@Rppiano
Mistake no. 1 in first 10 seconds. $240k average is not for someone who just graduated. Thats someone with 8 years of experience. Also, that's not base salary, stocks, bonuses are included.
@lwwells
American Engineer in Germany here (Battery Scientist).... I came to Germany to do a PhD. Now 8 years and 2 degrees later, my salary is 35% lower. My tax rate is about the same as it was in the US. But the work : life balance is MUCH healthier in the EU compared to the US. The truth: the EU does not work nearly as hard as the US does. I know people say they do the "exact same job". You do not. You don't do 1/3 of the work though. ~35% less salary for a healthier work : life balance is worth it.
@dzidas
It's not about how productive developers are in the US versus the EU; it's all about how sales operate in these companies. If a company can charge higher prices for its products and there is a market for them, it can afford to pay its employees more. As a developer from Poland who has been working with a US startup for the last 20 years, I've seen firsthand how differently US companies market, sell, and build successful products compared to Polish ones. While things have changed significantly over these 20 years, there's still work to be done on many levels, starting with people's mentality, approach to risk, finance, and regulations
@Mooooov0815
The renaissance of bootcamp offers promising FAANG salaries is finally here. First and foremost, the comparison sucks because it compares absolute numbers. When talking about income, the actual purchasing power that you obtain is substantially more important. With current PPP (Purchasing Power Partity) data, a 150k salary in the US is roughly equal to a 100k salary in Germany or France. Also, I really have to stress this: This comparison is only based on monetray aspects, it does NOT account for differences in job security, social safety, healthcare or work life balance. While a 225k SF salary is certainly looking nice on paper and is nothing to be looked down upon, you still probably won't feel significanly wealthier than someone making 150k in a different US state. Constantly citing FAANG salaries is also highly misleading, because FAANG and SF generally is an absolute outlier, even in the US economy. Salary aggregators put the average US Software engineer salary somewhere into the 100 to 150k salary range. Also, with salaries as high as FAANG being part of this dataset, you will also have to consider that this average is likely very skewed towards a higher salary and the actual median is quite a bit lower. Regarding the citation of the GDP, there citing the UK a sample for the EU average is funny considering the UK GDP/capita has fallen below the EU 27 average since leaving, but I get why you did that. I won't go into a discussion on the merits of using GDP as a measure, but I'm just gonna say this is not a really suitable comparison. Ultimately, it is true that there are some differences. However, the major common denominator is that software engineers tend to make an above average salary for their respective markets.
@alejandroioio6784
The average salary for tech in usa is not 240k not even clouse, the average salary in usa is 90k for tech. You are comparing the highest salary that someone could obtain in the USA (0.000001%) of the population with the average salary in Europe (which again is not the same as purchasing power). Also that usa salary is before tax.
@WeShredForBeer
As a German living in Switzerland: the people are not more hardworking. Okay you don't have 40 vacation days per year and 35h work week but this is still the exception for Europe as well. It is more the case that Switzerland attracts the well educated and experienced people. Switzerland is probably the only country that is brain draining everyone else.
@Serg-rz7oo
US and EU software engineers use EXACTLY the same hardware and software to do their jobs. Java/Kubernetes/SSH/Linux/etc is the same in any given country. So the argument about Americans been more productive due to investments in better tools is plain wrong. I would also be quite suspicious about working more hours - a person is not able to perform mentally intense work for more than 4-6 hours per day. If you sit at the computer for 10 hours, on average you do not provide twice as much useful work... Other arguments (especially about the regulations and taxes) are still valid though.
