Hacker News Reader

Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

On the other hand(and I'm Polish myself) you can live an exceptionally good life in Poland for 27k USD/year. Living in Poland I'd be happy to accept a salary that makes me very comfortable financially, even if theoretically the same position elsewhere pays more.

I think most people get it wrong - it's not that people living in cheaper locations are underpaid. It's people living in more expensive locations that are massively overpaid. Just because a software engineer in SF can make $100k/year doesn't mean that's what the position is worth, it just means these companies are massively overpaying.

View on HN

Those companies are not massively overpaying. The cost of living acts as a filter so that only the most productive software jobs are done there. Take any industry and imagine if you could "kidnap" the top 10% of workers into a city. Suddenly it would look like workers in that industry are highly paid. It's like survivorship bias. You only see the good parts.

I don't know what country in eastern europe finds 27kUSD / year "exceptionally good". Developers in east europe earning such amounts are junior level as wages are going up as a result of western clients / employers finding they deliver higher quality work than say india, or pakistan. Most people I know in the area, with senior level experience, are at around double that figure. If you factor in ever growing demand for software engineers in the EU then wages are going to go up even higher.

That's nearly 10k PLN/month. My accountant with 20 years experience makes less than 3k PLN/month. 10k/month here is very very good money, our prime minister only makes about 15k/month and our president makes 17k/month in comparison. 10k might be a little bit tighter in Warsaw but live literally anywhere else and you will be paid more than 99% of people around you.

That's not how you measure your worth, but i'll take it you don't have much experience on the topic - with all due respect - and that explains the low income compared to peers from your country.

>>That's not how you measure your worth

How do you measure it then. Because the textbook definition is "you're worth as much as the market will bear". Which is exactly what I'm talking about - do you disagree? And why would I have little experience on the topic? I worked abroad, I worked in high and low income regions - the market forces work exactly the same way everywhere.

Nah, you are measuring your worth against accounts and prime ministers. Instead you should measure your worth against market and the position within that market. Anyway, enjoy your 27k while your peers earn double that.

But the whole point is that they don't. Computer programmers don't generally earn much more than that in Poland, that's why it's a median value. So exactly like what you and I said....it's what the market will bear.

I only brought up my accountant and prime minister to give people from outside of Poland some idea what the wages are like. So I have no idea what you're talking about, but I also guess you don't either.

> exceptionally good life in Poland

Compared to your environment, sure. However, you'll never drive a Tesla and buy $4000 road bikes when you're on $27k/y.

> Just because a software engineer in SF can make $100k/year doesn't mean that's what the position is worth

It means exactly that in a free market capitalism (and while we're not living in a pure free market, we're not _that_ far). Why would a company overpay? (Sometimes they do, but not 4x, and not consistently.) In case everyone's massively overpaying in SV, then you could just start a company there and pay people half the salaries and be extremely competitive.

But you will be able to have a good house, raise a family, have lots of free time and freedom. Not compared to the environment, you will be happier than most people in the US.

It is obvious that for you money equals happiness but there are people in the world that believe that not everything in life is money and status.

They value relationships, they value freedom and time, they value going to the mountains or beaches that is almost free. They value cars as a means of transport and do not need a Tesla.

Your comments speaks clearly that you have never gone out of the US and as a result you have lots of prejudices about it.

>>However, you'll never drive a Tesla and buy $4000 road bikes when you're on $27k/y.

But I'll easily buy a 6 bed house with lots of land, something that pretty much no one in SV can afford, so.....what do I need that Tesla for?

It sounds like you're both criticising market-rate compensation and lauding it?

But also, companies overpay in SF because if they don't someone else will pay better and pick up the experienced technical labor. So it's an employee's market there, sort of, versus in perhaps Poland where there's less valley-level insane demand for technical labor and so companies aren't so competitive to snag that one extra person.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com