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Comment by grenoire | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, as a youngling in Europe I feel like I'm about to get the shitty end of the stick by the time I hit my 30s. 600k/year (inflation-adjusted) seems like a pipe dream...

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It’s a pipe dream. 100k€ a year is exceptional for an engineer in Europe. Outside of finance and some American company, it is an exceptional salary period, very rare for someone under 30. I know senior managers in some consulting company who don’t gain that in my country.

Not exceptional in Switzerland, Norway and UK

The UK has low software developer salaries. Especially when you take into consideration that it is a highly developed English-speaking country.

100k USD is 75k GBP.

Many junior developer roles in London will pay 50k. Some finance ones will pay 75k or more.

600k USD / 450k GBP is also definitely reachable for a senior developer at team leader level or comparable.

450k as a team lead? I’ve never heard of that. In itjobswatch.co.uk highest median salary for London is around 200k.

Median is not the same as reachable.

The good jobs aren't going to be advertised on whatever website this is, they use headhunters.

Also at this level you enter into a negotiation with the business stakeholders, compensation package is tailored to each profile and opportunity.

I like how people always feel the need to shift a discussion on actual salary that normal people experience to a few job mostly in finance negotiated directly with key stack holders to pretend things are comparable.

Let’s forget that salaries in Europe are ridiculously low to focus on the handful of people who might get an extraordinary position - still paid less than an equivalent one in North America nevertheless - and pretends its doable and everything is fine.

While London is a finance hot spot, jobs from Google, Facebook or similarly competing company will also be in that range.

And that's not even the top salaries, there are also jobs that pay in millions.

You'll also find similar salaries in Amsterdam, Paris, Zurich...

I'm just stating that jobs that pay the same as in the article do exist in Europe, and I don't believe they're as exceptional as you suggest.

There just is a large spectrum of salaries for software engineering, and as we all know, 90% of everything is crud, so of course the median will be much lower.

And this applies to 0.0001% of people, at best, so in practice it's not actually attainable.

Tbh it's a pipe dream for essentially everyone else as well, even 95-99% of Americans. For instance the American President makes 400k/year. That's a wild annual salary and only possible for an exceedingly small smidge of the population. And this guy is earning more.

The president's salary is sort of a joke though, everyone knows that every single president will have a lengthy tour and series of book deals after their term. They'll be paid advisors to companies and non-profits.

Back to tech though, there are probably 100 100k roles for every 400k role. So if you start out making 100k in tech, you have to be 1 in 100 to move up to a 400k role.

I'm a software developer in the US and this is all a pipe dream to me too - I started in the (software) workforce a few years before this person but at close to half the salary. After my first year of employment my net worth was nowhere near positive, especially not five figures positive - I had a student loan burden that was more than my yearly salary. I didn't get into the positive net worth territory until around year ~5 in the workforce.

2009 was also a recession year where it was difficult to find an entry level job at all, at any salary. I went without (software) work for half a year when I was laid off at the end of 2008 and ended up having to relocate for employment.

I'm in my late 30s now and I'm well off by almost every measure (I max out all retirement accounts, I have a six figure brokerage account) - but I'm nowhere near a millionaire or financially independent. I'll need to work another decade best case scenario.

The biggest boost to my savings rate/financial position came from getting married and sharing income/bills with my husband.

If I did it over again I'd pay off my loans slower and put more in my retirement accounts earlier.

Engineering salaries in the US are so high I think these “retire by 35” posts should be put into perspective. Saving 250k USD in a lifetime would set me up for life where I’m from. Never mind over 500k in a single year.

Where I live (New Zealand) $US 100k/year is a top salary.

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