Ask HN: How do I earn more as a developer?
I have immigrated to France for a better life a little over 2 years ago, and I have been working as a frontend developer ever since.
I have managed to move from a little under 2000€/month as a starting salary to around 2500€ now. Which is OK but not great.
But since money is a delicate subject here and people try not to talk about it, I'm clueless about how to progress and what kind strategies I should be taking.
I was wondering how all the people are landing the big bucks? How can I move to a bracket that would allow me to eventually buy a house and start a more stable life.
111 comments
[ 7.7 ms ] story [ 169 ms ] threadGood with front-end (mainly React.js but also anything JavaScript), done a lot of back-end as well (Java Spring, Node, PHP) but i'm willing to pivot completely.
I don't think you can go really higher. If you want you will need to move to Berlin or London I think
Ultimately, the job of a developer is to write code which achieves a business goal. If you have a better understanding of those goals, and can anticipate them, you become more valuable to the people writing the checks.
That could manifest through areas like suggesting architectural changes that'll save money or open up doors in the near future, or finding pieces of the business that can easily be automated to generate / save money.
The "trap" in development is in having non-technical roles view your role, essentially, as one in where they make all of the business decisions, and you as the coder take their orders to implement them.
That's no good for career progression or effective development, either. I'd deliberately cultivate some of the same PM and business analytics skills alongside your technical skills.
There are more and more companies slowly developing career pathways with technical only routes, but it's definetely not enough places.
> where as a developer they can anticipate business needs
The thing is, a developer isn't normally in the business meetings where these are discussed. It's not a developers job to be in on a meeting about using X pricing model over Y.
A developer is a doer job. Developers do things. They don't decide things other than the technical details. If you're going to learn the business properly, you need to start entering other areas. Such as product management, start defining problems with the product and what can be changed. That a developer can start doing, but sitting here pretending it's not developers work is just lying.
Too often I read on the internet and hear at conferences that "every developer should do X for their company". Guys, I'm going to break it to you guys. X is literally another person' job, if I start doing it, they're going to get pissy real quick (or they're lazy and will just take credit for it) For some reason people seem to think developers are swiss army knives of businesses. It's not our job to find problems with the product, that's the product managers job. We can start doing it but we're going to start moving away from development work and towards product work. That's not a bad thing per say, it is just what is.
Hint: not the person who insisted on it. The developer.
I've seen that play out too many times. Expanding out of a strictly coding role isn't just good for career progression, it's a necessity for career self-preservation, too.
> Expanding out of a strictly coding role isn't just good for career progression, it's a necessity for career self-preservation, too.
The first part is pretty much my point. To progress in a career in IT you have to stop doing technical work to progress. Development is a dead end job, just a reasonably well paid one. The second part, for the most part, I've never really seen. Most developers I've worked with haven't been held accountable for anything in such a long time that they get offended when you point out 500 servers going down in 20 countries because of one Redis server is embarrassing and we should work on stopping that from ever happening again and give excuses why it's not.
Doing the other roles is a way to learn about some business. By doing them you'll have a better understanding of what happens behind the scenes, and will interact better with those roles.
Do you think your scrum master is done after the stand up? Oh no, there's a lot more to do.
You know scrum master doesn't do development, they do project management work. Their entire job is to make sure the project is not impeded.
If you love being a developer/programmer stick with it. You will love what you do and will eventually earn more.
Or develop a clear expertise, blog about it, and start your own company selling that expertise to companies. Or even just become a freelancer and do the same work you used to, but keep more of the money.
Marketing is the highest leverage skill you can learn. Find an old course called "Magnetic Marketing" by Dan Kennedy. Listen to it at least 3 times (it's not that long). Trust me.
Here’s a link to the original - in kindle or audiobook
https://www.amazon.com/Magnetic-Marketing-Attract-Flood-Cust...
-edit, I’m actually not sure if that’s the original, I’m doing a search online and can’t easily find the original audio tapes which were recorded in the 90s. I advise you listen to the audio version.
I don't think I know many software devs that make big bucks unless working at the 0.5% or something.
Usually in order to make big bucks you either start your own company or you work on a commission based occupation. That said a software developer can do commission based as a contractor and usually that has a lot of money involved, but again unless you have a company of contractors lets say and you are just 1 person I think there is an X amount of stuff you can manage a year which means that your 'salary' will be capped at some point.
