[mindondrugs]

> this salary wouldn't attract strong talent even in medium cost-of-living countries (like portugal/spain).

median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year[1], so 50-80k would easily place them in the upper 10% of the scale.

I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are.

[1] https://www.payscale.com/research/ES/Job=Software_Developer/...

[MontyCarloHall]

>I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are.

Or maybe people everywhere else need to really reflect on how underpaid they are. It’s not like the revenue of tech companies is lower outside of the US, so why isn’t more of it ending up in developers’ pockets, where it should go?

[jacquesm]

> It’s not like the revenue of tech companies is lower outside of the US

It actually is much lower.

That doesn't mean that developers aren't underpaid, but there definitely is a huge difference between a company serving the US market from inside the United States and one in Europe. In general the fraction of revenue that goes towards salaries is a fairly substantial chunk of the books of a typical company, but for a scalable proposition that is entirely virtual there is an advantage if your home market is unified in language and currency. And it also is an advantage if you have easy access to large amounts of capital.

Success breeds success and creaming off some of the $ of that success is what causes developer salaries to be what they are where they are: it's based on competition for talent mostly. And that's precisely why some of these large companies were trying to collude to depress the salaries as much as they could.

[marginalia_nu]

> It’s not like the revenue of tech companies is lower outside of the US, so why isn’t more of it ending up in developers’ pockets, where it should go?

What you're forgetting is that taxes differ quite a lot from country to country. That, and cost of living is a factor too. If food and housing costs half as much, then even though you're paid less, you're not really poorer for it.

I think many American developers are kind of blind to how absurdly expensive California housing is.

[RestlessMind]

From what I read on the internets, housing is also absurdly expensive in London, Lisbon, NYC, Toronto, Vancouver, Shanghai etc. Adjusting for the local level of salaries of course. So not sure what your point is?

[throwawayadvsec]

Absurd compared to the local living wages, not compared to SF

[1attice]

Comparable to SF, but unsupported by the easy money.

[908B64B197]

> by the easy money.

A lot of this completely self-imposed (and very much by design) to prop-up real estate because there's no other industry to support the economy.

Vancouver is a prime example: it's extremely easy (compared to the US) for foreigners to purchase assets (even with questionable sources of incomes that wouldn't pass the higher scrutiny of USCIS) and for owners to collude into restricting the supply. They are happy since their investment appears to grow in value (they can get out of the game and cash-in if another foreigner decides to park his money into these assets) and the government is happy since a lot of people's retirements are tied to their home value and it gives the impression the economy is growing.

[midoridensha]

I think most Americans are kind of blind to how absurdly expensive American housing, and the entire American lifestyle, is. It's not just housing, it's everything: healthcare, restaurant food, car culture, heating/cooling/lawn care for the enormous houses, I could go on and on.

[roland35]

I don't think anyone is blind to how expensive SF real estate is?? I mean at least every single person I know who lives there talks about it!

[yosefjaved1]

I would also add the strength of the dollar. If the dollar appreciates to the value of the local country's currency, then the revenue earned from there using the local currency for pricing and transacting begins to be worth less.

[marginalia_nu]

If it was true, wouldn't we expect Japanese developers to be paid 0.7% as much as American developers?

[aiunboxed]

I think it is not as simple as that. There is cost of living and demand supply levers as well.

There is a huge salary gap between usa and Canada as well.

[908B64B197]

> There is a huge salary gap between usa and Canada as well.

Not in my experience. At least not for SV-Caliber talent.

Something you have to keep in mind is that there are two parallel markets over there: SV caliber developers and the rest. The former won't have any issue getting a job in the US (takes maybe a week for a talented engineer to get one). Therefore, comp has to be priced appropriately. The later can't -and likely won't ever be able to- secure a US visa, mostly due to skills. A lot of them are immigrants to Canada themselves (there's a reason they immigrated to Canada, it's way easier and the quotas are close to 10x per capita compared to the US). Some companies leverage this and have floors of international devs they park in Canada for a fraction of their US counterpart through a subsidiary.

