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Comment by Justsignedup | Hacker News Reader

I pay for jet brains platform yearly and it is worth every single penny many times over.

The eye rolls I get. Bro. You're literally getting paid 150k at a minimum, you can she'll out 100 dollars a year.

European Rails dev here, working for a startup with a cozy atmosphere, friendly team, not job hopping or playing the Leetcode and 100+ interviews game, I’m looking at something like $50k, which is very nice in my country, but sometimes the numbers getting thrown around here make me feel kind of uncomfortable.

Take a US salary and halve it to compare it to an EU one

https://expatriates.stackexchange.com/questions/538/how-to-m...

EU is a collection of countries / regions with higher / lower pay. 50K US can go far in eastern europe but dry up quickly in Paris, France.

Same with US being a collection of states with vastly varying tech salaries.

50k does not go far in EE unless you mean bumfuck nowhere.

Depends what you mean by "far". For me, someone who grew up in a large family with a single income much smaller than that, yes it does.

The average (take-home) pay in the Czech Republic is a little over $18k. A little more in Prague, but $50k still puts you firmly above most of your friends and family.

We are comparing QOL for ICTs not average people.

I live in Budapest, my salary is around $53K. My wife doesn't work (although she does get maternity benefits which come to around 650USD/mo.

I live a comfortable life. I rent a flat in the city centre which is big enough for me, my wife, and my son. We eat out. We travel abroad about once per quarter (UK, Switzerland mostly). I wouldn't call Budapest 'bumfuck nowhere', and I don't think there are many significant compromises on my quality of life. The one concession I would make is that we don't have a car, it's just unnecessary.

We could easily get by on my salary alone just by reducing the frequency of our travels to three times a year, but as my family lives outside Hungary, we don't. There aren't many folks anywhere in the world who could say that they can support a family on a single income.

I miss Budapest. How would you say the business environment and software business or startup scene in Budapest?

Honestly, I wouldn’t know. I work in one of the big SSCs here, and I’m not really involved in the software startup scene here.

I'd imagine it being fairly sad. I live in the Czech republic and it's a lively scene, but just leagues away from a place like London or SV. Small country, bubble universe effect, small thinking, for the most part. Many founders aim at the local market, which is tiny, because they can't imagine competing with western companies (when they totally could).

50k will do you quite well in Warsaw, as well as most other Polish cities. Even more so outside of the large cities.

Disagree. 50k is barely getting by if you dont own an apartment in Warsaw.

So what’s your experience with living in Warsaw, Lisbon or Prague? The locals don’t seem to agree with you.

That is a great salary in Portugal.

Not for Lisbon.

50k in Spain put you well beyond the median salary[0]

[0]https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/5139571/0/salario-medio-esp...

Spain is not EE.

50k will get you a great life in Prague, which is hardly bumfuck nowhere

No It won't. Prague real estate is expensive and 50k is barely middle class for ICT.

Sorry but it sounds like “gets you far” to you means nothing less than “you can buy the whole town”. $50k is roughly two times the average salary in Prague. If you make twice as much as most normal people, you’re “getting far” by definition. Yes, real estate is expensive in Prague, that I agree with.

Thank you for sharing that. It is too easy to forget about the economic disparities in the world. There are talented developers all over the world making vastly different salaries for the same quality of work.

Sorry :(

In the US, especially in NY, 120k or so is starting salary at a startup. Maybe 110k at some. Normal pay for a Sr engineer is 170k -> 220k.

Now if we go into FAANG numbers, double or tripple that as total comp.

But to be fair, there's a lot that your society gives you that we don't get. I currently pay 2k a month for health insurance for myself and my daughter, 3k for me, daughter, and fiance. Companies do better with insurance as they get better. And even with insurance we often pay for many services out of pocket. I pay 2.6k for an apartment and it _IS CHEAP_ because I live an hour away from manhattan, most people pay 4-5k a month for a 1 bedroom, or room with many people.

Also where I live a car is not mandatory but incredibly convenient. Which means another 166/mo for insurance + whatever you pay for the car which can easily end up in the $1000 a month for the car (because parking is not great)

The pay is high, but the cost is high too, it just makes certain things cheap by comparison.

Brutal. To compare: I live in the Czech capital, in a 45 sq.m. apartment in a quiet, green neighborhood, the rent is $920, healthcare is free, my expensive car insurance (cheap car but every-checkbox-checked insurance) and parking is < $100 a month.

$50k can provide for a small family here, but cars and MacBooks are much more expensive for us.

"150k at a minimum"

not to say you shouldn't support great companies but the average programmer salary isn't 150k. it's probably not even half that.

https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/computer-programm...

Especially not outside of the US and/or FAANG. I know of only one programmer making even close to 150k in Europe unless counting Google.

As a programmer for a bank, I'm in the ballpark after benefits/yearly bonus (humble brag) but having been on the lookout for remote work in my line of specialty, for me to get a good remote position I will probably have to take a pay/benefits cut. (Long commute before covid. remote during. "hybrid" after. Looking to get back to no commute with rising prices of everything)

Programmers with experience do make a good living but FAANG style jobs vastly skew what people think the average programmer makes. Just like unicorn companies make people forget that the vast majority of companies fail.

> You're literally getting paid 150k at a minimum

There's more of the world than SV. Most people outside of those areas do not make that much or even close to it.

I sometimes forgot that there even are programmers anywhere in the world that are making 150k; maybe one day I will fly to the States just to meet you guys.

Some of the comments on HN have a vibe of "Let them eat cake" - they are out of touch with how most of us plebs in the rest of the world are living.

And then I realize that the rich influence all the decision making that affects the poor - and it scares me.

(BTW: I assume this number is yearly; $12.5K/mo. Which is multiple times the average dev pay out where I live. Even in the States, I assume no one pulls $150K/monthly, amiright?)

In new york with even a remotely small amount of looking for seed startups, an engineer with 1 year of experience can easily get 120k. 150k would be maybe 4 years of experience. As a senior engineer you can get 170-220k easily at a series A startup.

This number is doubled or trippled for one of the big boys because of directly tradable equity.

Get me a job that pays 150k and I'll pay for your Jetbrains

It really depends on the app, I'm in Jet Brains apps a lot so it makes sense.

I would like a nice Git GUI, but GitKraken pricing is nonsense. I've settled with Fork, but I would prefer it if there was a native Linux version.

> You're literally getting paid 150k at a minimum

Where? This website can be so frustrating with all the silicon valley privileged richy riches.

You understand that 150k is a massive salary?

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