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Comment by badpun | Hacker News Reader

> As soon as a company's IT department is practically fully remote, why should they page a German wage for someone who is a face on a screen, when they can pay a fraction for that same face broadcasted from a few hundred kilometers further east or south? German is hardly used in business context here anyway and lower-wage countries within ±3 hours timezones abound.

This has already happened and has resulted in unification of salaries across region (and is probably why the German salaries stayed relatively low in the past decade). In Berlin, a lot of seniors are still making no more than 70k euros a year. People of similar caliber will easily make 60k euros a year in Poland, while having incomparably lower taxes and costs of living.

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If that is the case, why are dev salaries in, for example, Dublin so much higher than Berlin (€115,000 vs €86,000 if Levels.fyi is to be believed)? Both are EU capitals with excellent, well-educated workforces.

Ireland is a special case because its economy revolves around tax avoidance. As a multinational you credit your Irish division with all your European profits in your financials and claim the German operation is making a big loss - moving your tax burden to Ireland where it can be taxed cheaply or moved to tax havens.

This relies on doing certain finishing work in Ireland so that all the companies IP and operations can be credited there. You need your servers there, or shadow managers to sign off sales and investments made in Germany so that the sale can be credited to Ireland. So you need to hire in Dublin specifically.

e.g. but not the totality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprechaun_economics

"in 2019, the IMF estimated 60 per cent of Irish foreign direct investment was "phantom"

My main point here is that you can't use it as an example for this discussion as it is a special case.

You absolutely can use Dublin as an example, because the vast majority of software development jobs are not "finishing work" for engineering performed elsewhere. That's a myopic and absurd claim. Dublin is in itself an engineering hub.

Ireland is certainly a low-tax haven for companies operating in the EU, but that isn't the sole reason there are 50,000 developer roles in the city. Your sources do not support your claim.

Sure, a lot of foreign investment in Ireland has to do with tax loopholes, but you're not answering the question fully here. Tech companies also like Ireland because it has a large, highly-educated fluent English speaking workforce. We also have a high cost of living here, which contributes to the higher salaries. Ireland is not really a special case - London doesn't have the same tax implications yet it has similar (if not higher) tech salaries compared to Dublin.

Because of the additional cost that the employer is imposed on by the state in Germany.

I bet that the total cost per employee is pretty close.

You need to give the actual numbers, otherwise I don't believe it.

The cost is not close when you consider US tech employees who earn almost double what EU and UK employees earn. Corporate taxes in the UK have traditionally been lower than the US and UK companies don't pay for medical insurance. It's simpler and cheaper to launch a startup in the UK compared to the US.

I doubt the situation is much different between US and German or German and Irish companies. It's rare in my experience that companies can explain away salary differences by showing cost differences. Which should shock no one. Most companies seek to minimize labor costs and at best pay close to local market rates. Or even hire in foreign markets to reduce labor costs. If instead they were seeking to share profits you might see the result you're describing.

> Because of the additional cost that the employer is imposed on by the state in Germany.

There are similar employer taxes (at somewhat lower rates, topping out at ~11% vs ~18%), but the total cost of employment in Dublin is much higher than Berlin.

Is it though? https://blog.eurodev.com/costs-of-hiring-european-employees

Also, in Germany you have a lot of holiday (20 minimum, most companies pffer 30), 3 month notice period, 3 years parental leave (per child), pricing these in, I would always expect lower salary in Germany.

With respect, minimum paid leave in Ireland is 30 days (20 days + 10 public holidays). While paid parental leave is not a legal right, all the developer jobs offer sick leave, generous parental leave, notice periods, vesting, etc.

Commercial property, services, etc are far cheaper in Berlin. Hence why it's common to move start-up dev teams from Dublin to Berlin to save money. My own experience is that Berlin is significantly cheaper to employ developers in particular.

Neither your source nor your list come close to justifying a €30k salary difference. And your source already includes your list.

Maybe unrelated but Dublin has an insane housing crisis. You need to offer large incentives for people to come to try to find housing.

I know a company who agreed to pay €5,000/mo for an aparthotel while they find somewhere. The person came from far edges of Europe, not a specialised or very senior role at all

A friend of mine had an offer to move to Dublin. After looking at housing situation and calculating the costs to bring wife and kids (daycare, babysitter etc) along he declined, because his would be salary wouldn't have outweighed comfortable living costs that much.

I don't have direct experience, but IIRC it's much more difficult to fire someone in Germany than in Ireland. Having a concept of at-will employment that is closer to the US version would be a good reason to pay more in Ireland than Germany.

Not sure where you picked up this information, but it's also very difficult to fire an employee in Ireland. About the same level of difficulty as in Germany (once past your probation period, that is).

I know when the Fortune 500 US company I worked for opened their European office they

1) chose Dublin 2) Flew over multiple well paid engineers and paid for them to live there to train the new Dublin team.

So I think because of some of the tax strategies mentioned by others US companies choose Dublin which strongly influences the salaries paid there.

Taxes and access. I believe Dublin is one of the closest EU airports to the eastern seaboard. There is even an Irish airport (not Dublin, Sh... something) with a USA passport check on Irish soil, so once you step on the plane you're officially in the US and once you land it's like taking a Boston-NYC shuttle.

Shannon, in the west.

I listened to an interesting podcast about how the first every Duty Free shop was started in Shannon airport.

https://www.npr.org/2018/05/18/612441091/a-look-at-where-tho...

Dublin also has-preclearance. A live-saver when I was doing a weekly DUB-SFO commute.

They are not "that" high (ok, maybe in total compensation but still)

It's for two main reasons:

- Because American companies have a better sense of what the employees are worth (especially FAANG competition)

- Because Dublin COL is crazy

But outside of FAANG those salaries are not that high

Irish cost of living is much, much higher than Berlin though, so I think overall the Berlin dev would be coming out ahead, at least this was the case until 2021 when everything exploded in terms of cost of living.

I don’t think these salaries are normal in Dublin maybe senior level at Meta would go up to €115k max (I recently talked to a recruiter about a job there and that was the level)

Personally I’m on around €80k and senior but not in Dublin.

6 figures salaries for senior devs in Berlin are quite common, even since a couple years ago.

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