[mindondrugs]

> this salary wouldn't attract strong talent even in medium cost-of-living countries (like portugal/spain).

median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year[1], so 50-80k would easily place them in the upper 10% of the scale.

I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are.

[1] https://www.payscale.com/research/ES/Job=Software_Developer/...

[MontyCarloHall]

>I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are.

Or maybe people everywhere else need to really reflect on how underpaid they are. It’s not like the revenue of tech companies is lower outside of the US, so why isn’t more of it ending up in developers’ pockets, where it should go?

[jacquesm]

> It’s not like the revenue of tech companies is lower outside of the US

It actually is much lower.

That doesn't mean that developers aren't underpaid, but there definitely is a huge difference between a company serving the US market from inside the United States and one in Europe. In general the fraction of revenue that goes towards salaries is a fairly substantial chunk of the books of a typical company, but for a scalable proposition that is entirely virtual there is an advantage if your home market is unified in language and currency. And it also is an advantage if you have easy access to large amounts of capital.

Success breeds success and creaming off some of the $ of that success is what causes developer salaries to be what they are where they are: it's based on competition for talent mostly. And that's precisely why some of these large companies were trying to collude to depress the salaries as much as they could.

[marginalia_nu]

> It’s not like the revenue of tech companies is lower outside of the US, so why isn’t more of it ending up in developers’ pockets, where it should go?

What you're forgetting is that taxes differ quite a lot from country to country. That, and cost of living is a factor too. If food and housing costs half as much, then even though you're paid less, you're not really poorer for it.

I think many American developers are kind of blind to how absurdly expensive California housing is.

[aiunboxed]

I think it is not as simple as that. There is cost of living and demand supply levers as well.

There is a huge salary gap between usa and Canada as well.

[oezi]

I think many Europeans can't imagine moving to the US (higher work load, less social safety, higher violence) and employers well know it and can keep salaries depressed.

[myth2018]

> Or maybe people everywhere else need to really reflect on how underpaid they are.

You must consider currency exchange rates too. In my country, at the current rates, 80k US$/year puts one above many top executives, doctors and other prestigious jobs. Not bad at all for a remote position in software development.

[ddorian43]

This is the correct answer.

If you really want to make it big in nearly whatever profession, you have to go america. All other countries are severely underpaid. (I don't care about Switzerland/similarities because it's just 3M people).

[paddim8]

Western Europe has something called income equality, you should try it some time. Or well, more or it.

A cashier in Sweden earns a very liveable wage, quite close to the average wage, while a programmer earns maybe 75% more than that, if not twice as much. That's already a significant difference. I'm a student and get 1200€ a month (not only is university free, we also get paid to study). With this, I have my own apartment with my own kitchen and all and am still able to save 500 a month. When I start working and get an average salary (the starting salary for programmers is about the same as the average salary for the entire population), I will spend a bit more, but still probably have 1-1.5k€ left every month. That is a lot. Then after some years, that would increase by a thousand or so. Why should I expect more money than that? I don't deserve more than that.

Housing is expensive here too, but not nearly as bad as in the US, so we simply don't need as high salaries. In Sweden, things like preschools are also heavily subsidized and university completely free, which is beneficial if you have children.

[rchaud]

The OP was talking about startup roles. At that stage there is little revenue to speak of, and the salaries on offer are going to correspond to how much financing they were able to obtain.

VC funding of software startups in the US easily dwarves whatever is being offered in other parts of the world.

[benhurmarcel]

Your salary don't depend on revenue, but on how much it would cost to replace you.

[umanwizard]

The vast majority of countries are neoliberal/capitalist so that’s simply not how it works. Your pay is a function of the market price for your talents, not of how much your boss is making.

[barnabee]

It should go to showing fewer ads

[danwee]

> median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year[1], so 50-80k would easily place them in the upper 10% of the scale.

That's right and wrong and the same time. If we are talking about non-junior positions: Developers in Spain who earn <= $30K/year are not going to apply for positions in American (and non Spanish) companies because they probably don't know they can do so. They are not in the "global" market, they do not read HN, they work either for consultancy companies or agencies (hence the low salaries). They usually don't work for product companies. They may not even speak enough English.

On the other hand, non-junior Spanish Developers who earn more than $30K/year do so because they know their value. They speak good enough English. They work for product companies (either unknown or globally well-known ones) and hence their salaries are higher than the median salary advertised in the link you provided. These developers can earn $80K/year in Spain (either for an Spanish company or remotely for an EU company), so if they decide to work for an American company (and this means usually a) weird working hours because of timezone differences, b) perhaps working as a contractor instead of as an employee), they definitely know that $50K-$80K/year is very low.

So, yeah, for the Spanish developers that American companies can hire, that salary is low.

