[HN Gopher] The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Neth... ___________________________________________________________________ The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlands and Europe (2021) Author : emirb Score : 146 points Date : 2022-07-02 17:27 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (blog.pragmaticengineer.com) (TXT) w3m dump (blog.pragmaticengineer.com) | angarg12 wrote: | My issue with this article is that it misrepresents a bit the | people in the #3 tier, particularly those of pre-IPO companies. | | Sure, there are people who join such a company and make 1M when | they IPO. But that is a one time event, and the engineering | equivalent of winning the lottery. Once you prorate that by the | number of years worked, the risk of failing, etc. it doesn't look | as attractive. | ido wrote: | Ok let me make a probably very unpopular comment here: their 3rd | point lists "companies benchmarking against all regional or | global companies" but in fact what they mean is "companies | benchmarking against the highest paying US tech hubs". | | I assure you "all regional or global companies" also include | Vietnamese companies paying junior devs $300 per month - what is | the advantage of the European engineer that is worth paying >=10x | as much? | | If you're comparing globally you can't cherry pick only the | _best_ paying regions because these are not your only | competition. And there are a hell of a lot more Bangladeshi, | Vietnamese & Nigerians than there are people living in SFBA or | Seattle, and if you're truly competing globally you're also | competing with them. | breadloaf wrote: | Well that really depends. I was outsourcing to India when it | was still cheap. I probably did something wrong, but I provided | definition of the project, set of unit tests and access to git | repository so they can upload the result. I got completely | useless trash code, incoherent excuses and wasted time. | | I paid the company for their "work" and never considered | outsourcing again. Sometimes cheap means horrendously | expensive. | mlboss wrote: | Any developer charging $3k will not be good. And even then | you need to pay lot of attention on how they are doing. | bilekas wrote: | This might get a bad rep but I've had this experience too. | It's not a blanket statement though. Outsourcing is fine but | you definitely have need to do your homework. That's why you | see a few of the outsourcing companies being bought over by | their employers, because they're good. | | Out of curiosity and related to another HN topic, have you | ever hired freelancers directly? | breadloaf wrote: | I tried to on the Upwork. But it is really hit or miss | there. | | 1. I got hardware electric engineer to help me with a | design of PCB. Guy was worth every cent. | | 2. Got embedded developer on separate project. Guy | pretended that he can do a lot. I tried to explain to him, | that I need a USB CDC device driver in MCU which has USB | PHY and I want Windows to recognize and use usbser.sys | (generic COM driver) or something similar. He told me that | he understand what he is doing, I sent him the dev kit and | then he ghosted me and I have ended up doing it myself with | TinyUSB. | | So as I said, really hit and miss on Upwork. Some people | are writing lofty skillset so they can get more per hour | and then failing miserably. | sumedh wrote: | How did you select the outsourcing company? | breadloaf wrote: | 7 years ago, I don't really remember anymore. | varispeed wrote: | > what is the advantage of the European engineer that is worth | paying >=10x as much? | | It is very simple - cost of insurance. It is much easier to | persuade a worker making $300 a month to leak company secrets | than someone making $20k a month. | | Plus workers in such countries may be incentivised (or have no | choice but to do it) to spy on behalf of their government. | | If your company is doing something remotely serious, you can be | almost certain someone you don't want will get hold of your IP. | acchow wrote: | This makes no sense. If you want to pay to keep secrecy, why | not just raise their salary by 9x to keep them quiet? | logifail wrote: | > If your company is doing something remotely serious [..] | | (Sorry I have to ask this) but what types of companies are | you talking about? | | Uber? Netflix? Spotify? | | For those maybe, just maybe, the secret sauce isn't actually | secret any more, it was simply cheap VC money subsidising all | our rides/viewing/listening.[0][1][2][3] | | [0] https://slate.com/business/2022/05/uber-subsidy-lyft- | cheap-r... [1] https://financialpost.com/investing/investing- | pro/investors-... [2] | https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/08/technology/farewell- | mille... [3] https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la- | fi-tn-uber-ip... | TulliusCicero wrote: | Winning a competition means beating people at the top of a | range, not the dregs. | | Implicit here in benchmarking globally is that you want the | kind of devs that can move around globally. The engineers | working at Vietnamese companies for $300/month aren't that. | dv_dt wrote: | Exactly. And it not just a generic hiring question. If you | want engineers experienced in building leading edge compute | systems - one may need to consider what it takes hiring those | that have built them in highly compensated areas. | kingkawn wrote: | Niiiice calling people from poor countries "the dregs" | ctvo wrote: | The dregs, as in the bottom of the barrel, of the global | developer salary band. There's no need to jump to the | conclusion that it's a judgement on the country itself and | look for something to be offended by. | | Due to current events someone could say the dregs of | reproductive rights include the USA. They're not making a | value judgement on the entire country. | pedrosorio wrote: | The competition is among companies (and the salary they are | willing to pay to attract devs), so "the dregs" are the | companies paying those salaries, not the devs. | abduhl wrote: | This is a VERY charitable reading of the GP's post. They | mention beating "people" not companies and talk about | "the kind of devs that can move around." | ido wrote: | I know we all want to believe we're the next Carmack but if | there's a ton of solid engineers willing to work for a lot | less money than you & at the same time global barriers drop | that means downwards pressure from lower cost countries and | upwards pressure from higher cost countries. I think the last | decade or so was an anomaly due to the asset bubble inflating | how much money (and how cheap that money was) tech companies | had to spend. | dymk wrote: | You'd think that outsourcing would be all companies would | be doing by now if there were indeed legions of capable | software engineers willing to do just as good a job for a | fraction of the price. That still appears to not be the | case, despite remote (and so international) work becoming | more commonplace with COVID. | moneywoes wrote: | Looking at the explosive growth of companies like Deel | that worries me greatly | wyager wrote: | > what is the advantage of the European engineer that is worth | paying >=10x as much? | | They produce better product. | ido wrote: | Maybe they do, maybe not? I mean that is exactly the same | argument SFBA-based engineers can also claim. I believe it is | mostly untrue. | | When I studied in Vienna a fellow student of mine returned to | Poland after uni because his wife wanted to & we both started | our first jobs as juniors at the same time with comparable | positions, me in Vienna and him in Gdansk. His salary was | almost exactly 1/3 of mine & I don't believe there was any | performance component to that, I was simply earning according | to Viennese standards and he according to Gdansk standards. | moonchrome wrote: | In more recent times (especially post COVID), by the time | both of you are competent enough be independent he will be | earning as much as you for 1/3 cost of living. | ido wrote: | Cost of living in Poland is not actually 1/3 of Austria, | the difference in cost is much smaller than in salary. | But it's true that the more senior you are the less | geography affects your wage. | moonchrome wrote: | Austria != Vienna, similar to how London != UK. | | Equating for standard of living (eg upper middle class) | you'll likely be 3x in Vienna. Although I'm just | guestinating on Gdansk, maybe it's a really expensive | place. | ido wrote: | Austria is a lot less variable than the UK, and Vienna is | not really the most expensive city there at all | (generally the further west you go the more expensive it | gets). I'm pretty sure a lot of the smaller cities like | Salzburg and Innsbruck are actually more expensive than | Vienna and not at all