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Comment by sho_hn | Hacker News Reader

I'm always curious when I hear HN opine on salary levels. Now I understand that in SF / at certain FAANG locations you can expect to make far in excess of 80-100k, and that exerts a competitive pressure in the job market - while also being balanced to some extend by extreme CoL. But I always wonder just how small that bubble is and what the trade-offs really are. In essentially all of Central Europe except perhaps, say, Zurich, 80k-110k is a highly-salaried engineer (and affords an upper-middleclass lifestyle with good healthcare, pension, free college education, etc.), and I understand also in many areas of the US that are just fine to live in.

It just sounds like completely different systems / way to run the numbers to me, not at all apples to apples.

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No, even after any attempt to account for healthcare, pension and education the US will still look vastly better off. Unfortunately we don’t have figures on average individual consumption but by household Hong Kong consumes about $1,000 more a year than the US and the next closest is Switzerland, consuming about $10,000 a year less[1].

Generally the US pays better and at the top of any field you care to mention except perhaps finance it pays far, far better.

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

> except perhaps finance it pays far, far better.

I hear this a lot, but I've never seen it. I know plenty of people in tech making the better part of $1 MM a year at FAANG, and a few who even breach that. Most people I know in finance never break $500k.

So how much do people make in finance?

A friend retired with more than 1M after four years in finance and living the life in NY, like he was not saving much. Most of his comp was commissions on what his algorithms or the stuff his team worked on was marking on the market. His base salary and comp were a little bit above Google, were he worked before switching to finance.

I take it that is not pure finance, but fin tech?

Algorithmic trading and quant finance count as pure finance in my book

Top traders at hedge funds are the people who become billionaires. You can easily make 2, 5, 10m+ once you become a partner.

Pre 2008 a lot of people were retiring in 4 years. Things have changed (smaller parties) but people are still getting rich. The top tier are crushing faang salaries. A million a year is a lot but more can be available when you are trading.

The top tier in finance are NOT crushing the top tier in tech. No way. All these IPOS + Faang are making 10s of thousands of millionaire mid-level engineers, thousands of decamillionaire VPs and angels, and dozens of billionaires, year after year.

Hedge fund and PE folks can make way more than that (performance dependent).

US households are slightly bigger than European households (2.6 vs 2.2-2.3), but yeah, the US is on average much richer than most wealthier European states. A good comparison is states to countries - Germany is about the level of Alabama and UK is like Mississippi I think.

$80k-100k would afford a great lifestyle in much of the US, geographically speaking. The problem is that those jobs are concentrated in areas with a higher COL. We also have to pay for things like medical insurance in the US. I know software salaries are lower in the EU (in general), I assume it's the same for biotech too.

The US government data for software engineers says that the median wage across the us is $110k/year. Importantly though that doesn’t include bonuses or stock, which appear to be reasonably common even outside the tech hubs. I suspect the “real” number is closer to $115-120k one those are taken into account. Software engineers really do get paid very well across most of the US, it’s just most pronounced in the tech hubs.

https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151256.htm#st

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...

Even with the higher cost of living in SF/NYC/Seattle, tech pay at FAANG is pretty high. Senior software positions are pretty much start at $300k/yr across all of those companies. Plus these companies generally have excellent healthcare plans and good vacation policies.

At those income levels pretty much the only thing you’re really priced out of are nice single family homes, but I suspect that’s the same in Zurich.

Sounds like it! :-)

I have a Senior Principal position and make products you've probably read about on Ars/Verge type sites recently, at an established tech company in Berlin - for about half of those 300k. And it's not a bad deal for the region.

When the associate data scientists are making $100-150k, and the product/graphic designers are lucky to be getting $80k, that's pretty fucking top-heavy and absurd.

You're not comparing apples to apples. Senior designers and data scientists also typically make 250K+ (and often 300K+) at these companies.

> At those income levels pretty much the only thing you’re really priced out of are nice single family homes, but I suspect that’s the same in Zurich.

You'll never pay it completely but if you can afford a mortgage you'll build equity into it and probably be able to resell it at a profit.

What's a good vacation policy in SF? I'm tempted to move from London, but I currently get 28 days holiday a year + 8 public holidays + birthday + Xmas to NY (so about 40 days give or take). I know there's a lot of "unlimited" holiday policies - but would they really be okay if I took that kind of holiday?

I earn a lot here in London, but moving to SF would be a significant bump. However, I very much value my time off.

Not SF, but at my big tech employer it’s 3 weeks of vacation, 2 floating holidays (which are really just vacation), 10 company holidays, and 2 weeks sick leave. After 6 and 12 years you get another week of vacation. So total is 27 to start, not including sick leave. I’ve heard more experienced new hires can sometimes negotiate in more vacation (up to 5 weeks) but I haven’t experienced that directly myself.

There are also all sorts of special purpose leaves (jury duty, infant care, bereavement, etc...) that can become quite substantial.

All that being said I’ve almost never had a boss who cared about tracking my vacation too closely, and I’ve never felt pressured to not take time off when I want to, other than a half dozen critical weeks a year.

My Anecdata - I moved from London to SF ~4 years ago (working for the same FAANG company before-and-after), and have never even bothered looking at my PTO accrual because a) I wouldn't even spend it fast enough to run it down, and b) my managers have always been very clear that I should take whatever PTO I want whether or not I officially have hours accrued.

Officially, though, I (just found out that I) have 20 discretionary days per year (plus American holidays).

2 weeks is considered minimal/entry level, 3 weeks is average and 4 weeks is quite good for the US.

At my company in the Bay Area, we get 30 days vacation plus 10 holidays. For the first few years, it was a bit less vacation.

It's very much a mixed bag.

The "unlimited" thing became popular in California in part as an attempt on behalf of companies to avoid having to issue payouts for accrued time off to employees leaving their organizations.

I'd suggest simply being very up front and specific in interviewing and negotiations about how much time you plan to take and see what kind of reactions you get.

The creation of the EU created a situation where supply increased which meant salaries were not going to rise in the richer EU countries. The free college, health care, services is the reason for the taxes.

We will see salaries in the UK increase over Germany.

Lower salaries make it easier for businesses to compete.

Taxes in California aren't that different from Germany.

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