[KptMarchewa]

Most of what comes as "SV caliber" is mediocre devs.

There are just (way) more of them in Bay Area than anywhere in the world and they know right buzzwords.

[908B64B197]

> Most of what comes as "SV caliber" is mediocre devs.

That's an interesting statement. I assume the whole tech ecosystem and market is completely irrational since it seems to price these developer so much higher than their real worth? Where would one need to go to find non-mediocre devs who know more than just "the buzzwords"?

[pcthrowaway]

> I assume the whole tech ecosystem and market is completely irrational since it seems to price these developer so much higher than their real worth?

You somehow consider this less likely than the alternative where all less-than-leet-tier devs have decided to stay out of SV and therefore, the inflated salaries for everyone there are actually rational?

[oezi]

I think many Europeans can't imagine moving to the US (higher work load, less social safety, higher violence) and employers well know it and can keep salaries depressed.

[plandis]

In my experience the social safety net doesn’t really matter for highly skilled workers making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. In terms of violence you’re statistically unlikely to be the victim of violent crime in the US as an upper class white collar worker.

[oceanplexian]

It's unfair, but I'm of the opinion US healthcare is much better if you have the means to pay for it.

Look at all the top surgeons and hospitals in the world for everything from neurosurgery to cancer treatment. They're all in the United States. The median level of care might be much better in Europe but they are behind when it comes to cutting edge treatments, rare diseases, and so on.

[ryan-c]

I'm an American living in the UK, and I've had to do medical tourism to the US. What I needed wasn't available outside the US at any price.

[codegeek]

Yes. American health "care" is the best. Problem is with the "administration" that for basic stuff, there is crazy price gouging and no free market competition. It is ridiculous that you have to involve insurance in every visit to a doctor AND it's tied to your employer being able to provide something.

[janosdebugs]

It doesn't matter until it ends up mattering. Contracting an illness that prevents you from working and needs medical supervision can be life-ruining if your social security, etc. is tied to your employment.

[mrkstu]

Most corps carry long term disability insurance- I’d make more on that than an equivalent Euro paying job.

[adamckay]

Now add in vacation and sick days, as well as the worker protections for things such as layoffs.

[hoffs]

More like people just don't want to leave their life behind... Those listed things are like the bottom of the reasons

[jessekv]

On the other hand, I know dozens of people that left their life and higher salaries in the US behind to come to the EU for those stated reasons.

[908B64B197]

From my observation, the ratio of American Engineers coming to Europe vs Europeans Engineers coming to America is at least 1:10, if not more.

And most of the expats I know who did it seemed to be working for SV companies. So they didn't leave the higher salary behind.

[jessekv]

Yes, it's definitely more than 1:10 overall. But those reasons to leave the US (unhealthy work load, less social safety, higher violence) are at the top of many people's minds when they move to Europe.

[olyjohn]

Dozens even!

[jessekv]

:D

[mettamage]

I can’t just move to the US. I’ve applied around 100 times and only brilliant.org replied and gave me an interview. All the other companies stated that Europeans don’t have permission to work in the US (and it wasn’t stated anywhere)

[june_twenty]

I would move to the USA if I could. As a European is that possible - e.g. don't you need a green card?

[cpach]

AFAIK the easiest way is to start working in EU for a company that has offices in US. Then you can transfer.

[myth2018]

> Or maybe people everywhere else need to really reflect on how underpaid they are.

You must consider currency exchange rates too. In my country, at the current rates, 80k US$/year puts one above many top executives, doctors and other prestigious jobs. Not bad at all for a remote position in software development.

[908B64B197]

> 80k US$/year puts one above many top executives, doctors and other prestigious jobs. Not bad at all for a remote position in software development.

The real question is: Who is creating the most value here? The top executive at a local company? The local doctor or the software engineer shipping products in markets around the world?