certain Vienna is much or at all | above the Austrian average (or at least urban average). | yrgulation wrote: | With the risk of sounding rude i am not even sure why | austria is part of this debate as its totally irrelevant | on the tech scene. | ido wrote: | It's simply a Westen European country I lived in, sorry I | never lived and went to Uni + worked in the Netherlands | to give a more topical example. My point was that borders | are unfair in terms of compensation not just to Western | Europeans but to a lot(most?) other people in the world | outside [west coast/big city) Americans. And that true | globalization will equalize things not only upward. | yrgulation wrote: | Well austria is firmly central european. | | Dont worry, old tech will always tend to become cheaper. | Once countries such as austria take the lead on new tech | pay will follow. The us and uk have invested massively in | modern technologies. Actually the uk started the trend | with its industrial revolution and the us overtook it | thanks to its size and dna engraved appetite for risk and | innovation. | | To increase your pay, austria would have to be less rigid | and more open to risk. That will lead to the creation of | more modern startups and more demand for your skills. | Dont give into anti globalisation conspiracy theories as | globalisation is benefiting austria by giving it access | to vast markets. But since austria is mainly relying on | old tech its now losing ground as it hasnt got much to | sell. | ido wrote: | I haven't lived in Austria in almost a decade, I simply | used it as an example than salaries in Europe aren't just | lower than in the US but also higher than other places. | Equitable pay means equalizing with everyone not just | those above you. | varispeed wrote: | You can compare cost of living to an extent - assuming, | for instance, that the worker won't go on holiday | anywhere nice. | | Checked at one of known tour operators, for the same | hotel and destination in the Caribbean, same duration and | dates you will pay ~PS2900 when going out from London and | PS4900 when going out from Cracow. | | Things like tech products will also cost broadly the | same. | | Also engineers these days don't live like upper middle | class (unless they come from such background). It's more | like upper working class. Progressive taxation prevents | workers from amassing capital and climbing the class | ladder. | | People from upper middle classes get paid in ways out of | scope of progressive taxes designed to keep working class | in check. | V-2 wrote: | I don't believe the difference is anywhere near 300%. | Maybe 20 years ago. | | Let's keep Vienna for comparison, but benchmark it | against Warsaw (also substantially more expensive than | the rest of the country). According to the data on | Numbeo, "you would need around 2,562.64EUR (12,036.56zl) | in Warsaw to maintain the same standard of life that you | can have with 4,000.00EUR in Vienna". Making Warsaw only | 1.5x cheaper. | | Gdansk is probably in the top 5 most expensive ones | (meaning cheaper than Warsaw), more or less at a level | you'd expect from a city of that relative size (at | roughly 450k inhabitants it's the 6th most populous in | the country). | moonchrome wrote: | OK - so roughly 2x. 1/3 was an exaggeration in reply to | his 1/3 salary, but I actually did these calculations a | couple of years ago and it wasn't that far off, I'm from | Croatia and before settling down I considered moving to | Western Europe. Turns out when I started freelancing and | took advantage of low corporate income tax here (10% | below 1M EUR/year and 10% gains tax) - the math for | moving abroad never checked out - I made more money than | my friends who moved to Germany/Ireland even before | COVID, and it's just been getting easier with the move to | remote working (that's commenting purely on cost of | living/lifestyle I can afford - there are other factors | to consider in these decisions). | rocgf wrote: | Your example is anectodal, hence basically worthless. | | There is a lot of inefficieny in the market, some of it | inherent, some of it due to artifical constraints like | location, but over time those tend to naturally get | normalized. What I'm trying to say is that if it really | were better for software to be built in Vietnam for 10% of | the cost, that would just happen. | | It may be that companies have not figured out this neat | trick or it might be that there are some inherent issues | with developing software based purely on the cost. | sealeck wrote: | lmao the free market does not exist. | ido wrote: | My point was that this applies exactly the same for why | European salaries are lower than American salaries. It | makes no sense but it equally doesn't make sense that | Europeans earn more than Asians or Africans. If you want | equality it doesn't just mean you get to equalize with | the top end, it also means the bottom gets to equalize | with you. | 988747 wrote: | How long ago was that? Are you guys still in touch? Because | it seems to me that recently developer salaries in Poland | matched or even surpassed those in Austria :) | sealeck wrote: | I don't think this is likely to be true at a population | level; Austria is a much richer country than Poland; has | a much higher standard of education and in other sectors | salaries are usually higher in Austria than Poland. | V-2 wrote: | What exactly implies Austria has a "much higher standard | of education" than Poland? | | For example in the most recent PISA rating the average | score of mathematics, science and reading is 513 for | Poland (11th in the world) and 491 for Austria (28th | place). | BossingAround wrote: | From my experience, it's more the culture rather than | education that forms "suboptimal" engineers. After all, | engineers mostly learn from online resources in English | anyways, so the quality of formal education doesn't come | to play _that_ much (and for the record, I don 't really | believe that the top tech uni in Vienna is leaps and | bounds better than the top tech uni in Krakow). | | It's the work culture in smaller cities that'll probably | make the population differences. | 988747 wrote: | Agree that this isn't likely to be true at population | level - I was talking about Software Developers | specifically. | | Disagree on "much higher standard of education" - even if | Austria comes on top, it's just barely, not by a lot. | yrgulation wrote: | I dont know where op gets their stats but pay in austria | is by no means competitive. I know of a romanian dude who | interviewed for a company there. Pompous session, ties, | suit and the stench of a rigid hierarchy. Once they made | their offer he laughed and told them he'd earn twice as | much for the same (tech) job in romania. Perhaps an | isolated case but DACH countries have an inflated sense | of superiority not matching reality, at least in software | tech. Interestingly i see many of them crapping on east | europeans on this forum. Perhaps due to a sense of | insecurity, but would be interesting if someone pulled | some stats on how often they pull the east european | "poverty" or "corruption" card out of their behind. | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | _> Once they made their offer he laughed and told them | he'd earn twice as much for the same (tech) job in | romania. Perhaps an isolated case_ | | Definitely not an isolated case. Austrian tech companies | generally pay shit and are usually pretty backwards and | burocratic due to the management heavy culture from the | 20th century factories (WFH is frowned upon and your time | in the office is tracked instead of looking at employee | output) and highly conservative culture in general | (everyone still uses cash). Also they put far too much | value in having advanced degrees from their local | universities rather than looking at experience and | practical skills, so you end up in credential inflation | town with colleagues who scuff at your code or technical | opinions, because they "have a PhD from TU Sturmfart, and | you don't". | | That explains why they have virtually no internationally | successful local SW companies (unlike other small EU | companies like Netherlands or Finland, or even poorer | Estonia), and instead have just a bunch of mom and pop | webshops, crusty ERP boyshops for local factories, and | their outdated banking industry that can't even get stock | trading and banking apps right and instead need to rely | on the German Flatex and N26. Their only unicorn, | Bitpanda, recently fired half the workforce, which they | easily could because Austrian employees have virtually no | protection against termination, so your employer can fire | you without any reason with the 1-3 month notice period. | The cherry on top is that non-competes are