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Comment by smnrchrds | Hacker News Reader

Median household income in the US in 2019 was 62,400 EUR (69,560 USD). Median software developer salary in the US was 98,800 EUR (110,100 USD), and the US is known to be uniquely and grossly lucrative for software developers compared to the rest of the world. Considering 60k EUR per year individual income to be too little is a very SF tech area thing to say. As a mechanical engineer in Canada, I cannot relate to that at all.

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And yet, in much cheaper Poland and even further much cheaper Ukraine software engineers easily make the same or higher amount. There is a popular topic on Ukrainian language developers forum dou.ua where they laugh about European IT salaries, exposing the obvious truth that living standards of developers there are several times lower than in Ukraine, and in the Valley, they are at best the same.

That said, it's quite likely that Putin will have the last laugh.

I can't really believe that devs in the ukraine make as much as in germany.

Why would then work a lot of devs here? Cost of living is a fraction there.

Because the outsourcing industry is really advanced there... People just figured how to make money off foreigners. Typical salary for someone who is minimally capable of independently working (not senior level) is $4500 a month net. Rent is $400 a month, utilities are invisibly tiny (which isn't a surprise for a country with around $300 median salary). Developers have full time servants, gardeners, drivers etc., all in the middle of Europe.

But, surely there is a terrible infrastructure and the country is in the slow-baking civil war and permanently on the brink of foreign invasion...

If you pay a dev as much as in Germany, how are the supposed to offer cheaper services if also the agency takes a bige cut?

No one would nearshore work If it's not cheaper then at home.

Because they outsource to the U.S., and for the U.S. customer there is no difference between Germany or Ukraine. In Ukraine they also pay a lot less (if any) taxes than they do in Germany. Plus, you can exploit people more in Ukraine for sure (they are happy anyway because they routinely get 20x the median income in their area, by the age of 40 it's typical to be independently rich and exit active work).

And no, these services are not 'cheaper' - people who want it cheaper, hire Indian companies.

Then why hire them instead of local devs?

Local devs or local dev company? In which country? In Germany they just won't find one. There are few good devs and almost no good outsourcers. Way more in Ukraine and there is an established ecosystem - there are even "accelerators" and "incubators" for outsourcer companies. In the U.S.? Because U.S. companies will never do actual coding in the U.S. - they only have U.S. front offices. Many of these "local" companies are actually Ukrainian, with a few guys in the Valley and 500 in Kharkiv.

As for local devs, then well, of course reason is the same as why dev companies exist at all: clients don't know how to manage the project or properly hire devs.

Munich is very expensive for German standards. 60k gross is not a lot of money there.

Zurich or SF are still on a different level of course.

They are comparing it to the housing costs, not just abstractly calling it too little.

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