

It depends, it is true if you always get the dirty works, like coding without much thinking, but if there are some innovation ideas come to your mind from time to time, life will be much easier, and your promotion will become easier.

Got promotion is not easy here, you need to be expertise in some technical areas, and pass promotion interview, there will be many questions from many experts during that interview, you won't be considered as qualified until every answer from you satisfies them, that is why many young engineers choose to leave in one or two years, there are not much chances for them, and even you are true expert, you will get frustrated.

but life is not that hard than you think, I have a Tencent's game engineer friend, he is a tennis fun, what I get from him is they have tennis activity every day, and he can go off work at about 6PM to play tennis 2-3 days every week.

and I heard some guys from google, they need the same long hours work and pretty stressful, just they don't need to stay at the same work place that long, they have the working place flexibility.

As an American without any foreign language skills... How do I find a job there?

IT is one of those few sectors where it's possible to find work in Europe without the local language.

The problem for Americans (that I have talked to here) is that allegedly your IRS is absolutely ruthless at taxing you even if you decide to settle down here. I'm sure good accountants help, but some people say they are having even problems opening bank accounts. Banks are afraid or the IRS too somehow.

Otherwise it shouldn't be a big problem, I guess you do have to bring something to the table compared to the same local guy, but life's more relaxed here. If you like that, it's a good idea. If you are crazy ambitious money and career wise, nothing beats America.

The US has global taxation of income. Perhaps overseas banks don't want to deal with Americans because of the reporting requirements imposed on them?

See FATCA.

You can update your current location to Shenzhen in LinkedIn. I regularly get messages from local HRs there. Btw, I work in Bytedance (company that created Tiktok) in Shenzhen, if you are interested drop me an email at georgy [at] bytedance(dot)com

Why does it matter though? The absolute number without taking cost-of-living into account doesn't really mean anything.

Once you include "luxury" consumption countries with "low" COL stop being low COL. For example cars, iphones, laptops are way more expensive in Eastern Europe than US.

In Eastern Europe a 2018 car that costs around 30k euroes which is a Passat/Superb goes for about 400$ a month. If you're only pulling in 100k, that won't hit you hard at all.

1-1,5k for high end apartment's rent (which is waaaay too much anyway), 400 for the car and 1k for other necessities.

If taxes were 33%, you'd be left with 66k.

66k - 12x(1.5k+400+1k+100) = 30k. That's still a lot more money left than if the person was in NYC without a lease/finance and with rent that's twice as much.

CoL in London is comparable to or greater than that in NYC, and probably not quite at SV levels but close enough for comparisons to be meaningful.

Really?

Really. I have friends and family who have moved from NY to London and they all say London is slightly more expensive.

Most online comparisons are weird for two reasons: 1) they include the cost of car ownership, which is common in neither place, and 2) most rental apartments in London are furnished and in NY are not. I’ve seen comparisons for the cost of a furnished rental, but in NY you’d pay a huge premium for that. It’s also, of course, just plain hard to choose equivalent neighborhoods.

Reportedly, the rental market in London is even tighter than in NY. My friends say you can get a 1-BR or 2-BR for about 10% more than in NY (after accounting for exchange rates, and with housing stock / in a location that they consider equivalent to what they’d left behind), but it will be smaller simply because historically London buildings have been constructed with smaller rooms than NY ones.

Food in London seems to be more expensive than in NY. Medical care, of course, is less expensive. Transit is close enough to be a wash. Etc.

It does mean something. I'll make two indicative points.

First, if I'm looking to make money that I want to put into global investment, it doesn't matter where I earn it. The absolute number is what matters. In reality, the number that matters is how much I can save, in absolute numbers, after taxes and cost of living have been deducted, but still the salary does not scale with cost of living. In that case, if I'm willing to maximize my investment, it's possible that I'm willing to move to the best paying country (i.e. the country where I can earn the maximum absolute number after taxes and cost-of-living has been deducted) for a while. "Global investment" may be quite broad and may include, for example, effective global altruism (i.e., asking the question "If I want to maximize my life's impact in improving others' lives, where should I work and where should I donate globally?").