legal here and | employers can choose to enforce them, which, as we know, | is what made SV the cradle of innovation. /s I rest my | case. | | QOL is generally good there and you can live well there, | provided you do anything but tech, ideally work for the | state or government enterprises and coast till retirement | on your inherited real estate. | EUROCARE wrote: | This matches my experience, and also consider: I'm paying | less than 8% income tax and health and social insurance | combined on my income in the CEE country where I live. | What's the tax and insurance in DE and A? | ido wrote: | It was maybe 15 years ago, but today instead of Poland it | would be some poor Asian country. My point is that it's | not just that Europeans earn less than Americans, they | also earn more than other regions. If you want _fairness_ | that also applies to people under you, not just people | above you. | yakak wrote: | This isn't really directly true. A global company manager is | not allowed to balance salary accounts and is usually given | rules where US/Canada/western Europe are the same one head | count and other countries are multiples according to typical | comparative cost. | | The end result is that many jobs don't get opened at all in | Europe but the ones that do tend closer toward US rates as this | is what they were planning to pay but could not find the one | high cost head the manager wanted. | siva7 wrote: | If you think a dev is a code monkey then yes, it doesn't matter | if you hire someone from vietnam or seattle for your US | business. If you're actually looking for a software engineer | then i have bad news for you: professional software development | is all about communication (with customers, requirements | engineers, other developers and so on). That's why you are | paying them ten times more, so they have a chance to understand | your business domain and can consult you on technical | decisions. Otherwise every manager and business owner on earth, | including me, would hire just the Vietnamese dev instead of the | 10 times more expensive US dev. | bluepizza wrote: | Even local subcontracting is quite difficult due to | communication lines. | | I've worked with very talented offshore developers. They had | good English, good CS knowledge, and good work ethics. | Results were always crap anyway. And their number one | complaint was always "they don't tell us enough, and we have | to guess things". | ido wrote: | So you're saying the Dutch in the article shouldn't complain | that they earn less than Americans then? | siva7 wrote: | The dutch isn't earning ten times less than the average US | developer. At best two times less, but that's it (and FAANG | salaries in US tech hubs are in no way representative for | average US dev salaries) | ido wrote: | But it's exactly the same type of complaint "salaries in | SFBA are higher for the same job in Amsterdam", why | shouldn't a Pakistani dev level the same complain about | developers in Amsterdam? | siva7 wrote: | For the same reason i outlined above: communication. | Different time zones, language barriers, cultural | barriers and so on. The communication between the SFBA | and amsterdam team may still be easier due to more | similiar cultures than between SFBA and pakistan. | Ozzie_osman wrote: | So my read of the second and third groups was that the | companies are being competitive against the top of that range | (vs the first group that is just benchmarking against local | peers). If I'm competing to win a competition, it doesn't | matter how low the lowest performer is. It does matter who the | highest performers are. | | So I feel like you may have just read the definition | incorrectly (granted article could also have been more clear). | lordnacho wrote: | In my line of work, there are actually a bunch of Vietnamese | guys making Western level quant trader type salaries, living in | small castles in their home country. | | The thing is, you can't suppress the wages unilaterally for | someone who knows how to do things. There's always going to be | some other firm offering them a similar deal, with the same | capital (equipment, IP, support, trading capital etc) for them | to use. So even if you know they only need a tenth of what a | Western quant needs to live well, you can't just offer them | that, they will end up taking an offer very similar to what | they'd get if they moved to NYC or London. | | The $300 people are victims of supply and demand. Often it's | cookie-cutter type contract work that many people know how to | do, and the real problem they have as a supplier of that | knowledge is how to get in the front of the queue to be the guy | to help a western small-time entrepreneur build his website. | When this is the case, the organiser, basically the owner of | the outsourcing company, has all the negotiating leverage and | sets the price accordingly. | | The difference is that the firm with very specifically | exploitable capital needs specific knowledge to operate that | capital. You need devs with certain skills, and there's only so | many of them, especially as your process gives a lot of false | negatives. As such devs are rarely identified, you are wasting | a lot of money not splitting the pie generously when you find | one. I was talking to someone the other day and the agent told | me there were 40 candidates interviewed for three roles, which | is a huge amount as I had 5 one-on-ones plus a takehome. | | Firms that don't really have anything special will not pay | anything special, in relation to where the employee is based. | Dove wrote: | I found this fascinatingly counterintuitive. | | I would normally expect that a broader market leads to lower | prices for commodity goods. If I can only buy candy from the | vendor at the movie theater, I expect to pay a higher price than | if I can buy it from all the stores in the region, which I expect | to be higher again than if I can import it from anywhere in the | world. The reverse is true for developers? The companies with | global reach instead pay the _most_? | | And then it occurred to me that the efforts of good developers | scale. | | If I imagine a widget that makes a company 10% more efficient, a | small lemonade stand might be willing to pay $20 for it, while a | large company might find a price in tens of millions to be a | bargain. Developers are more like this. Not _only_ developers, | mind you, but automation scales to the size of the problem almost | for free! | | If you give a good developer a hard problem and scale it across | global markets, the return for that developer being _good_ | absolutely dwarfs any reasonable salary on a human scale. | Therefore, it makes sense that for companies solving a certain | class of problems, in markets above a certain size, that _any_ | reasonable salary is a bargain if it improves the quality of the | developers the company can attract. I suppose the idea that | software scales is the intuition upon which this site was founded | in the first place. | | I appreciate that the analysis in the article is good and much | more complex than this. I just enjoyed the unexpected | observation, and it left me feeling confident about my place in | the world. There are never enough talented people to solve all | the problems that need them, and if there ever is so much talent | that I have trouble finding a job -- well, that's a world I'd | like to live in anyway. | FredPret wrote: | By this logic, the best deal for a good developer will almost | always be to start a company | marginalia_nu wrote: | A good developer actually sort of needs other people to make | this happen, though. Unless the good developer is also good | at business, marketing, and at a lot of other things that are | easy to take for granted. While those facilitating roles are | to some extent more replaceable, they are still quite | necessary to allow the good developer to work their magic. | | While polymath geniuses that excel in many different areas | definitely do exist, they're a lot more rare than those who | merely excel in one or two areas. | Dove wrote: | I suppose that is true, if you reason narrowly. | | There is another force in play: the degree to which support | makes the individual more powerful. I am much closer to my | full potential as a problem solver when surrounded by | effective management/facilities/IT/legal/differently- | specialized-peers/enough-people-to-work-on-truly-large- | systems than when I go it alone. Having spent significant | time both as a freelancer and in mind bogglingly huge | corporations, the corp lifestyle has its drawbacks for sure | -- but I myself find the benefits of support and large | problems to dramatically outweigh the drawbacks of politics | and lack of freedom. Your mileage may vary, of course. Shoot, | _my_ mileage has