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Comment by raverbashing | Hacker News Reader

"Comparable to east-european wages."

I suspect you don't know what you are talking about.

If it was really comparable to E-E wages, there wouldn't be a lot of Eastern Europeans working there (and yes, there are, I've seen it)

For a tech-startup job you can bet on 30k€ per year minimum. And cost of live in Berlin is still cheap, €1k per month gives you a very comfortable living.

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They are comparable.

Bulgaria/Romania: You can easily get 1500-2500 Euro gross with a few years of XP. Taxes and cost of living are lower too.

Ukraine: An acquaintance of mine, who's sold a few startups, didn't have success there, because experienced people wouldn't work for less than 4k Euro. Developers get paid a lot in the big cities.

Russia: Crazy high wages in Moscow/St.Petersburg, though cost of living is insane too.

Don't know much about other countries, but the situation is definitely comparable.

Ah good.

However there are still some regions not so fortunate, like Bielorussia

Never, ever think about doing any of your startup business in Belarus. It is _not_ part of the common market and your operation can be annihilated by the (still autocratic) state at a whim.

If you find good people from Belarus (which undoubtetly there are), try to get them visa to come to where you are.

From the perspective of US and London, net EE wages and Berlin wages are actually within epsilon. Getting awesome people easily for EUR 30-50k, with fairly simple business practices, vs. mediocre people for USD 100-200k, is a huge win; going from EUR 30k to...EUR 10k(?) with a lot more BS to deal with isn't a net improvement.

that might have been true a few years ago, but not sure it's the case anymore. Rent is going up a lot, you won't find a place for less than 700-800 EUR anywhere...

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