Raw salary for sure, take home salary after health insurance, pension, etc ... not so much. Unless you're 20s, live alone and don't plan to have kids.
I'm not saying one is objectively better, it all boils down to personal choices, but it's much more complex than "Go to SV and make 10x the salary".
I worked in mountain view before, now I'm living 300 meters from my office in central Berlin paying <20% of my salary in rent, I'm missing the 365 days of sun but other than that I don't think anything changed for the worse.
Why would you do local theater when you could audition for roles in Hollywood?
I feel like what pays you higher than SV etc is if you can land a nice US remote work at about $100-120k but live in a place like Portugal or whatever that its very cheap VS your salary.
But once you reach a certain salary ceiling you might find that you're stuck at a company that you don't really like other than their pay.
1. Start applying for new roles at new firms and asking for more.
2. Ask your manager what you need to do at work to move up to the next level of compensation and responsibility (if they don't have a good answer for this it's a warning sign).
3. Start your own side business (either consulting or selling a product).
Of course, iteration as necessary
do you mean even while staying with one employer, or by jumping to a new employer?
Check out Buffer's transparent salary calculator. https://buffer.com/salary/software-engineer/low. For an entry level software engineer in a low cost of living area (which France is probably not), you'd be making double what you're making now.
I think with the massive shift that's happening with remote work, market rate salaries will roughly converge no matter where you work.
Need to know if his quoted income is pre or post-tax. France is a social country and you pay a lot of taxes for the social services, so his €2500 may be after tax and his gross is close to double that.
Alternatively, if you want/have to stay in Europe, start applying to other companies. Your current employer is not going to raise your salary unless you pressure them into doing so, and the only way of doing that is to have another job offer. Sadly, Job-hopping literally pays
It is not necessarily sad. If another employer has a role where the OP can generate more value, it’s in everyone’s best interest that they move there.
There are plenty of problems with analyzing ethical decisions solely with classical economics, but this feels pretty defensible (as long as you apply The same ethical standards to choosing your new job as you did it to choosing your current job)
If I talk in the companies that I know in France, 2500€/months (with -"brut"- or without company taxes -"net"-) seems low to me. Maybe you can just find another job, the market is really open for developers ;)
But I agree, it's not a good choice right now. Let the situation settle down there first.
For freelancers it's pretty good, though. Biggest boost to my income ever.
LinkedIn works quite well for me. Keep your CV up to date there, make sure it's clear that you're freelance and looking for work, and they'll find you. At least that's my experience. You can take a more active approach than that if you want, but this is working well enough for me.
Remember no one will look after your career and salary, like you.
(Though if you only have two years of experience then that might be too little to get this type of employment.)
Despite all the bad things the US has to say about socialism it made France a really nice spot for "workers". Working conditions/hours, job safety, amount of vacation days, education, health, parental leave, retirement, overall quality of life, &c.
If you want to create a multi billion $ company, get absurd amount of investors money and don't like taxes you probably should look somewhere else.
My main advice is to know that the market wants you. You are in very sweet spot. Always ask more and be ready to bluff an alternative if needed.
My second advice is to always be "à l'écoute du marché". Be ready to switch if something really nice show up. You can go to an interview even if you think you are not going to change. Take the 'propal'.
My last advice is to be willing to switch. I read somewhere that most developer got a better raise by getting a new job. In my own experience, it is true.
Finally if you find a really sweet job, maybe you should keep it. Even if you could earn more somewhere else. Big bucks is useful to pay your debts, but at 3k you should be able to have a peaceful life in France. Enjoy your stay.
Edit: We are talking about "net" salary here without bonus or shenanigans.
Edit2: Yes we hire (like everybody). (C#, F#, Typescript, React, SQL)
I don't know about the French market and how expensive it is, I only know that Paris is very an expensive city.
I also don't know if you have kids etc, but I feel like your statement about 3k being good to live on is sort of directed to a solo scenario? Can you have an ok life having 3k a month + a spouse having 2k a month + 2 kids in Paris for example? From my recent visit I found that its very expensive and a 5k combined salary would be considered low to survive. Again I might be wrong but enlighten me please, am interested.
Salaries are about the same as in Paris, taxes are higher though, but the cost of living in Berlin is much lower.
It's probably easier for a english speaker to blend in Berlin than Paris too.