> Because life is incredibly cheap compared to most of Europe, your odds of making a decent life are much greater - the bar can be set much lower. To give you an idea - my monthly paycheck at my first job was just over 700 euros(underpaid even for a developer with little to no experience). I had rent, bills, transportation and food to take care of and even with that, I was still able to save up around 250/month. Something unthinkable for most European capitals on such a tight budget. Now, many years later, things look really well for me.
I think you're mistaken about software salaries. In the US, even for entry level positions, you can save up several thousand dollars a month, living just fine.
I was HEAVILY underpaid out of college (due to growing up in a shitty part of the states and consequently going to a shitty university). I graduated in a decent amount of debt, too. Even still, I was able to pay of $15k worth of debt, and save another $10k on just a $70K salary -- in Boston in 2010 (which at the time was just as expensive as NYC or SF).
At the time, that was double what my parents made put together, so it seemed unbelievable to me. I knew people at the company were making double and triple that, but for some reason I thought that I'd never make that. How could I? My parents were making 1/10th of that...
I'm now saving close to $200k a year at Google. My friend just got a job in SF. He's got 0 experience -- just graduated from a coding bootcamp. He got multiple offers for ~$150k. Almost everyone in his class got similar jobs. Even as expensive as SF is, he's going to have a nice apartment, be able to eat out at restaurants and go on vacations, and still save thousands a month.
I know salaries are really shitty in Europe compared to the US -- which is sad, because even here inequality is absurd.
Starting out, it's easy to think you're wage won't grow, so it's tempting to think you need to live more affordably. Or else how else would your life be sustainable?
When I first started working, I was always thinking about leaving the city and going back to my shitty part of the States and working remote jobs for peanuts. In hind-sight, that would've been a terrible decision.
I'm doing better than most people I know, sure... But virtually every person I worked with at my first job is now making $200k+ somewhere. Same thing with my second job. At Google most people are making $300k+.
I would've never dreamed making this type of money. Part of the problem -- for me at least -- is that if you grow up somewhere pretty poor, it's easy to think you're "lucky" even when you're underpaid. I never negotiated for higher salaries when I started. I always thought I was getting paid so much it was absurd.
But then I started looking around at what other people were getting paid, and realized if I have the same skills, I should get paid just as much, too.
Now I can literally buy my mom's house with 8 months of savings. I'm planning to retire both of my parents a few years early. If I wanted to go back to my hometown now, I could join them in retirement in another 3 years or so.
But I won't. I like my job. It's easy to find a good job now. Where I grew up is fine, but it's filled with people with no hope -- because that town has nothing to offer anymore. It's sad, but it's true.
Starting out, it's really tough. Looking back on it now, I was basically living in poverty in college and almost certifiably my first year in Boston. As an anecdote, I literally didn't have heat because in Boston a lot of houses are heated with oil, and oil was almost $150 a barrel at the time. Heating the apartment was like $1k a month. I couldn't afford it. So in the Winter, which is long in Boston, I literally was in my sleeping bag any time I was home...
What a shitty life! It felt like things wound never get better. I told myself, I can't deal with this shit. Working my ass off and living in a Goddamned sleeping bag! I never thought I'd get promoted -- there wasn't much growth at the company so not any opportunity. House prices would never go down (it was 2011, so they were already half off compared to 2008, and still way out of my range). So I'd never be able to have a home, I thought.
At least for me, everyone I knew who stuck with it, it paid off really well.
Despite working at Google, I'm not particularly smart either. It's just how it is, if you can stick with it.
In the end, it's a rat race, and I can see why people get out of it. My story isn't to shame you, but I think you can make a lot more money even in Bulgaria, and if you can, you deserve it.
That's really low, even for poorer European countries. Decent middle-level software engineer in, let's say, Ukraine (no offense meant - it is a good country, just isn't one famous for high incomes), easily makes at least 2k (and I say "at least" - that's awfully underpaid).
