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Comment by ryanSrich | Hacker News Reader

Which is hilarious to me as someone that has hired devs from Europe for a while now.

Why compete with FAANG trying to pay new grads $300k when you can pay an experienced developer from Europe $100k? I honestly never understood it.

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I’m a big remote work advocate and have worked with some amazing European engineers. That said, having worked as an engineer in the US office of a early stage startup with a European office, the 5-9 hour time difference is a not-insignificant impediment when you’re resource constrained and moving fast.

Even with great communication and good management, having little overlap during the day for realtime conversations made it hard for me to feel like we were a well-oiled machine, especially with so much of the product changing on a daily basis. It’s very much a complex decision to make, in my opinion.

It’s worked better for me in teams that work on open source. Such projects tend to be intrinsically asynchronous and conducted via email, chat etc which is what you need to make a distributed team work well.

Yeah, there's actually some Linux kernel research that looked at what mattered for collaboration and time zones wasn't one of the factors. My counter would be that the Linux kernel community is a very mature one that's very accustomed to working asynchronously so I'd be cautious about generalizing.

Yes, asynchronous communication is the key. The synchronous communication is conducted sparingly in opensource projects. Say, once per month (video conference).

At my last company (US on the east coast) I was the only remote member of the team, and the 5 hour time difference, although relatively small, and with significant work-day overlap, was still very difficult. Having to wait until the afternoon for a code review, staying online to support my team later.

It did mean that my mornings were totally free and I could get a lot done - so it swings both ways, but outsource everything to Europe isn't the panacea some people assume it to be.

It can work, but not necessarily for all people.

The biggest time gap team I've worked on was east coast US and China.

Great. 12 hour gap.

US team changed to being in the office, or at least online, at 6am. China team started at 11am in China. Roughly a 3 hour handover time.

It worked.

But for some was a toil. When interviewing and taking pains to point this out, the usual response being "Ok, no problem" but then a few months later seeing someone looking visibility drained wasn't good. Helped them find an alternative role. And some loved it, especially the reduced traffic and sense of community.

During this handover period everyone had a webcam on their OC, a fair amount of travel between sites which all participants were excited for on and three US-China marriages happened over the years.

Great for some. Terrible for others.

Why do people who are remote need to stick with 9-5 hours? Plenty of people hate those times, and would rather work later/earlier, which could well lead to more congruent schedules.

Because it’s useful to actually talk to people even if it’s over video chat.

The point being if someone in NY works 9-17, someone in UK May be happy working 13-22

Working different hours from all your friends and family gets old fast. It gets old fast even if your family is on another continent and all your friends are on the same schedule. Most English teachers who come to China start in training centres where they work three evenings and two full weekend days a week. Everyone either leaves China or gets a job with more normal hours eventually.

I’m sure there are people who’d work 13-22 but I’d bet a substantial sum employee churn would be consistently higher.

I have fried st hat have worked shift patterns (some 24/7, some more like 4x10 hours “unsociable”) for decades and are fine with it. I have one colleague who works 4-12 5 days a week for the last 6 years and wouldn’t change it for the world. Another does 11-23 or 11-19 3 or 4 days a week. Personally I get more done between 18 and 21 than most of the day, hence I work 10-15 then 18-21.

Wife used to work for a company with an office in Yorkshire where working hours finished at 2pm (7-2 no lunch). Horses for courses.

HN does seem to bias towards morning based extrovert urbanites in its group think. It’s nowhere near as universal as you might think.

I think it would be rare to find someone in the UK that would be happy to work when at the time that everyone else is going to be in the pub.

Yeah, especially given the fact that literally nothing is open out of hours in the UK (with exceptions - but you wouldn’t be able to base your life on that).

Most shops are open in mornings, so I don’t get your point. Indeed almost everywhere is closed outside 9-5.

Not this someone.

In Singapore we are working from home due to the Wuhan Virus. I shifted my hours to start around 1pm to better align with our London office. I think it’s much better as I’m not a morning person so I feel far more productive.

Having kids going to school, having spouses and other people in your life that also have the same schedule.

