[gregdoesit]

Hi! I'm building this website, but I did not submit this show HN here. I don't think the site is ready for such a submission, it's currently in alpha - very clearly marked. It's not even beta-ready yet!

The data set so far is small - limited to a few countries - and we're working behind the scenes. There are also lots of known issues, and a few data issues.

I'm hoping this site will help people in tech get a better sense on tech compensation outside regions where there's better compensation transparency like the US. I started this site after I saw the impact of my article on the trimodal compensation model had [1], but got many questions on what companies pay "Tier 3" or "Tier 2" packages in various countries.

So, to reiterate: this is heavily WIP, we've got lots of work to do, and we're planning to add more countries, one at a time. Eventually covering all of Europe, and then beyond! One day I hope it will be ready for a proper "Show HN" submission. That day is not today :)

Also, I reached out to dang to remove it from Show HN as it’s not submitted by someone who did the project (and not ready for such a submission)

[1] https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-sala...

[angarg12]

Hi Gergely, thanks for bringing salary transparency to the EU! Some of those numbers make me consider moving back ;)

Since this is early stage here is something for your consideration: so far I'm not very keen on how many of these websites account for equity/RSU in the salary information. For example, during my first 4 years at FAANG, my salary increased 50% due to stock appreciation alone. But the I faced a cliff where my comp went down after the 4th year. How to represent this data accurately?

If I introduce my comp at hire I'll discount how much I truly earned during that period. But if I introduce my data on the 4th year that'll give a distorted view of how much engineers at that level usually make. It will also discount the fact that my salary went down afterwards.

I don't know the answer but it feels difficult to capture with a single number a compensation package with a large and very volatile component.

[RestlessMind]

> How to represent this data accurately?

One useful approximation - look at the grant values of your RSU grants. That is exactly how much your employer values you and is willing to pay you. Appreciation or depreciation of that grant is beyond your direct control.

[jacquesm]

They didn't offer to do another equity round after year 4? I really wonder what their motivation there is, it is almost as though they are incentivizing people to quit at that point.

[angarg12]

They did, but my new grants came in 2021, when stock was at the highest. Stock price more than 3x in the 4 years after I joined. Now my grants are worth less than when they were granted. So I got overpaid for a few years and now I'm getting underpaid. They supplemented me with new grants but those won't kick in until next year. But hey I am still very well paid, I don't think I have much to complain about.

[jacquesm]

Ah I see, ok so then over time it sort of levels out. The big problem is always if the stock is not liquid and you want to get rid of it so if the stock is publicly traded then that's something to see as a plus and then temporary fluctuations don't matter as much (unless they are significant and going down ;) ).

[gregdoesit]

Thanks! This is a tricky one as you already pointed it out.

I’m voting for simplicity: capturing the number in the point of time, and also capturing whether the equity component has appreciated or depreciated.

My bet is that having the date of the submission plus data on whether this was a new offer plus the indicator of how the equity changed will give a good enough sense for the sake of using this data.

[angarg12]

Thanks, I appreciate choosing simplicity.

As a software engineer looking to optimize for comp (among others) I'm interested in how reproducible those numbers are. If someone got lucky and their initial grant is now worth several times more that's great for them, but doesn't tell me much about what to expect for myself. I agree that filtering by new offer works best when comparing offers.

[gdaramouskas]

Clearly I have misunderstood the rules of Show HN and for that I am sorry.

The website was shared to me some time ago, and I have actively used the information to yield a better TC; which worked flawlessly. And I wanted to share this with the community, by using the Show HN. Apparently things don't work that way here.

Again very sorry for the wrong submission and thank you for all the work that you have done.

[OJFord]

Then it should not be 'Show HN', presumably OP just didn't realise, but that's for showing one's own work, not someone else's.

[gregdoesit]

Yes, how can we take it off? I’ve sent an email to dang.

[haspok]

Hi Gergo, thanks for this, and keep up the good work! It blows my mind that nothing like this exists yet that is primarily focused on the EU - tech still seems to be biased towards the US. The Tier-info is also exceedingly helpful (for those of us sad souls who are starting out in a new country and have limited information and no connections...).

