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Comment by cliveowen | Hacker News Reader

"A web and software developer in Africa earns from $10,000 to $20,000 dollars per annum whereas their colleagues in Europe and the US earns at least $100,000 dollars per year."

I don't think this is factually true.

That said, the article really makes you think how much easy we have it in the developed world, yet we always find the time to complain about everything.

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"I don't think this is factually true." Agreed.

I work in a US metropolis. I don't know any web developers making $100,000 per year. I know seasoned software developers and engineers making that, but that is what experience costs. I can't really speak to the author's experience, but often, this downtrodden treatise on salary disparity tends to come from the younger, less-experienced programmers out there, regardless of nationality.

Ultimately, comparing salary to distant economies is fallacious. This is why things like cost of living should be taken into account. As an example, I'm currently earning less than a similarly-experienced software creator in San Francisco, while also spending at least an order of magnitude less on housing. I don't begrudge my SF compatriots their salary.

> Ultimately, comparing salary to distant economies is fallacious. This is why things like cost of living should be taken into account.

Yes, and it's easy to take things for if you aren't used to different cultural contexts. I know Kiwis who look enviously at Californian salaries without really properly understanding how much of that salary difference may go on e.g. healthcare costs that are taken care of from general taxation in New Zealand.

As another data point: I work in a (non-NY, non-CA) US metropolis, am largely a web developer, make $100k per year, and don't know many who don't who aren't absolutely at the beginning of their careers.

3-5 years of experience seems to be enough for 100k as far as I can tell. I don't think his lament is that far off.

edit: I may just be assuming that my peers make more than they do, though. It might be more accurate to say that it seems like most of the peers I meet socially make as much as me or (sometimes much) more, and when I hear about companies that are looking for someone, it's always in the 100k+ range.

In the Midwest, 60K/yr is not uncommon. I know a dev with 7 years experience making ~50K. But the cost of living here is nothing. I spend under 20K/yr and I eat out plenty, live in a 1000 sq ft apartment, etc. My friend making 50K supports his wife and kid easily in the new house they just got. Cost of living is huge factor when taking into account salary and location.

10K in the vast majority of African countries puts you way above average.

> Cost of living is huge factor when taking into account salary and location.

To add to this comment, I live in Silicon Valley, and spend ~20k/yr on rent alone, for a 600 sq. ft. apartment. I'm also not in the worst areas, price-wise. Of course, salaries tend to be higher here.

Something doesn't sound right with this. In Atlanta a developer worth their salt with 7 years of experience is going to be getting into the 80-100K range depending on their skills etc.. The only time it is lower is if they are with a startup and taking equity. Atlanta is also much less expensive the New York, San Fran etc..

Looking at Ruby developer salaries it looks like there is a bit of a different between Atlanta and the midwest, but the spread between New York, Atlanta and the Midwest appears to be a 30k difference from what I could find online. Which skill set does the developer with 7 years of experience have making 50K?

I'm genuinely curious.

He's making 50K by choice. He has a great work/life balance and spends his free time developing indie games. I mainly mentioned him to demonstrate that it's easy to live a great life on 50K here, whereas there is no way he could support his stay-at-home wife and kid on 50K on the Bay at the same standard he does here.

I, in Italy, as a junior software developer, earn €17000/year.

And genuinely I'm not complaining.

Yeah, it's not really accurate for the PIGS , and even in northern Europe, it's not as high as in the States.

Possibly a dumb question, what does PIGS mean?

Maybe "Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain"?

Actually it's PIIGS you add Ireland to the mix and you're right.

I had to look the term up, but my first guess was correct ("Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIGS_(economics)

FYI - Another one I learned while being in Europe is FIGS, which sort of represents the "more economically developed" Euro languages - French, Italian, German, Spanish. This pretty much covers every nation you would need to speak to in order to do legitimate business in Europe. (Scandinavia generally will do business with English speakers)

The Germans are pretty solid English speakers too. More so than the French, Italians, or Spaniards, anyway.

I live in Germany, good luck trying to speak English outside the big cities or people with lower levels of education.

Thankfully it doesn't matter to me as I speak the language fluently.

I was about to flag him for being offensive to Italians ;)

Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain

Doesn't sound like much. What lifestyle do you afford on this? Any improvement prospects?

Better than half of my peers for sure.

Of course you can grow with time, both in salary and in responsibility, for now I'm the classical code monkey but I have an idea for a startup that would like to develop so I will leave the job before the end of the year.

I've read that many "young" Italians live in their parents house at least until their early 30s. Maybe he's in the same situation.

Actually yes, I live with my parents.

I would probably be able to rent a small 1-room flat but for now I prefer to save money.

I'm not sure you know what you're talking about, 17k in Italy as junior-anything, is EXTREMELY well!

I actually missed the junior part :)

I'm getting payed more than that for an internship in france!

You mean 17000 after taxes?

Yes

That's like what, 22K before tax?

Much more - you should consider that under "taxes" in Italy we also consider medical coverage (which is actually part of the taxes) and a retirement plan (which is not actually a tax, but practically it's almost the same). The retirement plan for full time, normal employees, runs at an incredibly high 33% of your salary. In my personal opinion, this is the REAL problem here, more than taxes.

First of, congrats. Out of curiosity, what technologies are you paid to use? Rails/ObjC (ios)?

Junior 17k in Italy? That sounds a little bit wild...

NOTE: Sorry, I understood 17k per MONTH. Scratch the comment (keep the congrats! :-P )

I work in C#, sometime javascript if needed.

For a small IT consulting firm.

Where in Italy?

My girlfriend studies Italian and we might move to Italy for a year or two, hence I'm curious. Significant differences in terms of salary?

A medium city in north Italy. There are significant differences in terms of salary and HUGE differences in term of jobs availability and cost of living.

Some planning is needed if you want to a nice living.

I thought about the north for sure - maybe Genova or Milano

UK, outside of London the average salary is roughly £40k for an experienced programmer ($66k). It does seem to be climbing rapidly though, 3 years ago £35k was more the avg, now I'm getting recruiter emails claiming up to £45k.

So unsurprisingly it's just a sliding scale depending on your local GDP, there's not some universal pay grade.

Which languages? From what I understand you could earn that in South Africa and have a much better standard of living. Given the cost of things in the UK that is crazy....

All of them.

I think part of the problem is class, there's a psychological barrier in the UK that employees shouldn't earn more than managers.

The other part of the lower pay is that we had a lot more people dabble with development in our school system in the 80s/90s because of the BBC programs and the Micro/Archimedes in schools which means we started running short of developers a lot later than other countries.

Both of those are speculation, but that's my belief.

I've seen c#, Ruby, and the odd PhP with a decent salary up North.

C and C++ also has a calling up here, but more specialized to the particular company (think Ubisoft).

Recently saw a posting for a Linux kernel dev.

I haven't really seen calling for more niche languages, but I'm also only looking at the postings that come into my email.

Re the comment about management salary, I have been given that as a reason during salary negotiation as to why they can't pay what I'm asking.

The salaries I've been seeing have risen quite a bit in the past 2 years (after dropping suddenly, recession and all).

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