varied over the course of a career. Still, | the intuition seems solid: you aren 't going to be solving | Google-datacenter or Amazon-logistics levels of problems with | your personal startup calendar app. At least, not usually, | not for a while. | | If there is a minimum size market which can maximize the | impact of a good developer, I suspect there might be a | minimum size company, too. | acchow wrote: | That is indeed always the best deal for every developer who | wants to be an entrepreneur. But it's not for everyone - some | people just want to code. | sumedh wrote: | Getting contracts is a different skillset. | kortilla wrote: | Only if the developer is capable of finding a business | product that can be automated at scale. Nobody suggested that | part was trivial. | | Once you have a business with that problem, then developers | are worth significant money. | de6u99er wrote: | Those high salaries remind me of the stories of heavy smokers who | didn't die of cancer or COPD. I think it's very unlikely to get | those high salaries in Europe. Comparing them to salaries in | Silicon Valley without context isn't really smart. I have always | tried to see bay area salaries as as risk compensation. | | E g. In Vienna/Austria a 2-3 bedroom apartment here is about 1-2k | while in the bay area it's between 5-10k. If I lose my job I | still have a social net that will soften my fall, while in SV | you're on your own and can get evicted from one day to the other. | We have a single payer healthcare system while in the US certain | health issues can, despite being insured, lead to financial ruin. | | That being said my salary was until now always a 5-figure salary. | In my upcoming job I will for the first time in my career path | get a 6-figure salary which excluding bonuses is 70% higher and | including bonuses can be up to 89% higher than currently. It took | me quite some while to get there, and I can assure others that | jobs paying those amounts don't grow on trees. It requires both | talent and charisma, and honestly also luck, to land such a job. | Constantly switching jobs and chasing slightly higher salaries | definitely isn't the way to go. | fnbr wrote: | Wait, really? That's incredible! EUR1-2k for a 2-3 bedroom | apartment in Vienna? You would barely see that anywhere in | Canada, let alone a major city. | de6u99er wrote: | Yes: | | https://www.immowelt.at/liste/wien/wohnungen/mieten?ami=100&. | .. | jotm wrote: | It's not that incredible considering availability, | requirements, time from arrival to country to getting the | keys, etc. But yeah, once you are renting it, it's pretty | nice until you have to move. | lnsru wrote: | The same is valid for Munich. 2-3 bedrooms plus dining room | is <2k here. However it's not the best apartment in the city, | rather okayish. Also it's hard to hit 5k after taxes salary | limit here. | ficklepickle wrote: | Canada has the lovely combo of low salaries and high rent | de6u99er wrote: | I forgot to mention. 5 weeks of PTO or like in my case, after | having paid into the system enough years, 6 weeks of PTO. Plus | 100% paid sick leave! And lastl but not least between 12 and 24 | months (parents' choice) parental leave which can be consumed | half-half by both parents. | [deleted] | UweSchmidt wrote: | Have we discussed the requirements for those fancy "Tier 3" jobs? | I suspect it's overall _a lot_ harder than most regular dev jobs. | | Many developers are medium sized fish in small ponds, where they | can get away with moderate effectiveness, bad programming habits | and little study, or, if they are good, they easily stand out and | enjoy the honor of getting the harder tickets assigned, yet may | not ever be really challenged. | | These top paying companies all seem to do quite complicated | stuff, serve a lot of users reliably and implement major features | quickly. FAANG codebases seem large and involve a lot of (custom) | tooling that devs need to grok and processes they need to | understand. Just the author's passing advice to study up for | those interviews means ... many hours of study in that | "100%-concentration-mode" that many people are not willing or | able to put in even for 1 hour. | | No doubt there are some cosy pockets in FAANG but, ultimately, | building AWS or Azure from nothing can simply only be done by a | certain type of person who is willing to bring a certain amount | of effort. And those people the market rightfully grants the | appropriate salaries. Right? | sidlls wrote: | I work at such a "tier 3" company. It's not about the | complexity of the tooling or the code. Most of that is stuff | the typical Enterprise Java Dev can "grok" easily enough with | just a bit of a learning curve. The problems of scale and | infrastructure are mostly abstracted from engineers at these | places already, and that's where the complex tooling comes in. | The rest of it is unnecessarily complicated, mainly because | these companies have two problems. One: they've made a point of | hiring at the high end of the education pool (masters, PhD) to | work on what amounts to glorified CRUD--these people are bored, | and add complexity where it is unnecessary. Two: the promotion | mechanism depends on running a technically complex, "needle | moving" project--this also promotes unnecessary complexity. | | The real reason the salaries at these companies is higher is | also two-fold: 1) "everyone" wants to work there, so they can | be selective and use salary as a justification for that | selectivity; 2) they want to keep their overqualified staff | happy enough to not start competitors. | kortilla wrote: | > with just a bit of a learning curve | | This downplays how bad many developers are. I have some web | dev friends that know how to use exactly one framework, one | language, one source control, and never touch the cli out of | a few commands stackoverflow told them to run. Changing from | GitHub to bitbucket would be a major undertaking for them and | that's not even abandoning git. | | They do well managing the small business apps they do, but | they have no interest or motivation to learn anything | different. | | Now, keeping that bar in mind, there are devs worse than them | that they complain about to me. They struggle with basic | input validation (understanding what is executed on the | client vs server, where strings can be trusted, etc). | | Having come from Google, the tooling learning curve is only | trivial if you already have a completely different mindset | about what it means to be a programmer than 90% of the labor | market. | hawk_ wrote: | I am curious to see how this plays out with the coming recession | (hiring freezes instituted already). I suspect that #3 segment | will prove to be ephemeral - a result of fed's QE unlimited | regime. | aenis wrote: | Booking.com, quoted in the article, is a prime example of what | happens when those companies are squeezed. They let a lot of | people go in 2020, haphazardly, then they scrambled to re-hire | as wheels started falling off their platform. I turned them | down despite them offering a good salary bump. | sealeck wrote: | If you look at Google, Apple, Amazon, etc's balance sheets | they're quite solid, not really at this point propped up by | monetary policy any more. | UkrainianJew wrote: | It's not that easy. Lots of Amazon's profits come from | countless unprofitable startups blowing VC money on AWS. | Google is swimming in money because numerous companies have | generous ad budgets. Apple relies on people exchanging their | smartphone every year or so because why not. | | You cannot expect these things to go unchanged if the Fed | stops throwing money around like it's used to. And if it | doesn't, a bag of rice will soon cost $1000 because we have | an shortage of farm workers and an oversupply of wellness | bloggers, influencers and administrators. | hawk_ wrote: | Fed's balance sheet has barely started contracting. This | contraction cycle has a while to play out. | [deleted] | sytelus wrote: | Within FAANG, there is again tri-modal distribution. There are | people who are hanging in there in IC roles for 15 years and then | they are new comers straight out of school with PhD in deep | learning and multiple competing offers. Both groups make | approximately same money. Then there is upper management layer | who have gotten promoted well beyond their competence by jumping | internally and externally and they make 5X of everyone else. | | Truth to be told, vast majority of FAANG population doesn't make | those fairytale money. | jotm wrote: | I've been an IC at a company providing IC services to small | companies in the buildings next to FAANG HQs. I've worked as an | IC designer, have been involved in a lot of IC (obviously) and | I also have several years of experience in IC. So clearly, ic | wot ppl mean when they type IC. | | As an IC on various forums for over a decade, I've only started | commonly seeing this abbreviation in the past 2 years. | | Just don't. | cmrdporcupine wrote: | However, an IC @ Google outside the US still makes 2-3x what | their local employment market will pay even without playing all | careerist & promo games. | | Source: was IC @ Google. | | Frankly I've accumulated the cynical opinion that Google | _wants_ to asphyxiate the local job markets of talent. They | need to do this to keep their lead in advertising, etc., and | they can afford to do it because of their lead. Paying 2x what | local employers pay stops many local employers (usually | underfunded by anemic local investment culture) from firing up | some fancy new ad-tech startup or whatever. | wdb wrote: | It's unclear where these companies are in The Netherlands. | Probably restricted to the Randstad? Haven't really seen the | mentioned salaries ranges outside Amsterdam | arnvald wrote: | You're right, it's either Amsterdam or remote. | yread wrote: | [2021] | | Previous discussion | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26388936 | dang wrote: | Thanks! Macroexpanded: | | _Tripolar Nature of Software Engineering Salaries in the | Netherlands and Europe_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26388936 - March 2021 (134 | comments) | 6510 wrote: | Without taxes the per country salaries are only meaningful to | employers? The 55000 would be 4580 per month or 38400 and 3200 | after tax in NL. | | Depending on the company you can easily spend 8 hours on extra | nonsense during free hours: unpaid breaks, long commutes, | messages, phone calls. | | IMHO it's a crap deal compared to other jobs. | acchow wrote: | By this diagram, if you can't climb from the second curve onto | the third one, then it is indeed a bad deal and it would make | financial sense to switch to some other career. | yrgulation wrote: | Yep, pretty much. Tech jobs are no longer highly paid. Also | earning 3200 eur after tax in the nl is lower than earning 2500 | eur in, say, romania, once you factor in the cost of living. | BossingAround wrote: | Every time I see this article reposted, I feel a pang of sadness. | It's this chasing of the SF salary outside of the US that is | supposed to be the holy grail of every engineer in rich EU | countries. | | Well, if you get hired by FAANG in Germany, you don't get the SF | salary. My experience is that companies that do offer extreme | salaries do not do so out of competition with FAANG (since FAANG | does not compete with itself globally, i.e. FAANG companies tell | you something like "if you want SF salary, come and work in SF," | which tends to be difficult due to the exploitative nature of US | immigration system). | | Rather, there's some kind of a catch, like "we need you to know | this highly specialized thing that globally only a handful of | people have experience with" (I'm looking at you, AI solvers), or | they provide conditions very few people can tolerate. | 202206241203 wrote: | _> Well, if you get hired by FAANG in Germany, you don 't get | the SF salary._ | | I don't think Germany has at-will employment. Plus all the | taxes to feed people who don't want to work. | PragmaticPulp wrote: | Unfortunately, I have to agree. The truth is that it's entirely | possible for some people to get SF FAANG level salaries while | working in the EU, but those salaries are extremely _rare_. | It's not the same as SF or Seattle or NYC where there are | numerous job opportunities and career paths that could lead to | those salaries. Instead, they're reserved for a select few high | achievers who are uniquely talented and accomplished. | | This article has caused a lot of consternation in one of the | international forums I follow with a lot of younger people | getting started in their EU tech careers because they can't | figure out why they're unable to find compensation coming close | to this _anywhere_. | cmrdporcupine wrote: | _Base_ level compensations for FAANG positions outside of SV | are indeed pretty typical and humdrum. | | But they contain a large equity portion. And over 2-3 years | that equity portion ends up being more than the base salary, | and you can get pretty close to a Bay Area compensation range. | | e.g. I was L4 @ Google Waterloo in Canada. Base compensation | was nothing special. Good for the immediate area, but not | stellar. Yes, nice perks, amazing benefits, decent vacation, | good bonus, etc. But after accruing RSUs for a few years you're | probably making double what you started with. Especially so if | the stock goes up a bunch. | | Could you make more money working directly for Google in SV? | Certainly, but your cost of living would be way higher. But | even if you stay home you're likely making at least twice what | your peers in the regular local companies are making. | | Unfortunately it's terrible golden handcuffs, because nobody | else in the region will be able to match that compensation | package. | mupuff1234 wrote: | That was true for the longest bull run in history, which may | or may not continue. | cmrdporcupine wrote: | Sure, though the equity refreshes done at Google are done | yearly targeting a $$ range at the current share price, and | then vesting over multiple years. So even if the stock goes | down it will tend to amortize out to about the same over a | number of years, and if the stock goes up a bunch again | older grants made "at the bottom" could even net you big | results. | | But of course there's also the chance that not only will | Google's stock go down, but their revenues... and | generosity... will to. | | Me, I "lucked out" and sold my RSU at the peak. Though I've | been living off the cash proceeds since, so. | Jacqued wrote: | In my experience, this is mostly wrong. You don't get 500-600k | Silicon Valley offers in Europe just for being a solid | engineer. | | You do get a total comp that is 2-3x local market if you manage | to get into FAANG like companies and even the tier below. I | think this is what Gergely is describing. | | That is still life changing for a lot of engineers, and worth | the 3 month grind to get through the interviews. At least it | was for me, and this article was a big part of why I made the | jump. | jokethrowaway wrote: | 2-3x local market is doable even outside of fangs, usually | with more flexibility (remote was a nice perk pre-pandemic) | and no bullshit interview. | | If you pair it with working via your own limited company and | get your taxes down to single digits or low double digits you | can make as much as salaried people on 300k - and with no | equity that can go up or down (sure, and no holidays or sick | days if you're the kind of person that does those). | | Yet, even when you hit 200+k in EU, you're still left | thinking you could be making 600k in SV. | dubswithus wrote: | You mean consulting? | FrenchDevRemote wrote: | >(sure, and no holidays or sick days if you're the kind of | person that does those). | | the kind of person that does those? you mean humans? | 2-718-281-828 wrote: | > or they provide conditions very few people can tolerate. | | Like intimate cleaning and nursing of old and very sick people | under immense time pressure and emotional stress. | | Oh, well ... never mind | idlehand wrote: | Gentle reminder that wages are set by markets generally based | on the cost of replacement. If you don't have a moat in the | form of education and experience, you won't have very | impressive pay. Working in the public sector just makes this | worse because politicians need to keep your wages down to | have room in the budget for their pet project which will | hopefully get them re-elected. | splittingTimes wrote: | Humanities supposedly most brilliant minds work on the next | e-billing system, AI on how to sell more crap that nobody really | needs, keep a glorified message board afloat or enable the cancer | that is advertisment. | | They should work on how to address the climate catastrophe, the | waste/recycling problem, food security, sustainable agriculture | and land/water use, medical devices/health care or how to fix the | broken participatory political system that has led us to the | multifaceted crisis we all find us in. | | None of the companies named in that article solve any of the | existential threads we as species at large or society in the | small face and yet they pay the highest salaries and we are | supposed to chase those. | | This adds to the dark and heavy ball of despair in my stomach | more than anything. | jotm wrote: | As individuals, and even as companies, we can't do much. | Worrying about it is just stressing for no benefit to anyone. | | Governments, elected by the citizens, need to address such | strategic concerns. | | And they actually