> that means that i'd need anywhere from ~8 to ~14 years to save as much as they could in a year
That's a bit exaggerated figure. It's 100k before taxes (so, around $5.8k/mo), and rent (or mortgage) costs are significantly higher (I believe it's around $1-3k/mo, highly varying depending on where you live and how comfortable you live). And it's not just rent but other expenses as well.
> Its amazing that as a senior developer he was making 1700 a month USD, which is about 20k a year
I mostly agree with you, but let me make it less amazing.
Outside of the US, you will likely have no student debt, low cost and high quality healthcare, lower rent, and lower cost of living. 20-year olds living in SF, NY, or Seattle, probably have student loans, rent that costs 2-3,000 per month in rent, a routine doctors bill costs $250, a lunch sandwich costs $13.
In other words, the cost of living is so high that the quality of life in a different country doing the same role will likely be higher.
> Sure, but things like health insurance can easily cost $1000+ a month
I've posted this multiple times before, but a developer on $120k, paying $2500/month on rent and $1k on health insurance in california will have more left over at that point than a mid level engineer makes before tax in the UK. That gap is inexplainable by anything other than "You get paid a crap ton more"
> Obviously once you start making 300k+ in US none of that really matters, you win at life in general - but it's not like people in Europe making 60k(euro) as software devs are in poverty or anything.
Honestly, it doesn't matter at half of that, but the second part of your comment is bang on the money. I wouldn't take a tripling of my salary for a move to the US, for example.
>My point isn’t that some people have it good, it’s that €1-2k a month isn’t exactly glamorous living.
It isn't glamorous, you're right but I wasn't talking about inequality here, I was saying that very few students in Europe have 2K per month at their disposal.
>If you’re coming out of university and making £2k a month that is a bit low.
AFAIK, 2K Euros per month, after taxes, is your typical starting wage for a full time dev job in a decent company in countries like Germany. To get significantly more than 2K after taxes here as a new grad would put you in the top 10% of devs your age, definitely not the norm in the industry or in Europe.
>An MBA graduate makes €90k+ annually in Denmark.
Do you have a source for this? Because if you do then it would be best for me to give up my dev job in Germany and become an MBA in Denmark. Not /s, but quite serious.
> obsess about pipe dreams that come through for one in a million people?
Speaking as someone from Europe...
I don't have any first hand experience, but when browsing HN or Reddit, developer salaries above $150k seem to be the norm [1], not the "one in a million people" exception. As you may know, such salaries are unheard in Europe. It seems to me that becoming financially independent in the US is a matter of years [2], not decades. Sometimes it really makes me depressed. Also you seem to overestimate the safety nets. Putting 3-4 months of US paychecks away in a savings account will put you ahead of any safety net in Europe.
[1] Yes, i know, cost of living in places like NYC or SF are not comparable to major European cities, but even when factoring higher costs of living, becoming a millionaire seems rather doable.
>Is he saying that $50k/year far outstrips what he can reasonably expect to earn as a fintech dev? If so, he's at least as much of an outlier as the $500k/year folks on the other end.
From what I can tell, this is pretty common for continental Europe. It's the one thing keeping me from leaving the US at this point. For whatever reason, their pay is total crap. Particularly when you include taxes. My take home pay as an uneducated mediocre javascript monkey in the US is probably 3x the average highly skilled senior engineer with a CS degree in the EU.
> comes with a purchasing power that I imagine meets or exceeds someone in my same position in New York or the Bay Area
That seems very unlikely. Housing is expensive in most of the major metropolitan areas in the US, but you more than make up for it with higher salaries.
The rest of your argument makes perfectly good sense, there's lots to love about living and working in Europe! It may well be worth it to you.
But it's disingenuous to mix those quality of life arguments with an argument about money. Tech workers in the US tech hubs live a financially/materially more comfortable life than those in Europe.
> in Europe devs are slaving away through SCRUM powered meat grinders burning themselves out for a 3% salary increase on a pitiful 40-80k/year
There is so much wrong in this sentence.