[gamesbrainiac]

Those figures are wrong to be honest. Most senior folks in Spain don't work for Spanish companies in general; they work for EU companies that pay more. Plenty of senior folks in Spain making $100k+. In Barcelona, you can make north of $70K easy; even for non-senior devs.

I agree with OP. The salary is way too low for a senior European developer to consider because taking a US job means that there are no employment protections that you'd usually get; employment is at will for contractors.

Source: I live in the EU.

[shrikant]

Yeah Spain salaries aren't great for devs even by the UK's standards, but GP's numbers seem way too low.

About 4 years back I didn't bother proceeding with a couple of (well, two) mid-level engineering positions based out of Barcelona because they paid too low (about €55,000) compared to what I could get in the UK for an equivalent role. One of them was for King, who was still raking it in then, and I can't remember the other organisation.

Still less than what my expectations had been calibrated for, but way more than what GP is implying!

[littlecranky67]

> Most senior folks in Spain don't work for Spanish companies in general; they work for EU companies that pay more.

I doubt that statement. As a German living in Spain since the pandemic, I dealt with this and my social bubble is full of tech expats dealing with this, too. Living in one EU country and working remotely as an employee for another one, is almost legally impossible, and full of unnecessary hurdles for both employer and employee. Everyone of top-talent grade I know who does this, is basically either self-employed (as I am) or operates a "legal construct" such as having empty "mailbox flats" in the country they work for (breaking all sorts of laws by doing so).

The EU itself has never harmonized income tax laws; actually all of the EUs political system always tries not to touch the tax subject at all. As a result, each EU state has an individual double-tax treaty with all other members states. Yes, do the math - there are hundreds tax treaties between EU member states. Non of them are based on some EU guidance or blueprint, and oftentimes older than the EU itself (german-spain treaty dates back mostly to the 1960s with some minor additions in the early 2000s). Finding legal advice alone is almost impossible (i.e. a lawyer that speaks either of your languages and both legal systems recently well). And if you do, good luck, your fellow civil cervant at your tax offices will screw up your fringe case anyways.

Worker-protection laws apply by country of residence, but the employer is bound by their national ones too. If you live in Spain and work remotely for a german company, legally you are bound by spanish worker laws. That is, you get spanish bank holidays off, minimum wage laws of Spain (and Germany!) and so forth. Even when figuring out all legal subtleties, it is simply not manageable for any companies HR department to deal with all country specific regulations and changes, let alone in different languages. I run a company myself and could not employ a person from another EU country within reasonable effort; the only way to go is hire them as contractors or through payrolling agencies. Both will not make them your employees, which has a lot of other legal consequences (holidays, employee patent/inventions laws, but also stuff like you can't really enforce any policy on them without going through the intermediaries).

[brtkdotse]

> European developer to consider because taking a US job

Nitpicking, but this is technically not possible. The US company has to have a EU presence or the developer needs to be self employed and invoice the US company

[jacquesm]

North of $70K is still a ways away from $100K+ and I'd love to see which companies we're talking about here because that's not the news that reaches me from Spain. Rather the opposite.

[sgt]

That can't be good for Spain's own IT industry e.g. national companies, or even government agencies wanting to employ senior IT personnel.

[re-thc]

> Those figures are wrong to be honest. Most senior folks in Spain don't work for Spanish companies in general; they work for EU companies that pay more.

Does that contradict those figures though? Are you talking about the upper 10% discussed?

[nolok]

I don't know this website but for France it says 38k€/year on average. Which means they're not using the total salary but the post employer's taxes.

I'm using France for reference, and approximate number for the sake of explanation: for 100€ cost to the company, 40€ is employer's taxes, 20€ is employee's taxes. We call 20+40 = 60 the "gross" salary, and 40 the net salary, we never talk about the 100 when negotiating a salary. I don't have the time to check if that 38k is gross or net.

It is my understanding that if you have a 50k€ gross salary offer in Europe, you need to add ~40% to it to compare to compare to total cost for the employer as understood in the US.

I'm 90% sure their number are "wrong" for Spain in the same way.

[koliber]

In the US, the salaries that are typically listed show the "gross" salary, the way you defined it. It contains the 40 net salary and the taxes on top of it.

There is also a portion of taxes and other insurance that the employer must pay. These are generally not summed up in job offers. They include the employer's part of social security, insurance, 401k contribution, and other benefit plans which are often part of an offer for a salaries position.

[mschuster91]

On top of that come Europe's minimum vacation requirement of 4 weeks (although in practice, most are at anything from 24-30 days / 5-6 weeks), the unlimited sick days and numerous national holidays. Also, we have mandatory contributions for pension, social security, healthcare and (in Germany) workplace accident and elderly care insurance.

All of that needs some form of accounting on the employer's side that drives up the gross employment cost.