It's unclear whether or not the local doctor's qualifications would even be recognized in the US, yet the remote software engineer's work is making money there and countless other high-value markets as we speak.

[ddorian43]

This is the correct answer.

If you really want to make it big in nearly whatever profession, you have to go america. All other countries are severely underpaid. (I don't care about Switzerland/similarities because it's just 3M people).

[hiroman]

8.7M people to be precise :-)

[paddim8]

Western Europe has something called income equality, you should try it some time. Or well, more or it.

A cashier in Sweden earns a very liveable wage, quite close to the average wage, while a programmer earns maybe 75% more than that, if not twice as much. That's already a significant difference. I'm a student and get 1200€ a month (not only is university free, we also get paid to study). With this, I have my own apartment with my own kitchen and all and am still able to save 500 a month. When I start working and get an average salary (the starting salary for programmers is about the same as the average salary for the entire population), I will spend a bit more, but still probably have 1-1.5k€ left every month. That is a lot. Then after some years, that would increase by a thousand or so. Why should I expect more money than that? I don't deserve more than that.

Housing is expensive here too, but not nearly as bad as in the US, so we simply don't need as high salaries. In Sweden, things like preschools are also heavily subsidized and university completely free, which is beneficial if you have children.

[rchaud]

The OP was talking about startup roles. At that stage there is little revenue to speak of, and the salaries on offer are going to correspond to how much financing they were able to obtain.

VC funding of software startups in the US easily dwarves whatever is being offered in other parts of the world.

[benhurmarcel]

Your salary don't depend on revenue, but on how much it would cost to replace you.

[umanwizard]

The vast majority of countries are neoliberal/capitalist so that’s simply not how it works. Your pay is a function of the market price for your talents, not of how much your boss is making.

[MontyCarloHall]

So, ironically, in that regard, the US tech labor market is far more socialist than its European counterpart.

[umanwizard]

Not really. They are both neoliberal, just with different market conditions.

[MontyCarloHall]

Workers getting a large share of a company’s revenue, much of which is in the form of fractional ownership of the company sure sounds quasi-socialist to me! It doesn’t matter that market conditions led to this compensation scheme (as opposed to direct political intervention); what matters is the end result.

[s1artibartfast]

That's not what the terms socialism and capitalism mean. They describe the process, not end result.

You can have full blown worker coops in the capitalist system, the question is if they are state mandated or not.

The definition of socialism isn't any sytem with a good outcome for workers.

[barnabee]

It should go to showing fewer ads

[danwee]

> median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year[1], so 50-80k would easily place them in the upper 10% of the scale.

That's right and wrong and the same time. If we are talking about non-junior positions: Developers in Spain who earn <= $30K/year are not going to apply for positions in American (and non Spanish) companies because they probably don't know they can do so. They are not in the "global" market, they do not read HN, they work either for consultancy companies or agencies (hence the low salaries). They usually don't work for product companies. They may not even speak enough English.

On the other hand, non-junior Spanish Developers who earn more than $30K/year do so because they know their value. They speak good enough English. They work for product companies (either unknown or globally well-known ones) and hence their salaries are higher than the median salary advertised in the link you provided. These developers can earn $80K/year in Spain (either for an Spanish company or remotely for an EU company), so if they decide to work for an American company (and this means usually a) weird working hours because of timezone differences, b) perhaps working as a contractor instead of as an employee), they definitely know that $50K-$80K/year is very low.

So, yeah, for the Spanish developers that American companies can hire, that salary is low.

[gamesbrainiac]

Those figures are wrong to be honest. Most senior folks in Spain don't work for Spanish companies in general; they work for EU companies that pay more. Plenty of senior folks in Spain making $100k+. In Barcelona, you can make north of $70K easy; even for non-senior devs.

I agree with OP. The salary is way too low for a senior European developer to consider because taking a US job means that there are no employment protections that you'd usually get; employment is at will for contractors.

Source: I live in the EU.

