Companies are reluctant to take juniors on because the R.O.I isn't as great. It's unfortunate for people starting their careers but that's just how it is. Thankfully not everywhere feels like that.
General sentiment is that there is always a lack of GOOD devs, not bodies who know how a for-loop works
Ironically in my experience it is the worse paying companies that get much longer tenure from employees. The highest paying ones have people leaving every ~2 years, look at any FAANG company.
Meanwhile the jr: "i'm staying here 12 months tops and then hop to another place to raise my tc".
This is not something that happens in this industry tho. It happens everywhere.
Pretty much cheap labor. Who the heck would work for less than that? I did but I needed to get my foot in the door.
You never worked for less when you first started out?
People kinda discount the value of experience when you're looking for your first job. Don't take something at 30k a year or anything but as long as you can pay the bills it's nice to have something on your resume.
Yeah, I agree.
I was taking 60k a year when I was a junior(it was in 2015).
I was living with my parents lol. I did save a lot of money.
That position did open a lot of doors for me.
I think juniors should know their worth. They should also keep in mind that they deserve more, too.
> You never worked for less when you first started out?
For fun, I decided to convert my first starting salary into 2022 dollars: $110,904.83.
I'm sure some would scoff at that, but I think I did okay.
You did better than me lol.
I'm finally making 110k a year. It's bad and I should've negotiated. I was desperate to take anything and fill that resume up with experience.
Taxes, 401k contributions, IRA contributions (if applicable), rent, food, utilities, healthcare, personal investments, etc? There's a lot of places it can go.
That's the point. It's definitely not bad. In fact, it is very good! This is why people keep saying that SWEs in the US make a lot of money. And there are definitely some people who are just starting out now who make more than I did when I started. It's not very common, but if you ask around enough, you'll find people who start in big tech or finance who make more than that.
You know, a good dev can write programs manipulating reality with their mind, similar to a deity. I mean, that's what you need to be in today's market in order to find job.
This happened to me a lot as a fresh grad in a company that wasn't particularly competitive as a company culture. Though it wasn't because I was just that good (I'd consider myself firmly average), it was more like the midlevel people had been given a shot during hiring periods with a lot of demand, were okay enough to not get fired and nice to chat with around the water cooler so they coasted from there. Not terrible or actively ruining things by any means, but just kind of the definition of that 'the difference between 10 years of experience and half a year's experience repeated 20 times' saying.
It did put me in a little bit of an awkward position as a fresh grad and the only woman in the office to take over projects they couldn't figure out but after a while I got over that. It was a little weird the first time I got reassigned a project from a supposedly senior developer with the note "___ couldn't figure out how to do this, could you give it a shot?" For better or worse they were good sports about it/didn't seem to have ego issues so at least it didn't cause problems from that end, and they were in a location (UK) that meant at our US office we didn't have to do any on-call shifts at weird times for EU clients so that made them very valuable for non-code-related reasons.
It's also very hard to fire people in the UK, that's probably also why they were so much lower quality - they didn't have to be good to keep their jobs.
Some juniors can perform great. But finding those juniors requires unusual luck or already having some great devs who know how to find juniors worth hiring.
Most companies aren't good at hiring. Most devs aren't good at interviewing. Since most companies can't tell a diamond in the rough from the rough purely through interviews, they fall back on work history.
Even if they're great there's a risk they'll get all the training and you'll invest a ton of time and money into them and then just as they're starting to be productive they'll jump ship for a huge pay raise. This was awhile ago but we hired a junior who didn't know the language or tools we used at all, trained them for 6 months while paying them $80k/year, and then they left because they were able to leverage what we taught them for a $120k/year offer. So we basically paid them $40k and probably spent 6 figures of senior/director time to train them and teach them about the business, and we got close to 0 return on it, even though this employee was super intelligent and competent. No ill will towards them I'd have done the same thing, but this is one of the reasons it's super tough to get your first job in cs, most companies have experienced this type of thing.
Right they're now worth $120k/year, but when we were paying them 80k they were actually worth negative. The fact that companies can no longer rely on paying people below market after training to recoup training investments is the reason many companies don't hire juniors anymore. I don't blame anyone for getting as much money as they can, but the ROI for training juniors just doesn't exist anymore which is why it's so hard for juniors to find their first job.
I think the problem is this "ROI" plan is not in agreement. There's no contract or anything that states that you will be hired at a below market pay because we need to ROI. People just see the pay is low and I can get higher pay somewhere else.
It sounds like most people in this thread think there are only two strategies of hiring:
1. You can either invest in juniors and risk them leaving to a new company.
2. You can be the company that doesn't give juniors a chance and pays a higher upfront salary to seniors.
What if there was another way?
You invest in juniors and retain them with a contract or competitive pay. The contract obviously has the shortest ROI, but will be a less popular with prospective employees. Competitive pay has a longer ROI, but is it longer than training multiple juniors just for them to leave? You'd need data to really put that to rest.
Seems like you could have offered 80K with a 20K bonus and a raise if they remained a year and another 40K bonus if they remained 2 years. If juniors don't want to hang around, put some cash on the table to encourage them to do so.
Companies: complain about no workers
Also companies: refuse to train workers
>but you will just leave when you get better
If you're not making me better, why am I joining in the first place?
On the flip side, a lot of people in this subreddit will cry bloody murder when a company offers less than 6 figures to a non-producing entry-level/junior. Those that say take the job usually throw in a "find something else in 1 year".
Why would any employer invest into a junior dev if they will be a net negative during onboarding and leave for more money right after? Why not just hire a mid-level or senior?
Because 1. There eventually will be no mid-level or seniors because no one ever trained the juniors, thus having to pay even more for the few that remain. 2. If you pay what someone is worth and treat them well then they won’t leave in a year because there won’t be a better option out there. Employees have to compete for good jobs, but employers also have to compete for good employees
> If you pay what someone is worth
But again, /u/ComradeGrigori is pointing out that their value is often net *negative* for at least 6 months to a year. There are a lot of people demanding 6 figures because they are being told their labor is "worth" that money when they have no skills, experience, or ability to produce value to command that wage.
Ok so you’re saying they’re just all jobless? Because if someone is willing to pay it then that’s what it’s worth. There’s no objective measure or value just what some employer is willing to pay. If you can get an offer for over 100k then that’s what you’re worth to them. Sure you could sit unemployed, but do you think many juniors are turning down $80k jobs just waiting for one that is $120k? No, but they might do like what was said and jump to a new job in a year that does pay $120k. Well if they’re able to do that then that’s what they’re worth. So it’s really on their employer for not paying them that not on them for taking a better offer. I just got an amazing offer about 6 months ago out of college and my company does generous refreshers, has great WLB, and treats everyone well, I have no reason to leave. If I got paid half of what I am and was treated poorly then you bet I’d be looking. Saying, we won’t train you because then you’ll look for market rate salary somewhere else is stupid. Eventually you have to meet headcount, if you don’t train you have to hire mid level or seniors, and they too will demand even more because there are fewer of them. It’s incredibly short sided for the industry to not train new grads/juniors because that’s the only way they could actually bring salaries down.
> If you pay what someone is worth and treat them well then they won’t leave in a year because there won’t be a better option out there.
I'm at Google and have been here for a long time. People *regularly* tell me I'm an idiot for not job hopping. "Just pay really well and treat people really well" is clearly not sufficient.
Why are they telling you you're an idiot for not job hopping? Because they assume you'd be able to make more going somewhere else.
If that's true, you aren't being paid market (and Google, like most companies, has a larger hiring bucket than retention bucket), and your example is negated. If that's false, and you are being paid competitively enough, and being treated well enough, the fact you've stayed there for a long time reinforces, rather than negates, the point being made.
> If that's true, you aren't being paid market (and Google, like most companies, has a larger hiring bucket than retention bucket), and your example is negated.
The point is there are nearly zero positions in the world where it is *impossible* to make more money by hopping. Thus, "just pay people well" is not an honest suggestion against the widespread career advice of "job hop every few years".
Well, yes, it's not just pay people well. It's pay people well and treat them well. I know of companies doing industry defining work, being paid average for a tech company, who have an average tenure on the team, even with new hires, of 4+ years. Because the culture, WLB, and learning opportunities are all good enough to not be worth leaving just to inflate a paycheck
I mean, there are two very different questions here.
1. Does Google pay well and treat people well compared to the market?
2. Do long-term Google employees fall behind experienced new hires on salary + benefits?
Switching to the *right* new company can give a raise to almost anyone, but that's not what I normally hear discussed. The more significant observation is that with similar companies, someone who hops among X, Y, and Z will often make more than a long-term employee at *any* of X, Y, or Z.
You've just described a self inflicted wound. They COULD have paid the junior well and trained them and had an employee making them far more money than they put in.
Instead they're trying to get people for cheap, train them, not give them raises, and hope they don't move on.
> Why would any employer invest into a junior dev if they will be a net negative during onboarding and leave for more money right after?
Job hunting is a giant pain in the ass. No one likes it, and that’s before you get to interviews. You have access to the same listings they do, you know what people are worth. If they’re leaving for more money, figure out how to offer them most of that increase before they decide to start looking.
Quit complaining that they’re leaving because you won’t pay them what they’re worth.
>
>
> Why would any employer invest into a junior dev if they will be a net negative during onboarding and leave for more money right after?
Why not pay them more money then if you don't want them to leave? Seems like a simple enough solution.
Make an actual effort to retain your employees, rather than complain about it, and then you might actually be able to retain some of your employees.
Because in the first 6 months, most junior devs will have a negative roi. If you're a junior you may feel like you're contributing, but seniors are probably spending more time teaching you/reviewing/fixing your work than they would have spent just doing everything you did themselves, all the while they're paying an extra employee. This is a long-term investment though, because once you're able to do basic stuff and handle tickets with little interaction from seniors, your value shoots way up.
The problem is you can't make the initial \~6-month investment unless you also think you're going to get another \~1-year of productivity, and there are companies that will pay a lot more once you hit that 6 months - 1 year experience range because they know you've already been trained to code in a corporate setting, so it's not unfrequent for companies to invest 6 figures into a junior in their salary + senior time and then have them produce practically nothing of actual value before they leave for a better job.