Second, if we're talking about a job that is a seller's market, i.e., where I have has some very specialized skill, then the fact that the company is willing to pay double the amount if I happen to live in Silicon Valley but only half the amount if I happen to live in Romania, is pretentious. The reason is that the company is in need of my skill regardless of where I live and my acceptable business cost to them is a Silicon Valley salary. The difference from paying me less just because I happen to live in Romania is simply money that goes into their pockets. Why shouldn't it go into mine? In fact, if my skill is specialized enough, I should be able to negotiate for that, since their best next alternative may be a Silicon Valley hire.

(For clarity, the above are illustrative examples. I'm not an effective altruist, do not have such a specialized skill, and do not live in Romania.)

In Zurich you can make 800 CHF - 1000 CHF per day as a contractor.

Senior full time employees usually earn 120-130k CHF. Taxes are lower than anywhere in the US on top of this.

Ping me at iwan@gulenko.ch if you want to work in Switzerland and hold a EU-28 citizenship. (Otherwise work visa is impossible.) I run a local recruitment consultancy.

Google Zurich was handing out higher offers than head office until at least a few years ago and maybe still does.

Only if you don't count stock.

hm i thought they had stock too. Either way it should be well in excess of 100k even for jr roles and 200k for experienced and also with one of the lowest tax in the developed world.

They have stock, but you typically get more in MTV.

It seems many European companies are still stuck in the traditional line-management model where development is considered the executionary role of ideas thought up by people with no engineering background.

This is further strengthened by our educational system which promises "sexy jobs" in the tech sector that don't require a technical background.

We also don't have places like hacker news which has a friendly healthy unionizing effect.

I believe this is the primary cause we're not seeing such high salaries in Europe. I think it's also the reason we're not seeing as much innovation happening in Europe.

I have colleagues that work in the UK office of my US headquartered employer that are making £200k+ ($260k+) having worked there for ~10 years.

My Dad makes more than that in Australia. He is a software scientist though, he makes prototype physics simulation software. I think he's underpaid when considering the amount of value he creates (in 5 months made a better version of one simulation technology than a team of about a dozen working in it for 3-4 yesterday) but then again my dad doesn't care much for money. He likes working on interesting problems.

It's worth noting that AUD$1 = USD$0.71, and that the cost of living here is substantially higher than most of the US (though the Valley is probably much more even-run). Having said that, AUD$200k is certainly not unheard of as you get on in experience.

I agree that if you were a specialist consultant and found an exploitable niche, you could pull USD$200k equivalent here.

I make 165kAUD+ super, typical web dev full stack role. This is high for Sydney but some companies here are smart enough to throw an extra 30k into the offer to make sure they build a good team. To get to this from 100k a few years ago I just realised you increase your standard and wait longer to get a job.

OTOH this salary doesn’t go far in terms of lifestyle in Sydney. It is expensive, it’s probably enough to live off but I’m not sticking half my salary into the stock market like you American developer like to do.

200k US in Sydney means either get great at kernel level code or multithreaded c++ and help the poker players make more money from the stock market. Or forget technical and become a senior scrum master or project manager for CBA. I think rural doctors and phsyciatrists rake it in, and geologists during the next mining boom. Install air conditioning is another way or any kind of trade where the labour component can be marked up extortionately and where some “tax planning” can be utilised.

In Montreal, we have a large contracting scene for banking and near-shore consulting in general. For a contractor with ~10 years of experience, it's pretty common to see 175k as a contract worker, with contracts renewed yearly (if you decide not to move somewhere else).

In the last 5 years SV companies have started to open offices in Montreal (google has been here for a while, fb came semi recently), and that sweet sweet USD + venture funding gives them a real edge in what they can pay people. FTEs with a US base can make 150k+ which is quite a jump above Canada based firms. From what I've seen those tend to be around 100k for someone with ~10 years experience, and anything higher is considered quite good.

This hasn't really been my experience dealing with SV companies in Montreal.. They adjust the salary based on COL so your chances of making a USD equivalent is fairly low

Yes. Have to be a contractor with 20 - 30 years of serious experience under your belt and well, very well connected. And with very rare exceptions (like being the next Bryan Cantrill) you have to be Swiss else you better be speaking the language near native level and be integrated into the society to pull that kind of dough in. Then, you can get a daily rate of 1120 to 1450 CHF. But we're talking being a super nice and competent person that everyone who's ever worked with you before would gladly do so again. That's the only way to get your foot in the door.

