[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Am I wasting my time working as a software e...
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Ask HN: Am I wasting my time working as a software engineer in
Western Europe?
- bachelor and master degree in computer science - around 8 years
of experience - pretty average developer (can deal with Ansible,
the command line, MySQL, Go, Vue, and tons of other toys; can talk
about Turing machines, the pumping lemma, CORS, or about the
sudoers file) - pretty average guy to work with - earning around
75K Euro (gross) per year as an employee (30 to 40 hours per week).
30 days vacation per year (plus public holiday) - currently, sort
of "tech lead" within my team I cannot complain about my current
lifestyle, but I see that I'm approaching the "glass ceiling" for
software engineers in Europe (I don't see myself ever earning more
than 100K Euro as a simple software engineer) and I cannot help but
think: why on earth I don't quit my job and work for an American
company from Europe? I would be doing basically the same but from
starters I would be making double (avg. of 150K USD/year according
to Google) but more importantly, the "glass ceiling" in USA is
above 150K USD. Even after taxes and health insurance, the net
amount each month is way higher with a American salary. The more I
think about it, the more stupid seems my current situation. I think
the main thing that's holding me back is that I would probably need
to work as a contractor instead of an employee, and this is
something I've never done before.
Author : dakiol
Score : 12 points
Date : 2021-03-23 21:23 UTC (1 hours ago)
| uberman wrote:
| There certainly are jobs in the US (typically on the coasts)
| where you can make a lot of money, but the average country wide
| senior developer salary in the USA is $107k
|
| https://www.indeed.com/career/senior-developer/salaries
|
| Your EUR75k directly translates into about $90k USD.
|
| Add on top that most US employees get two weeks of vacation (at
| least initially) and that more than 3 weeks is relatively
| uncommon. So that equates into an extra $3k $5 a year.
|
| Now add on top that most US employees work at least 40 hours a
| week not at most with no overtime and if you want a hot coastal
| job you are likely looking at 60 hours a week. So taking a
| conservative approach saying that you would be looking at working
| "only" 1/3 more hours a week and suddenly your EUR75k is
| effectively $123k US.
|
| This is now effectively more than the average US senior dev makes
| when hours worked are factored in.
|
| But you want to make big coastal money. That is likely double the
| hours on a weekly basis. Here are employees begging to limit work
| to 80 hours a week
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56452494
|
| So let's take it that it is "only" 60 hours a week. That
| potentially makes your EUR75k equate to $180k and is in-line with
| what a coastal senior dev might make only they have the coastal
| cost of living to deal with.
|
| If you want to work for a coastal US company as a contractor then
| you will be competing (from a time shift perspective) with your
| Eastern European peers that are likely offering their services at
| half your current rate.
|
| I wish you the best of luck but I think you should not be so
| negative about your current situation. If you wanted to make more
| money you could likely hustle a second job and work the same
| hours as you would working for a coastal FAANG.
| comp_throw7 wrote:
| Please don't take this as an accurate map of reality. There are
| some FAANGs where you have decent odds of ending up on a team
| that expects more than 40 hours a week - Amazon and Facebook,
| in particular (though there are plenty of teams in both
| companies where that's not the case). Google is much more
| relaxed; I know plenty of people that do 20-30 hours a week
| there, and nobody that does over 40 (but I hear it's possible).
|
| Also, you can easily break EUR100k by working for a FAANG
| branch office in the EU. Senior engineer comp will be EUR200k+.
| orangecat wrote:
| _if you want a hot coastal job you are likely looking at 60
| hours a week_
|
| Startups, maybe. FAANGs, no.
| ingvul wrote:
| Working as a contractor is not that different. Just find someone
| to handle your taxes (although I understand that this in itself
| could be a headache for someone who only has worked as an
| employee). Also, as a contractor, vacation days are different as
| well: no work, no pay (whereas as an employee all your vacation
| days are always paid).
| fistynuts wrote:
| I'm no expert but if you worked for a US employer but remained
| resident in the EU wouldn't you expose yourself to increased tax
| liabilities? Of course your higher salary might compensate for
| that but I thought it was worth raising the point.
| fhrow4484 wrote:
| Not really, as EUR200k salaries are available in Europe (see
| https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-sala...)
|
| Based on your own description as "pretty average developer", you
| could maybe try out for local "Big Tech" companies in Europe as
| entry level (Eng1/L3 in the article) or the level above, and it
| would already be a pay raise, and wouldn't require you to
| relocate or be a contractor.
|
| (That's assuming the country in Europe you are in has similar
| ecosystem to Netherlands.)
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(page generated 2021-03-23 23:02 UTC)