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Comment by tarruda | Hacker News Reader

If you split by 3 full time devs, that's more 90k/year which allows for a decent living in most places. Probably not enough for San Francisco though.

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> that's more 90k/year which allows for a decent living in most places

Not only a decent living, but that's a very good salary in most places in the world. As an anecdote, I've always worked in private sector IT (as a developer and manager), have around 20 years of experience and worked in both small and big enterprises and startups, and I've never had that high salary. If you'd offer me that for working on open source full-time, I'd be surprised. My expectation would be that there is a ton of people willing to work for much less, so why Babel had to go with that person?

> Probably not enough for San Francisco though

Good thing Babel, Open Source and everything else related to this has nothing to do with San Francisco but still the group somehow want to have SF salaries. Yeah, I wonder why?

$90k/year is between a good and outrageously good salary for Europe, depending on the country. So yeah, plenty of talent available for cheaper than $90k/year.

Keep in mind that most taxes and benefits are missing there, so it's better to consider US salaries as payroll costs in Europe.

In my fairly liberal country (Estonia), 75k eur a year renders around 42k eur a year take home, really great salary living costs wise but taxes still take a large chunk.

75K EUR / year is a legit salary in Estonia now? Wow, you guys are really catching up fast. I would have assumed former Soviet bloc countries were still down there at $30K or so (even less in Ukraine, Moldova, etc.).

Is this something special with Estonia, or are salaries catching up in the rest of Baltics, Poland, etc?

Depending on where you work, if you're a great developer then the income can be around 2500-4500€ a month take home, which is 40k - 90k eur (gross, not payroll) a year. Considering the average (and very liveable) salary is 1100€ take home a month, it's really great living costs wise.

I think apart from the post-soviet Central European countries, Baltics are the outliers, and Estonia is the outlier among them (with Lithuania catching up). Mostly because of lenient tax policies and high levels of entrepreneurship. But all this growth does increase inequality a lot, a person in the countryside might take home 600-800€ a month in comparison.

Payroll cost is higher than that. Those numbers don’t include the other costs paid by the employer - payroll taxes (as and Medicare) - unemployment insurance (SUTA/FUTA) - workers comp - health insurance (most Americans have the large percentage paid by their employer).

I don’t understand why salaries are so low in Europe. I work in New Zealand, not exactly a tech hub, and I’m on $220k p.a. (mid career). $160k US, 130k EUR. 39% top tax.

I wouldn’t say I am significantly above average and I’m not in management (architect/principal engineer).

Similar story in Australia. Not quite US levels but decent compensation, I don’t feel taken advantage of.

Does that figure take into account cost of living? When I left NZ 6 years ago it wasn't a cheap place to live.

220k is sweet as in NZ even if you're living in Wellington or Auckland.

Yeh I'm sure 220k is a great salary for NZ. But in terms of purchasing power, how does it compare to $70k-£80k in the UK (I don't know, as I said haven't lived in NZ for 6 years)? I'd also be interested to know how common it is to be on 200k+ as a dev in NZ

(edit: spelling/grammar)

Not sure about purchasing power, but from a salary perspective I thought that kind of money simply didn't exist at NZ companies. Maybe at Amazon or Microsoft in NZ you can get paid that much though.

I've worked in the UK, but my information is also out of date (a decade ago).

UK is cheaper for quite a few things, so a direct currency conversion doesn't work. If I had to guess, probably in the 90-100k GBP ballpark.

I honestly didn't think there was that kind of money in NZ. What kind of company are you working for?

Not a Kiwi company, a multi-national cloud company that has done really well.

Base is 170k. Bonuses are reliably paid out. Based on RSUs, it can also be much higher than 220k.

I've had years where it was 300k, share price dependent.

My peer group are all in the 180-250k range, and many are working for Kiwi companies.

Really? Maybe that sort of money is available in Sydney. I never saw anything close to that level in Melbourne, particularly for a mid level developer. I've had to move to the US to make a decent wage.

Contract or tech company. 200 + 100K stocks in Melbourne. 300K is normal contracting. AUD.

Mid-career (architect/principal engineer).

I am 41.

Next step would be management, but I've done that before, and will be staying IC as long as I can make this kind of money for it.

But I have a year left before I am mortgage free anyway, so that will change the risk calculus a lot, probably go contracting for more $$.

Probably laughable comp for the Bay Area at this stage of my career, but I am not in the Bay Area...

I can only speak about a France here, but the salaries seems low because it's after most taxes. When you get 200k in US, you have to pay for your healthcare, pension, etc... In France when you get 80k, which is a very high-end salary (~94% of the french are paid less than that), you still pay some taxes on it but the company already payed the healthcare, pension, 25 days of mandatory vacation, etc...

All-in-All you get the same value, numbers are hardly comparable.

Is that before or after taxes? In Belgium, a self employed freelancer earning only 90.000 dollars a year (73.000 euros) is really not that much.

That's still far from "not that much". You're not gonna be buying a jet anytime soon, but it's far and above the 20-30k many developers outside of city centres get stuck on.

there are 4 devs, so 69k per year.

I don't how it is in USA. but that's less than your 90k/year figure by a significant amount

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