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Comment by virtualritz | Hacker News Reader

Do they? And what does that money buy you?

I was on a wedding in NYC last summer. One of the guests I talked to was a junior dev. He was making 120k/y. He had to flat share. With 120k?

With 60k/y you do not have to flat share in Berlin.

And this goes the other way around too. When I worked for a multinational in Berlin a few years ago we had lots of Ukrainians that we hired at externals through a subcontracting company in that country.

Quite a few of the better developers applied directly and we happily took them on. The main reason was that they would make twice as much in Berlin.

But that was on paper. After paying taxes in Germany their net salary was less than what they had made net in Ukraine. Most of them went back.

Just saying.

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>One of the guests I talked to was a junior dev. He was making 120k/y. He had to flat share. With 120k?

For one, every city with a lot of career options for young professionals is actively hostile towards housing development, except maybe Seattle.

$120k should be enough to live in apartment anywhere in the US though. However, with how high rents are, it makes much more sense to spend that somewhere else like an early retirement in a much cheaper city.

Seattle is pretty actively hostile to housing development (it seems to be swinging a bit more friendly but it's also a "I'll believe it when I see it.").

    After paying taxes in Germany their net salary was less than what they had made net in Ukraine. Most of them went back.

This is insane. It overlooks quality of life: stable democracy, low perceived corruption (police, gov't, biz, etc.), economic stability, personal safety, food safety, social safety net (physical and mental healthcare, national pension, etc.), (industrial, economic, financial and environmental) regulation, quality of public education, quality of public transportation infrastructure, quality of publicly funded arts, income inequality gap, etc.

Income tax in Ukraine is about 20%. I used to live in Hongkong. Max tax rate was about 15%. Overall quality of life was terrible compared to advanced economies with 2x/3x tax rates. Sure, you might be "rich" on paper, but you pay a lot for privitised versions of these quality of life services. I always say: "If you pay little [in taxes], you get little [in gov't services]."

Another way to think about it: Look at countries that are not corrupt but it is very hard to get rich. Usually, those countries have excellent quality of life.

And maybe they went back for cultural reasons (food, family, education, etc.). I have observed that pattern many times.

I would suggest sticking it out for a year or two to get more experience, then get a job with a company working remote for similar/higher salary and moving to a city with a lower cost of living. The past couple years have really opened the job market for software development nationwide, and in most of this country (US) someone can live relatively comfortably at $120k/yr. Though the cost of food, and current interest rates make it harder.

Why compare NYC and Berlin instead of NYC and London, or Houston and Berlin?

Berlin is a major European tech hub, is it not?

More like wannabe tech hub - salaries reflecting competitiveness.

Reality is SW engineering barely 2x median income in Germany untill you're talking like senior/lead roles. Meanwhile in the US grads start 2x.

Local CTO chat in Berlin has over 200 members and it's just fraction of all companies that work here. I'd say it is indeed a tech hub with very dynamic startup ecosystem, with its own Zalando etc mafias.

Presumably because that's where the junior programmer and the commenter in question are from?

Well, I wouldn't know he had to or he preferred to. In my case I had that salary but I always lived shared house/apartment as long I was single. It wasn't like I had to spend more because I earned more. IMO living in shared accommodation at decent income level can be a lifestyle choice rather than a forced condition.

>I was on a wedding in NYC last summer. One of the guests I talked to was a junior dev. He was making 120k/y. He had to flat share. With 120k?

Ok well the problem there is he's living in the most expensive place he possibly could. Live in the suburbs and you won't have to share a flat on $120k.

That's bad for society because living in NYC uses less real resources (especially energy) and is much less carbon intensive than living in a suburb. The only reason it's more expensive is they're bad at governing themselves.

Much of the property in NYC is just parking money into fixed assets... doesn't even have to be income property. I'm not sure the govt is capable of fixing the issue, short of separating corporations from personal liberties legally (via national legislation) and legislating usage requirements for corporate owned land/property. Both of which would be VERY hard to do legislatively.

If there's no height limits, someone owning an empty condo shouldn't stop other people from living in the same building. They're paying property tax too.

On 120k you can get your own apartment in NYC outside of Manhattan and the expensive parts of Brooklyn easily. Plus that is for a new grad / jr engineer. They’ll be making north of $200k in 5 years most likely.

Yeah but outside of (Manhattan and the expensive parts of Brooklyn) leaves like... not much of NYC? Most new grads do not choose to live in Queens, the Bronx, or Bed-stuy.

Assuming you pay $200/month in healthcare, ~$1800 a month to max out your 401k, your take home pay is about $5,000 after taxes. In Manhattan and the expensive parts of Brooklyn, your own place is realistically a minimum of $2,500, possibly as much as $3,000. Outside of those places, still $2,000.

Source: I literally just went through this process, as a new grad, making slightly above $120k about 3 months ago.

$1,800 is a lot to save relative to your income. 50/30/20 rule says you should be saving <$1,300ish and spending around $3,200 on needs, so maybe like $2700 on housing and $500 on utilities, groceries, etc. $3k / mo for an apartment on $120k salary is completely reasonable.

I went through the same thing and had no problem getting a place of my own.

Plus with junior devs the salary increase is pretty steep in the first few years.

I think the argument “he has to live in a share flat otherwise would need to compromise on maxing out with 401k” isn’t as convincing an argument as the OP thinks.

> outside of (Manhattan and the expensive parts of Brooklyn) leaves like... not much of NYC?

What about the cheaper parts of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx or Staten Island...? Not even to mention Jersey City.

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