I was also wondering how you are planning to cover remote jobs, because it further complicates things - maybe info about average cost of living per country would be useful. Or info about taxation. Etc.

(So for example I could see that if I move to my farm in Portugal I won't need to worry about finding a remote job which only pays €2K per month, as the cost of living there is so much lower than anywhere else in Europe.)

Maybe you could have a separate country entry for remote jobs, as long as they are available within the EU... I hope I'm banging on open doors here :)

[hiptobecubic]

The problem with focusing on CoL as an "excuse" for low pay is that people really overemphasize how independent they really are from the world economy. It all seems like it works out evenly until you realize that if you ever move or take a vacation, your years of hard work amount to very little.

[__derek__]

Why build something new rather than encourage folks to submit on levels.fyi? There's already data for EU-based roles.[1]

[1]: https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html?track=Software%20Engineer&c...

[gregdoesit]

An interesting question here, on Hacker News.

Why did Paul Graham build Hacker News rather than encourage the use of Digg? It already had submissions of similar types that Hacker News started with. I assume it was because things were missing off Digg that Hacker News built, and the two sites ended up serving different audiences in the end.

Why build something new rather than encourage using existing services?

Because many of us have this entrepreneurial sprit to build, and do it the way we think is a good approach, filling in for gaps on the market. Time and people then decides if it was worth it.

The most obvious answer: TechPays caters for countries not present on eg levels.fyi - see how there are no data points for eg Estonia, Hungary, Belgium etc.

Then, this site is built with an anonymous-first mindset and offers additional context on data points - like whether or not equity is liquid - which I’ve not seen before, and has localization like being able to search for The Randstad in the Netherlands.

While there is data on levels.fyi, I expect this site to get significantly more data for European countries as it’s the main focus of it. Eg it already the has the most data for the Netherlands across any data source online - more than 2,000 entries -, and I have not promoted the site, this came from running in stealth. Same with eg Hungary which just launched but it’s hard to fine any data on this country - and impossible to submit data on most similar sites for it.

https://techpays.com/europe/netherlands

[__derek__]

Building a brand is a fine answer, but this is incorrect:

> The most obvious answer: TechPays caters for countries not present on eg levels.fyi - see how there are no data points for eg Estonia, Hungary, Belgium etc.

All three of those countries have submissions on levels.fyi.[1][2][3]

[1] Estonia: https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html?track=Software%20Engineer&c...

[2]: Hungary: https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html?track=Software%20Engineer&c...

[3]: Belgium: https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html?track=Software%20Engineer&c...

[gregdoesit]

I had no idea. Always assumed it was limited to these countries listed here: https://www.levels.fyi/locations/

The point stands that I’m building an Europe-focused site, being a former hiring manager based here. Eg in Hungary, the compensation data is in HUF for most companies with local contracts. On TechPays, this information is in HUF. On levels, it seems to be in USD.

It’s a different site. I’m building it because I’d like to have something with more details on this market and because it’s a very fun side project and an excuse to keep coding.

[drakonka]

I am glad that you are building this. Often websites are built for a US market and then try to shoehorn EU usage into it. Sometimes that works, but aside from things like currency issues you also often end up with a user base/community that is just primarily interested in the US, with very little activity around other locations. I think it would be great to have this kind of thing specifically tailored to an EU community.

[__derek__]

Localized currencies is very useful! It seems like such an obvious thing, and yet.

[dan-robertson]

Wasn’t hacker news originally ‘startup news’ and mostly around to promote discussion around startups that might help out the companies yc was investing in and help yc get more companies to invest in? And wasn’t partly it was to prove pg’s new lisp dialect?

Today it’s not so clear to me that/why it’s valuable to yc but I’m glad they find the site and its moderation.

[ksdnjweusdnkl21]

I welcome any competition on the space.

Edited out: Levels is just full of dark patterns.

[zuhayeer]

Hey, one of the founders of Levels.fyi here, anything in particular that you didn’t like that we can look into?

[ksdnjweusdnkl21]

Sorry I just realized I confused your website with glassdoor. I just checked out levels and it seems awesome in comparison. What I like in particular is that I do not need to login, which is why I cannot use glassdoor.

[jacquesm]

You could start by not threadjacking this posting.