I will polish results for having an overview, probably will publish it here. I made the mistake to not specify currency from the beginning, would you mind send me the correction to make? fvbenigni@gmail.com
Most of Russian population insists they want nothing to do with Europe or European values - all of them. Does landmass outweighs their opinion for you?
It's pointless to talk about comparing salaries in Europe unless there's some market continuity and no significant barriers for workforce. Absolutely not the case with Russia vs Europe, relocation at will without preexisting employment guarantee/sponsorship is not possible.
If you want to stick to the continent though, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Belarus, Ukraine and Turkey should be there as well. Belarus and Ukraine in particular have IT/developer markets of same magnitude as Russia.
But major cities, and therefore most of the workforce, are in Europe. I mean what else, are you going to make the argument that Russia belongs in Asia more than in Europe?
What Russians think is irrelevant - their country lies across both Europe and Asia, so if we want to get an overview of "European" workers, then yes, Russians do absolutely count.
They can even call themselves Australian if they want to, but it doesn't change the fact that anything West of Urals is continental Europe. Moscow, most importantly, is a European city, regardless of how Russians feel about such description.
Which brings us to my original point again: noone cares where the landmass is.
Russia does not identify with Europe by choice. On Russian TV there is nothing but mocking Europe and all it stands for; majority of Russians poll as actively hostile to Europe. Russians can't freely travel across Europe (nor can Europeans to Russia). Russia conducts military exercises simulating attacks on European capitals, and actively works to undermine and disintegrate European institutions.
Why do you people insist Russia has to be on the list is beyond me.
Russians can and do travel freely over vast swaths of Eastern part of European continent. This is incidentally a huge chunk of Europe the continent. Moreover, Russians are Europeans. It seems to me you are confused by the adjective European in European Union. European Union is a large union of states, with most territory in Europe. There are (quite a few) more countries in Europe that are not a part of EU. They are 100% as "European" as someone living in EU.
Unless we jetted out into the atlantic the day after brexit we are definately still geographically and culturally European not to mention in the eu for two years and chances are we will negotiate some deal even after that.
Data is impossible to read - seems like some people are converting their salary to USD, some others leave it in their home currency and a rare few provide the accurate currency. Interesting initiative though - would love to see this in a better format :)
I am European and live in Europe but I've always been paid in USD and my salary is negotiated in USD, so I am not sure what parent means or why does currency matter.
First clients were based in the US. So it started from there.
Then I wanted to use a reserve currency[1] and I happen to have strong opinions on currencies, policies (FED, ECB, etc.), so I opted for the safest bet in the long run.
Options are not income and are worthless unless it’s a public company or there is a liquidity event. Considering options as a part of income is the same as if your company paid you in lottery tickets.
About stock options, I don't want to make a chart of the best companies (who offer more, etc..), I am interested in becoming more aware of the salary situation in Europe, to understand how this profession is seen.
For those complaining about formatting issues ( me as well ). I think someone should fork and re-format the sheet later today and release it back to this thread.
I don't think you're going to get a great response as that's a lot of identifying information you're asking for. Country, Area (optional), years of experience, gross salary and extras is what you really want.
Switzerland, Zurich is the only place in Europe where you can earn Bay Area salaries; I am a software engineer/tech recruiter hiring on behalf of a handful of Swiss companies. If you look for a job (https://coderfit.com/openedjobs/), or know some engineeres who are, please reach out to me. You find my email in my HN-handle.
(From an employee's perspective, Switzerland can be counted "as an EU country" since you can work here with an EU passport.)
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but while salaries are high and taxes are relatively low, general living costs are quite high. Particularly if you have kids and so want a bigger house and good schools.
I've looked at this and the benefits we get from staying in Germany outweigh the extra income earned.
True, they're not that crazy, but when I looked at the higher salary Vs the higher costs it was financially better to stay put. Of course money isn't the only deciding factor but it's not the land of massive opportunity it's sometimes presented as.
That said, if you've got no dependents and you want to stay in mainland Europe, then it's probably a very good choice.
If you try a bit, you can live for under 2000 CHF or for less than that: "Move to Switzerland, work in IT, live frugally and be free" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1oeSs67myA
You pay 2.5k only for a year or two, when the kids are 2-3 years old; after that it's free kindergarten again.