You can do >200k USD TC at a FAAMG in London as a senior if you have multiple offers and negotiate. It's fairly rare, and you'll still be earning below what you'd get in the US, but it does happen.

I make 100K$/year with bonus and holiday allowance in Amsterdam as an medior engineer at a medium-sized company. I pay roughly 50% tax. Expats here pay 30% tax for the first 5 years, so their take-home pay is significantly higher. A senior engineer at the same company earns roughly 130-160k.

Senior engineers here that work remotely for US companies can earn upward of 250k USD, but I know very few that do - and you need to enjoy remote work. Other option would be working at a bank or insurance company.

Are you willing to share the company? I worked in AMS for a few years at various software companies but almost never saw these kind of pays.

I guess it's https://www.perseuss.com/ ? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19302435

US is very different than Europe, because you pay from your own pocket for a lot of things (eg healthcare) that are state sponsored elsewhere. Also factor rent in NYC/SV

If you don't pay for it from your own pocket, you pay for it in taxes.

Yes but if you're out of the ultra capitalist private US healthcare business that we're trapped in, you pay way less through taxes.

https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-...

That matters for populations, not individuals.

Someone earning $200k doesn't really need to worry about that kind of thing.

Employers in the US provide healthcare if you work full-time. You may pay a premium, but it's probably similar to the taxes you paying EU, if not lower.

Lower for who ?

https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-...

That's what countries spend in total, I was talking about in context of individuals with good jobs (employer provided healthcare)

Btw a large reason why the US spends more on healthcare than other countries is research & development.

Don't you lose your job sponsored health care after being laid off ? Or is it expected that companies keeps you employed when you get a cancer / other high impact health issues ?

You'll most likely fall under COBRA protection (https://www.healthcare.gov/unemployed/cobra-coverage/)

where you can keep your employer coverage for 18 months while you find a new job.

It's not absolutely impossible in Toronto, but that's at the very top end of the scale.

Yeah, this would be the top 1% in Toronto from my research. You'd have an even harder time achieving this over here in Vancouver.

At that point Toronto makes no sense - it's pointlessly expensive for the salaries offered there.

Assuming 200k meant 200k USD (~270k CAD), this would definitely be the 0.1% end of the spectrum in Toronto, in my experience.

I've personally never seen it. Not saying it doesn't exist, but that'd be extremely rare.

Great city but salaries are too low given the cost of living. I've pretty much priced myself out of the market there.

It is not very common, but many of my friends are close to 200K AUD(not USD) some are above 200K in Sydney. This is not in well known tech companies, but mostly in finance. If you are contracting, 200K or more is very common in Sydney, Australia.

In Melbourne it is rare to see anything $140k+ if you are not in leadership role (Senior Developer / Tech Lead etc). Contractors obviously demand higher rates and $200k+ is realistic for a decent developer.

Any details on where to find these jobs?

I’m pulling in 150k (AUD) +super, 10+ years in Java, web, streaming data, functional programming, Scala some Haskell, cloud, devops etc.

Looking at the common job listings I’m seeing 120-140k for full-time perm. I work for a niche specialised consultancy that bills me out at $1500-2000 per day doing Kafka work for some tier one companies but I’ve not seen any publicly advertised jobs in that salary range advertised. Saying that some of the tier ones in Australia I’d also not want to work for as a perm after spending a few months at them, some are very archaic/disfunctional, so far it’s been 50/50 on good vs bad contracts.

I think they are few and far between. I find that agents don’t want to help you get them because it’s hard work. Why bother when they can place a dozen 100k c# devs for little effort.

I’m on 165+ super and I applied directly. If i wasn’t desperate to leave a shite job I’d probably got more.

I think the trick is to find the people who are making good money and aren’t tight. I’ve worked for company’s flush with cash but want to pay market rates. This is stupid in my opinion and is the “European” culture but I think slowly some realise there is effectively a pool auction on good developer and are willing to bid higher. Had an email about SIG 160k plus bonuses and I imagine they’d go higher. I would work for that kind of company though.