[shrikant]

Yeah Spain salaries aren't great for devs even by the UK's standards, but GP's numbers seem way too low.

About 4 years back I didn't bother proceeding with a couple of (well, two) mid-level engineering positions based out of Barcelona because they paid too low (about €55,000) compared to what I could get in the UK for an equivalent role. One of them was for King, who was still raking it in then, and I can't remember the other organisation.

Still less than what my expectations had been calibrated for, but way more than what GP is implying!

[mmarq]

Today a dev in Barcelona makes as much as a dev in London or slightly less. Considering the cost of living and the quality of life, the dev in Barcelona gets much much more.

Among my friends and acquaintances, I’m currently witnessing an exodus from the UK, with people moving to Spain, France, the Netherlands and Germany.

[shrikant]

Agreed on all points you make btw. If I had to contend with the rental market, and didn't already have much of a senior-ish network here in London which is currently keeping my pay well above what I can get anyplace else in the world (except the US), I'd be upping sticks as well.

[littlecranky67]

> Most senior folks in Spain don't work for Spanish companies in general; they work for EU companies that pay more.

I doubt that statement. As a German living in Spain since the pandemic, I dealt with this and my social bubble is full of tech expats dealing with this, too. Living in one EU country and working remotely as an employee for another one, is almost legally impossible, and full of unnecessary hurdles for both employer and employee. Everyone of top-talent grade I know who does this, is basically either self-employed (as I am) or operates a "legal construct" such as having empty "mailbox flats" in the country they work for (breaking all sorts of laws by doing so).

The EU itself has never harmonized income tax laws; actually all of the EUs political system always tries not to touch the tax subject at all. As a result, each EU state has an individual double-tax treaty with all other members states. Yes, do the math - there are hundreds tax treaties between EU member states. Non of them are based on some EU guidance or blueprint, and oftentimes older than the EU itself (german-spain treaty dates back mostly to the 1960s with some minor additions in the early 2000s). Finding legal advice alone is almost impossible (i.e. a lawyer that speaks either of your languages and both legal systems recently well). And if you do, good luck, your fellow civil cervant at your tax offices will screw up your fringe case anyways.

Worker-protection laws apply by country of residence, but the employer is bound by their national ones too. If you live in Spain and work remotely for a german company, legally you are bound by spanish worker laws. That is, you get spanish bank holidays off, minimum wage laws of Spain (and Germany!) and so forth. Even when figuring out all legal subtleties, it is simply not manageable for any companies HR department to deal with all country specific regulations and changes, let alone in different languages. I run a company myself and could not employ a person from another EU country within reasonable effort; the only way to go is hire them as contractors or through payrolling agencies. Both will not make them your employees, which has a lot of other legal consequences (holidays, employee patent/inventions laws, but also stuff like you can't really enforce any policy on them without going through the intermediaries).

[brtkdotse]

> European developer to consider because taking a US job

Nitpicking, but this is technically not possible. The US company has to have a EU presence or the developer needs to be self employed and invoice the US company

[SXX]

There are numerous talent management companies like Deel that handle this for you. Of course technically EU person would be working for EU company in this case.

Also no one stoping person living in EU from registering LLC in US and working through that. Corp2corp with own LLC is actually how majority of people from outside the US work with US companies.

[jacquesm]

North of $70K is still a ways away from $100K+ and I'd love to see which companies we're talking about here because that's not the news that reaches me from Spain. Rather the opposite.

[pjerem]

70k in Europe is totally comparable to 100k in US though and is a pretty comfortable salary in Europe.

Even if life is a little more expensive in Europe, you don’t need as much emergency savings as in the US.

[908B64B197]

Tax system in Europe is also a lot more complicated with many loopholes.

In Belgium, almost every white collar job has a company car included, since it's much much cheaper than for an individual to buy one.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

> 70k in Europe is totally comparable to 100k in US

Where in the US? It's a massive country with a huge regional variation in cost of living.