Thanks for the real numbers. When I was looking the sort of salaries I was being quoted were in the 10000 per month range which is a lot more than what I'm currently on but would actually work out worse once costs are taken into account.
Usually European taxes are complicated. I make 44k a year but I get about 33k on my bank account each year. This is because even though we have a 33% and 40% rate there are also numerous tax-cuts in place.
Ie: in NL you can deduct your entire mortgage rate interest from your gross income. This basically means you get a 40% discount on your mortgage. And there are numerous more.
If you are single and renting, you don't get deductions and if you are having family then probably it is not worth moving anyway. Even less if you already have mortgage somewhere else than NL. So I do not feel it is useful to compare different countries. Unless for single people renting flats who could move quite easily.
i agree its crazy. I do feel a bit dirty for living here seeing all the other europeans helping their neighbours while we are sitting here playing the isolation game.
I would disagree. Zurich does indeed pay very well, but it's very hard to get a job there, and salaries are only competitive with the Bay Area at lower levels. That means it's possible to find a job that pays 100k, but 300k compensation packages are far, far more rare than in the Bay Area. I don't know any company apart from Google that pays that much for senior engineers.
I tried to get a job there about 8 months ago, and I could only convince 3 startups to interview me (after I failed to get a job at Google), and I didn't get an offer at any of them. I failed one for "cultural fit", one because I didn't do well enough in the technical phone screen, and with the third one I decided to stop the process because I had another offer and was tired of interviewing. It's fine to not accept people for cultural reasons, but if there are 4 startups that are hiring in Zurich, that kinda sucks for candidates.
Also, recently Google started paying new engineers in Zurich lower than in the US (same salary, far fewer RSUs). I guess the lack of competition in the European market is a good enough reason.
Do you know any companies in Zurich hiring developers that pay Bay Area salaries (100k junior, 200k senior) and hire >100 engineers a year?
There are a few consulting companies doing project work that hire a good amount of people. (However none are even close to you >100 / year number)
And also, it will be pretty hard to get near the 200k mark in Zurich if you're not at either a bank with a very specific expertise or at Google.
I am talking total compensation (salary + bonus + stock), and at Google you get past 200k at L4, so after the first promotion. New grads used to make around $160k, not it's somewhat less.
I am sorry that you had a bad experience interviewing in Zurich. A city with only 300k inhabitants can't be compared with Berlin, London, SF or NYC (all "huge" places).
The density of startups and tech firms, when accounted for the tiny size of Zurich, is still impressive, I think. I live here since three years and don't regeret it: "8 reasons why I moved to Switzerland to work in tech" https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-t...
I think Norway, Oslo absolutely can match or even pay slightly better than Zurich. An annual salary over 100K Euro for a senior software developer is not uncommon.
It always bug me, when developers, people whose main task is passing different data to and fro, are unable to provide information in format that is unequivocal for recipient. Do you really, for example, in systems you create, store or send money data without currency information?
On the currency debate: I'd always assume local currency.
I doubt any of these are in USD, unless stated; the default, in this case, is EUR - or indicate.
Can't open the doc because it's blocked by my employer. But generally the developer wage is very low in Europe compared with US(Bay area).
AFAIK London have the highest salary among european countries, usually handed out by Investment banks and other financial service companies.
In London a tier 1 bank's VP developer will typically get £90k-110k base, plus 15-40% bonus. If you work for a hedge fund, the base is typically 10% higher with 10-20% more bonus. To get a VP job in a bank you usually need 7 year+ experience after graduation.
In contrast the big tech companies in london pays about 10-20% less base salary than banks, far less cash bonus. But depends on which one you are working for, the RSU could be either similar to the states side or a bit less. The signon bonus is usually quite low as well.
Startups in London have very low pay, typically 50-60% of your market value in a bank.
So if you are a top developer with 15 years+ experience, works for a top hedge fund in London, you'll most likely take home < £200k, which is like $260, that's only about average wage for a google senior developer.
> Because it usually comes with built-in social security and nationwide health insurance.