First, there is no more “meat grinders” in the US than in Europe. I worked at Microsoft and Criteo in Europe, and the slacking there seems to be on par with what OP describes.
You mention 40/80k per year being pitiful? This kind of remuneration puts you in the top 10%/5% of France population easily. If your partner manages the same level of salary, you should be even better in the top.
> no stock options, without any hope of early retirement
You are dreaming. The kind of stock options you get in big tech companies is not what you think. You can expect some hundreds/thousands dollars per year, that need 3/5 year to vest until you can have them in full. European companies would traditionally prefer to give a bit of extra money rather than stock options.
> early retirement
....
> owning a decent home without a 30 year loan
What are you talking about... you earn 40/80k per year. The mortgage rates in France at the moment are amongst the best in the world. You should be able to get a loan at 1% for ~500k for 15 or 30 years without any problem.
Also, please, bear in mind that you cannot directly compare US and EU salaries. Your 80k€ gross in e.g. France should be the equivalent of $150k for a US worker; if you account for the same level of medical care and retirement savings. Not much of a difference after you realise this.
> There are plenty of well paid tech jobs in Europe.
The point was about letting working class people grow into middle class, i.e. accumulate some wealth by working at these jobs. It's much more difficult to do in Europe than in the US. First the tax system that is progressive on income, but not on net worth, that makes it increasingly hard to get richer by having good income. Second property prices are high and growing faster than income normally does. And finally as you've noticed these jobs are just not as well paid as in the US - basically it's the same grade as other office jobs (except managers and lawyers, these are paid much better)
> Has Europe’s pro-union climate led to more competitive software companies, or better pay and benefits for its software engineers?
E.g. we get health insurance even if we quit or switch jobs.
The thing about European software companies tho is that they are hardly unionized at all.
>Every European engineer I talk to seems either amazed or resentful about American software engineers’ salaries and benefits.
I am not, to be honest. Sure, at a first glance it might seem the US devs make tons of money. But once you account for cost of living (like the astronomical rents in every major tech hub city) things do not look that rosy anymore. I know US people who make twice or trice what I make, and yet they live in dumps that you can hardly call apartment and they say they cannot afford any better. That, combined with the at-will nature of US employment, really doesn't strike me as desirable.
I like living in a country where I have a pretty awesome standard of living, a nice apartment that I don't have to share (unless I want to) and a safety net that is (at least for now) able to catch me should I ever struggle or become sick, so I won't go homeless.
Those things are largely thanks to work the unions did in the past and keep doing.
>At some point, higher individual compensation doesn't matter much if everyone else in your community is overworked and underpaid.
I think that totally depends on the individual and their circumstances.
>I think many Dutch or French software developers are living better lives than developers in California, all things considered.
European developers generally earn much less than Americans, especially after taxes you can get to a 2x difference with comparable cost of living depending on area.
In generally wages in Europe are much more even, here in Germany you have a heavily bracketed income tax system, even significant increases in wage usually become much smaller if you consider the additional taxes.
>I wouldn't say you got an easy ride, just that your ride was easier than some others had it?
You're talking to a guy who lives in a country where people who work minimal wage jobs earn about 3900$ per year. As a Junior programmer I earn about 7500$ per year and I'm considered to be "lucky"... except the cost of living is still about 35% of my salary. A programmer with a lot of experience under his belt can expect to be paid between 15k-45k per year.
While food is relatively cheap, I still have to share an apartment with two other people whom I don't even know (renting a flat on my own would cost at least 50% of my income), I have to save for a few months to buy a car or a computer (not even new ones, if I want anything decent I have to buy used things). Buying a place for myself would mean I'd have to pay for a mortgage for the next 20 years.
If I would like to work abroad I have to keep in mind that people think very little of us and that the only thing we've got going for us is that we either take the jobs no one else wants or that we can be paid less than the native citizens.
But please, do tell me my ride is easier than getting free money and being hired because you're not white.
>Are you sure we, the europoor, are actually poor or is this just something you're reverberating from the echo chambers of American exceptionalism.