Or, to put it bluntly, us Europeans tend to see lower take-home amounts on our paystubs for the same gross cost the employer sees on their bank account, but a lot of stuff that you'd have to take care of on your own in the US is covered by that.

[myth2018]

> I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are.

Considering the high costs of living in some of their regions, those salaries may be justified. But I believe they are definitely not in a good position when it comes to remote work + competing with English-speaking developers in poorer countries. Situation in Europe may be similar.

In Europe they can find African developers in the same timezone, while in North-America they have Latin-America. Given the lower costs of living + favorable exchange rates, the difference in terms of purchasing power ending in developers' pockets is huge in favor of the ones in the southern hemisphere.

Maybe those in the richer countries shouldn't be too vocal against return-to-office?

[bitlax]

> I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are.

What will the enlightened Spaniards pay you to kick a ball for Real Madrid?

[KptMarchewa]

>median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year[1], so 50-80k would easily place them in the upper 10% of the scale.

You wrongly assume normal distribution of pay.

[givemeethekeys]

> 30,000 per year

I have friends in India who work as senior engineers for Indian companies that make more than that today. Nice to see that a European holiday is well within the purchasing power of Indian tech workers.

[ProblemFactory]

These sort of reports can be very misleading because they are often based surveying local companies competing for employees with other local companies. The salaries are very different when working for example for a local bank, vs. for an international tech company or well-funded international startup.

https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-sala...

[trianx]

I think this website's numbers are way too low for Spain and other EU countries, similarly to how their 76k $ average software developer salary for the US seems too low: https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Developer/...

They likely have a different definition for software developer than myself.

[jiwidi]

I'm a spanish dev working for a YC company and earning above that, any Spanish dev I know who has the level to be working for a YC company earns well above 50-80k.

[jacquesm]

> Americans need to really reflect on how inflated American dev salaries are.

More specifcally: SV needs to reflect on how inflated SV salaries are. Possibly with a few outliers elsehwere, such as New York and maybe a few pockets in London. But overall the area where software developers as a rule make > $120K per year is probably less than a few hundred square kilometers and the world is much, much larger than that.

[riku_iki]

> median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year[1], so 50-80k would easily place them in the upper 10% of the scale.

that's global market already. If apple, google, msft be confident they can hire thousands of high quality engineers in Spain for $30k/y, they would sure open dev offices there and cut jobs in California.

[beezlewax]

I'm an Irish dev living in Spain getting paid Spanish wages. I'd easily be on double in Ireland.

It is what it is.

The only thing holding back Spanish devs is a relatively low level of English by other European standards.

[isbvhodnvemrwvn]

They do open offices and they do pay little compared to the US, but still relatively good for the market.

[phendrenad2]

> I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are

What is there to reflect on? The reasons for this are well-documented. OP was just stating a fact, but got the ranges a bit off.

[sloaken]

It is a very compound issue, that people look at as just a simple X vs Y.

You have to consider:

Benefits, taxes (both yours and the companies), cost of living, exchange rate fluctuations, and hours worked per year.

[mattpallissard]

> I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are.

Shhh, don't tell nobody.

[ano88888]

Oh, wow, poor underpaid Spain developers. Suck for them for doing perhaps 90% of the same work .

[meindnoch]

>median salary for a developer in Spain is $30,000 a year

Whhhhaaaat? That doesn't sound right. I know a guy in Barcelona making $200k, although he works for a US company. Heck, even in Eastern Europe, with the right knowledge you can make $150k+.

[koliber]

That's correct. But those are the outliers, or at least at the very top of the range. The parent mentions median salary.

[danwee]

That's the median. It's like saying the median salary for software engineers in US is $120K/year (which is "true" if you Google it)... but then all the Silicon Valley engineers would say "whaaaat? Here the juniors can easily earn $200K/year their first year!"... So, yeah in Europe you can earn as little or as much as everywhere else (of course, Silicon Valley is still the place to earn top money)

[joshcsimmons]

Crabs in a bucket mentality. House prices and medical expenses are astronomical compared to European countries.

[felipellrocha]

> I think americans need to really reflect on how inflated american dev salaries are.

This statement makes no sense. We have a much higher cost of living here than in Europe.

[hef19898]

SV vs. Berlin? Sure. Kentucky's hinterland vs. Paris? No, you don't.

Fun fact, FAANG salaries in Europe depend on the lovation you are hired at, with differences between, e.g., Munich and Berlin for the same job levels. It is funny, because companiesbreally understood how salaries and cost of living are connected, and still every discussion on HN regarding dev salaries ignores this simple favt and only compares absolute numbers. Heck, mostly there isn't even an agreemt on the measurement baseline (including US benefits, EU common health care, vacation days...).