That's not the case. Health insurance plays very little role in this. I can go to a private doctor for peanuts. Salaries are low, because companies are "broke" and don't have million dollar funding and you can have a great lifestyle with fifth/tenth of a SV salary.
I know that, but you wrote "among european countries" an Switzerland is definitely one of them. It doesn't really make a difference for EU citizens if Switzerland is in or out.
The answer depends very much if you're looking at median salary or 'peak' salary. It also matters if you're talking before or after taxes. Median pre-tax dev. salaries are almost certainly higher in Scandinavia (or at least in Norway and Denmark), but you'll never earn what some of the top devs in finance in London earn.
I don't agree with that, at least not in Sweden. Sweden had one of the flattest wage distributions in the world. Developers make very little here when you compare to other countries and other professions.
In Stockholm there are some companies that pay more, e.g. Google, but not near London.
That logic makes no sense. Since health isn’t an employer cost, salaries in Europe should be higher than the US where the employer incurs health/social costs. However, in France “social charges” are incurred by the employer which means that their cost per employee is about double of their actual salary. That means that French employers are paying social charges which finance those who aren’t employed.
In the US:
An employer pays salary + health costs for that employee.
In Europe:
Employer pays salary + health costs for both the employee AND the rest of society. Which means your European salary is subsidizing other people not even related to the company.
On top of that, the employee gets to pay tax rates approaching 50% in many cases.
The average take home pay after factoring out health costs and benefits is dramatically lower than an equivalent position in the US.
Health care isn't the reason for the pay gap. The technology sector in Europe is far smaller than those in the US, these days there isn't a single tech company in the EU can rival those tech giants in the US, so the pay gap makes sense.
If you are a banker or a hedge fund PM working in London, your pay will be on par with or even more than your colleagues in New York.
In the UK in the South you can similar salaries to London without the expense of London. I am a Senior .NET dev can I could get £50-70k. The expense compared to London is about 75%.
Up North in the UK get £40K for a senior dev is pretty hard work but everything costs half as much so it is totally relative to where you are living in the UK. The South is crowded with no infrastructure to handle it (driving in a nightmare).
Gibraltar is probably the best place to go if you can get a Job in Europe. Spain is stupidly cheap. Wages are less than say London, I lived like an absolute king on £27,000.
This is sad. I mean, I think that numbers that we see in Silicon Valley are ridiculous, but it seems to me that here in Europe this profession it is not recognized for the value it delivers.
The living cost in SV is ridiculous too. There is another thread right now with ppl claiming that 240k USD/year makes it hard to afford house + family expenses.
Reading input from my own country it seems I'm grossly underpaid right now.... Makes me feel extremely bad. Perhaps it's time for negotiations with my boss.
If its a couple percent it might be doable, but typically if you're underpaid the best option is move companies - even though you might like where you are right now, you can negotiate less hours for the same pay. Staying won't give you many options, and often, you can even jump right back into your company higher up the chain.
How so? Their CAPITAL, and decent chunk of territory are on the continent called Europe. a couple tens of millions citizens live there. Just counting those would put them in the first ten-ish most populous countries in Europe.
Good catch :) I'm so accustomed to Istanbul being the center of the Turkey's economy and former Ottoman power. However, that does not change the point. Istanbul and the European chunk of Turkey (+ Izmir and Aegean coast which was in "Byzantine" zone of influence) is a huge chunk of Turkey.
This survey should have a field for "total package" or "equity offered" given that has larger implications than just Salary. Free food and other perks also play a large role here.
Oh dang, missed the "annual" part of that question. I have no idea, would have to calculate holiday wages and stuff... And OP has no contact info in his profile to let him know which entry to update.
In case you are interested, Urban Linker (french recruitment agency) publish somewhat detailed salary stats (in French), last one is form 2016 [0]. This only covers Parisian region, but it's really interesting to see how technology affect the salary.
This actually lines up with what I, a mid level .Net dev was expecting. When I first arrived in Paris I thought the compensation was low, but I was educated that that was the standard. It's improved a bit but not a whole lot.
Paris is still a great city to live in. We even managed to live there with child.
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[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 220 ms ] threadI will publish polished results when will end data gathering
Was this survey created by an American? ;)
Seems to be only targetting EU countries, not European countries.
What do you care about then? Exceptionalism?