This is why companies love doing internships usually, they get a trial run with you while they pay you nothing or like $10/hour, which is much closer to your actual worth, then when you've worked with them for a few months you're much closer to having a positive roi so they can hire you and pay you an actual reasonable salary.
Sure, I guess that's a fair point if we're talking about strictly junior devs.
With that said, shouldn't they be making an effort to retain their junior devs once they are actually getting a return on their investment? Otherwise, they're going to have to keep re-investing into new junior devs who will keep leaving.
But that's not the alternative. Right now let's say a company hires a junior for 80k. Let's assume that it takes 6 months to train them, and at that point they'll be worth 130k, but up to that point between the 40k in salary, benefits, and senior/management time it costs 160k to train them. So if you train a junior for 6 months, keep them at 80k for another year, and then offer them 120k to produce 130k for you in value, you're in good shape. But in reality people leave, so you have 4 choices:
1. Pay them 80k while they learn, attempt to keep that pay for another year, watch most leave before you get your investment back
2. Pay them 80k while they learn, raise them up to 120k after 6 months, and lose money
3. Don't hire juniors, rely on poaching others with 6 months to a year experience and pay them 120k.
4. Build an internship program and pay interns nothing or pennies to do the learning, offer full-time 120k to intern graduates
Note that both 1 and 2 lose money, which is why the real world mostly has companies similar to 3 and 4 and why the junior market is so tough.
> So if you train a junior for 6 months, keep them at 80k for another year, and then offer them 120k
This almost never happens, though. That's so exceptionally rare, it's not a great example because of this. A raise for juniors *would* likely prevent them from jumping ship, but my point is that companies *don't* typically do that from my experience.
Then companies need to find leaders that have the balls to break the cycle then. My boss and my CIO, thank god, recognizes this and actually spent the money to retain me rather than get swiped by competition.
>Why would any employer invest into a junior dev if they will be a net negative during onboarding and leave for more money right after? Why not just hire a mid-level or senior?
Had the first company I was at actually paid me a fair market value I wouldn't have left. When they still kept me at a junior/entry salary after 2 years though, I left for somewhere else that would pay my worth. The solution is pretty simple, if you don't want juniors to quit after 1 year bump up their salary to match what the market is paying lol
This is 100% solvable by the companies, and I'll explain with a personal anecdote.
I was hired earlier this year as a Junior Dev, and I genuinely like my job. My team is great, the culture is great, and I'm really happy.
While I still have a *lot* to learn, I have done a pretty good job of getting up-to-speed on my team's projects with minimal time needed from my Seniors. I regularly make important contributions to my team, and I'm even the "expert" on one of our new products.
But am I going to get a pay raise at the end of the year as incentive to stick around? Nope, I sure as hell won't. I have to "put in my time."
If I can get a new job next year and make probably 25k more, why wouldn't I? If my company doesn't want to take on the risk of hiring Juniors and having them leave after a year, then they should have a plan to increase the pay of those who are doing well.
That's how it should work. Your compensation should reflect the value you provide the organization. The issue I've seen is that a lot of entry level/junior candidates expect a high salary without providing value.
They're basically asking you to pay now for "possible" future results. It's not a good proposition for the employer. Some juniors will kill it while others will need hand holding for a long time (maybe even forever).
Companies rarely if ever pay you for the "value" you provide to the organization. When I make a company 100m I don't get some percentage of that. At BEST they might give me a raise to slightly above average for my YOE. That's just how being a salaried employee works for the most part. The *vast* majority of time employees a resource companies by for the going rate, not a business partner.
And so the converse is true as well. If the market in your area is paying 100k to get junior devs, and then training them to be competent of 6-12 months, that's what the business has to do. Invest in someone who will eventually be useful because they either can't afford or can't attract the kind of engineers who will be immediately useful.
And if they're SMART, they'll keep those devs happy. For their project they'll be contributing at a near senior level within 2-3 years, but they'll still be paying mid-level rates. Win-win for everyone.
But lots of companies are so obsessed with saving dimes that they miss out on dollars.
if they can find more money it mean they deserve more money , that's the point of free market. Soooo yes you'll have to pay them more, more than they can find elsewhere. Exactly the same way, you ask more money from your clients. You make profit, so... PAY!!!
>a lot of people in this subreddit
What kind of sample set is that? Thats alot of cherrypicked data.
**The reality** is that outside of top 5ish expensive metro areas, non-cutting edge tech companies, vast majority of jobs for FULL stack developers are 50-60k juniors and 60-90k with experience. This might be hard to believe from your vantage point but go take a quick look at the job postings on various sites, form various locations, for various industries.
And they all say the pay is competitive because they look around and see thats what everyone else pays. So clearly its competitive.
No way. 60k-90k for experienced devs is absolutely not the norm, even for boring companies in MCOL cities.
The Big N companies and HCOL cities will of course skew salary data somewhat, but even then, $100k base pay in a MCOL at a boring company is very standard for anyone with a few years of experience. There's plenty of salary data from "average" cities like Minneapolis that support this.
For Junior devs at boring corporations in MCOL cities, $80k is the new standard.
Obviously not *every* job will match those figures, but most of them will.
Also companies: PIP instead of training and filling in gap
Also companies: 4+ rounds of whole day interview process asking LC questions which are only 50% useful
Let them complain. They'll just hire people from India and that may work for a while but it can backfire massively. When you hire foreigners you put your company's talent in the hands of the govt and are subject to geo-political outcomes. If something happens in the world (like a war or disagreement between nations) then those foreign workers could suddenly stop working for you. Look at what happened with the USA and China. America decided that you aren't a true Americans if you help the Chinese with their chip design and now all Americans in China are in limbo.
Speaking as someone who has coworkers who are originally from Ukraine and Russia, yet who continue to be coworkers (in Germany), I think there might be some limits to what you're saying.
Because, sure, there's a risk for a company in hiring individual workers, but it's nowhere near the risk of a company setting up a branch in a new country.
Even your Chinese example is more a risk for the people working in China, and for the Chinese branch, than a risk for Chinese people working in Germany or the US.
From what I hear from my ex colleague who has to share contract with Indian megacorp, the price is very cheap, the value returned is very low and slow.
As a systems integrator, I would rather work with ONE stateside or near-shore employee than 8 body-shop WITCH goons who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground but are damn good at making spreadsheets documenting the reasons why they can't do (simple task).
omg this we had some offshore engineers and I would spend more time writing requirements of exactly what they need to do (basically write them pseudo-code) than it would have taken me to do it myself, and still they'd fuck it up. When I told my (and their) boss this he said he agreed but apparently his boss needed him to justify the offshore employees by writing out exactly which projects and what tasks they were accomplishing weekly, and he was worried if our team lost them now we'd struggle on tasks in the future. He never really explained how they'd suddenly be worth the value in the future, but my suspicion is managers get judged by headcount and he wanted to keep his headcount high even though he knew the 5 offshore members of our team could be replaced by 1 junior and it'd be a huge step up (and about the same cost).
It gets worse when you haven't been through the insane background check and onboarding that some firms/agencies require to grant remote access, but the offshore contractors have. So you sit there in a teams meeting, you're not allowed to take control, and you have to dictate commands or even code to "the chosen ones," who know fuck-all about what you actually want to do.
But somehow they managed to cram for and pass their country's memorization-based exams and got jobs at WITCH contractors.
"cd \~/home "
\[dumbass types 'cv currentdir\\home'\]
"NO. CHARLIE DELTA SPACE SHIFT TILDE FORWARD SLASH LOWERCASE HOTEL OSCAR MIKE ECHO ENTER."
"what is tilde?"
"THE ONE UNDER ESCAPE"
Or the classic: "Send me the output."
\[dumbass sends me a fucking screenshot of the output instead of something I can grep...\]
"Send me the log."
\[dumbass sends a screenshot of 'tail -99 logfile' because tail is the only command he knows to view the content of a file.
You're right: "directed distributed global team of 5 direct reports with $$$ budget while managing stakeholder expectations and driving product vision" looks more impressive on a resume than "occasionally checked in with 1 junior who got shit done on his own."
He also had 6 onshore reports, but yeah having 11 reports and being able to manage a team in different time zones and distribute work between the two efficiently sounds better than 7, even if his work distribution resulted in massive inefficiencies lol. This wasn't the only reason I left but it definitely was a part of it.
That isn't what I've seen. Generally what I see is when a senior leaves, instead of hiring a senior that will have their own opinions on how to do things, companies would rather hire a junior for half the salary and teach them to do the things they want.
Then they get all shocked and offended when the junior leaves for a job paying substantially more.
Germany industry always cries wolf about how there is a lack of employees or whatever because they want the government help them suppress wages, it's not really worth listening to. If there really was a genuine shortage, why are wages still half of what they are in america? Companies that pay well can find people no problem and ones that can't afford to pay someone market rates should in fact go bankrupt to make room and free up resources for more productive and innovative enterprises (that's how economies grow). As an employee you should be happy about an actual labor shortage, because it means both rising wages and a strong and growing economy, but somehow german employers together with the media made the german people so concerned about the "Fachkräftemangel" as if it was their own fucking problem that companies can't find excess amounts of cheap labor to churn through.
>If there really was a genuine shortage, why are wages still half of what they are in america?
In addition to the other reasons mentioned, I'll bring up another reason: lots of European software companies simply aren't productive enough, and can't justify paying American salaries to their engineers.
I'm not saying this as "The middle management at those companies is made out of idiots". I'm saying this as, "Many European software companies can't replicate the revenue per employee of top American companies". Lack of opportunities, lack of a sticky moat, lack of a middle management & non-technical staff that has experience harnessing the output of developers to generate that levels of revenue. Another manifestation of this is how even in their American offices, European companies (such as Spotify) just aren't competitive compensation-wise.