[Nanana909]

The EU is also vast with huge variations. I think it’s a general, average comparison.

[throwaway6734]

I'm not sold on that over the long term. Many western European countries have rough economic outlooks due to their terrible demographics.

[hef19898]

Once you accept the fact that single income families don't afford real estate ownership, 70k is easily sufficient for a comfortable life. Again, assuming it is a double income household. It is so for the high price region in Southern Germany around Munich.

[sgt]

That can't be good for Spain's own IT industry e.g. national companies, or even government agencies wanting to employ senior IT personnel.

[gamesbrainiac]

It isn't. It has pretty much decimated their industry to the point where there are no decent tech companies in Spain, and the few that exist do not pay those local rates (typeform for example).

[re-thc]

> Those figures are wrong to be honest. Most senior folks in Spain don't work for Spanish companies in general; they work for EU companies that pay more.

Does that contradict those figures though? Are you talking about the upper 10% discussed?

[gamesbrainiac]

From PayScale, the upper is at $50K. You wouldn't even get an average developer for that salary in Barcelona for example.

[nolok]

I don't know this website but for France it says 38k€/year on average. Which means they're not using the total salary but the post employer's taxes.

I'm using France for reference, and approximate number for the sake of explanation: for 100€ cost to the company, 40€ is employer's taxes, 20€ is employee's taxes. We call 20+40 = 60 the "gross" salary, and 40 the net salary, we never talk about the 100 when negotiating a salary. I don't have the time to check if that 38k is gross or net.

It is my understanding that if you have a 50k€ gross salary offer in Europe, you need to add ~40% to it to compare to compare to total cost for the employer as understood in the US.

I'm 90% sure their number are "wrong" for Spain in the same way.

[koliber]

In the US, the salaries that are typically listed show the "gross" salary, the way you defined it. It contains the 40 net salary and the taxes on top of it.

There is also a portion of taxes and other insurance that the employer must pay. These are generally not summed up in job offers. They include the employer's part of social security, insurance, 401k contribution, and other benefit plans which are often part of an offer for a salaries position.

[mschuster91]

On top of that come Europe's minimum vacation requirement of 4 weeks (although in practice, most are at anything from 24-30 days / 5-6 weeks), the unlimited sick days and numerous national holidays. Also, we have mandatory contributions for pension, social security, healthcare and (in Germany) workplace accident and elderly care insurance.

All of that needs some form of accounting on the employer's side that drives up the gross employment cost.

Or, to put it bluntly, us Europeans tend to see lower take-home amounts on our paystubs for the same gross cost the employer sees on their bank account, but a lot of stuff that you'd have to take care of on your own in the US is covered by that.

[qwytw]

> but a lot of stuff that you'd have to take care of on your own in the US is covered by t

Not if you're a software engineer earning 150-200k+

[peyton]

That’s also how it works in the US. The numbers are just bigger.

[myth2018]

> I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are.

Considering the high costs of living in some of their regions, those salaries may be justified. But I believe they are definitely not in a good position when it comes to remote work + competing with English-speaking developers in poorer countries. Situation in Europe may be similar.

In Europe they can find African developers in the same timezone, while in North-America they have Latin-America. Given the lower costs of living + favorable exchange rates, the difference in terms of purchasing power ending in developers' pockets is huge in favor of the ones in the southern hemisphere.

Maybe those in the richer countries shouldn't be too vocal against return-to-office?

[bitlax]

> I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are.

What will the enlightened Spaniards pay you to kick a ball for Real Madrid?

[KptMarchewa]

>median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year[1], so 50-80k would easily place them in the upper 10% of the scale.

You wrongly assume normal distribution of pay.

[givemeethekeys]

> 30,000 per year

I have friends in India who work as senior engineers for Indian companies that make more than that today. Nice to see that a European holiday is well within the purchasing power of Indian tech workers.

[ProblemFactory]

These sort of reports can be very misleading because they are often based surveying local companies competing for employees with other local companies. The salaries are very different when working for example for a local bank, vs. for an international tech company or well-funded international startup.

https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-sala...

