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Comment by joshuaissac | Hacker News Reader

This does not match my experience in the UK. I have never been asked to blog, but when I was a junior software developer, I was frequently asked to review code from senior developers (except in one team). I think it depends on the individual team, and things can be very different even within the same company.

For pay, there is indeed a large disparity with US salaries. I have seen graduate developer roles going for as low as £19k. And that is the case in many other industries as well, like healthcare. I think this is just about supply and demand, and how much companies are willing to pay.

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It seems that junior developers are considered to be of relatively little value in most UK based jobs. The disparity seems to even out a bit as you gain experience, especially if willing to freelance, but it's not uncommon to see junior positions being treated like minimum wage jobs.

Is there simply more opportunity in the US or is this a matter of how inexperienced people are viewed? Perhaps there is more holdover from traditional professions where experience was paramount.

Healthcare in the U.K. is basically a monopsony. It is also, like many traditional high-paying industries, one which requires a bunch of education and a period of not particularly good conditions before getting good pay (but still having long hours.) Certainly in the U.K. one must suffer as a junior doctor for a while before more lucrative positions become available. While I would like people working in healthcare to be better paid and I’m sure the U.K. system could be made better, it is easy to feel that not having doctors paid like Americans keeps costs down a bit (though maybe that feeling is not bourne out by facts.)

This is definitely a component to keeping overall cost low. One that many Americans don’t want to admit. There’s a lot of people in the US all for lower health care costs, lower drug costs, etc. Most will insist that it’s doable without any sacrifices from highly paid doctors, nurses, scientists, technologists, etc. I don’t think it’s possible without everyone with their hand in the cookie jar taking a cut.

>This does not match my experience in the UK. I have never been asked to blog, but when I was a junior software developer,

and that's good tbh.

we need more people that do hard tech that'll write blogs than jrs

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