do. In case it's not clear, most people just | don't give a fuck. Hence the weak response to climate change, | etc. | | So don't stress, just live while you can. | hintymad wrote: | I was wondering what makes companies be willing to pay Bay Area | packages for engineers in only a few tech hubs. Supply and | Demand? But then at least FANNGs have a hard time finding talents | in European countries too, at least in Germany. And the number of | engineers they hire is small compared to that in the US, so the | companies could afford larger packages, right? | | If it were not supply and demand, then it's puzzling to me why | companies didn't want to pay packages comparable to the Bay Area | in cities like London or Berlin. Is it because these cities do | not have teams that own sufficiently mission-critical products or | systems? If that's the reason, then why can't the cities own more | products? | ceeplusplus wrote: | Unfortunately this misses the difference in taxation vs. the US. | You pay almost nothing for healthcare at any tech company and pay | much lower taxes (both income and sales tax). So European offers | are still much less competitive than the US. | maccard wrote: | in some states. On a salary of PS120,000 in the UK, you'll take | home 60% of your pay [0], meanwhile in California on $145,000 | [1] you take home 63%. | | The real difference is that it's very hard to be paid 120,000 | in the UK. | | [0] https://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php | | [1] https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-paycheck- | calculator#... | varispeed wrote: | This is a bit misleading, because on PS120k salary the | employer has to additionally pay PS17k of employer's NI which | comes from your salary budget. So in real terms you make | PS137k and your take home is about 53% (and it's get worse as | your pay goes up as you are losing personal allowance and | your take home quickly becomes less than 50%). It does not | account for Apprenticeship Levy. It's a quite nasty way for | the government to hide the true level of taxation from | employees. | maccard wrote: | There's always a hidden cost. There's also the fact that on | 120k an employer is required to contribute 3% and likely | does so via salary sacrifice which changes the numbers | again. | | The number I picked for California is also on the higher | end, other states are lower again. All thats to say a | direct general comparison isn't possible but it's not right | to claim that the west has a higher tax burden either the | numbers are dangerously close in many cases. | digianarchist wrote: | There can be huge tax advantages in the US compared to Canada | or the EU. My effective rate in California is 24% because I | can file my taxes jointly which isn't possible elsewhere. | cdavid wrote: | It depends on the country. In France, you definitely gets | lots of tax advantage getting married, and in many cases 1 | person earning X is not so different than 2 people getting | x/2 after tax. | | That is definitely not true in the UK, at least when I was | working there from 2011 to 2017. | ido wrote: | It may not be possible _everywhere_ but it's certainly | possible _elsewhere_ (my wife and I also file jointly in | Germany). | odiroot wrote: | The difference between UK and some of the Western-EU countries | is already significant enough. No need to go straight to USA. | nivenkos wrote: | Not so sure, as a junior in the UK I got a raise moving to | Spain of all places... from London. | vultour wrote: | Standard contract rate in London is ~500GBP per day, which | is incredibly high compared to most of Europe. | bjornsing wrote: | 62.50 GBP = 75.7 USD per hour is "incredibly high"...? | vultour wrote: | Yes. If your country does not have one of the tech | companies mentioned in the article then $75 per hour is a | fever dream. | yrgulation wrote: | Probably because you are at a senior level in that market. | Few eu countries can compete with the uk in terms of pay | and modern tech. | kayoone wrote: | Working in Berlin tech, I found London salaries not that | interesting considering the cost of living is easily 2x | of Berlin. | cjbgkagh wrote: | The money in London is in contracting. | 202206241203 wrote: | That is when you manage to find a flat to rent in Berlin | after queueing with 100 other people? | yrgulation wrote: | Well to be honest london is not an ideal place to live | in. But thanks to remote contracting and london rates, | the uk market can be quite attractive. | seibelj wrote: | A common criticism is that "but you get so much more for your | taxes in Europe". | | I have a counterpoint - you get the choice of what you want to | buy in the US. I'd rather keep more of my take-home pay and do | without certain services, or better yet choose the provider | (and quality / expense) of such services if I want them. | | Somehow the bureaucracy in the US is still massive, so I can | only imagine what far higher tax rates in Europe enable. | djvdq wrote: | Let's say that I want to have better train infrastructure. | How much will it cost me to build that, according to your | thinking? | seibelj wrote: | I would rather a private company build it, or in a public / | private partnership, so we at least have some semblance of | breaking-even if not a small profit. | | Our current train systems are so woefully wasteful, | inefficient, prone to breaking down, and so on that simply | giving the same corruption more money would be extremely | unwise. | BossingAround wrote: | I see no real reason why public transport must be | necessarily profitable. It's a common good that tax | payers enjoy. You'll have profitable legs, but you'll | also have legs that are used by a few folks from a | village who need to get to the city once a week, and | those will never be profitable. A private company would | probably not build there. | ceeplusplus wrote: | Because without the need to be profitable, you get gross | incompetence, corruption, and waste. See: California HSR, | BART expansion, NYC subway expansion. | | The power of the market forces private businesses to | offer quality service. A privately run subway would never | allow drug addicts and thieves run rampant on the train | like they're allowed to in NYC and the Bay. | | Pro tip: if I feel scared for my life or property at any | point during a transit, you've already lost against a | car. | Tepix wrote: | Better than Germany? Not much... it's a train wreck (ha!) | stetrain wrote: | How many choices do I have in the US where I can live, shop, | eat, travel, etc. without owning, insuring, maintaining, and | fueling a car? | jokethrowaway wrote: | Taxes in EU can be high or low depending on where you leave | and whether you're employed or work through your own | business. | | Tax rates can go from 5% (Maltese company + Portuguese NHR | scheme) to 60% (high earning employees). | | High tax Europe doesn't make any sense if you ask me, you're | not getting much for it. | | Infrastructure (roads, public departments, police) and public | healthcare are terrible in most of EU for the average high | earner. Nordic countries are way better in that regards but | it's too cold for me to even consider those places. | | USA healthcare is comparable to the best private healthcare | available in EU. | ido wrote: | Tax rates at the higher taxed states in the US (like | California) are actually not lower than in western europe | while still not providing you with all the services western | european governments do. | seibelj wrote: | I live in Massachusetts, and somehow we actually have | fairly low taxation (5.25% flat tax) despite our reputation | and being deep blue politically. | | I average about 30% total taxation in a high tax bracket. | If I was trying to avoid taxes on real wealth I would move | to Florida for 6 months and do the other 6 in Boston (as | have many friends of mine). | | Why people keep paying California / NYC tax rates in | software dev jobs makes no sense anymore. | TulliusCicero wrote: | Meanwhile WA has no state income tax at all, so it's even | better for high earners. | | Advantages for the bay area are its weather and much | larger tech ecosystem. Main advantage for NYC is being a | 'real' big city with all that entails (night life, better | transit/walkability, other urban amenities). | nerdponx wrote: | I think MA is probably the state with the best "bang for | buck" in terms of what the government provides per dollar | of taxes paid. | | NY is comparatively insulting to reside in, because the | government is so wasteful/corrupt there and is therefore | capable of providing so much less (not to mention its | legendary ability to stall legislation indefinitely). | I_AM_A_SMURF wrote: | For high earners it's still higher in EU, about 50% vs 40% | but yeah it's not _that_ significant. | hef19898 