It depends on how you manage the workload I think. I am based in California (and so is my client) and we have a team in Hanoi, Vietnam. We get a lot done as many tasks are done asynchronously. Plus we can deploy when the users in US are sleeping :)

So here is couple of things, not a complete list, I would expect working for an US company:

- 5 weeks paid vacation per year(6-7 if we skip regional holidays)

- 13th month salary (that is independent from other bonuses)

- Paid overtime the minute it goes above the agreed upon working hours. 1.5x pay for night or weekend work.

- Maximum hours per week the must not be exceeded.

- Protection from the employer wanting to constantly monitor me, do drug, medical, lie detector test and such nonsense.

- Co-Paid pension, health. disability, unemployment etc. insurances

- Minimum contract termination notice periods and unjust termination protection

- Paid sick and paternal leave

- That other employees, who might not happen to have a as sought after job and thus negotiation power as me get largely the same basic benefits as me nonetheless.

I'd never work for an US company for a 100k given all the stuff I'd have to compensate.

Wouldn't any company hiring workers in Europe need to provide the same benefits as any European company, roughly the ones listed above? Or can an American company just hire remotely and offer American benefits directly to employees (not talking about independent contractors of course)? It would seem like the former no? Or is there a possibility of the latter? Say I'm remote and would like to work in Europe. I think this is the big problem with trying to keep a remote American job there without becoming a consultant and getting paid Corp to Corp. Is remote work for an American company even possible if that company doesn't have a European presence in the country the work would be conducted in or would they need to get such presence first before it was legal? If it's the latter (seems like it would be) it could really limit the companies willing to hire in Europe.

I suspect that since the act of working happens physically in an European country, both the employee and the employer need to obey the labor law of that country.

Practically, the American companies usually employ Europeans through their European subsidiaries/branches (which to local government look exactly like local companies).

Or they ask you to setup a single person company

At a minimum a company hiring in Europe (or anywhere else) needs to offer at least the legal minimum of benefits. And they may offer additional benefits to be locally competitive. Of course, salaries may be lower than in many US locations as well. And, yes, companies usually have to establish some sort of legal presence in a country. This is an obstacle for smaller firms, less so for larger ones.

Are you saying these are standard benefits in Europe?

You didn't make it clear in your post, though I think that must be the angle you're coming from.

Except for the 13th month bonus, I’d say it’s pretty basic. You’d get those benefits working at a supermarket.

Five weeks vacation is a legal minimum. Most companies I worked for here in Denmark will give you six. It’s technically not five weeks, but 25 days.

I worked in Switzerland, the 13th month wasn't a bonus, they simply took your salary, divided that by 13, that was your monthly payment and you got 2 of them in December.

Also many bills are due on the first of January for the whole next year e.g. insurance. So it was kinda like a holiday and large bill windfall, but it wasn't additional to salary.

That was just one company, maybe other countries or employers are different.

This. You know your yearly salary (gross and net). Then you get it in different schemes depending on country and company. Some I now are:

- 14 payments (extras in June and December)

- 12+1 in December

- 12 + 2 x 0.5 (one extra in June and the other In December)

I believe dates were pick to match Xmas and Summer Holidays, two big spending anomalies

Anyhow you always negotiate yearly gross.

Not in the Netherlands. I always negotiated monthly gross. Then your 13th month and summer bonus suddenly actually feel like bonuses, even if the company includes it in the full yearly amount.

Even the '13th month' is standard, too, in Denmark, it is called 'vacation pay' and is accrued as a 12% added pay on top of your salary, but paid into a separate account, to be paid out when you go on vacation.

> Five weeks vacation is a legal minimum

No, it's not. It might be in some European countries, though.

I'm not European, but to a degree it seems so, yes. For example, minimum paid vacation by law is 21 days in almost all of Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b... And judging by common statements and anecdotes here on HN, I think the number of paid vacation days tend to exceed the legal minimum, especially in Western Europe, just as they do in the U.S.--typically 2 weeks for salaried employees even though Federal law mandates 0.

Likewise, mandatory pension contributions (employee and employer) in most of Western Europe exceed 20% of income (upwards of 30% in some cases), as contrasted to 12% in the U.S.: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/pension_glance-2017-... Who in the U.S. contributes 10-20% to their IRA or 401(k) on top of FICA payments? It's not even legal to make such large contributions pre-tax. (Some of us are privileged enough to make up the difference with higher salaries; a smaller fraction of a higher salary let's us contribute more to retirement.) Note that employer contributions aren't generally reflected in salary figures, and in some European countries employer contributions exceed 20%.

