To be more specific: for example, (non-FAANG) senior dev salaries in Poland are pretty much in line with senior dev salaries in France.
Before the covid, typical senior dev net salary in Poland was around ~12-18k PLN per month, while in France it's about 3k EUR per month (a bit higher in Paris, but also more expensive).
One diff is that IT folks in PL typically work on b2b contracts; the upside is lower tax, and tax deductions on car leasing (hence it's easy to get new and very nice car). Downside: minimal state pension (no one in PL believes in state pensions money being managed well).
It's really hard to compare both dev markets. In Europe, salaries varies a lot depending on the country.
There is Switzerland where average dev can earn up to 120k CHF (~ $130k) [1], and on the other hand we have Germany with average of 60k EUR (~ $70k) [2]. The UK is rather similar: 60k GBP (~ $82k) [3]. To have a perspective, we can also add Poland to the list: 240 000 PLN (~ $61k) [4].
As you can see, it's not that simple, especially when you take into consideration the tax rates and costs of living in each country.
I personally know multiple senior devs in Poland doing multi-year contracts at 110-130k eur per year. In Western Europe, with their skillset, they'd probably get just 20-30% more, so the gap is closing even at the top end of the market.
3-4k EUR net (after taxes) is pretty normal salary for senior enterprise dev in big cities in Poland. That's perhaps a bit less than in say Berlin (although I'm not too sure of that, given high taxes in Germany), but the costs of living are so much lower.
There are soooo many dev companies with offices in Poland, where developers are able to work 2/3 cheaper. Like, 100k USD/year vs 100k PLN/year (100k PLN = ~31k USD).
When you say the compensation was very close to the current market rate, I assume you mean the market rate in Poland, correct? No fancy Silicon Valley salaries for devs in Poland, that is.
The general average salary is low everywhere as most jobs don't require any kind of "higher" education, so of course devs earn more. I'm earning 4-5x of Poland's average but that's meaningless. I sure as heck don't earn more than an average UK dev, because I've worked with some of them and I know their rates.
I'm just a full-stack .NET + React developer working in a mid-sized city as a contractor (but that's complicated, because in Poland most companies basically evade taxes by hiring via contracts with the same benefits and responsibilities as regular employees).
I work up to 40hrs a week just like a normal employee.
Just take a look at one of the many job boards and search for "devops" or my role which is ".net full-stack":
https://nofluffjobs.com/pl
Most oscillate around 20k PLN gross, which is definitely a lot more than 1700 EUR.
Some rates given by devs in this thread are shocking and something isn't right.
1700 EUR net (i hope net) would be 8k PLN which is about what my car mechanic friend without a degree earns in my city... and what I earned 1 year after my degree.
It's perfectly fine to begin with, but we're talking about 10+ years of experience and that's baffling.
The average salary in Warsaw (highest in Poland) is 6k PLN. Google (as any reasonable IT company) will pay no less than 20k PLN for senior developers. I would say that it's a pretty good salary even for Warsaw standards...
Of course, B2B contracts are event better, mostly because of lower taxes but they have their own disadvantages (often they can be terminated within a week, you don't have PTOs etc.)
Not true, basic junior devs in Poland start even from $15K per year(invoice equivalent without VAT).
Good devs in Ukraine get $50K/year+ but AFAIK they have 5% taxes only. Good = hireable by S&P500 companies for example.
Anyway most of them prefer to move to Poland for example due to better government/QoL.
I don't know if whether the numbers you quote for Romania are correct or not (Polish salaries for devs are not even remotely close to that), but a salary that nets you €4k/month after taxes is not very common in Sweden - which is considered a richer country than Romania.
According to EU Commission's estimates whole EU needs ~600 000 more programmers, with Poland (where I'm from) needing 50 000. This seems conservative to me, everybody's hiring and salaries grow pretty quickly.
You'd be earning about 50 000 USD per year as a senior developer, but that's plenty enough to live a very good life here. Outside IT people earn about 10 000 USD per year, food and services are very cheap, and there's a comprehensive welfare state.
Dunno about Ukraine and Russia, but here in Poland it's standard for senior-ish devs to make $3k-$5k per month. More than that is also possible, but uncommon.
>I'd say it depends on the EU markets. I have the feeling that IT professionals from Eastern Europe (I'm from there) are a lot better paid, comparatively speaking, to IT professionals from many other Western countries (with the focus on "comparatively").
It's true. Unless you work for a FAANG, or some FinTech or unicorn flush with cash, dev wages in Western EU are not higher than Eastern EU anymore.
I know devs in Poland and Romania making way more than I do in Austria.
It's because of huge amount of outsourcing from US companies moving directly to Eastern EU, pushing the wages higher than what Western EU based companies can offer locally, coupled with the higher taxes in the Western countries, meaning devs in the West taking home lower wages than their counterparts in the East.
Someone here said it well, but I don't have the original post to quote anymore: {a cleaner in Sweden makes way more than a cleaner in Poland, but a dev in Poland can end up making as much or more than a dev in Sweden}. That's whack.
It's for sure partialy due to outsourcing, but I wouldn't neccessarily call it cheap. An experienced developer in Poland costs around 50k euros per year, which I guess is a bit less than in France, but not that much. However, if moving work to Eastern Europe were not an option, the companies would have no choice but to pay more in Western Europe (or try outsourcing software engineering to India, but that seldomly works).
With the fact that you got the demand/offer law not in your favor, these salaries will definitely go down.
Impressed to hear that Poland pays well for developers compared to other jobs. 50k for a senior role would definitely be a good salary even in other EU countries
You can't save that much by hiring in Romania. The differences between developer compensation in europe don't follow cost of living differences, an average software engineer in Poland is likely in a better position when compared to an average Pole than an average software engineer in France vs an average Frenchman.
Before the covid, typical senior dev net salary in Poland was around ~12-18k PLN per month, while in France it's about 3k EUR per month (a bit higher in Paris, but also more expensive).
One diff is that IT folks in PL typically work on b2b contracts; the upside is lower tax, and tax deductions on car leasing (hence it's easy to get new and very nice car). Downside: minimal state pension (no one in PL believes in state pensions money being managed well).
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