wrote: | Be aware that those 50% in the EU usually include social | security, unemployment, health care and taxes, not just | taxes on your salary. Also, it's less than 50% in praxis, | 50% are just easier to calculate in your head. | pedrosorio wrote: | Those 40% in California also include: | | - Medicare (65+ healthcare), social security (retirement) | | - California taxes: disability, unemployment, and for low | income people, Medi-Cal covers healthcare as well | sealeck wrote: | Even if (which it almost certainly isn't) what you claim is | true, the point of paying taxes is not just about what you | immediately, materially gain but (a) to support people on | lower incomes and (b) to fund things like R&D projects (e.g. | the www is a result of state-funded CERN) and infrastructure | which would be too expensive to build personally (e.g. roads, | railway tracks to ship goods to ones house), etc | nerdponx wrote: | The biggest US government expenses are the military and | overcomplicated inefficient social programs (Medicare, food | stamps, Social Security). | | Moreover, the logical extreme of this argument is to just not | have a government at all. I don't need bridges because I | don't drive. I don't need the fire department because I am | careful. Etc. It doesn't make sense, and the truth is that | some things either best administered centrally, at scale, and | protected from market forces, and/or the inefficiencies of | central planning are still better for society as a whole | (even if not for you) than the alternative outcomes that | would arise if you rely on various market-like systems. | jokethrowaway wrote: | > I don't need bridges because I don't drive | | Why should you pay for it? Let those who need it or stand | to make money out of it to pay. | | There are alternative systems, we never had the freedom to | try them outside of emperors / feudal kings / governments | coercion: | http://daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf | nerdponx wrote: | This book has about the same information content as _The | Conquest of Bread_ : a lot of interesting ideas and | idealistic speculation, and not a lot in the way of | practical instructions for organizing a robust large- | scale society. | | Edit: It's worth remembering that the earliest highways | in the USA were privately-owned toll roads. And that the | first mass transit systems were privately owned | railroads. There is a lot to be said for free markets and | the price system! But there is also a reason that these | pieces of infrastructure ended up under the government | umbrella. | seibelj wrote: | The brightest minds don't go into government bureaucracies | - they don't get respect, don't get paid, can't get shit | done, and a myriad of reasons why they go private instead. | The best-staffed departments are those that have a | symbiotic relationship with the private sector, like the | SEC, where doing a government stint raises your value in | the private sector significantly. | | Because we have seen endless waste and corruption in our | central planning, I no longer want them running or planning | anything. If there was even a single government service | that made even a semblance of efficiency and effectiveness | then perhaps that one could remain. But overall it's been | an endless slide to shittiness in our public institutions. | nerdponx wrote: | > Because we have seen endless waste and corruption in | our central planning, I no longer want them running or | planning anything. If there was even a single government | service that made even a semblance of efficiency and | effectiveness then perhaps that one could remain. But | overall it's been an endless slide to shittiness in our | public institutions. | | Citation needed on this FUD. | | Any "slide" is more likely due to punitive funding cuts | in agencies like the IRS or due to corrupt leadership | (including some presidential appointees) at agencies like | the FCC. If anything, the Biden administration has been | refreshingly high-functioning in its basic capacity as | the executive branch of the federal government, | regardless of how you feel about his public statements or | policy agenda. | WJW wrote: | I'm not saying you're not correct wherever you are, but | it's important to recognize that there is a significant | cultural aspect in this. In the US, you would be entirely | correct: talented people don't go into the government and | thus the public sector is filled with subpar employees. | In many EU countries, the government has more prestige, | thus it attracts more talent and so it works better and | gets more prestige. It's a feedback loop in both | directions. | | I can point to a great many effective government services | in my own country in western Europe for example. | jokethrowaway wrote: | Government services can work - but at what cost? | | We routinely had multimillions public projects to build | crappy website for our universities. | | It was something the students could have done better for | less than 100k. | | After you factor in all the corruption and inefficiency | caused by not having competition, you can end up paying a | high multiple of what is reasonable. | ornornor wrote: | The corollary is that you live like a king in a country where | people could be billionaires or they could be poor, | desperate, with untreated mental health issues, nothing to | lose, and a loaded gun. | | On the global scale, I wouldn't say the US is a beacon of | progress and happiness. It's better than many bottom tier | countries but far from top tier countries (which aren't as | liberal, for the most part) | nivenkos wrote: | What top tier countries? | | The US is the wealthiest country in the world by miles. | It's had the highest GDP every single year for over 100 | years continuously. | | That amount of capital is phenomenal, and part of why | Americans enjoy salaries 3-4x higher than even Western | Europe in most professional work - Tech, Medicine, Law, | truck driving, etc. | | And that money allows you to work your way up, and buy your | own property, etc. which is almost impossible in much of | Europe, Canada, etc. | BossingAround wrote: | > The US is the wealthiest country in the world by miles. | | True, but the point is that most of that wealth is highly | concentrated. Hence why the US is not the beacon of | happiness and progress. | ornornor wrote: | Yes on economical metrics. But in happiness, life | expectancy, education, equality, prisoners count, | literacy, and many other things that arguably matter more | in life than $$$ then the US is quite lagging compared to | other developed economies. | nivenkos wrote: | Yeah, and for most working professionals you get sweet FA. | | Like here in Sweden we pay 40% income tax, 25% sales tax and | still have to pay about $30 for each doctor visit. Dentistry | is not included in the state health coverage. Neither are | annual checkups of any kind, so diagnosis can be difficult | and slow, etc. | | In Sweden, those taxes are just going to those who are lucky | enough to have first-hand subsidised apartment contracts, or | have loads of children and live off the barnbidrag. | Especially asylum seekers (failed or accepted) that get both | of those for free, and never have to work or integrate with | society. | | The only major benefit over the US is the semi-decent trade | unions which mean full-time work is quite stable and with | good vacation allowance. | BossingAround wrote: | I am not disputing what you're saying about your healthcare | system, but if you get hit by a car, I would guess that | nobody will be afraid to call an ambulance for fear of the | cost. The same cannot be said of the US, where people with | emergencies take ubers to the hospital. | | You might take an uber to the hospital in Sweden too, out | of convenience, but not out of fear for being stuck with a | $1000 bill. | jokethrowaway wrote: | Good luck finding an ambulance in EU | | You often need to find your own way to the hospital | varispeed wrote: | > The same cannot be said of the US, where people with | emergencies take ubers to the hospital. | | It's a bit ironic as a couple of months ago I had to call | for an ambulance here in the UK when I found someone | extremely unwell and they told me I should call an Uber | and take that person to A&E myself, because they don't | have free ambulances. Then at A&E they had over 3h | waiting time for majors. You pay fortune in taxes and you | get crap service. Often you have to go privately to see a | specialist and you can't deduct that money from your | taxes. | seibelj wrote: | The anecdotes from supposedly-superior socialized medical | systems in Europe always throw cold water on USA leftist | dreams. The left here has been saying it's a utopia for a | fraction of the cost for decades. The