Benefits and regulations vary from country to country. I don't know details about eastern Europe, but all those are fairly common to different degrees in large parts of the continent.

It's mostly the same in Eastern Europe (Romania at least), with the exception of paid overtime (though technically legally required, it is often not enforced), and the 13th monthly salary only being common in some industries.

Not everything standard, but quite common. Varies per country I guess. I'm thinking Netherlands.

Sure, but what about 300k, or 500k?

Also, not all of those apply to Norway at least and some are provided by the government.

Sure, maybe. My point is that US companies have to pay more because more things need to be taken care of by the individual instead of it being socialized to different degrees. Also there is very little in terms or labor rights in the US. So it is a bit more complicated, than just taking some amount you think any European would just line up for work, without considering the conditions they are used to.

It is not like the possibility to work remotely for US companies that in absolute numbers pay more than the local ones is completely novel. But at least in my circles pretty much no one is interested in doing so.

You have to update your knowledge about working for the software companies in US. You get $150-$300K plus almost all the benefits you mentioned on top of that.

You might have missed my point in the original post, that I care about everyone getting these or similar benefits, not just me in a higher salaried positions or after years of staying in a company. It indirectly improves my own quality of life and affects cost of things.

Me making 150, 200 or 300k actually has fairly limited impact on my life. Everyone else getting the same benefits or not has, in a way not easily compensated by salary.

I answered this line: >>> My point is that US companies have to pay more because more things need to be taken care of by the individual instead of it being socialized to different degrees.

the point is you get all these benefits and on top of this you get several times higher salary (I'm from Europe myself originally for what it worth).

Because that is what pretty every US American independently from political affiliation i talked with about this told me. They need to spent their own money on things that is covered via taxation in many parts of Europe. Whether this is good or bad, is a bit a matter of opinion.

I have absolutely no doubt that if you want to maximize personal compensation and benefits, the US is the place to be. Nothing else comes close

But originally this threat was about "Why compete with FAANG trying to pay new grads $300k when you can pay an experienced developer from Europe $100k? I honestly never understood it."

I doubt that a statistically significant amount of new grads get 300k in compensation plus those kind of benefits. I haven't spent a whole time researching but I couldn't find anything backing this up. E.g. it seems that you need to stay at Google 5 years to get 25 days vacation and entery level total compensation at FAANG being more in the 150k - 200k range.

On the other hand as an experienced developer making more than a 100k in just salary plus at least these benefits is not that hard in Europe if you are willing to move or find a remote job.

From all I heard or read, outside FAANG, the financial industry, and certain hotspot, the compensation and benefits within the US go down quite considerably and the difference to Europe is still big, but less exorbitant.

So sure, if you come in with full FAANG (many / all? of which have had engineering teams in Europe for a long time) style compensation packages plus benefits you will be able to attract many Europeans, especially if they don't have to move. But then we are quickly back to square one: Why compete with FAANG?

And again, I'd argue a big part of the reason why US companies can offer these much higher compensation package to positions like software engineers is because they save it on lower end jobs and there are fewer regulations for the common good in place that would cost them money. For some, this makes US companies a non-starter independent from the individual offer.

Contract? What contract?

There are a lot of experienced developers in the U.S. you can hire for 100k too, outside the large metropolitan areas.

$100k USD is $133k CAD and will get one some pretty decent talent in Canada -- especially outside of Toronto where rates are higher -- with the advantage of being in the same time zones, same linguistic-cultural nexus, and you won't have expensive American medical insurance benefits etc. Even better if you can offer annual bonuses and stock options.

I can’t think of a single great developer that you could hire in the US for $100K. The few jobs in non metropolitan areas for software developers are going to be WordPress Developers. Everyone else is going to at least leave for the closest metropolitan area.

As someone in the Midwest, this seems pretty biased to me.

I make right about $100k, which is pretty competitive for the area from what I can tell. It's possible I'm just getting completely fleeced, but I think that's unlikely.

But then again, I guess you can just play the "No true Scotsman" game and argue that I don't count as a truly great developer.

