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Comment by geodel | Hacker News Reader

People should try to reconcile the facts that those outrageously high FAANG salaries occurs because of

1) Near monopoly in that sector 2) Excessive surveillance and tracking users 3) Increasing inequality between haves and have nots.

And non-FAANG type IT worker are also paid relatively high at the cost of other workers living perilous lives.

So unless Europeans really start cherishing these "values". They are not gonna get US level salaries. The way I see quite a lot non-US / European people just like high salaries but never want to think where it really come from.

All this talk about Europe does not respect/appreciate / values Software engineers sounds more and more like coded way to say We, software people, deserve much higher salaries at the cost of everyone else.

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> those outrageously high FAANG salaries occurs because of ... 2) Excessive surveillance...

This is an absurd and lazy take.

There are plenty of high paying software jobs in the US that have nothing to do with surveillance (e.g. the AWS part of Amazon, Apple, SpaceX, all sorts of robotics companies, etc).

Europe's concerns in this area are a strength that they should be taking advantage of.

FWIW I think the surveillance itself is lazy. People just collect stuff because it's cheap to do, but the evidence that it is that useful in most cases is scant. If the FTC took a reasonable position that just having that info is a liability to be managed, most companies would stop and their businesses would do fine.

The point was, if I read it correctly, that comparing salaries is only part of the picture.

There is a yawning cultural divide between the USA and the rest of the world. Especially the non-English speaking world.

I am in an English speaking country that slips under the shadow of the cloud cast by the cultural hegemony of the USA (Aotearoa) and when I look around at my lifestyle, my friends, community, and the problems we have as a country and society - salary would not be enough to move me.

I am grossly underpaid by any standard (working on it) but the compensations of lifestyle and culture are well worth it

>I am in an English speaking country that slips under the shadow of the cloud cast by the cultural hegemony of the USA (Aotearoa) and when I look around at my lifestyle, my friends, community, and the problems we have as a country and society - salary would not be enough to move me.

There's nothing wrong with making such a decision. Many others make such a decision, whether in an English-speaking country or not. In the US itself, many make such a decision to stay in their home cities and states as opposed to moving to Silicon Valley.

But you also must recognize that you are in the minority. It is a fact that FAANG and comparable companies' Canadian offices are almost entirely staffed by non-Canadians that are parked there because they are either waiting for, or cannot receive, a US visa. Yes, there are some Canadians who want to stay close to home in Toronto or Vancouver, but they are very, very, very few.

Canadians have, thanks to treaties, a pretty simple path to working in the US. I think Australians also have a unique treaty in this regard. All other nationals have, to greater or lesser degree, various hurdles to clear before moving to the US. If tomorrow New Zealand signed a treaty with the US that made moving to the US for work as easy as it is for Canadians, how many of your coworkers and peers would stay?

Five separate companies cannot be described as having a meaningful monopoly between them.

And there are hundreds of companies that pay at that level in the US, not just FAANG.

Reality is European workers are under-paid, not US workers over-paid.

Also curious what you think is different in Australia? Are software salaries there like in the US and above somewhere like London?

> Reality is European workers are under-paid, not US workers over-paid.

My point was that European workers are paid in proportion to how they are valued by their employer. If they wrote transformational software their employer wouldn't understand its value and it would either just be shipped without a lot of thought, or ignored. Come to think of it this may be why so much great open source software comes out of Europe.

If European companies threatened by the digital transition realized their looming doom and actually decided to do something about it, the salaries would rise as a consequence.

In fact, faang and hf finance (us based) pay quite well in parts of Europe, same as in sf/NYC.

The question is why and how. There is no point is arguing "low" European salaries unless someone shows European companies are more profitable and they save a nice chunk of money by paying less to S/w engineers.

Not very familiar with Australia. But thinking that high paying company like Atlassian which produces a very crappy software which I unfortunately deal daily. To me it shows high pay does not guarantee good quality software which many(not you) seems to be arguing here.

> Not very familiar with Australia. But thinking that high paying company like Atlassian which produces a very crappy software which I unfortunately deal daily. To me it shows high pay does not guarantee good quality software which many(not you) seems to be arguing here.

That's a different problem. That's because you, the user, are not a customer of Atlassian. Companies and their micromanagers, however, love JIRA.

Microsoft is in the same boat. Virtually no users of their products are actually their customers.

That's how you get away with producing very crappy software, even if you hire the top talent.

> Microsoft is in the same boat. Virtually no users of their products are actually their customers. That's how you get away with producing very crappy software, even if you hire the top talent.

Such a weird logic. You’re saying that Microsoft produces crappy software even though they hire too talent. And they get away with it because the people who buy it don’t use it (i.e. by extension don’t care if they’re spending their money wisely)?

Microsoft isn’t a top-payer like Google et al.

Sad but true.

> by extension don’t care if they’re spending their money wisely

What's wise for the management isn't necessarily wise for end-users.

You can buy a product that's great for your business needs, that the users will absolutely hate. Both of those things can be true at the same time.

> Microsoft is in the same boat. Virtually no users of their products are actually their customers.

Apple has less than 10% of the PC market. What do you think the rest of them are running?

> Apple has less than 10% of the PC market. What do you think the rest of them are running?

If you didn't pay for your copy of Windows (which you most likely didn't, far more likely it was provided to you in another way, such as OEM or your employer), you are not Microsoft's customer.

Likewise, if you got the free license from upgrading, you're also not their customer.

Pirated Windows? Not their customer.