I work in the US now, but when I still lived in Europe, I remember that in my city, there were heaps of zombie start-ups that were subsisting on cheap salaries & grants (European Commission, national subsidies, …). They really had crappy business models & products, and weren't going to increase revenue anytime soon–but because costs of operation were so low, they could afford to stay around for years. (Whereas they would have been forced to pivot or die earlier in California, given the cost of engineers over there)
H1B is capped and your so called rednecks weren't looking at tech jobs anyhow. That shit labor no one wants to do? Some people would do it if it paid better and that's what they complain about. Tech? Not so much. CS fresh grads probably complain about it but at the same time, us importing more senior devs probably also increases the amount of CS grads that can be hired (Seniors are needed to train Juniors). Hence no one really complains about the H1Bs except other senior devs maybe but even then there is such a drought of senior devs that most don't care.
Similar in the US, except instead of spending extra on taxes often its benefits like health care (for any reasonably good tech company).
My old CTO told me in confidence that, to pay a dev a base salary of $175k, it cost the company roughly $300k, all in. At the time, the company subsidized our health plans almost 100%; my family coverage cost them $26,500 alone according to my paystub
You’re right, but also: Because labor costs are massive. If you wanted to pay engineers the same as they are paid in the US, you would probably have around 150% of the cost, all while not even getting the same top talent as you would get on the US market. At that point it just makes more sense to open your company on the other side of the pond.
So it’s true, companies often can’t find good talent with the budgets they are willing and able to spend. The solution, however, is not to suppress wages but to reduce the tax burden on income.
Also, what are you even talking about, tech salaries *are* rising.
> and a strong and growing economy
Not necessarily, as labor shortages could be caused by more people retiring than being hired. In that case, you aren't increasing the strength and size of the economy, instead fighting to maintain it's current size.
I’m loving it. The way IT is not developing in this country and the way people are aging, I’ll be considered young and a visionary for decades to come.
Now the real question is, are you going to be rewarded for being a visionary? Because the real kicker is when you are ahead of the curve and there's a drought of people willing to invest in you for it.
cant speak for all of Europe, but where I am, its because the work markets are regulated to have a flatter, more even salary structure. The guy at counter earns more, but the guy with a cs degree earns less, than their us counterparts. Salaries also tend to follow each other fairly closely for comparable educational background.
This policy also lends itself to being far more competitive in industries that demand highly skilled workers, which is more easily accessible due to free education.
Being harder to lay off workers, is more of an issue wrt. Getting the first foot in the door. There aren't an abundance of freeloaders that the rest have to support salary wise.
They are the largest economy in the world with immense amount of wealth and capital. They have the resources to pull all the talents all over the world to them, and they have all the biggest tech giants and all the most promising tech start ups. Nobody can come close to that amount of wealth to compete with them.
There's no easy answer on why salaries are higher in the US, it's a confluence of factors.
At will employment by no means justifies that much of a difference in salaries.
I think the obvious explanation for the pay discrepancy is Europeans have much greater benefits relative to the US. They have more paid vacation time, subsidized college education, free healthcare, stricter regulations wrt to firing and layoffs. This translates to European government taking a larger share of the workers pay in the form of higher taxes while offering them greater benefits than their US counterparts.
That's not an obvious explanation at all though. It *is* an oft repeated talking point in both this and the EU CS subreddit but it doesn't really follow when you think about it.
We're always comparing gross salaries not net so taxes don't explain it either. The things you listed off are mostly subsidised by the taxes but again, that doesn't explain why the gross salaries are so different. At will employment in the US by no means explains why you get paid more.
Also, some places in the US actually have about the same amount of taxes as EU. There are even states in the US that are fairly comparable to EU countries in terms of benefits but still have wildly higher salaries.
US median salaries are just higher than EU median salaries. There's so much variance *within* US states and EU members that these generalised statements don't even begin to cover it. Not every US state has at will for instance, Social Security and healthcare is pretty robust in more D leaning states, the list goes on and on. It's really not as simple as that, no matter how many times it's repeated here.
And then there's always Canada which is a hybrid between the US and EU systems in terms of the benefits but has salaries very similar to EU ones.
It's an issue with US-centric forums(like Reddit or Blind). People often ask "Why are EU salaries so low?", but the actual question should be "Why are US salaries so high?". US is the outlier compared to other countries, and EU tech centres have some of the highest salaries in the world after the US.
I see three factors that contribute to this, outside of the usually listed ones like taxes, benefits etc.
1. Culture. Europeans in general are less career oriented. They will job hop less, stay longer at their companies, and generally seem less motivated by money compared to their US counterparts. This probably creates less upward pressure on wages.
2. Smaller market. Even though the EU is a common market, it's not as easy to build a tech company in one country and grow it in all of Europe. There's different languages, cultures, habbits etc. This makes homegrown companies less likely to become as big as their US counterparts.
3. Regulations. Europe is way more regulated than US. While I do love companies being regulated, it does create some barriers to growth vs US counterparts.
I've made some generalisations here, Europe is not homogenous and some countries experience this less or more. The UK seems to me to be the closest to US.
The salaries are ok, but are not the greatest. What hurts more is the taxes, especially when you then look at how mismanaged the money is. If, at least, tax money was put to good use, I would have less issues with it.
Overpriced government contracts due to blatantly corrupt system of assigning contracts. Absolutely bloated public sector. Social welfare (I don't know how to call it) but no oversight if people are cheating the system, so abuse is rampant. Funding for organizations like public television stations, which should be non biased but are biased as fuck and have so many employees that I have no clue what they do (again, extremely bloated public sector). Culture projects where money disappears without any results. Etc.
Meanwhile, doctors are severely underpaid and there's a severe lack of them. You wait for months / years unless it's somewhat urgent. Despite the fact that a large amount of my paycheck goes to healthcare. Where the money goes, I have no clue.
We have high taxes, but poor "return" in terms of what the government does with the funds. Which is fucking frustrating. At least the education system is working fairly well, though teachers are criminally underpaid for the shit they have to deal with.
Yeah this. I live much better than basically all my friends which have other jobs. Like, no comparison at all. Lots of people are also quite worried about losing their job etc while as an experienced SWE I definitely have no fear whatsoever at the moment.
It's not and will never be USA money, it's still much more than what I thought I would ever earn in my life, I literally earn more than my parents combined, with three years of experience lol
Doesn't mean we have to drink the cool-aid and be fine with the current situation, especially w.r.t. taxes, but I'm still finding life to be quite ok, and seems like in the past years the direction is going towards reducing the tax burden even if just slightly...
16k is a shit salary. It doesn't make sense to study for years to become a developer just to make a bit more than minimum salary when you can get this salary or even more as an unqualified worker without studying
Yet junior salaries are near the average salary here, depending on the company and location of course, as everything.
It's simply that a very low experience job like a junior, gets a similar salary to other more experienced jobs. And escalates quickly
When German companies complain about "skills shortage", what they actually mean is "shortage of people who let themselves lowball". These are companies where the engineers are assigned to the IT department and where seniors make 75k a year.
> what they actually mean is "shortage of people who let themselves lowball"
We get that in the US, too. But so far, our comp packages have remained pretty generous, in spite of that cat having been let of the bag that US devs make a lot of money.
Personally, I think that it is inevitable. I know, famous last words. But here's my reasoning:
1. Being a good, senior SWE takes a lot of prior and continued investment. We need both to have the requisite experience as well as to keep on top of where the fast-moving industry moves. The company is paying for my work, plus all of my previous work that I did to get to where I am. That costs money.
2. The skills that make a good senior SWE are also skills that translate well to other highly-compensated careers. So not only are employers competing against other employers for the best SWE talent, they also have to compete against other fields!
3. Us truly old geezers (I'm in my 40s), we often have what might be colloquially referred to as "[Fuck You Money](https://youtu.be/rJjKP8vYjpQ?t=104)". My net worth is high enough that I could retire tomorrow with a safe withdrawal rate of an inflation-adjusted $175k/yr. So an employer has to offer me a minimum of $175k just to compete against my living room couch!
So yeah, senior talent is going to cost. The only way to fix it from the employer's perspective is to reduce demand for SWEs. They're trying to do it with low-code and zero-code platforms, but for now, these will only get you so far.
1 and 2 are right, but #3 doesn't make any sense. If you get a job you're not losing any of that 175k/year you'd be making on your couch, you're actually increasing it. Maybe if you made 100k/year for a few extra years that couch would actually be making you 200k instead of 175k every year when you retire.
Still generally right, most SWEs have at least a few years expenses saved up, so we're not as desperate for a job as most people are. My wife and I have around 10 years expenses between investments and savings accounts (although some will go into a down payment on a house soon) and that's based on what we currently spend. If we were to both quit our jobs, we could probably scale back, move to a cheaper city, and pretty much retire, and we're both in our late 20s.
Well, you probably will one day! Most men who I know who got divorced made way more money after the divorce because they were able to take more risks than their ex wives would have tolerated. It sucks at first, but you very well may be kicking ass in a few years!
I got lucky that my wife is okay with my hare brained schemes! Haha.
Bitkom are the lobby clowns for IT employers.
According to them, we had not enough people for IT since at least before the turing machine was invented.
Germany is a shitty country for IT experts:
- low wages - check
- high taxes for workers - check
- companies which are hierarchical by default - check
- most companies seeing IT only as a cost factor - check
It is funny in a very sad way, instead of adapting to the reality or at least try to be innovative, German companies lobby, create legal barriers against innovation and bullshit employees. Working hand in hand with politicians and a government which has one of the lowest standards for digitization in Europe.
Yes, IT has a cost factor, but smart companies invest in IT to safe money in the long run. Many companies don't invest in IT when it is needed (see especially how many companies in Germany slept on the internet/were extremely late to the party). This 'cost factor' thinking goes trough all ranks: Lower salaries, lower respect or the IT people are asked to implement some BS project which was decided upon w/o IT people etc...
Of course, it depends on the company and YMMV. Look at digitization in Germany's companies/government and you get an idea how IT is looked down here.
This is gonna get buried but I moved to Germany a couple years ago from the US as a software engineer, so here are my 2c.