[trianx]

I think this website's numbers are way too low for Spain and other EU countries, similarly to how their 76k $ average software developer salary for the US seems too low: https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Developer/...

They likely have a different definition for software developer than myself.

[jiwidi]

I'm a spanish dev working for a YC company and earning above that, any Spanish dev I know who has the level to be working for a YC company earns well above 50-80k.

[jacquesm]

> Americans need to really reflect on how inflated American dev salaries are.

More specifcally: SV needs to reflect on how inflated SV salaries are. Possibly with a few outliers elsehwere, such as New York and maybe a few pockets in London. But overall the area where software developers as a rule make > $120K per year is probably less than a few hundred square kilometers and the world is much, much larger than that.

[riku_iki]

> median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year[1], so 50-80k would easily place them in the upper 10% of the scale.

that's global market already. If apple, google, msft be confident they can hire thousands of high quality engineers in Spain for $30k/y, they would sure open dev offices there and cut jobs in California.

[beezlewax]

I'm an Irish dev living in Spain getting paid Spanish wages. I'd easily be on double in Ireland.

It is what it is.

The only thing holding back Spanish devs is a relatively low level of English by other European standards.

[isbvhodnvemrwvn]

They do open offices and they do pay little compared to the US, but still relatively good for the market.

[phendrenad2]

> I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are

What is there to reflect on? The reasons for this are well-documented. OP was just stating a fact, but got the ranges a bit off.

[sloaken]

It is a very compound issue, that people look at as just a simple X vs Y.

You have to consider:

Benefits, taxes (both yours and the companies), cost of living, exchange rate fluctuations, and hours worked per year.

[mattpallissard]

> I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are.

Shhh, don't tell nobody.

[ano88888]

Oh, wow, poor underpaid Spain developers. Suck for them for doing perhaps 90% of the same work .

[meindnoch]

>median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year

Whhhhaaaat? That doesn't sound right. I know a guy in Barcelona making $200k, although he works for a US company. Heck, even in Eastern Europe, with the right knowledge you can make $150k+.

[koliber]

That's correct. But those are the outliers, or at least at the very top of the range. The parent mentions median salary.

[danwee]

That's the median. It's like saying the median salary for software engineers in US is $120K/year (which is "true" if you Google it)... but then all the Silicon Valley engineers would say "whaaaat? Here the juniors can easily earn $200K/year their first year!"... So, yeah in Europe you can earn as little or as much as everywhere else (of course, Silicon Valley is still the place to earn top money)

[qwytw]

That's the median on some random site with very few self-reported samples...

[joshcsimmons]

Crabs in a bucket mentality. House prices and medical expenses are astronomical compared to European countries.

[felipellrocha]

> I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are.

This statement makes no sense. We have a much higher cost of living here than in Europe.

[hef19898]

SV vs. Berlin? Sure. Kentucky's hinterland vs. Paris? No, you don't.

Fun fact, FAANG salaries in Europe depend on the lovation you are hired at, with differences between, e.g., Munich and Berlin for the same job levels. It is funny, because companiesbreally understood how salaries and cost of living are connected, and still every discussion on HN regarding dev salaries ignores this simple favt and only compares absolute numbers. Heck, mostly there isn't even an agreemt on the measurement baseline (including US benefits, EU common health care, vacation days...).

[sokoloff]

Many individuals either don’t understand (or pretend to not understand) that most companies make an offer based on what it takes to get you to accept their offer, not based on the value they expect you to create. (It’s perhaps capped by that, but is otherwise not related.)

“What’s your best alternative?” is what underlies the companies’ positions on negotiating salaries.

[roland35]

It's called "cost of market" at my company. Cost of market doesn't necessarily equal cost of living.. for example I make about 20% less in the Midwest than I would in New York or SF, but still way more than if I worked in London. But my cost of living is waaay less than London and also way less than 80% of SF