[octagonal]

I was lucky enough to experience a 2 year long project in which everything that went wrong was blamed on the developers. Project managers breathing down your neck, feeling so pressured you barely dare take a bathroom break, the whole shebang.

Quit working for them and now I'm a freelance dev.

They asked me to get back on the project and I said fine, that'll be €700/day. After some grumbling they realized they had no other option so they agreed.

The project is still failing due to bad management but I no longer care. I believe to now feel the same sense of calm around chaos and failure like you do.

A lot of developers have real mental scars from bad projects like this, because they get duped into thinking it's a matter of personal pride to see it trough.

It's not. Your primary concern should always be personal health.

[urthor]

700 a day???

Why did you undercharge by so much.

I know the EU dev market isn't great but those are rookie numbers for "danger money."

Three of the "retired, then handed enough money to unretire" COBAL guys at my old place were doing 2500 a day.

[sandos]

Well, cobol is special of course. The more specialized you are... But for a generic c++, java or c# or web dev I would say you can't charge specialist money at all in the EU.

[urthor]

Well it's a negotiation. Those guys succeeded at asking for 2500, but you would start at a number they are guaranteed to say no to, and work your way down.

Like the going rate for a senior here is 900, and a good senior is 1200+. So your starting offer would be at least 1800, probably 2000s to round it up.

Which is the high end of your zone of possible agreement (900-1200) plus 50% for danger money, plus a few hundred to round it up to 2k.

Then you see what happens when you throw out the big number.

[xvector]

This, always throw out a big number. Sometimes they'll just bite and not negotiate (or barely negotiate) down.

[Jolter]

Where do you live that 700€ a DAY is low pay? It’s, that’s MORE than 700$ a day, not less.

Consider that most parts of the world have lower cost of living than the Bay Area.

[alistairSH]

That’s roughly equivalent to 120,000 Euro/year once normalized for taxes (~50% for self-employed, ~30% for employees).

I have no idea what typical salaries are in the EU, but that’s on the low end of mid-career for much of the US.

[nickkell]

It would be the top range (if at all possible) for a developer working as a permanent employee. Usually the only way to make this kind of money is to go self-employed

[KronisLV]

Heh, as a salaried dev who gets 1700 - 1800 Euros per month (so around 90 Euros per day) after taxes in Latvia, some of the numbers in this thread are pretty sobering, even if you take the costs of being self employed or taxes into account.

If you take the run of the mill Java dev salary here, the net value is somewhere between 900 - 3000 Euros or so, across all levels of seniority [1]. Really makes one consider the benefits of working for companies in other countries, assuming that there are no cultural or time zone issues that cannot be dealt with.

Or, you know, to acquire skills that are high in demand but relatively low in supply.

[1] - https://www.algas.lv/en/salaryinfo/information-technology/ja...

[linedash]

There are some great remote work opportunities these days. It might be worth starting to look at other European countries who are hiring.

Take Ireland for example. You're not going to be making US level money but I'd say you could easily double what you're making now and there's the potential to go much higher than that.

[taneq]

Is it low-mid for "much of the US" or for much of the Silicon Valley venture crowd?

[zzbzq]

From the Stackoverflow survey, it would be below the national average (the mean), but I don't think there's actually many regions that pay the national average. SV pays more and most of the rest pays less.

[taneq]

I'd be interested to see how it compared with the median pay.

[urthor]

Keep in mind consultants don't get 401K plans or many other things, AND they have to save about 15-20% of their income as "in between jobs" money, in case they don't line work up.

If you earn 30% more than a salaried employee you are barely breaking even most of the time.

[Fiahil]

Hold on, 700€ x 215 days worked (you don't count vacation time when freelance) = 150 500. Now, give it half to the taxman, and you're left with 75 250€ / year.

And that's without the expenses, extra healthcare coverage, insurance etc.

So pretty average when you considering that junior developer salaries are within this reach in EU capitals.

[dunefox]

> junior developer salaries are within this reach in EU capitals.

Junior developers make 75.000€ after taxes? They make about 50 - 60.000€ BEFORE taxes.

[vshade]

Even less depending on the capital, 60k before taxes is more of a senior level in the Iberian peninsula.

[alistairSH]

215 / 5 = 43 weeks of work. 9 weeks vacation?

I used 4 weeks, and by my experience that's generous (not talking about paid leave - all the freelancers I know are workaholics and don't take much leave, but maybe that's a US thing).

5*48 = 240 days, which works out to around 84000 EUR. Or 120,000 EUR - 30%.

Regardless, 700 EUR/day seems in the ball-park for a generic all-around developer.

[AitchEmArsey]

Agreed. Some UK numbers for reference:

£500/day is the absolute minimum for developer/DevOps outside London, £600/day much more common and including the cheap end for London. Senior is more often £800/day. You don't see values above that advertised, but people do obviously negotiate higher for specialist work; I have seen a mainframe developer charging £1500/day (on the low end of his range). Anything higher than that has always been a large consultancy rather than a freelancer. In my specialist niche I'd be asking for £1500/day top-end, expecting £800-1200 with negotiation depending on flexibility.

[nickkell]

Even allowing that junior salaries reach this high (that's in the range for a senior in Berlin at least), that would be the PRE-TAX figure. Remove 40% (again, approximate taxes in Berlin, potentially more if you pay the "church" tax) and you've got 45150€, a significant difference.

[Fiahil]

Yes, of course, but everyone has to pay income, housing and a few other taxes regardless of employment status.

[Fiahil]

600EUR is a base rate for a freelancer in France. Remember, half of it goes to taxes.

[tibbetts]

I prefer to be paid based on how valuable my work is to the employer, not the cost of living wherever I happen to be or even my personal financial needs.

[Jolter]

Sure, so do I, but when I tell my manager I'm worth X amount, he'll say that's just not where local salaries are at for my job category and responsibility.

Implying that other developers in my area are available for less than I ask.

I mean, if a person is able to extract 700€ per day, kudos to them but that's still above the 90th percentile of senior developers in Europe.

[taneq]

What do other companies say? "Nah you're not" is a pretty standard response to "I'm worth more than this" but consider the source. For some reason many companies would far rather let a good employee leave than raise their pay to market rate.

[tomrod]

> Implying that other developers in my area are available for less than I ask.

They can attempt to prove it.

[User23]

I had a buddy do exactly that. His manager told him he was already paid above market. Inside a month he showed her that she was wrong and we had a gaping hole to fill in the team.

[throwaway22032]

Standard day rate for any software contractor in London at the low end four years ago.

Probably higher now.

[Jolter]

London being one of the highest-payed places in Europe, of course.

[benhurmarcel]

To give a point of reference, an employed senior engineer in mechanical/aerospace in western Europe makes about 250-300€/day, before taxes. So 175-200€/day after taxes.

[Fiahil]

I second this, I know some French freelancers billing 3500 EUR per day for high-level, customer-facing, devops work.

The least you could do for "danger money" is 1200 EUR a day (and limit yourself to 4 days a week, but that's another story).

[mattbee]

I know! I did a sharp I take of breath at that number too!

[arendtio]

It depends on the country/region. In eastern Europe 700€ is okay, in western Europe it is rather cheap.

[nickkell]

Especially if they were contacted directly and not having to pay an additional cut to a recruiter/agency

[rehash3]

Amazon's orientation and internal culture is structured to make one think that it is a matter of personal pride and worth and if you do not align you are worthless.. it is a mind F** for fresh college hires.. I like to think Amazon is the tech industries' Pedo***..

[hughrr]

Spot on. Another relative point to note is that I learned pride should be ranked well below dignity.