That's irrelevant.
We're talking about continents, not political and cultural leanings.
> Does landmass outweighs their opinion for you
Yes. Continental boundaries are well defined.
If you want to stick to the continent though, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Belarus, Ukraine and Turkey should be there as well. Belarus and Ukraine in particular have IT/developer markets of same magnitude as Russia.
They can even call themselves Australian if they want to, but it doesn't change the fact that anything West of Urals is continental Europe. Moscow, most importantly, is a European city, regardless of how Russians feel about such description.
Russia does not identify with Europe by choice. On Russian TV there is nothing but mocking Europe and all it stands for; majority of Russians poll as actively hostile to Europe. Russians can't freely travel across Europe (nor can Europeans to Russia). Russia conducts military exercises simulating attacks on European capitals, and actively works to undermine and disintegrate European institutions.
Why do you people insist Russia has to be on the list is beyond me.
Whether or not Russians fantasize about attacking Berlin has absolutely nothing to do with conversations about tech salaries.
I'd say that in the context of conversations about European tech salaries, Western Russian cities should absolutely be included.
I will gladly watch what will happen to you if you say that in Vladivostok suburbs after 1:00 am ^_^
"DISCLAIMER: this is a joke and should not be take seriously"
Specially in a thread like this that is far from political matters.
And how can you talk in the name of all the Russians?
I know more than one that don't think like you say.
Pray tell, why?
Unless we jetted out into the atlantic the day after brexit we are definately still geographically and culturally European not to mention in the eu for two years and chances are we will negotiate some deal even after that.
Renting an apartment will set you back $500 per month.
At the end I plan to polish the results and publish them
Also, the question specifically says "in €, otherwise specify" (edit: ok, I see it was added later).
It's weird that you are paid in USD in Europe, isn't it? How comes?
[1] https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/policy_and_exchange_rates/eu...
I definitely wouldn't want that.
(I misremembered which currency fell 30% against the Euro, it was the pound instead)
Then I wanted to use a reserve currency[1] and I happen to have strong opinions on currencies, policies (FED, ECB, etc.), so I opted for the safest bet in the long run.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_currency#Global_curren...
About stock options, I don't want to make a chart of the best companies (who offer more, etc..), I am interested in becoming more aware of the salary situation in Europe, to understand how this profession is seen.
The former three through the EEA and the latter through a series of bilateral agreements.
For those complaining about formatting issues ( me as well ). I think someone should fork and re-format the sheet later today and release it back to this thread.
(From an employee's perspective, Switzerland can be counted "as an EU country" since you can work here with an EU passport.)
I've looked at this and the benefits we get from staying in Germany outweigh the extra income earned.
That said, if you've got no dependents and you want to stay in mainland Europe, then it's probably a very good choice.
Last year my Junior Software Developer (with ETH Masters) balance sheet looked as follows :
Income:8650
Taxes :1640 (income, social etc. ) Food/Drink/Dates: 1560 HealthInsurrance : 346 Rent : 1640 (2 rooms 64sqm) downtown nice part of town Other : 400
So i end up saving 3k per month
But i don't have kids that would be >2.5k per kind for daycare.
You pay 2.5k only for a year or two, when the kids are 2-3 years old; after that it's free kindergarten again.
Also I would like to add that my friends who do not speak German are making all making less than 8333 (excluding those at google or a bank).
even if we include the health insurance, it's still only 2k in taxes out of an 8650 income (less than 25%)
a lot of countries in europe will tax you 40% for that income...
Ie: in NL you can deduct your entire mortgage rate interest from your gross income. This basically means you get a 40% discount on your mortgage. And there are numerous more.
I found Zurich difficult when not speaking the language.
I tried to get a job there about 8 months ago, and I could only convince 3 startups to interview me (after I failed to get a job at Google), and I didn't get an offer at any of them. I failed one for "cultural fit", one because I didn't do well enough in the technical phone screen, and with the third one I decided to stop the process because I had another offer and was tired of interviewing. It's fine to not accept people for cultural reasons, but if there are 4 startups that are hiring in Zurich, that kinda sucks for candidates.
Also, recently Google started paying new engineers in Zurich lower than in the US (same salary, far fewer RSUs). I guess the lack of competition in the European market is a good enough reason.