I think the trick is to filter out companies that don’t want to pay what you want, and wait longer. There is no correlation between pay and how stressful or enjoyable the job is so hold out for the bucks, but of course also filter for lifestyle considerations and career progression.

If you are in Sydney looking for a job do us all a favour and add 50k to the highest you’ve seen and make that your baseline. Don’t tell them what you earn.

To compensate for the higher rejection rate, increase your application rate.

Top level software engineers(5%-10%) in top level China Internet companies (BAT and TMD).

In New Zealand, it’s possible only if you are a contractor, permanent IC roles generally don’t pay that well.

I’m at the upper end of IC pay scale and I’m on 200-220k NZD, depending on how bonus shakes out.

This is roughly 130-140k USD.

Contract/consulting engineer (as in in real engineering of kind like electrical, control systems, rotating equipment etc) easily makes a lot more than that in Perth Australia, but you also pay a bucketload of tax and have very high costs for the location.

Also contractors are paid by the hour, so rarely sick (usually an amputation is required to not attend), always do overtime and hardly ever take holidays unless forced...

May I ask how many years of experience are related to these kind of salaries ? (If there's a relashionship anyway).

Not engineering, but I know some product managers in Japan (working for US tech companies) pulling that kind of salary.

Yes. Working as a freelancer/contractor. A big part of it due to sought-after skills in a market that values native speakers. A small part of it probably to do with my experience and the way I conduct my work and finally a pinch of always trying to raise my prices.

Those salaries, specially the Swiss ones, aren't that big after taxes, insurances, and the overall cost of living.

Yes, you might get 140K CHF, but be ready to pay 20 CHF for a meal that would be around 8 euro in neighbouring countries.

Let's also say 5 euros in neighbouring countries.

Where in Austria, Germany, italy or france do you get a meal vor 5€?

A pizza Margeritha for example, which would cost you around 16 CHF on the other side of the border.

In Italy it might be possible, food is quite cheap here. Usually the "lunch voucher" we get as employees is 5,16 EUR

Berlin

Someone just told me german employment is worth about double of what contracting would be.

My employer pays part of health insurance, retirement funds, unemployment insurance and you don't pay VAT.

800 EUR/pd is not unheard of in continental Europe, and, assuming you're working 225 days a year (i.e. probably less than typical US coder), this puts you at $200k USD.

Time to get the hell out of here (Italy): making 35k/year and it's considered a decent pay.

25/35 is the base for junior positions or you are in a company that still underpay his employees, I do around 75K in Italy and I live like a New Yorker would do with 200K. Cost of living + quality of life in Italy is unbeatable if you have a good pay(at least more on average with other EU countries).

I agree on the last sentence.. but how do you get to 75K in Italy? can you share your experience?

Sure I don't have that much experience, but IT positions in Italy are genarally underpaid. 75K/year is definetly not a common thing here and yes, I do believe you live like a 200k would in other places. Where do you live?

Decent? That's quite a lot actually. CS/CSE with master degree makes 24/30k, after few of experience you can get to 35k but you're on the higher spectrum.

I think it depends on where you live. I live in one of the richest areas, and my salary is decent, but not that great, especially if you compare it with the salaries abroad

In London, a gross annual comp of >$200k for a software engineer is not especially rare.

I heard Amazon is offering comparable salaries in Israel now.

I would love to and I will put that as my goal.

Realistic goal for 1-3 years.

Some folks do in Singapore

Are Singaporeans making that these days? In my past experience, those in that range are generally Americans working for an Asia Pacific site office.

Considering PPP, 200k USD is equivalent to about 5 million INR. Software engineers in India with 10+ years of experience and working in companies like Amazon , Microsoft etc make that amount quite easily. Of course, the quality of living is a different issue altogether :-)

Technically, 200K USD is 1,39,73,500 INR. Almost 14 million.

I think that figure sounds a bit optimistic. Being an entry level developer at a US-based Fortune-500 corporate with offices in India, I make around 17k USD, while I heard a similar role in the US office gets paid around 85k USD.

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