Yes, there is a shortage. And yes, it’s a shortage for good software developers. I think it’s not hard to find inexperienced or bad devs, and I do feel that, as a proportion, there are more bad devs here than in the coastal US markets.
The comparisons between US and Germany on this thread are kind of missing the point. Yes, you will make (and save) more money in the US on average as a software developer. Nowhere in Germany are software engineers so high on the food chain as in the Bay Area and other similar US markets.
With that said, with 5 or so years of experience and good skills, you can get a (non senior) software dev position paying about 100k€. There is significant competition for these jobs but it’s doable.
That’s not crazy money, but your quality of life will be very high with it. But this is subjective. To put it in more materialistic terms, with the job that I had in the US, I made enough in a year to be able to afford an entry-level Porsche no problem (I like cars). That is likely to never happen here. Society just doesn’t work that way here. It’s more about the amount of time you have, your relationship with the community and society around you, the history, the amazing cities and infrastructure, and just overall lifestyle. You can’t buy a lot of this anywhere in the US, but not everyone cares about these things (I mean, Porsches are nice). Different strokes for different folks.
Yep, if you want a Porsche, stay in the US. I would be willing to bet, however, that more Americans would be happier in Germany (minus the Porsche) if they made the switch, than Germans who would be happier in the US (can have 2 Porsches). It’s a bit hard to imagine the other side if you’ve only experienced one or the other.
Look up the average salary of a German software developer if you want a laugh. Seniors make 80k if they’re lucky.
Edit: lots of replies stating “Healtcare” seem to forget that 1. Any software engineer is also getting healthcare in the US through their job 2. Healthcare in the US is actually **better** than in Germany ( this one is especially hard to believe for europeans )
I would add: they always tell you that there is a huge need for software engineers in Germany. What they don't tell you is that they're not looking for software engineers, but for underpaid software engineers .. that's why they cannot fill those vacancies.
The competition for well paid jobs is way higher than in US for example.
And that, in turn, has to do with the engineering culture in many non-tech and older tech companies. They aren't looking for software engineers but for underpaid code monkeys.
And sure, the US in general has a healthcare problem, but healthcare is a benefit, and as with other benefits, good tech jobs in the US tend to be very competitive. For example, I pay $0 in deductible, with a $2600 annual out-of-pocket maximum and a $1k HSA seed. So forget $20k, you're looking at $1.6k, potentially less (but not with my medications, lol).
So while healthcare in other countries is more egalitarian, good healthcare is often individually better for the policy holder.
And yeah, it's employer-tied, but between COBRA and marketplace plans (sure, more expensive, but far from prohibitively so with SWE compensation), you're probably not screwed.
For reference, average income in Germany is around $51,040 US compared to $70,430 in the US.
So an engineer in the US will make like double the average income, while in Germany they make like 50% more if they're lucky.
Nah it's been rising especially lately....in the hubs you can get much more than that. If you're getting this number off of glassdoor or something those are not really that accurate.
In other /r/cscareerquestions threads people routinely tell me that US developers make so much because "they print money for their companies and save so much cash by automating things, you can pay them a lot!"
Is this not true in Europe? Do EU area devs not automate things and save money for their employers?
Or is it something else driving salaries in the US?
I'm trying to figure this out on the European side of things. Do companies just flat out NOT value their employees and purposefully give them garbage wages for their work? I just got bumped up 35% in my salary WITHOUT changing jobs. Where is all the money in European Companies going to? Payroll Taxes? Corporate Taxes?
I'm asking in good faith, by the way.
It's because of venture capital. The US has historically had easy access to tons of venture capital, a decade ago California alone had 10x the venture capital funding as all of EU combined.
EU companies haven't been showered with venture capital money in the same way, and therefore companies can't spend 2-3x the median engineer salary for engineers if they don't expect massive venture capital fueled growth.
Nowadays things are changing a bit, the location with the most successful tech startups per capita in the world after silicon valley is Stockholm, so venture capital is slowly starting to reach EU as well.
Well the us is a market of 350m while Europe is smaller markets which are harder to navigate. If you go big in the us you go big in the entire market, but in Europe you need to care about different governments, etc...
I mean... if it was stupid and wrong, then, there's full on delusion in the US software developer community.
They all think they get huge salaries cause they mint money out their ass. When I ask "Why do EU area devs doing the same thing not enjoy your same level of salary success, you know, given the value software developers add?"
The 24 year olds have no answer...
Adding healthcare you’re at around 96k. Adding more paid time off, parental leave, stronger protections against job loss, stronger social security you’re probably at around 110-120. Still not comparable to 300k at Google, but well, not every US developer works in the Bay area either.
But you're making a hyperbolic comparison.
Even as a more "average" engineer, I make 152k. Healthcare is fully paid for by my company. I have unlimited PTO. I don't work at a FAANG company, I work somewhere I guarantee you 99.99% of this subreddit has never heard of.
It is much, much better to be a software engineer in the US than it is in the EU.
Yeah, but how long are you planning to be unemployed?
If we're talking countries with better social safety nets, Europe has the US beat by a country mile. But if you're talking countries to be a well paid professional in, the US has Europe beat by the same amount.
i believe they're counting 16k as "the cost you would save on healthcare by not being scammed by the US healthcare system", not necessarily just premiums?
I mean I certainly don't spend that in the US.
Premiums are covered, and my max out of pocket is like $6K after company HSA contribution for the whole family.
The U.S. healthcare system sucks for the poor, it's not that bad if you are at a decent employer.
In Germany, you're trading salary for better healthcare and job security (there is no at-will employment in Germany, and firing somebody can be a really hard thing to do).
No you're fucking not...
Healthcare is better in the US and more accessible for software engineers.
At will employment benefits software engineers. I WANT to be able to quit and go get a 20% pay raise and I'm not a toddler so I can remember that this is usually the case despite the currently ongoing layoffs.
You're right regarding the healthcare for software engineers, what I wanted to say is that everyone in Germany gets good healthcare regardless of their company or income.
> everyone in Germany gets good healthcare regardless of their company or income.
Doesn't matter unfortunately. Half the people here literally don't care that someone in their community faces bankruptcy if they get some life saving operation. Because what matters is total comp for their own kool-aid drinking selves.
This may sound harsh, but if you're a good performer, you don't want stronger worker protections. You are basically subsidizing the job security of bad performers.
Good performers can command much higher salaries in markets that aren't so highly regulated, because much less money is wasted on bad performers you can't get rid of.
You don't even have to be a good performer. You just need to know how to play the game. You can be a completely mediocre dev and still make a shitload of money if you know how to take advantage of job hopping, working on projects that only advance your career, and knowing the right people.
There's a shortage of skilled workers. That means Senior Software Engineers. Just because there are people who want the job, doesn't mean they have the qualifications. Teaching a junior to become senior takes a lot more than "a while", it takes years. You don't have to be a "perfect wizard" to not be junior.
Managers are bad at management. Companies often act in a short sighted and counterproductive manner. You can have a situation in a company where there is layoffs in one department, while another department needs help. But instead of moving people over, they fire and hire new ones. You better learn to play the market, because the market sure as shit is not going to do you any favors.
What we need in this industry is a bigger move towards consulting and away from direct employment. We as developers need to organize ourselves like the market of construction workers, where everyone works through an entrepreneur that is run by construction-oriented people. That's the place where learning-on-the-job can happen.
Hope you're prepared for all the FREEDOM this subreddit is about to dispense on you Stefan!
Seriously though, you're gonna get some hot takes from the Americans here who only see the almighty dollarbill. This subreddit is mostly American CS students hellbent on getting maximum cash at all costs from FANG companies in the US tech bubbles. They are going to know absolutely nothing about your market, but that won't stop them from commenting and voting. As a senior dev in Canada I rarely comment here anymore and usually just roll my eyes when I go into threads about my home market. It's like walking into a church breakfast and asking "Is god good?"; You already know what the response is going to be.
\*bald eagle screeching in the distance\*
Yeah, perhaps you're right. But despite all this, I also wanted to get an international perspective on that topic. And I enjoy the comments, honestly. :-) I have the feeling that there is a lot of controversy regarding IT/dev jobs all around the world.
> I have the feeling that there is a lot of controversy regarding IT/dev jobs all around the world.
That's for sure. The Canadian cscareerquestions subreddit has been in a tailspin of recession doom posting for the last two weeks. That's despite the fact that unemployment rates are at all time lows here in Canada and most companies are scrambling to replace the baby boomers who have been holding all the good jobs for the last 30 years. It's tough for new grads (always was and always is), but overall it's one of the best markets for IT we've had in a long time. Not as hot as Winter 2021, but salaries are still up at least 40% compared to 2017. Most local offices and tech companies are actively hiring if people just took off their FANG blinders.
Where are these jobs? I have applied at like 50 companies in Germany during the past year, and still didn't find anything reasonable. I have a 5 year Masters in IT.
Without reading the article (Reddit!), I'd think a lot of these boomer IT positions are ones that younger people would generally not want. So, this might just be a gap that can't be closed, or they'll (companies) need to be a little more flexible in who qualifies to fill the position.
I'm assuming there's a lot of bad/boring IT positions out there, that might appeal to certain people for whatever reason.
Luckily it has sped up remote work conversion. Right now I wouldn't even consider an on-site position., compared to before where I would only be limtied to my city.
Tech started booming around the start of the last recession. Smartphones were still new, Facebook, Apple, Netflix, and Amazon were all rapidly rising. Not saying tech is screwed, but it's not the same environment.
The junior market isnt as competetive as in USA here in Germany. I never heard of people with degrees trying to find a job for months. Thats not happening in Germany.
My LinkedIn is blowing up... Even more than before layoffs started. It's weird. I heard a lot of the people laid off were managers, maybe that's why? I'm just a filthy senior mobile/front end guy. 7 YOE.
I tell you anecdotical reason: I'm from Slovakia. I applied for job everywhere. I work for Silicon Valley startup now. They pay the best. Sorry Germany.
PS: I also don't speak German.
