How much would a good developer make? I'm looking to move to Sweden from Australia, and from what I saw there was a lot of equality in wages/ compression towards a mean for most fields.
Like in Norway, it seemed like SEs made 1.5-2x what a retail worker would make. Makes for a happier society maybe, but I do want to live a fairly lavish life if possible, and Australia definitely allows for that!
I think Sweden might be worse in all of Europe though. 90k€ is unheard of here for developers, unless you are managing a team or a middle manager or something. Well ok, maybe its a thing in Stockholm actually. Living in a slightly smaller city, now way Jose.
I am applying currently, don't know how that will turn out, but he manager even said that Swedish developers are cheaper for the company than people from Germany, Switzerland and I think even Poland was getting bigger wages.
Sweden have good working morale and extremely high unemployment rates among young people that often have high education. If you start a tech company you will be flooded with applications and you can cherry pick talents. The entry wage for developers are around $25,000 year, yes year, not monthly!
Most developers will be making more than €3000 a month after taxes. The problem is usually housing and living costs. Both ranging from €500 to €1500 each, that is €1000 to €3000 total. If you are at the lower end you of course end up fairly cash wealth, at the other not so much. At the same time these days you would still, despite being in one of the more lucrative professions, struggle to acquire a central apartment, or a holiday home, which is largely only accessible to those who are already asset wealthy. Especially not without significant debt.
If you can find your way it isn't bad, but I wouldn't put Sweden above places Switzerland or The Netherlands these day in terms of a good deal. Which I would have five to ten years ago.
I work at a company in Stockholm, but I live in Malmö. The developers I work with, who all live in other parts of the country and are all senior, probably make over 50k a month. I don't know their exact salaries obviously.
Compared to most jobs, developers are still pretty valued. I'm a junior software engineer in Sweden with an MSE degree. My entry salary was a bit lower than average for this industry at $50,000/year ($3000/month after taxes), but that's still higher than what 95% of nurses make in this country.
Why Scandinavia? I live in Sweden and senior developers around here make less than half of what it seems like junior developers make in the US, and that's before taxes.
In this case it was Sweden.
Now, you could argue that the max salary for a developer is higher, but only if you get into a good company. Most devs get stuck at around $4k to $5.5k per month from what I know.
I have worked in Spain and Sweden. My salary as developer has been in the range of €32K-€45K in the past 15 years in Spain. It has been around €65K in Sweden (similar to what now friends make in Spain). And it is below €100K as an architect.
The cost of living in Sweden is higher than in Spain. And Spanish salaries in IT has soared. So, economically, it was not worth moving. But, the experience of living abroad is worth the money.
It is difficult to compare with USA salaries as here there is more taxes but you get better services. For me the deal breaker is the equality. I know that people around me makes a living wage. But, I will not discard to move to any other country in the future for the experience as every country has its own charm.
There is a lot of demand here for skilled developers, most positions are not for startups, but established business.
Software developer salary is typically lower than in the US, but then again, cost of living (as far as apartment rent goes(in Oslo)) is lower than in SV. C#/Java back-end salary usually range from 600,000 NOK (73 188 dollar, at the low end, not much experience, poor resume) to 1,000,000 NOK (121 980 dollar, senior).
The average developer salary in Oslo is at 106k (dollar). National average is 82k, most attractive jobs, and salaries, tend to be in Oslo.
Australia. As a senior software developer, it's possible to earn a salary of up to $110K USD. That may sound OK until you consider that in Australia, an experienced coal miner earns $130K USD (7 days on, 7 days off lifestyle) and a garbage man earns $80K USD...
Also, many builders, plumbers and other tradesmen run their own businesses and are earning much more than average.
Because everyone else has high salaries, it drives house prices and living costs to insane levels.
It's a similar situation in most non-US countries through. It's even worse in Europe where software developers have to compete with people from developing countries (that was true even before the mass influx caused by Ukraine war) - They have it better because they can arbitrage the international cost of living differences to buy up cheap real estate in their home countries (which, as a non-citizen, I cannot do due to regulations).
I had actually relocated to EU (Germany) to try to improve my situation but was shocked to find out that things were even worse than in Australia due to higher immigration (more competition from countries with lower cost of living = lower salaries). It was so bad, I had to move back to Australia.
At least in Australia the class differences aren't so significant; being at the bottom of society doesn't feel as bad.
Like in Norway, it seemed like SEs made 1.5-2x what a retail worker would make. Makes for a happier society maybe, but I do want to live a fairly lavish life if possible, and Australia definitely allows for that!
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