Hacker News Reader

Comment by HenryKissinger | Hacker News Reader

Here in Canada entry level SWEs are getting paid 60k-70k CAD (45k-55k USD). It's worse in Europe.

These numbers are absolutely mind boggling. Even with a higher cost of living and California income taxes, you still have at least 100k of free money to invest. It's no wonder so many people apply for jobs at FAANGs. A job at a FAANG is practically a ticket to early retirement.

View on HN

Average senior software engineer salary in Vancouver is apparently $80-130k, median at $100k even.

The manager from a FAANG company that called me up the other day said the engineer position they're hiring for in Vancouver (senior-ish, but nothing exceptional) has a compensation package ranging from $200-270k.

It's not just the location. I think these companies are just really good at extracting value out of engineers and scaling to make good use of engineers, so it's worth it for them to pay well above market to acquire as many people as they can.

And to the rest of your message -- yes. I love the company I'm at right now and am being compensated fairly well for the market, but with a wife and a new baby on the way there's no way I can not follow up on a job with that kind of pay. For us that's the difference between never affording to enter the Vancouver real estate market and being able to buy a house for cash before we're 40.

It is worse in Europe, but try getting a FANG job in Europe and they still pay extremely well.

My base pay is 150K pounds and not in London! Definitely I have a very niche skill in demand and I had to work really hard and be luck at the same time, to land at this role, but I will any day pick Europe with all the other benefits that a European country gives me.

Yes, working for Google or Apple in Sweden pays very, very well compared to other companies.

This is not widely known by engineers. I wish more people would talk about salaries here.

I think your niche skillset is probably the main reason, I doubt many FAANG people at an engineer level in the UK (especially outside London) make anywhere close to that.

I've been getting offers on that range in London for a few years now but they're senior management roles and I have a pretty unique skillset, FAANG recruiters haven't even bothered contacting me for like 10 years (they were chasing much harder when I was a junior engineer)

What do you do and what is your skillset, if I may ask?

I am working at the leading edge of both 3D gfx HW and SW.

At one point I fancied the idea of working abroad for fun, I could learn a language and try something new. The income disparity was far too great compared to the US, so I never did it.

The one exception: Google pays pretty well in Switzerland, but I hear it's hard to land.

Same. We've toyed with the idea of moving permanently if only because healthcare here's so bad and doesn't seem likely to get significantly better any time soon (the most "left" ideas beginning to creep into the Overton window still don't address prices seriously within the next decade). However, as a developer making way under FAANG comp levels, I'd still struggle to make more than like 2/3 what I do here, in Europe. Before taxes.

The housing prices you see SF are unheard of in Europe, outside maybe only London. And even then, we're talking about the most gentrified areas of London.

FWIW, I make a "meager" half of those starting salaries, but I'm able to save around $80k / year. Why? Because I pay next to nothing in housing.

Purchased my home for $15k. Dropped another $15k in renovations, and that's gonna last a good time. I'm on the track to early retirement, and it's completely possible other places too.

I took a huge pay cut moving away from a big and expensive city, but I can save a lot more, and with a ton less work-related stress.

Can you say more about your home? Perhaps rough size and country? 15k is really cheap even if you bought it a while ago.

I assume you’re in Europe somewhere from your comment, but even Bulgaria which is fairly cheap isn’t that cheap. For example, housing outside the center of town in Sofia is about 1000 euros per square meter [1] (for sq ft folks, multiply sq meters by 10 roughly). Varna is a bit cheaper at 700 which is a bit below the countrywide average of 750.

Bulgaria is often listed as the cheapest country in the EU, so I’m curious to understand if there’s a drastic housing price drop somewhere. But even $30k to buy would mean about a 30 sq m (300 sq ft) flat, which is more like microhousing.

[1] https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/in/Sofia?displayC...

Northern Norway, but there's a ton of variance in prices here. You can easily move tens to hundreds of thousands in one city, so to find the cheapest you really need to look hard. I found a relatively old and run-down place, but which was easy to fix.

With that said, I have a very nice salary - relatively speaking - but as mentioned, it's around half of what jr. Engineers make in SW.

I'm lucky because my background from both Business and Engineering has been a good mix for landing my current gov. job - and the pay is good because the area / location is not very attractive, and it makes harder to get talent here. (I grew up here, so that's no problem).

Work involves a lot of travel, and I travel otherwise during my vacations, so things rarely get boring.

I've worked all over the world, but after I turned 30, I really haven't had the big-city needs, so living somewhere rural doesn't bother me anymore.

Software in Norway and saving $80k per year? In government, no less? That means post tax you're making in the ballpark of $150k, or maybe a bit less if your expenses are very low? Very good number for the location regardless.

I'm able to save $20k per year in Norway (south) and consider that great, relatively speaking. Remote work? I didn't think the public sector jobs paid this well.

Not quite software (scripting at most), but in a senior engineering position with leadership role, and with a ton of travel - had almost 100 days last year. OT pays well, too. (So the salary varies a bit from year to year)

But the largest portion of savings boils down extremely low COL - I have a grand total of $800 / 7000 NOK in expenses pr. month, that includes everything. Pre-tax anywhere between $120k-$130k, depends on OT and travel.

State / gov. (directly or owned) jobs can pay pretty well, if you find the right positions - but they tend to lean towards engineering or medicine.

Really nice and thanks for the info. GJ on getting to a ridiculously low COL. My costs are on the ballpark of $1000 per month excluding housing costs, but housing costs easily approach that number as well. Which obviously reduces the potential savings rate dramatically.

NY state pays all IT people (with a 4-year degree) $56K to start currently. Of course, you get a pension(!) and good health insurance. Private sector companies often don't pay much higher, and have much worse benefits.

IT is not comparable to SWE.

That's situational in the UK IT is short hand for working in tech

Software engineering isn't IT, and it isn't engineering, according to the know-it-alls (ok, probably different people), so what does that leave?

Fact remains, some organizations classify everyone as an IT specialist that does anything with a computer.

All of the latter are a subset of the former in this context.

And of course, many people go from, say, QA, help desk, 3rd tier support, or programmer/analyst to developer.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com