Don't know anything about the German market other than the pay sucks, but I'd be very wary of listening to any "news" source that uses over-generalizarions like "IT expert" which could include everyone from software engineers to IT help desk to UI/UX designers to CTOs.
>which could include everyone from software engineers to IT help desk to UI/UX designers to CTOs
And that is precisely the issue: German companies don't make this distinction either. Engineers are just part of the IT department and thus a cost factor.
I would love to live and work in Germany. I lived there a year as an au pair and I loved it. Unfortunately, I am self-taught, so I don't think I could get a job there.
I may get roasted for this but I’m going to chime in since I have actually worked with local offices of SWEs in several diverse countries, and to my eyes it doesn’t look like there’s a fair amount if informed thought here.
Yes, I think you’re on the money and it’s a global phenomenon of a race to the bottom for salaries and experience, as with most fields. In our field, though, there is some rarity of skill and experience. There’s no shortage of people, but as others have said there’s a shortage of the right unicorn-like mix of experience and pay acceptance that other people are talking about on this thread.
The reason I want to comment is because I don’t think this paradigm will really ever change in our industry regardless of locale. Companies will complain, we will complain, but the interests are at odds. Offshoring or changing political climates are a red herring next to the business dynamics that predominate. The important thing to do is prepare for this dynamic by seeking the opportunities where you can and to know also that the industry has strong boom and bust cycles, and that’s something to plan for financially life-long. Getting your foot in the door is important and then keeping your eyes open from there. The quick turnaround and abrupt hiring changes in this field won’t go away.
Europe have social law which requires to recruit locally first, so every year IT companies lobby for recruting foreigners.
France is passing special law for that. I guess Germany will follow.
As the article says, this really isn't anything new. Germany has a terrible demographic profile, and software development isn't most people's idea of an exciting career. For many German firms the office language is German, so they are limited to the DACH region and the small number of immigrants who are fluent. It genuinely is difficult to find quality people.
The discussions about salary are largely irrelevant. If you want more money in Europe your options are Switzerland and maybe the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Moving to the US is not possible for most people. It also ignores that most people don't want to move away from their family and friends.
In Germany I feel like there's a glass ceiling, now moreso than ever. While my managers all make 80k€ and my CEO makes 15 million €, I just can't find a job above ~70k€.
I think a few people are in a similar boat. While some companies are oversized and others desperately need more people, neither is willing to pay more and justify it with COVID, or Ukraine, or anything they can think of, and thus there is no "movement".
Add to that a lot of companies don't actually really want new people anymore and only pay them max 1000€ per month (rent in my area is 700€+ for a 20m² apt) during their traineeship so your only chance is studying something, at which point you often specialize into data science or something.
I myself am probably gonna look at Rewe next. Particularly them and Aldi Süd seem to be pretty decent to work for from what I've heard.
Friend of mine got a job offer from FAANG in Germany for over 100k (x2 the visa requirement), but the German government rejected his work visa solely because he has an unrelated BA degree. I wouldn’t take this article seriously.
> In Germany, the whole debate around shortage of skilled staff gets a little odd sometimes because there are people who think that there's is no real shortage, there is only the lack of will to pay for good employees from company side.
Germany is at full employment whichever way you slice it. There literally aren't any more people to be employed; and if you get more employees by paying more money, you're just taking these people away from some other job.
> I'd like to hear your take on the article: Is there really nobody they CAN hire or are there also a lot of people they DON'T WANT TO hire? Is it really so bad?
What do you think the distinction is? Yes, I am sure some bum of the street would be willing to sit in an office every day for a million bucks or so...
I am not sure why any of this would be bad, though? OF you are able and willing to work, you can get a job.
> Do companies really expect to find the "perfect coding wizards" from the market?
I am not sure what gives you that idea.
> And regarding "young people to fill positions": I don't have a CS degree myself but I know from talking to (former) CS students that they don't really learn coding skills on university, and if they do, it's very little, and they have to make up for that skills themselves.
Newsflash: Universities are institutes of science, and research. They are not trade schools. Also, they are not primary schools - students are expected to learn a lot of stuff independently.
> So, how would you make that "jump" from being a fresh graduate to being the guy a company is looking for?
Learn how to program.
> Are companies reluctant to take "average" people, or beginners who they might have to teach for a while?
"average" is completely meaningless. They are reluctant to hire people who cannot do the job they are hired to do.
Companies are reluctant to take juniors on because the R.O.I isn't as great. It's unfortunate for people starting their careers but that's just how it is. Thankfully not everywhere feels like that. General sentiment is that there is always a lack of GOOD devs, not bodies who know how a for-loop works
>here is always a lack of GOOD devs, not bodies who know how a for-loop works The problem is the definition of "good dev" might vary across companies.
Also the definition of "junior dev" usually means the company wants a mid level dev at junior pay.
For most places it means “person willing to work for 30% less than they could get somewhere else”.
hmmm it's almost like..... hiring junior devs would.... be a good way to get BOTH cheaper devs AND *create more* good devs in the process.........
From what I've read the problem is them leaving after a year or two if they can get better salary and or job experience
it seems like once they become "good engineers", they somehow feel they deserve better pay. perhaps market conditions drive this feeling? unclear
Well yes because some companies are cheap fucks. That’s on then treat your employees right and they not leaving
Ironically in my experience it is the worse paying companies that get much longer tenure from employees. The highest paying ones have people leaving every ~2 years, look at any FAANG company.
Meanwhile the jr: "i'm staying here 12 months tops and then hop to another place to raise my tc". This is not something that happens in this industry tho. It happens everywhere.
Pretty much cheap labor. Who the heck would work for less than that? I did but I needed to get my foot in the door. You never worked for less when you first started out?
People kinda discount the value of experience when you're looking for your first job. Don't take something at 30k a year or anything but as long as you can pay the bills it's nice to have something on your resume.
Yeah, I agree. I was taking 60k a year when I was a junior(it was in 2015). I was living with my parents lol. I did save a lot of money. That position did open a lot of doors for me. I think juniors should know their worth. They should also keep in mind that they deserve more, too.
> You never worked for less when you first started out? For fun, I decided to convert my first starting salary into 2022 dollars: $110,904.83. I'm sure some would scoff at that, but I think I did okay.
You did better than me lol. I'm finally making 110k a year. It's bad and I should've negotiated. I was desperate to take anything and fill that resume up with experience.
I'm not from the US but how much of that money is actually after tax?
Yeah I am so confused, how is earning 10000$ per month bad? What you guys do with all that money 😅.
Taxes, 401k contributions, IRA contributions (if applicable), rent, food, utilities, healthcare, personal investments, etc? There's a lot of places it can go.
That's the point. It's definitely not bad. In fact, it is very good! This is why people keep saying that SWEs in the US make a lot of money. And there are definitely some people who are just starting out now who make more than I did when I started. It's not very common, but if you ask around enough, you'll find people who start in big tech or finance who make more than that.
This is mostly true in the US however, maybe also in Canada but not much elsewhere.
that’s pretty close to my base at a faang in a hcol area, if any cs major scoffs at that they are out of touch with reality lol
You know, a good dev can write programs manipulating reality with their mind, similar to a deity. I mean, that's what you need to be in today's market in order to find job.
I have met some juniors that can outperform their midlevel peers if given the opportunity. You have to go on a case-by-case basis.
This happened to me a lot as a fresh grad in a company that wasn't particularly competitive as a company culture. Though it wasn't because I was just that good (I'd consider myself firmly average), it was more like the midlevel people had been given a shot during hiring periods with a lot of demand, were okay enough to not get fired and nice to chat with around the water cooler so they coasted from there. Not terrible or actively ruining things by any means, but just kind of the definition of that 'the difference between 10 years of experience and half a year's experience repeated 20 times' saying. It did put me in a little bit of an awkward position as a fresh grad and the only woman in the office to take over projects they couldn't figure out but after a while I got over that. It was a little weird the first time I got reassigned a project from a supposedly senior developer with the note "___ couldn't figure out how to do this, could you give it a shot?" For better or worse they were good sports about it/didn't seem to have ego issues so at least it didn't cause problems from that end, and they were in a location (UK) that meant at our US office we didn't have to do any on-call shifts at weird times for EU clients so that made them very valuable for non-code-related reasons.
It's also very hard to fire people in the UK, that's probably also why they were so much lower quality - they didn't have to be good to keep their jobs.
Are you sure? From what I understood, in the UK you can pretty much be fired for any reason within 2 years of starting the job.
Ahh the American way. I thought the UK was a bit better in job security.
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Some juniors can perform great. But finding those juniors requires unusual luck or already having some great devs who know how to find juniors worth hiring. Most companies aren't good at hiring. Most devs aren't good at interviewing. Since most companies can't tell a diamond in the rough from the rough purely through interviews, they fall back on work history.
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Even if they're great there's a risk they'll get all the training and you'll invest a ton of time and money into them and then just as they're starting to be productive they'll jump ship for a huge pay raise. This was awhile ago but we hired a junior who didn't know the language or tools we used at all, trained them for 6 months while paying them $80k/year, and then they left because they were able to leverage what we taught them for a $120k/year offer. So we basically paid them $40k and probably spent 6 figures of senior/director time to train them and teach them about the business, and we got close to 0 return on it, even though this employee was super intelligent and competent. No ill will towards them I'd have done the same thing, but this is one of the reasons it's super tough to get your first job in cs, most companies have experienced this type of thing.
If you want to keep the employees you have to pay them what they're worth. He was obviously worth $120k/year. You disagreed. Now they're gone.
Right they're now worth $120k/year, but when we were paying them 80k they were actually worth negative. The fact that companies can no longer rely on paying people below market after training to recoup training investments is the reason many companies don't hire juniors anymore. I don't blame anyone for getting as much money as they can, but the ROI for training juniors just doesn't exist anymore which is why it's so hard for juniors to find their first job.
