this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2024
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Funny enough, I probably did more software engineering as a web dev than I did as a software engineer at some companies.
In the UK, at least, the only difference typically between a web developer and a software engineer is £15-20k in salary. Frankly, we're all software engineers...
What are dev/engineer salaries like in the UK? Been considering places to move to...
About half of the equivalent in the US, often less. It's exceedingly rare to make 100k here even in a senior position, although it does exist. Median is 40-50k (pounds, so times that by 1.2 for USD).
Holy crap. That'd be a pretty substantial cut for me, but I guess that said, is the COL a lot less?
Afaik it's similar here in Germany.
BUT you need go remember: We have social insurance and don't need to pay 5000$ when taking the ambulance etc. etc.
So if you exclude that we may come close if you need to see a doc on the regular.
Even then it's a pay cut. I know some people who moved to NA, and egotistically it's a sound decision because engineers there are on the right side of the wealth disparity ravine. Money's good enough that you don't need social safety nets. And if push comes to shove, someone making $100k/y can definitely afford health insurance and the occasional trip for medical tourism.
Now personally I believe in income redistribution so I'm happy to pay a lot of taxes in one of the most income-egalitarian countries in the world. But I'd make a shit-ton more if I lived&worked in Luxembourg or Canada.
I did the math a few years ago when Trump was president.
I currently make double in America of what is made in other countries. It was something ridiculous like even if I had $35k a year in med expenses, I'd still be making more in the US.
Either American engineers are paid way out of proportion, or the rest of the world pays poorly. Either way, I'm going to ride this train before Skynet replaced me.
Then you need surgery and your COL is already >50% of your net income and you are a 100k in debt. And assuming you have savings, I'd rather spend them on myself (vacation etc.) rather than brace for my bankruptcy because I stood up wrong.
So same for me
These careers do have decent insurance in the US. Long term illness is a different beast, but the most of ever pay for a medically necessary surgery is $3800, which is my max out of pocket. And I'd get short term disability which pays both 80% of my salary to me, and some amount to the company to compensate for my lost time.
Good jobs in the US really don't have as many horror stories you are always hearing on the internet. I mean, we have lots of other horror stories which are totally true, like our schools being violent and deadly. And rural areas being filled with the stupidest people on the planet. And even in lots of tier one US cities, the public transportation being useless.
How do these comparisons look if we go by pay per hour worked? Because here in Germany the maximum amount you are allowed to work in a week is 60 hours. Unless in special positions (like the ones that have harvesting season or mine stuff), this has to be equalised down to 48 over a 6 week period at max (the special ones just have a longer period for it or a different timing system on what counts as break). If you are in a position that equals to 48 hours a week (6 day week), your minimum PTO is 24 days. If you have a 5 day week it is 20 days, and the numbers above shift down to 50 and 40 respectively. Most jobs that have any kind of skilled work behind them have 30 days PTO. Plus there are a lot of national holidays.
I work in taxes and the average days worked in a year is assumed at 230 (if we don’t have information otherwise ofc). That is less than 2/3 of the year.
Whereas my knowledge on the US is that 60 hour weeks are not necessarily an exception, you get way less PTO, you have less national holidays and you often need to network after hours to even be successful to a moderate degree (of course networking is a thing here as well, but it isn’t that necessary at a medium level, only if you want to get the high positions).
Not to mention we are "forced" to take those days and are not in an at-will position where you can get fired any day of the week.
Again in my industry I work 40-50 hours and have 20 days of PTO but it's not really a hard limit. There are ten national holidays on top of that.
So you are always at least at the maximum average we have and often higher, with less PTO and holidays?
You also missed my core statement: how would the salary comparison go if we break it down to a hourly one? How would the gap look then?
COL is not anywhere near $50k/y ($4100/mo!) except maaaybe in some very narrow parts (basically just SV an Manhattan, assuming you want a decently large apartment). But in either of those places an engineer makes up for it by making $150k/y instead.
Also rich Americans have good insurance, I'm sure you could find an example of someone who had this happen but it's basically a non-risk.
And if healthcare was the only problem, then Canada would be an option as well. Engineers there still make a shitload more than German engineers. Watch out for the real estate market tho.
Yes, depending on where you live rent might be similar (London isn't much cheaper than NY or LA) but cost of living is otherwise less. Also, people tend to work much shorter hours (a limit of 37 for me, any extra is returned as PTO) and start with much more annual leave (25 days discretionary, for me, plus public holidays, plus we close over Christmas and new year's). Furthermore there's no health costs to pay etc. On the whole it balances out and I think the lifestyle here is better, but I do envy the extreme salaries of those in the US.
As someone in the US, 40 hours per week is the minimum. Recognition for "being a hard worker" has required 60+ hours at some places I've worked. This is for a fixed salary and no overtime pay, mind you. Then you're usually on an on call rotation every few weeks where you may have to work off-hours if something comes up. That's additional unpaid hours. My current company pays $80,000 USD for new college grad software developers.
US holidays are 8-10 days, and junior devs usually start with 5-10 days of vacation. Health insurance costs at least several hundred a month (your employer also pays about 3x more than you towards your insurance premium as a benefit).
You're actually getting applicants at 80k? That's nuts. Last I checked fresh outs were clearing 100k.
Despite incessant reassurance from recruiting that they have the best market data and we're paying above average, I have reasons to suspect that's not the truth. One of them being we're hemorrhaging mid-grade talent and focusing on hiring backfills in Ireland and Hungary for much lower salaries. It almost seems like they're trying to offshore the dev group via attrition to work around having to do layoffs...
