[ingvul]

The average salary for a Software Engineer is $107K per year in United States.

The average salary for a Software Engineer is $66K per year in Germany (~61% less).

Source: indeed and payscale.

I always find a bit funny when US devs in HN talk about getting salaries above $200K/year... when the average US dev gets half of that. (I find it funny because everybody here thinks we are above the average dev level and can get a job at Facebook/Google/Amazon/etc... which is statistically incorrect).

[jldugger]

Well, IDK where I fit on the skill curve but... my total comp is personally well above that line. There's definitely a bi-modal effect with tech companies issuing RSUs that appreciate dramatically vs. random insurance company or telco.

[bcrosby95]

> RSUs that appreciate dramatically

Well, yeah, luck certainly can factor in. There was a year I made around 1.35 million in total comp due to luck like this. Nowadays I mostly make around 150k.

[ergocoder]

It feels more like you choose the job you like because you are already rich.

I'm sure you can join one of the FAANGs and get, at least, $300k/year easily.

If I have a few millions in my bank, I'd definitely join an interesting startup with no regard to compensation.

1.3m/year definitely has some luck involved. 500k/year is probably less luck. Just joined one of the hot tech companies and stay for 4 years. You have to be unlucky to not get to 500k/year.

[thecleaner]

Wrong math. 61 percent of the US average. Not 61 percent less.

[ergocoder]

I'm talking more about the possibility, not average.

It's much easier to achieve 500k/year in Bay Area than in Europe.

500k/year can be achieved by being a senior engineer at one of the successful companies for a few years. The stock growth should take care of that, easily. There are probably like 100 of successful companies in Bay Area between 2010 to 2020.

There are thousands of people achieving this in Bay Area.

In Europe, the base salary is lower. The stock comp is also lower. If you are a regular IC, these 2 always go together. You would need a much higher stock growth. This level of compensation is rarely heard of that it seems impossible.

[2rsf]

> There are thousands of people achieving this in Bay Area.

thousands ? out of how many ? seems like a tiny fraction

[ergocoder]

Sure, but it's more attainable/possible when compared to other occupations, say, doctors, lawyers, footballers, and etc.

Way more attainable.

[smabie]

Who says everyone here can't get a job paying 300k or whatever? Why is that statistically incorrect? Moreover, median != mean due to lefthand skew of the salary distribution of developers. Also probably excess kurtosis as well.

[sdevonoes]

I guess they mean that:

- number of software engineers in the US: X - number of software engineers in HN: Y - number of software engineers working for FAANG-like companies: N

Where X >>>> Y >> N. So, yes, I also think that everyone here can't get a job paying 300K or higher not because we are not skilled enough but by simple math.