@LCTesla
Here in the Netherlands you have the option of working as a freelancer, which boosts your income by about 2.5x compared to working on a salary if you can find interim assignments year round. About 140K Euros/year vs 60K/year as a software developer with 10 years of experience. The reason why this pays so much better is: employers pay large part of your social premiums when you work on salary (worth about 35% of your explicit salary) and they take much more of a risk hiring you since you can take them to court when they fire you and they will have to prove that 1. you underperformed relative to your explicitly stated duties on the contract you signed and 2. the company itself is in financial trouble (!!) For most IT workers the protections you get from a salaried positions are overkill, so working as a freelancer is a way to get around the legal barriers that make employers hesitant to pay you what you're worth. It's also possible to work as a mid-lancer and retain about 70% of freelancer's hourly rate while getting help finding assignments and an about 2K a month guaranteed salary if you're ever without work.
@gullijons9135
I think you might be missing the main reason. I saw a study recently that showed that US companies make almost 8 times the revenue per employee compared to companies in the EU, this makes it so much easier to pay higher salary. The European market is extremely fragmented, even with all the promises with the common market. Try selling the same product in France, Germany and Sweden and you'll have massive problems.
@alibarznji2000
USA: don't think about anything, just work 80 hours a week and you'll be a millionaire. Eu: it's the weekend, stores are closed everyone's in vacation mode, life is short
@NémethÁdámBefektetés
Well, it's even worse. You compare Nordic and Western salaries to the US as "EU". Here in Hungary, my starting net salary was ~900 USD or 10,800 USD annually. That's basically the reason I didn't even start a career in IT and I started working as a contractor + making content online. There is a huge difference between Eastern and Western Europe. Salaries are still great in Western Europe compared to what you have here...
@kalan91
I have about 10 years of experience working as a Software Engineer in Poland. During that time, I have been making between 40-80k USD/year (actually my first job was about 15k, but that was while I was still on my last year of master's degree). I was able to buy a car, and my own apartment, with furniture and equipment (with a quite high standard), all by the money that I made working in tech industry. If I were living in San Francisco, it would be really hard to buy my own property. For 150k I would be able to afford a car and rent, but owning a house/appartment would be out of my reach. So I a sense I make more in Poland, than I would make in California (compared to property prices).
@pascoett
We Swiss are social without having a socialist culture. Social mobility in Switzerland is awesome and low taxes are great incentives to abstain from social welfare.
@TheJaciro
242.000 for just graduating from a colleague; after that, I stopped watching this video, which was a waste of time. US salaries are not a dream all the time.
@ok-pp8fp
I live in Belgium. The poor half (french). It's is a shithole and economic desert. No matter your job, you get 22K net salary. Your work harder ? you get the same ? Harder job ? long hours ? more study ? better quality ? All of this doesn't matter. Everyone will get the same shitty salary. Honestly at this point this is communism.
@justgame5508
I don’t understand how the engineers are paid so much. I’m a mid level dev in the UK on £60k (not bad up north) and considering how useless you are as a junior dev, I just don’t understand how these companies can afford to pay those salaries. There’s is 0% chance a junior dev comes even close to adding $230k in revenue to a company
@guybrushthreepwood2910
This is pretty spot on, primarily about the reasons for the disparity. However, I would challenge a little bit this "difference of productivity between US and EU". I used to live in a "third world country" and I worked for US companies for over a decade, all the time with American colleagues. At no point in time you could see this difference of productivity or in working hours. Furthermore, In many cases, it was quite the opposite. Yes, it's personal anecdote but I still cannot see if those difference in a few vacation days make SUCH A BIG difference, at least on average. It's most likely the other things (market, investments, taxes, bureaucracy). I moved to Europe and after a few years I realized the sad truth of how rigged and controlled the the game is. The ceiling for salaries in EU is very low, to the point where somebody with 5-7 years of experience will not be so far behind someone with double the experience. To add more disappointment, now we are in tech collapse, and that makes opportunities even lower and the hopes of a better future are diminishing.
@jean-francoiskener6036
Easy one. Programmer in Luxembourg here. Because you work much less, you pay much less and receive things from you taxes.
@tonnytrumpet734
Czech Republic, Medior Software Engineer 29k euro a year, working with people from USA doing pretty much the same for 100k to 140k a year in Boston hits different
@InternetMadeCoder