Every HR department ever says that exact same thing. Even while the company is burning down and past bankruptcy.
Edit: For example, the fortune 50 I worked for insisted the same thing. Even when faced with industry data...they'd insist the Glassdoor and Indeed numbers were fake.
I left and got a 90% raise. That's not a joke number.
Wow those benefits are amazing.
It's not too crazy here :) 25 days a year is the legal minimum and I get about 10 more than that, plus a few extra from doing overtime here and there. That's why I say the lifestyle is on the whole better here even though we don't earn nearly as much. It's still plenty to pay the mortgage, and Europe is right on the doorstep to spend all that holiday time in.
You made that as a senior software dev in Finance more than a decade ago, more now (mainly because the pound went down versus other main currencies), especially if you're working in the Front Office (i.e. directly with business, such as Traders and Analysts)
However breaking into Front Office IT in Finance without previous experience in your CV working in banking or similar is pretty though.
Sure, yes, but those kinds of positions in the US make 300k or more too. Also, then you work in finance and you have to live with the fact that you are categorically making the world a worse place every day.
Absolutelly, I agree with you, on all of it.
Varies heavily dependent on industry, but typically less than US devs. Also if you live outside London it's going to be a lot less.
You average non-junior dev will probably make about 50-60k £ in london but about 25-35k £ outside london.
Senior developer can vary heavily. in london I've seen 60-120k depending on language and industry.
Wait so it's possible a Senior Dev outside of London would make $35k??
I'm a senior in the north east and I'm on 32k. But cost of living and houses are sooooo much cheaper here. I am not scraping by, I'm doing good.
I'd say you're very underpaid, I'm making about 50% more than that in a fully remote UK-based mid-level position. You should start looking for a new job, even if it's just as leverage to get paid fairly at your current place.
To add to this, I get paid more as a junior in Wales which should be comparable to NW England economically.
Oh yeah, I'm severely underpaid in my current job, even for where I live and what my role is. But I'm happy with my bosses and my colleagues. They've got my back more than not and I can be happy knowing I'm not in a hostile work environment. They are my genuine friends. Also helps that I enjoy the work I do. It's not going to be my forever job but I'm savoring it while i can before I move on.
If they're genuine friends they'll be receptive when you ask them to pay you fairly.
I already get paid more than the three directors, we're a small company with very little money at the moment, and under threat of going under. They want to pay me more. It's just if they did, the company goes under next month instead of a few months down the line if no new clients come to the table and actually commit to working with us.
However things like cars, phones, vacations, gas/petrol or electricity still cost the same everywhere...
Vacations maybe because that also depends on where you want to go. Cars can differ wildly, unless you want a sportscar or some such. Same goes for phones, often you get one „free“ with your contract for mobile. Gas/Petrol vary a lot, because of taxes and other state side things attached to them. Same goes for electricity plus those also depend on availability.
A VW Golf or a Hyundai i20 costs the same in London as in a village, not only a Porsche.
Same for the phone, the contract per month is the same anywhere you live.
Taxes on gas usually are the same for all locations in a country, at least in the countries I've lived in. Only highway/town variations.
I'd love to see where electricity prices vary locally, never seen that myself.
I interpreted your comment as between countries, my bad then.
Pounds and dollars are not the same. Also don't move country just for a job, you can probably work remotely anyway!
£, not $, but yes.
Holy shit, that's nothing outside of London. At that point be a restaurant server.
One thing in the US that has been encouraging is the very lowest earners are getting big jumps in pay, while people like devs are stagnating
I still wouldn't say software engineering is actual engineering.
You mean you wouldn't expect a software engineer to understand the coefficient of thermal expansion of tungsten carbide in a gas lubricated piston/cylinder pneumatic deadweight calibration system?
Yeah, me either. But I would expect one to know how to research the documentation to find out what it meant.
Even though my job title has "engineer" in it, I don't agree that it should be considered an area of engineering.
I wouldn't even expect most of them to this kind of research, no. On top of that, I see "engineering" also carrying some type of accountability and responsibility. For example, civil engineering, there are often regulatory bodies, codes, and standards that engineers must adhere to, and they are legally responsible for the safety and integrity of their projects. While in the software side of things, standards and best practices are more loose. Unless you're working in safety critical industries (automotive, aviation, etc...), the "accountability structure" is completely different, if existent at all. Calling themselves Software developer or some derivate would make much more from my point of view.
And software development isn't actually development. They don't build houses!
Did you mean to say software architecture?
What about software painting ?
Can't wait to see the next Mona Lisa of software as an exhibition at the Louvre!
I think the idea is, most people could build a doghouse with no training, but you need planning and education to plan/build a skyscraper. If you want to write your own app at home, maybe no software planning is really required. Keep nailing in workarounds. But if you want to build a huge system, you need to do a bit more than workarounds. You need a good plan from the start to make it all efficient and in a manner others can contribute to the code base.
That said, I feel like just having workarounds is really common even in large industry settings. Maybe I'm wrong though. I'm more of a home doghouse builder type myself.
Anyone can build a bridge. Only an engineer can build a bridge that barely stands.
In the same way, the fact that one built a large online platform, that doesn't necessarily mean it was built with minimal ressources and without taking past or future risk.
Engineering is, as a profession, specifically the application of scientific principles to solve problems the right way, the first time, that is to say efficiently, and with minimal risk.
The fact that one codes, or wields a wrench, or operates a C&C machine does not mean one is applying science to solve problems efficiently and managing risk. These are entirely different skills and professions.
Why? Excited to hear another internet hot take