I’m not sure why you are getting so defensive when it is you who understands so little about the US that you just described a typical US tech job and tried to pretend it was something special about Europe.
Developers in the US make significantly more on average than developers anywhere in Europe. Developers working at the big tech companies do even better than that by clearing north of $300k annually between stock, cash, and bonuses. These jobs allow working from home, provide healthcare, PTO, significant maternity/paternity leave, etc. A few minutes of googling these numbers might help you gain some perspective.
The US is easily the best place to be when you have in-demand skills. Every country is going to trail pretty far behind on what it’s employment ecosystem can offer a developer (as of right now). This is why your post sounds so ignorant to people familiar with the perks of being a developer in the US.
Where the US is absolutely terrible compared to Europe is the social safety nets that people in worse jobs depend on. Yet that’s not what you decided to use as your point of comparison. You instead tried to show off the perks of tech skills there, which are worse than many HN readers receive in the US.
> In Europe you get security + enough money to life comfortably, but not really enough to accumulate any capital and gain financial freedom
That's not true. I'm almost 40, and excluding pensions and capital tied up in my home, I currently have around £500,000 in savings. This wasn't particularly difficult to achieve on a software engineer salary in Scotland; we've travelled the globe for several years, have a nice house, 2 cars etc. We absolutely plan on retiring at around 50 at latest. Now with 20 years' experience I make €65k/y from my day job as a software architect/tech lead/lead dev (working 30h in a 4-day week). My wife and I also run a B2B micro-ISV that's made around €100k/y for the past few years (it was a slow climb to that figure over 10 years).
So, we have a household income of around €165k (~$200k) - certainly more than most in the UK, yet nowhere near what I could make in SV on my own - and still certainly enough money that we hardly need to think about it, and with considered financial planning we can easily retire early.
I'd far prefer to live in Europe than the US - I work way less hours, I get way more vacation days, our healthcare system won't bankrupt us (unfortunately I know firsthand it's far from perfect, but it's definitely still a boon for society), losing my job at any point in my career wouldn't have me out on the street, I don't need to especially fear the police, and (in general) people have a progressive attitude that serves to benefit all of society.
> you either work in the United States or you are dramatically underpaid.
First off you might be surprised but money isn't the #1 priority for a lot of people.
In SV maybe, and even then when you factor cost of living, insurances, unemployment benefits, parental leaves &c. I'd rather be in Europe making half the raw salary and getting all the good stuff than being paid twice as much and spending 5k$ on a small flat in SF.
As an outsider it's impressive to see the shift in the recent years, back when I was in uni the majority of my peers wanted to move to the US, me included, and I did for a bit. Nowadays I literally don't know anyone who wants to migrate there in my circles, especially not with the current process. I think American people don't understand how broken their immigration, political and social systems are, and how bad of a deal breaker it is for a lot of Europeans.
>>> Interesting perspective. I am curious about why the country you are going to pays more than the one you are coming from in software
Are you asking me why some places pay more than others? I don't think I have the expertise to answer that correctly honestly, it's probably a multitude of factors.
But I don't think it's cultural (or mostly cultural) since it happens within countries too. Silicon valley pays more than the Midwest, London pays more than Birmingham. I don't know why exactly but it's undeniable that they do.
>>> Why not try to instill these cultural mechanisms in the country you came from?
Because I don't think it's cultural. And even if it were... Why would I do that? My family is more important that some vague notion of changing cultural mechanisms.
>>> Also I don't think people should migrate for purely financial reasons. There is a lot of rich and interesting cultures in this world - it would be a shame if people just abandoned them for the sake of money
Sorry to be blunt, but it's not your choice. People's lives and priorities are their own to make.
This sounds too much like airmchair philosophy. It's great that you can do it but it's not "just money" for the vast majority of people, rich country or not.
Don't look at just the number. Once you consider the cost of living, health coverage, days off, sick days, long service leave, parental leave, and lots of other benefits, it's actually not that impressive.
> easy immigration to US for Europeans
"Europeans" don't exist. UK has drastically different immigration rules than Poland for example.