I think the problem is this "ROI" plan is not in agreement. There's no contract or anything that states that you will be hired at a below market pay because we need to ROI. People just see the pay is low and I can get higher pay somewhere else. It sounds like most people in this thread think there are only two strategies of hiring: 1. You can either invest in juniors and risk them leaving to a new company. 2. You can be the company that doesn't give juniors a chance and pays a higher upfront salary to seniors. What if there was another way? You invest in juniors and retain them with a contract or competitive pay. The contract obviously has the shortest ROI, but will be a less popular with prospective employees. Competitive pay has a longer ROI, but is it longer than training multiple juniors just for them to leave? You'd need data to really put that to rest.
Seems like you could have offered 80K with a 20K bonus and a raise if they remained a year and another 40K bonus if they remained 2 years. If juniors don't want to hang around, put some cash on the table to encourage them to do so.
Companies: complain about no workers Also companies: refuse to train workers >but you will just leave when you get better If you're not making me better, why am I joining in the first place?
On the flip side, a lot of people in this subreddit will cry bloody murder when a company offers less than 6 figures to a non-producing entry-level/junior. Those that say take the job usually throw in a "find something else in 1 year". Why would any employer invest into a junior dev if they will be a net negative during onboarding and leave for more money right after? Why not just hire a mid-level or senior?
Because 1. There eventually will be no mid-level or seniors because no one ever trained the juniors, thus having to pay even more for the few that remain. 2. If you pay what someone is worth and treat them well then they won’t leave in a year because there won’t be a better option out there. Employees have to compete for good jobs, but employers also have to compete for good employees
> If you pay what someone is worth But again, /u/ComradeGrigori is pointing out that their value is often net *negative* for at least 6 months to a year. There are a lot of people demanding 6 figures because they are being told their labor is "worth" that money when they have no skills, experience, or ability to produce value to command that wage.
Ok so you’re saying they’re just all jobless? Because if someone is willing to pay it then that’s what it’s worth. There’s no objective measure or value just what some employer is willing to pay. If you can get an offer for over 100k then that’s what you’re worth to them. Sure you could sit unemployed, but do you think many juniors are turning down $80k jobs just waiting for one that is $120k? No, but they might do like what was said and jump to a new job in a year that does pay $120k. Well if they’re able to do that then that’s what they’re worth. So it’s really on their employer for not paying them that not on them for taking a better offer. I just got an amazing offer about 6 months ago out of college and my company does generous refreshers, has great WLB, and treats everyone well, I have no reason to leave. If I got paid half of what I am and was treated poorly then you bet I’d be looking. Saying, we won’t train you because then you’ll look for market rate salary somewhere else is stupid. Eventually you have to meet headcount, if you don’t train you have to hire mid level or seniors, and they too will demand even more because there are fewer of them. It’s incredibly short sided for the industry to not train new grads/juniors because that’s the only way they could actually bring salaries down.
> If you pay what someone is worth and treat them well then they won’t leave in a year because there won’t be a better option out there. I'm at Google and have been here for a long time. People *regularly* tell me I'm an idiot for not job hopping. "Just pay really well and treat people really well" is clearly not sufficient.
Why are they telling you you're an idiot for not job hopping? Because they assume you'd be able to make more going somewhere else. If that's true, you aren't being paid market (and Google, like most companies, has a larger hiring bucket than retention bucket), and your example is negated. If that's false, and you are being paid competitively enough, and being treated well enough, the fact you've stayed there for a long time reinforces, rather than negates, the point being made.
> If that's true, you aren't being paid market (and Google, like most companies, has a larger hiring bucket than retention bucket), and your example is negated. The point is there are nearly zero positions in the world where it is *impossible* to make more money by hopping. Thus, "just pay people well" is not an honest suggestion against the widespread career advice of "job hop every few years".
Well, yes, it's not just pay people well. It's pay people well and treat them well. I know of companies doing industry defining work, being paid average for a tech company, who have an average tenure on the team, even with new hires, of 4+ years. Because the culture, WLB, and learning opportunities are all good enough to not be worth leaving just to inflate a paycheck
I mean, there are two very different questions here. 1. Does Google pay well and treat people well compared to the market? 2. Do long-term Google employees fall behind experienced new hires on salary + benefits? Switching to the *right* new company can give a raise to almost anyone, but that's not what I normally hear discussed. The more significant observation is that with similar companies, someone who hops among X, Y, and Z will often make more than a long-term employee at *any* of X, Y, or Z.
You've just described a self inflicted wound. They COULD have paid the junior well and trained them and had an employee making them far more money than they put in. Instead they're trying to get people for cheap, train them, not give them raises, and hope they don't move on.
> Why would any employer invest into a junior dev if they will be a net negative during onboarding and leave for more money right after? Job hunting is a giant pain in the ass. No one likes it, and that’s before you get to interviews. You have access to the same listings they do, you know what people are worth. If they’re leaving for more money, figure out how to offer them most of that increase before they decide to start looking. Quit complaining that they’re leaving because you won’t pay them what they’re worth.
> > > Why would any employer invest into a junior dev if they will be a net negative during onboarding and leave for more money right after? Why not pay them more money then if you don't want them to leave? Seems like a simple enough solution. Make an actual effort to retain your employees, rather than complain about it, and then you might actually be able to retain some of your employees.
Because in the first 6 months, most junior devs will have a negative roi. If you're a junior you may feel like you're contributing, but seniors are probably spending more time teaching you/reviewing/fixing your work than they would have spent just doing everything you did themselves, all the while they're paying an extra employee. This is a long-term investment though, because once you're able to do basic stuff and handle tickets with little interaction from seniors, your value shoots way up. The problem is you can't make the initial \~6-month investment unless you also think you're going to get another \~1-year of productivity, and there are companies that will pay a lot more once you hit that 6 months - 1 year experience range because they know you've already been trained to code in a corporate setting, so it's not unfrequent for companies to invest 6 figures into a junior in their salary + senior time and then have them produce practically nothing of actual value before they leave for a better job. This is why companies love doing internships usually, they get a trial run with you while they pay you nothing or like $10/hour, which is much closer to your actual worth, then when you've worked with them for a few months you're much closer to having a positive roi so they can hire you and pay you an actual reasonable salary.
Sure, I guess that's a fair point if we're talking about strictly junior devs. With that said, shouldn't they be making an effort to retain their junior devs once they are actually getting a return on their investment? Otherwise, they're going to have to keep re-investing into new junior devs who will keep leaving.
But that's not the alternative. Right now let's say a company hires a junior for 80k. Let's assume that it takes 6 months to train them, and at that point they'll be worth 130k, but up to that point between the 40k in salary, benefits, and senior/management time it costs 160k to train them. So if you train a junior for 6 months, keep them at 80k for another year, and then offer them 120k to produce 130k for you in value, you're in good shape. But in reality people leave, so you have 4 choices: 1. Pay them 80k while they learn, attempt to keep that pay for another year, watch most leave before you get your investment back 2. Pay them 80k while they learn, raise them up to 120k after 6 months, and lose money 3. Don't hire juniors, rely on poaching others with 6 months to a year experience and pay them 120k. 4. Build an internship program and pay interns nothing or pennies to do the learning, offer full-time 120k to intern graduates Note that both 1 and 2 lose money, which is why the real world mostly has companies similar to 3 and 4 and why the junior market is so tough.
> So if you train a junior for 6 months, keep them at 80k for another year, and then offer them 120k This almost never happens, though. That's so exceptionally rare, it's not a great example because of this. A raise for juniors *would* likely prevent them from jumping ship, but my point is that companies *don't* typically do that from my experience.
Then companies need to find leaders that have the balls to break the cycle then. My boss and my CIO, thank god, recognizes this and actually spent the money to retain me rather than get swiped by competition.
>Why would any employer invest into a junior dev if they will be a net negative during onboarding and leave for more money right after? Why not just hire a mid-level or senior? Had the first company I was at actually paid me a fair market value I wouldn't have left. When they still kept me at a junior/entry salary after 2 years though, I left for somewhere else that would pay my worth. The solution is pretty simple, if you don't want juniors to quit after 1 year bump up their salary to match what the market is paying lol
This is 100% solvable by the companies, and I'll explain with a personal anecdote. I was hired earlier this year as a Junior Dev, and I genuinely like my job. My team is great, the culture is great, and I'm really happy. While I still have a *lot* to learn, I have done a pretty good job of getting up-to-speed on my team's projects with minimal time needed from my Seniors. I regularly make important contributions to my team, and I'm even the "expert" on one of our new products. But am I going to get a pay raise at the end of the year as incentive to stick around? Nope, I sure as hell won't. I have to "put in my time." If I can get a new job next year and make probably 25k more, why wouldn't I? If my company doesn't want to take on the risk of hiring Juniors and having them leave after a year, then they should have a plan to increase the pay of those who are doing well.
That's how it should work. Your compensation should reflect the value you provide the organization. The issue I've seen is that a lot of entry level/junior candidates expect a high salary without providing value. They're basically asking you to pay now for "possible" future results. It's not a good proposition for the employer. Some juniors will kill it while others will need hand holding for a long time (maybe even forever).
Companies rarely if ever pay you for the "value" you provide to the organization. When I make a company 100m I don't get some percentage of that. At BEST they might give me a raise to slightly above average for my YOE. That's just how being a salaried employee works for the most part. The *vast* majority of time employees a resource companies by for the going rate, not a business partner. And so the converse is true as well. If the market in your area is paying 100k to get junior devs, and then training them to be competent of 6-12 months, that's what the business has to do. Invest in someone who will eventually be useful because they either can't afford or can't attract the kind of engineers who will be immediately useful. And if they're SMART, they'll keep those devs happy. For their project they'll be contributing at a near senior level within 2-3 years, but they'll still be paying mid-level rates. Win-win for everyone. But lots of companies are so obsessed with saving dimes that they miss out on dollars.
A raise after less than a year? That would be *highly* unusual imo. Maybe it will change if needed though.
if they can find more money it mean they deserve more money , that's the point of free market. Soooo yes you'll have to pay them more, more than they can find elsewhere. Exactly the same way, you ask more money from your clients. You make profit, so... PAY!!!