Bought one of those $20 license keys? Still not their customer.

Actually bought a Windows key directly from them? Okay, you're their customer. You're in the minority.

I think it's a very Valley-centric opinion to think Microsoft doesn't have any consumer customers. Even putting aside all their other end user products consumers buy (XBox, the utterly dominant Office).

I certainly don't agree with your definition of a customer. People who buy a PC with a Windows OS on it know it's a Windows OS, and make that choice willingly. It's like pretending nobody is an Android customer because they buy their phones from Samsung not Google.

With Google it’s even simpler. You’re generally not their customer because you are their product.

That makes no sense.

If you use Microsoft products you are their customer.

Splitting hairs is a bit silly

Perhaps GP means to highlight the distinction between the person deciding whether the money gets spent and the operation who uses the product. That can man a lot, eg if a boss just buys whatever he thinks it's good without asking the team what they want to use.

The point is that the majority of their revenue comes from corporate enterprise. This is one reason Ballmer didn’t understand the iPhone: his customers (corporate IT) wanted the windows phone but no actual users did.

Microsoft was taken by surprise by the “BYO movement”

I agree with all that. I still think Microsoft has lots of consumer customers though.

>Microsoft was taken by surprise by the “BYO movement”

They did still eventually address the root cause with WSL/WSL2.

More then that. I've worked places where everyone in eng (up to the top) hates Jira.

IT chose it, eng can't seem to object.

> unless someone shows European companies are more profitable

They are. Most US "innovative competitive startups" are losing hundreds of millions, and often billions of dollars a year, for decades.

Europe (thankfully) doesn't want to do that. And "grossly underpaid software developers" enjoy a high quality of life on par with the rest of the population (universal healthcare, extended parental leave, vacations etc.)

> Most US "innovative competitive startups" are losing hundreds of millions, and often billions of dollars a year, for decades.

That isn’t actually true. A few certainly are, and they make great press fodder. But most don’t have that luxury. Actually it’s a burden: you suffer much more dilution.

> That isn’t actually true. A few certainly are, and they make great press fodder

The ones HN like to point at usually are. E.g. basically all of YCombinator companies.

> But most don’t have that luxury.

Thise that don't have the luxury are likely to have salaries more in line with European counterparts.

Your post has a misunderstanding of basic economics. The high salaries of FAANG are not at "the cost of everyone else"

Indeed, it's just typical zero sum bias.

Can you explain how paying software engineers higher salaries means other people need to live "perilous lives". You could just lower your EBIDTA a bit. Software engineers in the US aren't rich because of janitors being underpaid or something.

indeed, if you are gonna be mad at someone having too much of the pie, at least be mad a people who actually do have most of the pie

But computer programmers are over paid and janitors under paid.

It is because if all the computer programmers went away the world would limp on. If all the janitors went away we would be swimming in shit.

No, it is because if all the janitors “went away”, everyone else can pick up the cleaning supplies and continue cleaning.

Supply and demand.

If all of the people who could be janitors went away, there would just be nearly no people. Being a janitor isn’t really a special skill.

Surgeons are over paid, garbage men are under paid.

Except that should you need surgery, you'd care who the surgeon would be, but not who would be handling the bags of medical waste.

> And non-FAANG type IT worker are also paid relatively high at the cost of other workers living perilous lives.

Those workers live perilous lives because cities refuse to build enough housing, not because a few workers have it good.

> those outrageously high FAANG salaries occurs because of

4) Much more generous VC funding leading to more competition between firms for SWEs, as a result of a more risk seeking / risk tolerant culture with stronger work ethic

Also you're ignoring that even SWEs at companies like Walmart Labs make much more than SWEs in Europe.

> SWEs at companies like Walmart Labs make much more than SWEs in Europe.

Good. Find out how Walmart retail workers are doing. And Housing in US is lot cheaper for majority of people.

> ... risk tolerant culture with stronger work ethic

Yup, from Uber to Wework and dozen more food delivery service did awesome job with generous money in creating enduring businesses with strong work ethics.

> Good. Find out how Walmart retail workers are doing.

Plenty of other examples of well paid workers and US SWEs paid more than EU SWEs. UPS teamsters are unionized. AT&T technicians are unionized. Both pay their SWEs more than EU companies by a substantial margin.

> did awesome job with generous money in creating enduring businesses with strong work ethics.

You could name companies which are actually changing how (European) companies operate. Zoom, Slack, SpaceX, Figma, the list goes on and on. None of which were started in Europe.

32 hours a week and 60k EUR/year doesn't cut it in a competitive market, and any founder will tell you that.

> And Housing in US is lot cheaper for majority of people.

Not in any major city. Clearly you don't live in the US.

> Not in any major city. Clearly you don't live in the US.

Huh, lived in upscale DC suburb for many years, now moved to different city. Housing seems lot cheaper here when I checked with some friends based in some London suburbs. Another one with house in Amsterdam almost sounded same price for half size house than I bought. But yeah, no public transport for me and I am like 10 miles from downtown :(.

You're not serious? DC looks pretty expensive for an average worker, from a quick look at apartments.com. Housing is cheap in the South and in rural areas for sure, but any West Coast/northern East Coast city is very expensive. Suburbs used to be cheap but now are not so cheap after COVID+inflation.

Perhaps your expectations are calibrated based on European cities which also have housing shortages, like Berlin and London.

Sad “zero sum” based view that people in low paying areas force themselves to adopt to pretend they aren’t missing out.

“Oh, all of those people making way more must be immoral.”

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