reality is so much | more complex. | nivenkos wrote: | I mean, I'm a leftist in the EU, it's just that the | system isn't working due to cuts and mismanagement, and | unfortunately the "left-wing" parties here are more | concerned with identity politics and policies benefiting | the lumpen rather than the proletariat (mass immigration, | social housing for criminals, etc.). | | I support universal healthcare, but I think a lot of | Americans don't appreciate the benefits they get from the | sheer wealth of the USA. Salaries are so much higher, and | health insurance covers much more at good companies, etc. | tomtheelder wrote: | I mean I could tell almost the exact same anecdote from | when I had to have my appendix out in the US. The key | difference is that I ended up with a fucking insane bill | to pay at the end of all of it. | | Plus the NHS was better historically. The conservatives | have been playing starve the beast with it, and Labor is | about as impotent as the Dems are in the US. | | Either way they _still_ spend less and have better | outcomes, so that part at least isn 't very complex. | Joeri wrote: | A well run government subsidized system still has choice and | competition. In belgium I can choose what school my kids go | to, even though all of them are subsidized to the point of | costing very little. I can also choose what hospital to go | to, or what doctor to see, and that visit will always be | subsidized by the public healthcare system, while doctors | still are self-employed and can set their own rates (higher | rates means I pay more myself). In both systems there is | little administration, because the system works the same way | for everyone and is straightforward. | wasmitnetzen wrote: | There are things money can't buy. It's hard to list things | without getting too political, which I don't think this is | the right forum for, but there are fundamental differences in | European politics vs American politics, and no salary, as | high as it might be, can change that. | thr0wawayf00 wrote: | > you get the choice of what you want to buy in the US. | | Not really in my experience. You get to choose between | providers in your insurance network, but I've lost count of | the number of times my preferred provider wasn't in my | network. On top of that, the insurance company has to sign | off on many diagnostic tests even when my doctor wants to do | one. | | I'm experiencing this right now with chronic pain associated | with an old injury. My doctor wants to do an arthrogram, but | my insurance won't approve it without doing a full course of | physical therapy first and doing any kind of motion with this | injury is excruciatingly painful. I have to literally suffer | through 12 weeks of PT in order to get the imaging I need and | I have what many would consider to be great insurance. I | don't really have any (good) choices here. I can pay for the | imaging out of pocket or continue to suffer. This is a | uniquely American problem. | mediascreen wrote: | As someone who pays taxes in Sweden and don't plan on | having children, I would probably not choose to pay for 480 | days parental leave per child, subsidised day care and | child allowance payment to the extent they exists today if | I had a choice. | guenthert wrote: | You do want to incentivize people having kids though if | there is not sufficient immigration. After all, who's | going to pay your retirement? | PakistaniDenzel wrote: | If you were in the UK you would get a PT appointment 6 | months in the future and told to rest and take painkillers | (which you buy yourself). Or you pay out of pocket for a | private specialist to actually get help. | robocat wrote: | The situation in New Zealand is similar. There is an | infinite demand for health services, so our public health | system is busy, so you go on a waiting list. The UK and | NZ spend about 10% of GDP each (~$4kUSD/capita). | | The well-off pay for health insurance which will get you | faster service, and the very well off just pay privately. | | The first site I looked at for a private arthrogram was | ~USD1050 (Single joint or region Arthrogram including | Gadolinium) https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=mri+private | +price+list+sit... | | For more expensive procedures, some NZers travel to Asia | to get medical procedures. The prices in Asia including | flights and accomodation can be very affordable for the | middle class, depending on what needs doing and how much | risk you are willing to take. | user_7832 wrote: | Might it not be possible to have your doctor write some "PT | not possible"/"PT may result in additional injury" note? | Failing which, is it possible to speak with someone higher | up at your insurance company? | | I do not know your background, but if you have sufficient | resources (well, mainly money) it might be easier to | contact an injury/similar lawyer and have them represent | you to talk, and perhaps go to the legal dept of the | insurance company. I am sorry for what you're having to go | through, healthcare is unfortunately far from perfect (even | outside the US). | thr0wawayf00 wrote: | My doctor conveyed my situation in his request for the | imaging and was denied. I'm basically going to my PT | appointments and doing nothing because the treatment is | painful, which is wasting their time and resources. It's | cheaper to just commit this waste than to talk to a | lawyer because the insurance company represents its | shareholders, not its clients. | | I'm not saying that healthcare is perfect outside of the | US, but a common argument for the US system is this idea | of "choice", which is ultimately just a set of dark | patterns that create the illusion of choice. | ceeplusplus wrote: | > my insurance won't approve it without doing a full course | of physical therapy first | | This is the case in socialized systems as well. For example | I need a monoclonal antibody injection regularly (MSRP | $1500/dose) and in European systems I would need to prove | that topical steroids and immunosuppressants did not work | first before trying it. Just like Europe, I pay $0 for the | doses, because the drug company has a program to cover my | copay ($100/month) and the insurance company "pays" for the | rest. No way the insurance company is paying MSRP, so that | $1500 is definitely a fake price. | | Also you have to consider that the US is subsidizing these | European countries by paying for their defense. If France, | Germany, and Italy had to pay for military expenditures | necessary to defend against Russia then they would not have | the budget to pay for such extravagant social benefits. | European NATO countries have long been underfunding the | military below NATO spending requirements. | vimy wrote: | How much does imaging cost without insurance? | thr0wawayf00 wrote: | Well, providers don't have to disclose transparent | pricing so it's hard to say for sure, but Google says | between $1-3K. | varispeed wrote: | Here in the UK chronic pain treatment is a farce. You get | to go to meetings where they tell you to soldier on and if | you can't, well try harder then. So there is a huge illegal | market of opiates of all kinds and deaths are soaring. If | people can't get prescription and can't stand the pain then | where do they go? Dealers. Big pharma has a great grip on | the government so things like medical cannabis are out of | question. Fortunately it has been legalised a couple of | years ago, but it is only available on private prescription | after you have failed "traditional" therapy. If you are | unlucky, you are looking at spending PS300-600 a month out | of your own pocket. | BossingAround wrote: | "Competitive" is highly relative. It might not be competitive | to you, but I'd rather have less money and save a ton on not | having to use a car, and not paying thousands of dollars for | each hospital visit when I had cancer. | V-2 wrote: | In Poland most software engineers (at least the senior ones) | are self-employed due to fiscal reasons. It means paying either | a 19% flat tax rate with the possibility of cost deductions, or | outright 12% (no deductions then). | | You can also apply for an "intellectual property" tax relief | (called IP Box), which is somewhat tricky, requires legal | assistance and requires patience, but it can drive your income | tax rate down to a mere 5%. | | Of course this is self-employment, so you don't get paid sick | leave or holidays, and labor law doesn't protect you (not | really a problem in today's IT market) - however you still have | full access to healthcare just like on a regular job contract. | mupuff1234 wrote: | But on the other hand raising a family is probably a lot less | expensive in Europe on average. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-07-02 23:00 UTC)