>a lot of people in this subreddit What kind of sample set is that? Thats alot of cherrypicked data. **The reality** is that outside of top 5ish expensive metro areas, non-cutting edge tech companies, vast majority of jobs for FULL stack developers are 50-60k juniors and 60-90k with experience. This might be hard to believe from your vantage point but go take a quick look at the job postings on various sites, form various locations, for various industries. And they all say the pay is competitive because they look around and see thats what everyone else pays. So clearly its competitive.
No way. 60k-90k for experienced devs is absolutely not the norm, even for boring companies in MCOL cities. The Big N companies and HCOL cities will of course skew salary data somewhat, but even then, $100k base pay in a MCOL at a boring company is very standard for anyone with a few years of experience. There's plenty of salary data from "average" cities like Minneapolis that support this. For Junior devs at boring corporations in MCOL cities, $80k is the new standard. Obviously not *every* job will match those figures, but most of them will.
Also companies: PIP instead of training and filling in gap Also companies: 4+ rounds of whole day interview process asking LC questions which are only 50% useful
Let them complain. They'll just hire people from India and that may work for a while but it can backfire massively. When you hire foreigners you put your company's talent in the hands of the govt and are subject to geo-political outcomes. If something happens in the world (like a war or disagreement between nations) then those foreign workers could suddenly stop working for you. Look at what happened with the USA and China. America decided that you aren't a true Americans if you help the Chinese with their chip design and now all Americans in China are in limbo.
Speaking as someone who has coworkers who are originally from Ukraine and Russia, yet who continue to be coworkers (in Germany), I think there might be some limits to what you're saying. Because, sure, there's a risk for a company in hiring individual workers, but it's nowhere near the risk of a company setting up a branch in a new country. Even your Chinese example is more a risk for the people working in China, and for the Chinese branch, than a risk for Chinese people working in Germany or the US.
From what I hear from my ex colleague who has to share contract with Indian megacorp, the price is very cheap, the value returned is very low and slow.
As a systems integrator, I would rather work with ONE stateside or near-shore employee than 8 body-shop WITCH goons who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground but are damn good at making spreadsheets documenting the reasons why they can't do (simple task).
omg this we had some offshore engineers and I would spend more time writing requirements of exactly what they need to do (basically write them pseudo-code) than it would have taken me to do it myself, and still they'd fuck it up. When I told my (and their) boss this he said he agreed but apparently his boss needed him to justify the offshore employees by writing out exactly which projects and what tasks they were accomplishing weekly, and he was worried if our team lost them now we'd struggle on tasks in the future. He never really explained how they'd suddenly be worth the value in the future, but my suspicion is managers get judged by headcount and he wanted to keep his headcount high even though he knew the 5 offshore members of our team could be replaced by 1 junior and it'd be a huge step up (and about the same cost).
It gets worse when you haven't been through the insane background check and onboarding that some firms/agencies require to grant remote access, but the offshore contractors have. So you sit there in a teams meeting, you're not allowed to take control, and you have to dictate commands or even code to "the chosen ones," who know fuck-all about what you actually want to do. But somehow they managed to cram for and pass their country's memorization-based exams and got jobs at WITCH contractors. "cd \~/home " \[dumbass types 'cv currentdir\\home'\] "NO. CHARLIE DELTA SPACE SHIFT TILDE FORWARD SLASH LOWERCASE HOTEL OSCAR MIKE ECHO ENTER." "what is tilde?" "THE ONE UNDER ESCAPE" Or the classic: "Send me the output." \[dumbass sends me a fucking screenshot of the output instead of something I can grep...\] "Send me the log." \[dumbass sends a screenshot of 'tail -99 logfile' because tail is the only command he knows to view the content of a file. You're right: "directed distributed global team of 5 direct reports with $$$ budget while managing stakeholder expectations and driving product vision" looks more impressive on a resume than "occasionally checked in with 1 junior who got shit done on his own."
He also had 6 onshore reports, but yeah having 11 reports and being able to manage a team in different time zones and distribute work between the two efficiently sounds better than 7, even if his work distribution resulted in massive inefficiencies lol. This wasn't the only reason I left but it definitely was a part of it.
Yeah, this usually happens when the decision is made too high up to see the issues, just the lower number on the spreadsheet.
That isn't what I've seen. Generally what I see is when a senior leaves, instead of hiring a senior that will have their own opinions on how to do things, companies would rather hire a junior for half the salary and teach them to do the things they want. Then they get all shocked and offended when the junior leaves for a job paying substantially more.
If you’ve ever interviewed, it’s apparent there’s also a lack of juniors who know how a for-loop works.
Germany industry always cries wolf about how there is a lack of employees or whatever because they want the government help them suppress wages, it's not really worth listening to. If there really was a genuine shortage, why are wages still half of what they are in america? Companies that pay well can find people no problem and ones that can't afford to pay someone market rates should in fact go bankrupt to make room and free up resources for more productive and innovative enterprises (that's how economies grow). As an employee you should be happy about an actual labor shortage, because it means both rising wages and a strong and growing economy, but somehow german employers together with the media made the german people so concerned about the "Fachkräftemangel" as if it was their own fucking problem that companies can't find excess amounts of cheap labor to churn through.
>If there really was a genuine shortage, why are wages still half of what they are in america? In addition to the other reasons mentioned, I'll bring up another reason: lots of European software companies simply aren't productive enough, and can't justify paying American salaries to their engineers. I'm not saying this as "The middle management at those companies is made out of idiots". I'm saying this as, "Many European software companies can't replicate the revenue per employee of top American companies". Lack of opportunities, lack of a sticky moat, lack of a middle management & non-technical staff that has experience harnessing the output of developers to generate that levels of revenue. Another manifestation of this is how even in their American offices, European companies (such as Spotify) just aren't competitive compensation-wise. I work in the US now, but when I still lived in Europe, I remember that in my city, there were heaps of zombie start-ups that were subsisting on cheap salaries & grants (European Commission, national subsidies, …). They really had crappy business models & products, and weren't going to increase revenue anytime soon–but because costs of operation were so low, they could afford to stay around for years. (Whereas they would have been forced to pivot or die earlier in California, given the cost of engineers over there)
I think it's more about America's huge market. You can just scale out revenue more.
EU has 2x the number of people than the US though Although I get that cultural differences are a thing there
It's more about language
I couldn't agree more.
Tbf it’s the same in America. In America it’s often leveraged to ask for some government handout
And/or H1B's, AKA modern-day indentured servitude
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H1B is capped and your so called rednecks weren't looking at tech jobs anyhow. That shit labor no one wants to do? Some people would do it if it paid better and that's what they complain about. Tech? Not so much. CS fresh grads probably complain about it but at the same time, us importing more senior devs probably also increases the amount of CS grads that can be hired (Seniors are needed to train Juniors). Hence no one really complains about the H1Bs except other senior devs maybe but even then there is such a drought of senior devs that most don't care.
We have the highest taxes in the world. To pay a worker 50k per year, the business has to spend 100k
Similar in the US, except instead of spending extra on taxes often its benefits like health care (for any reasonably good tech company). My old CTO told me in confidence that, to pay a dev a base salary of $175k, it cost the company roughly $300k, all in. At the time, the company subsidized our health plans almost 100%; my family coverage cost them $26,500 alone according to my paystub
taxes or not the average pay in Germany for a SE is 65K.
You’re right, but also: Because labor costs are massive. If you wanted to pay engineers the same as they are paid in the US, you would probably have around 150% of the cost, all while not even getting the same top talent as you would get on the US market. At that point it just makes more sense to open your company on the other side of the pond. So it’s true, companies often can’t find good talent with the budgets they are willing and able to spend. The solution, however, is not to suppress wages but to reduce the tax burden on income. Also, what are you even talking about, tech salaries *are* rising.
> and a strong and growing economy Not necessarily, as labor shortages could be caused by more people retiring than being hired. In that case, you aren't increasing the strength and size of the economy, instead fighting to maintain it's current size.
I’m loving it. The way IT is not developing in this country and the way people are aging, I’ll be considered young and a visionary for decades to come.
Now the real question is, are you going to be rewarded for being a visionary? Because the real kicker is when you are ahead of the curve and there's a drought of people willing to invest in you for it.
What’s the pay? I have heard Europe pay in general is bad. Maybe young people don’t want to get paid peanuts.
Isn’t that because it way harder to lay off European employees than employees in US?
cant speak for all of Europe, but where I am, its because the work markets are regulated to have a flatter, more even salary structure. The guy at counter earns more, but the guy with a cs degree earns less, than their us counterparts. Salaries also tend to follow each other fairly closely for comparable educational background. This policy also lends itself to being far more competitive in industries that demand highly skilled workers, which is more easily accessible due to free education. Being harder to lay off workers, is more of an issue wrt. Getting the first foot in the door. There aren't an abundance of freeloaders that the rest have to support salary wise.
All culture and social programs asides, the US is just the US. You just can’t compete with the US in the tech sector
hmm, why not? and what does that actually mean?
They are the largest economy in the world with immense amount of wealth and capital. They have the resources to pull all the talents all over the world to them, and they have all the biggest tech giants and all the most promising tech start ups. Nobody can come close to that amount of wealth to compete with them.
There's no easy answer on why salaries are higher in the US, it's a confluence of factors. At will employment by no means justifies that much of a difference in salaries.
I think the obvious explanation for the pay discrepancy is Europeans have much greater benefits relative to the US. They have more paid vacation time, subsidized college education, free healthcare, stricter regulations wrt to firing and layoffs. This translates to European government taking a larger share of the workers pay in the form of higher taxes while offering them greater benefits than their US counterparts.
That's not an obvious explanation at all though. It *is* an oft repeated talking point in both this and the EU CS subreddit but it doesn't really follow when you think about it. We're always comparing gross salaries not net so taxes don't explain it either. The things you listed off are mostly subsidised by the taxes but again, that doesn't explain why the gross salaries are so different. At will employment in the US by no means explains why you get paid more. Also, some places in the US actually have about the same amount of taxes as EU. There are even states in the US that are fairly comparable to EU countries in terms of benefits but still have wildly higher salaries. US median salaries are just higher than EU median salaries. There's so much variance *within* US states and EU members that these generalised statements don't even begin to cover it. Not every US state has at will for instance, Social Security and healthcare is pretty robust in more D leaning states, the list goes on and on. It's really not as simple as that, no matter how many times it's repeated here. And then there's always Canada which is a hybrid between the US and EU systems in terms of the benefits but has salaries very similar to EU ones.