Do you know any companies in Zurich hiring developers that pay Bay Area salaries (100k junior, 200k senior) and hire >100 engineers a year?
The density of startups and tech firms, when accounted for the tiny size of Zurich, is still impressive, I think. I live here since three years and don't regeret it: "8 reasons why I moved to Switzerland to work in tech" https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-t...
AFAIK London have the highest salary among european countries, usually handed out by Investment banks and other financial service companies.
In London a tier 1 bank's VP developer will typically get £90k-110k base, plus 15-40% bonus. If you work for a hedge fund, the base is typically 10% higher with 10-20% more bonus. To get a VP job in a bank you usually need 7 year+ experience after graduation.
In contrast the big tech companies in london pays about 10-20% less base salary than banks, far less cash bonus. But depends on which one you are working for, the RSU could be either similar to the states side or a bit less. The signon bonus is usually quite low as well.
Startups in London have very low pay, typically 50-60% of your market value in a bank.
So if you are a top developer with 15 years+ experience, works for a top hedge fund in London, you'll most likely take home < £200k, which is like $260, that's only about average wage for a google senior developer.
Because it usually comes with built-in social security and nationwide health insurance.
> AFAIK London have the highest salary among european countries,
Nope. Scandinavia.
That's not the case. Health insurance plays very little role in this. I can go to a private doctor for peanuts. Salaries are low, because companies are "broke" and don't have million dollar funding and you can have a great lifestyle with fifth/tenth of a SV salary.
> Nope. Scandinavia.
Nope, Switzerland.
The answer depends very much if you're looking at median salary or 'peak' salary. It also matters if you're talking before or after taxes. Median pre-tax dev. salaries are almost certainly higher in Scandinavia (or at least in Norway and Denmark), but you'll never earn what some of the top devs in finance in London earn.
I don't agree with that, at least not in Sweden. Sweden had one of the flattest wage distributions in the world. Developers make very little here when you compare to other countries and other professions.
In Stockholm there are some companies that pay more, e.g. Google, but not near London.
That doesn't make any sense. There's social security in the US as well and the company is paying for my health insurance.
edit:
Honestly, why the downvotes? What he was stated was inaccurate and doesn't account for any of the pay differences between the US and Europe.
1. Paid-for healthcare. In the US, I pay close to $2K/month premium for a high-deductible health insurance plan.
2. Subsidized child-care (kindergarten, etc.)
3. Paid-for higher education. That in itself is worth at least $250K/child.
4. Great public transport, which eliminates the need to have more than 1 car (as opposed to 3-4 per household in the US)
5. Decent infrastructure in general (airports, train stations, etc). The US looks like a third-world country.
Also, please keep in mind that while income taxes in the US are a bit lower, they are still significant:
- State tax (usually 5-7%)
- Real-estate taxes. It is not uncommon to pay $1000/month for a very average house in a Boston suburb with good schools.
- "Invisible" taxes, such as excise taxes (cars, oats, etc), alcohol, tobacco, gasoline taxes.
In what universe do companies offer a lower salary because the country offers a better social safety net?
In the US:
An employer pays salary + health costs for that employee.
In Europe:
Employer pays salary + health costs for both the employee AND the rest of society. Which means your European salary is subsidizing other people not even related to the company.
On top of that, the employee gets to pay tax rates approaching 50% in many cases.
The average take home pay after factoring out health costs and benefits is dramatically lower than an equivalent position in the US.
If you are a banker or a hedge fund PM working in London, your pay will be on par with or even more than your colleagues in New York.
Up North in the UK get £40K for a senior dev is pretty hard work but everything costs half as much so it is totally relative to where you are living in the UK. The South is crowded with no infrastructure to handle it (driving in a nightmare).
Gibraltar is probably the best place to go if you can get a Job in Europe. Spain is stupidly cheap. Wages are less than say London, I lived like an absolute king on £27,000.
otherwise, interesting survey. I hope i'm not too much of an outlier here to mess with the result for uk.
Nice..
[0] https://www.urbanlinker.com/le-webzine/etude-des-salaires-de...
Paris is still a great city to live in. We even managed to live there with child.