I worked at a company that was officially based in Nebraska because they received some type of grant for hiring locally. They expanded to my larger metropolitan area in the south east to find reasonably priced developers but a larger pool.

That being said, I was speaking to my CTO about hiring and I asked him, why doesn’t he hire in the Nebraska office, it would be a lot cheaper. His reply was “not really”. I know in my metro area, salaries for your standard experienced software as a service CRUD developers (no insult intended - as a developer that’s what I am), were making between $125K-$155K pre-Covid. I can only assume they were making about the same in Kearney and Omaha Nebraska.

Whether you agree with it or not (and I don’t), companies looking for great developers usually want them to be able to pass an algorithm style interview. Can you do it?

Personally, I consider myself to be a pretty good enterprise developer/architect but I wouldn’t get past the first round of an algorithm heavy technical interview without lots of practice.

> Whether you agree with it or not (and I don’t), companies looking for great developers usually want them to be able to pass an algorithm style interview. Can you do it?

Considering I tutored people in college that went on to work at the FAANGS of the world, I would guess so.

But also I guess it doesn't terribly matter. I got off that treadmill a long time ago.

I am in a similar boat and all these rich developers in the SV web bubble fill me with self doubt.

I’m not in Silicon Valley - I’m on the opposite coast. I’m not talking about the difference between small town and SV. I’m more referring to moving from SmallTown, Nebraska to Omaha Nebraska where experienced developers wouldn’t usually accept $100K.

I moved from SmallTown southern United States four hours away to Metro City southern US for increased opportunities almost 25 years ago.

I find it's better to just ignore it. But sometimes it does get hard. My friends make similar amounts of money as me, which is generally what I try to think about.

Gotta be happy where you are. Otherwise I guess you could go join the rat race and make the big bucks.

I’m all sorts of conflicted.

Beginning of 2020, I was 45 years old making A little more than the average senior SaaS CRUD developer made locally because of $bad_career_decisions. It was about $50K -$80K less than a CS grad would make a couple of years out of school working for a FAANG or even a second tier software company on the west coast.

Then Covid hit and the company I worked for had an across the board 10% pay cut.

Just dumb luck and being at the right place at the right time - I happened to have a combination of skills that let me slide into a remote position as a cloud consultant for BigTech.

Now I’m 46 working (virtuallly) along side 26 year olds making more than I do. Win??

> Now I’m 46 working (virtuallly) along side 26 year olds making more than I do. Win??

I'm 31 making 3-4x what my father ever did.

And I get to sit in an office instead of busting my ass doing repetitive labor on an assembly line day in day out.

It's all about perspective I guess.

Well, even inflation adjusted I was making more than my parents did combined when they were 45.

But, my mom retired from teaching after 30 years at 55 and my Dad retired from his factory job at 57. When they were 62, they were both getting pensions and social security checks. They’ve been married for 50+ years and retired for 20+ years.

I won’t be retiring before 67...

Again perspective...

My mom retired a couple years ago from the hospital in town and gets a pension from that. I agree that people with pensions have a completely different outlook on money than those without.

My dad was a member of the steelworker's union for 25 years and then they closed down the plant he worked at and moved the production line to Mexico. He got to train his replacements. Then he delivered propane for a couple years, and ended up getting a job at Cargill on a line that made eggs for McDonald's breakfast burritos and Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches.

He worked there for 5 or 6 years, finally scored a nice job as the custodian at the rec center in town and planned to ride that out until retirement.

Shortly after his 57th birthday he started acting funny and was diagnosed with Glioblastoma [1], probably better known as "that cancer John McCain had". Died a year and a half later.

I don't think either or us is really adding much to the original conversation, but I am enjoying swapping stories nonetheless. Hopefully some of the bystanders are as well...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glioblastoma

Not my experience. 4 years ago I offered 3 people in the US a job. All declined it. They were looking north of $175k. All were in very low cost of living places. They would live like a king or queen on that salary there. I was offering $125k. It was a very quick conversation, too. Once they knew that, they bailed.

You should compensate employees based on the value their work provides you, not based on the particulars of their personal life. An engineer's frugality is not an excuse to lowball him or her.

Not sure exactly how to ask this, but since $125k is well above US market rate in low cost of living areas: have you considered the possibility that they asked for more because other aspects of the work seemed extremely unattractive?