> good affordable education
Some EU countries provide University education for free, while the US is famously in debt... Are you sure about this one?
Finally, some people just aren't excited about life in the US. I'd take a lower salary to live somewhere else and I know a few people with the same opinion.
Well there's your problem. Extremely few well paying (say $150k+) jobs and crazy taxes don't exactly encourage wealth accumulation.
Try Bay Area - with tech salaries there and stocks growth being what they were this past decade, the real question is how is it not possible (if only you wanted) to have made $2M+ working for a FAANG for a decade there.
Or at least go for Switzerland, although market is much smaller there, beware. But I know multiple multimillionares in person who made it all on Google Zurich payroll.
I think you're mistaken about software salaries. In the US, even for entry level positions, you can save up several thousand dollars a month, living just fine.
I was HEAVILY underpaid out of college (due to growing up in a shitty part of the states and consequently going to a shitty university). I graduated in a decent amount of debt, too. Even still, I was able to pay of $15k worth of debt, and save another $10k on just a $70K salary -- in Boston in 2010 (which at the time was just as expensive as NYC or SF).
At the time, that was double what my parents made put together, so it seemed unbelievable to me. I knew people at the company were making double and triple that, but for some reason I thought that I'd never make that. How could I? My parents were making 1/10th of that...
I'm now saving close to $200k a year at Google. My friend just got a job in SF. He's got 0 experience -- just graduated from a coding bootcamp. He got multiple offers for ~$150k. Almost everyone in his class got similar jobs. Even as expensive as SF is, he's going to have a nice apartment, be able to eat out at restaurants and go on vacations, and still save thousands a month.
I know salaries are really shitty in Europe compared to the US -- which is sad, because even here inequality is absurd.
Starting out, it's easy to think you're wage won't grow, so it's tempting to think you need to live more affordably. Or else how else would your life be sustainable?
When I first started working, I was always thinking about leaving the city and going back to my shitty part of the States and working remote jobs for peanuts. In hind-sight, that would've been a terrible decision.
I'm doing better than most people I know, sure... But virtually every person I worked with at my first job is now making $200k+ somewhere. Same thing with my second job. At Google most people are making $300k+.
I would've never dreamed making this type of money. Part of the problem -- for me at least -- is that if you grow up somewhere pretty poor, it's easy to think you're "lucky" even when you're underpaid. I never negotiated for higher salaries when I started. I always thought I was getting paid so much it was absurd.
But then I started looking around at what other people were getting paid, and realized if I have the same skills, I should get paid just as much, too.
Now I can literally buy my mom's house with 8 months of savings. I'm planning to retire both of my parents a few years early. If I wanted to go back to my hometown now, I could join them in retirement in another 3 years or so.
But I won't. I like my job. It's easy to find a good job now. Where I grew up is fine, but it's filled with people with no hope -- because that town has nothing to offer anymore. It's sad, but it's true.
Starting out, it's really tough. Looking back on it now, I was basically living in poverty in college and almost certifiably my first year in Boston. As an anecdote, I literally didn't have heat because in Boston a lot of houses are heated with oil, and oil was almost $150 a barrel at the time. Heating the apartment was like $1k a month. I couldn't afford it. So in the Winter, which is long in Boston, I literally was in my sleeping bag any time I was home...
What a shitty life! It felt like things wound never get better. I told myself, I can't deal with this shit. Working my ass off and living in a Goddamned sleeping bag! I never thought I'd get promoted -- there wasn't much growth at the company so not any opportunity. House prices would never go down (it was 2011, so they were already half off compared to 2008, and still way out of my range). So I'd never be able to have a home, I thought.
At least for me, everyone I knew who stuck with it, it paid off really well.
Despite working at Google, I'm not particularly smart either. It's just how it is, if you can stick with it.
In the end, it's a rat race, and I can see why people get out of it. My story isn't to shame you, but I think you can make a lot more money even in Bulgaria, and if you can, you deserve it.
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