2 of the 3 were ready to accept the job. Salary was the only issue. The 3rd, I'm not sure of. The job was writing Lisp code, so you can gauge the unattractiveness of that yourself. (It's what they were looking for, they said.)

Hire me instead :) You just didn't poll the queue enough.

The US is the recipient of all of the world's top talent. Why would any extremely experienced developer willingly choose to earn 1/6th of the money in the Europe or less unless forced to?

Of course, top talent does exist in Europe but there's way less than the US.

Because people like other things than just money? Once you have the safety network of a european state, have upper middle class income, there is very little to gain in quality of life by increase in pay.

I moved back to Europe from SV for a lesser paying job (not 1/6th though) because I thoroughly hated the bay area / US. I got a way better quality of life here (Belgium).

> or less unless forced to?

Most are basically forced to. We're not US citizens, we don't have a right to work in the US.

Because they want to live in Europe?

My comment never suggested there are none who don't live there by choice. Of course, by choosing Europe, you surrender literally millions of dollars (in compounding retirement investments over decades).

I specifically mean EU countries by the way, Switzerland and London are the only exceptions -- and even then the US is better.

> you surrender literally millions of dollars

You don't. You spend those "millions" of dollars on ridiculously expensive medical care, on ridiculously expensive education, on car ownership, on... And in return you get worse infrastructure, worse medical care, worse ecology etc.

Education is a choice in our industry. I'm self taught and I'm paid the same as colleagues with PhDs.

As for medical care, all half decent tech employers provide comprehensive healthcare coverage.

I don't know what you've been reading, but unless healthcare costs $200,000 a year (it doesn't cost 1/10th of that), you're better off in the US.

As for "worse infrastructure", you'll have to be specific. There's crumbling infrastructure all over the US and Europe.

Worse medical care is also a stretch. In fact, in some areas (heart attacks and strokes, for example) the US is a world leader. [1]

I'll remind you that new grads in the US are often paid substantially more than senior level developers in the EU.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/22/the-real-reason-medical-care...

> I'll remind you that new grads in the US are often paid substantially more than senior level developers in the EU.

Yeah, ain't that right. I've been programming for 20 years, worked as a lead developer/architect and have usually been among the most highly compensated technical people in companies I've worked for. And yet I have never seen anything close to the kind of money fresh grads get at FAANG.

On the other hand, if I landed a job paying 300k-400k USD a year, I'd probably just retire after 4-5 years.

>Why compete with FAANG trying to pay new grads $300k

I am pretty sure even FAANG dont pay $300K for fresh grad.

Yeah they don’t pay $300K for a good undergrad who just graduated. More like $200K I would say (base + equity). It varies of course. But $300k would be a hell of a good offer.

> More like $200K I would say (base + equity).

Also $200K is on a higher end and depends on other offers, etc. Average is around $180K.

And even that $200K is not cash income, but includes restricted stock.

RTS and similar sites usually say $250-$300k all in for SWE new grad. Are those sites not reliable?

>>Why compete with FAANG trying to pay new grads $300k when you can pay an experienced developer from Europe $100k? I honestly never understood it.

Because $300K vs $100K makes very little difference to them when they're printing money. One idea from a top dev can make the whole thing pay itself and then some, for years.

Surely you’re not implying devs in Europe are somehow inferior to devs in the US?

(Not sure if your question is rhetorical, apologies if so)

It’s a flywheel. Investors give preferential to local teams, which leads to teams having to hire local, which reinforces the prices. The big tech that can’t really move or adapt to a more remote workforce pushes the salaries up, local cost of living rises, and the cycle continues. The cost to move from that culture is extremely high, so the salary differences end up being “justifiable”

Why would a good European dev work for $100k when they could get $300k?

FAANG doesn’t support remote work. If they do have a local EU office then they adjust for local wages, so you’re still competitive.

Because next to them is another good European dev who would be happy with $100k.

And next to the Western-European dev is one from the East of Europe, say Ukraine, that again takes half of that.

Te only people who still stay in EE/UA are those without options to move and even there their salaries approach WEU.

From what I have seen, its hard to make a fluid team without an extraordinary amount of effort in communication. This is quite tiring for a lot of people and they need specific training.

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