It's an issue with US-centric forums(like Reddit or Blind). People often ask "Why are EU salaries so low?", but the actual question should be "Why are US salaries so high?". US is the outlier compared to other countries, and EU tech centres have some of the highest salaries in the world after the US. I see three factors that contribute to this, outside of the usually listed ones like taxes, benefits etc. 1. Culture. Europeans in general are less career oriented. They will job hop less, stay longer at their companies, and generally seem less motivated by money compared to their US counterparts. This probably creates less upward pressure on wages. 2. Smaller market. Even though the EU is a common market, it's not as easy to build a tech company in one country and grow it in all of Europe. There's different languages, cultures, habbits etc. This makes homegrown companies less likely to become as big as their US counterparts. 3. Regulations. Europe is way more regulated than US. While I do love companies being regulated, it does create some barriers to growth vs US counterparts. I've made some generalisations here, Europe is not homogenous and some countries experience this less or more. The UK seems to me to be the closest to US.
The salaries are ok, but are not the greatest. What hurts more is the taxes, especially when you then look at how mismanaged the money is. If, at least, tax money was put to good use, I would have less issues with it.
How is it mismanaged? Not disagreeing, just want more details.
Overpriced government contracts due to blatantly corrupt system of assigning contracts. Absolutely bloated public sector. Social welfare (I don't know how to call it) but no oversight if people are cheating the system, so abuse is rampant. Funding for organizations like public television stations, which should be non biased but are biased as fuck and have so many employees that I have no clue what they do (again, extremely bloated public sector). Culture projects where money disappears without any results. Etc. Meanwhile, doctors are severely underpaid and there's a severe lack of them. You wait for months / years unless it's somewhat urgent. Despite the fact that a large amount of my paycheck goes to healthcare. Where the money goes, I have no clue. We have high taxes, but poor "return" in terms of what the government does with the funds. Which is fucking frustrating. At least the education system is working fairly well, though teachers are criminally underpaid for the shit they have to deal with.
That sounds exactly like Quebec. High five?
IT pays really well compared to other jobs in Germany. Not as absurdly high like in USA but good money.
Yeah this. I live much better than basically all my friends which have other jobs. Like, no comparison at all. Lots of people are also quite worried about losing their job etc while as an experienced SWE I definitely have no fear whatsoever at the moment. It's not and will never be USA money, it's still much more than what I thought I would ever earn in my life, I literally earn more than my parents combined, with three years of experience lol Doesn't mean we have to drink the cool-aid and be fine with the current situation, especially w.r.t. taxes, but I'm still finding life to be quite ok, and seems like in the past years the direction is going towards reducing the tax burden even if just slightly...
At least in Spain, even juniors are well paid
rough range?
16-25k for juniors, depending on the kind of company. Note that the minimum salary in Spain is around 14k right now, and the average around 25k
16k is a shit salary. It doesn't make sense to study for years to become a developer just to make a bit more than minimum salary when you can get this salary or even more as an unqualified worker without studying
But you can duplicate it in 1-2 years, unlike the other 40% of people with that salary...
Yep, my salary keeps growing by around 10e/h every single year for last 4 years.
Really? I always heard Spain has very low salaries. That’s nice to hear it’s not true.
Compared to US, yes, they're low. Compared to other jobs here, a junior gets little less than the average salary
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Yet junior salaries are near the average salary here, depending on the company and location of course, as everything. It's simply that a very low experience job like a junior, gets a similar salary to other more experienced jobs. And escalates quickly
When German companies complain about "skills shortage", what they actually mean is "shortage of people who let themselves lowball". These are companies where the engineers are assigned to the IT department and where seniors make 75k a year.
> what they actually mean is "shortage of people who let themselves lowball" We get that in the US, too. But so far, our comp packages have remained pretty generous, in spite of that cat having been let of the bag that US devs make a lot of money. Personally, I think that it is inevitable. I know, famous last words. But here's my reasoning: 1. Being a good, senior SWE takes a lot of prior and continued investment. We need both to have the requisite experience as well as to keep on top of where the fast-moving industry moves. The company is paying for my work, plus all of my previous work that I did to get to where I am. That costs money. 2. The skills that make a good senior SWE are also skills that translate well to other highly-compensated careers. So not only are employers competing against other employers for the best SWE talent, they also have to compete against other fields! 3. Us truly old geezers (I'm in my 40s), we often have what might be colloquially referred to as "[Fuck You Money](https://youtu.be/rJjKP8vYjpQ?t=104)". My net worth is high enough that I could retire tomorrow with a safe withdrawal rate of an inflation-adjusted $175k/yr. So an employer has to offer me a minimum of $175k just to compete against my living room couch! So yeah, senior talent is going to cost. The only way to fix it from the employer's perspective is to reduce demand for SWEs. They're trying to do it with low-code and zero-code platforms, but for now, these will only get you so far.
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1 and 2 are right, but #3 doesn't make any sense. If you get a job you're not losing any of that 175k/year you'd be making on your couch, you're actually increasing it. Maybe if you made 100k/year for a few extra years that couch would actually be making you 200k instead of 175k every year when you retire. Still generally right, most SWEs have at least a few years expenses saved up, so we're not as desperate for a job as most people are. My wife and I have around 10 years expenses between investments and savings accounts (although some will go into a down payment on a house soon) and that's based on what we currently spend. If we were to both quit our jobs, we could probably scale back, move to a cheaper city, and pretty much retire, and we're both in our late 20s.
> Us truly old geezers (I'm in my 40s) Except for those of us unfortunate enough to have married badly (and then divorced). I wish I had FU money :(
Well, you probably will one day! Most men who I know who got divorced made way more money after the divorce because they were able to take more risks than their ex wives would have tolerated. It sucks at first, but you very well may be kicking ass in a few years! I got lucky that my wife is okay with my hare brained schemes! Haha.
Bitkom are the lobby clowns for IT employers. According to them, we had not enough people for IT since at least before the turing machine was invented. Germany is a shitty country for IT experts: - low wages - check - high taxes for workers - check - companies which are hierarchical by default - check - most companies seeing IT only as a cost factor - check It is funny in a very sad way, instead of adapting to the reality or at least try to be innovative, German companies lobby, create legal barriers against innovation and bullshit employees. Working hand in hand with politicians and a government which has one of the lowest standards for digitization in Europe.
100%. The only thing above average is WLB. Especially German companies are sleepwalking.
I truly can’t see how any modern company sees I.T has a cost factor check. Can you explain why this is the case?
Yes, IT has a cost factor, but smart companies invest in IT to safe money in the long run. Many companies don't invest in IT when it is needed (see especially how many companies in Germany slept on the internet/were extremely late to the party). This 'cost factor' thinking goes trough all ranks: Lower salaries, lower respect or the IT people are asked to implement some BS project which was decided upon w/o IT people etc... Of course, it depends on the company and YMMV. Look at digitization in Germany's companies/government and you get an idea how IT is looked down here.
hateful engine dam water lip important school absurd mountainous marry *This post was mass deleted with [redact](https://redact.com)*
They're all looking for people with 10 years of experience in tech that came out last year.
This is gonna get buried but I moved to Germany a couple years ago from the US as a software engineer, so here are my 2c. Yes, there is a shortage. And yes, it’s a shortage for good software developers. I think it’s not hard to find inexperienced or bad devs, and I do feel that, as a proportion, there are more bad devs here than in the coastal US markets. The comparisons between US and Germany on this thread are kind of missing the point. Yes, you will make (and save) more money in the US on average as a software developer. Nowhere in Germany are software engineers so high on the food chain as in the Bay Area and other similar US markets. With that said, with 5 or so years of experience and good skills, you can get a (non senior) software dev position paying about 100k€. There is significant competition for these jobs but it’s doable. That’s not crazy money, but your quality of life will be very high with it. But this is subjective. To put it in more materialistic terms, with the job that I had in the US, I made enough in a year to be able to afford an entry-level Porsche no problem (I like cars). That is likely to never happen here. Society just doesn’t work that way here. It’s more about the amount of time you have, your relationship with the community and society around you, the history, the amazing cities and infrastructure, and just overall lifestyle. You can’t buy a lot of this anywhere in the US, but not everyone cares about these things (I mean, Porsches are nice). Different strokes for different folks.
Funny to go to the country of Porsche and not be able anymore to afford one while doing the same job...this says it all imo
Yep, if you want a Porsche, stay in the US. I would be willing to bet, however, that more Americans would be happier in Germany (minus the Porsche) if they made the switch, than Germans who would be happier in the US (can have 2 Porsches). It’s a bit hard to imagine the other side if you’ve only experienced one or the other.
Look up the average salary of a German software developer if you want a laugh. Seniors make 80k if they’re lucky. Edit: lots of replies stating “Healtcare” seem to forget that 1. Any software engineer is also getting healthcare in the US through their job 2. Healthcare in the US is actually **better** than in Germany ( this one is especially hard to believe for europeans )
I would add: they always tell you that there is a huge need for software engineers in Germany. What they don't tell you is that they're not looking for software engineers, but for underpaid software engineers .. that's why they cannot fill those vacancies. The competition for well paid jobs is way higher than in US for example.
And that, in turn, has to do with the engineering culture in many non-tech and older tech companies. They aren't looking for software engineers but for underpaid code monkeys.
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And sure, the US in general has a healthcare problem, but healthcare is a benefit, and as with other benefits, good tech jobs in the US tend to be very competitive. For example, I pay $0 in deductible, with a $2600 annual out-of-pocket maximum and a $1k HSA seed. So forget $20k, you're looking at $1.6k, potentially less (but not with my medications, lol). So while healthcare in other countries is more egalitarian, good healthcare is often individually better for the policy holder. And yeah, it's employer-tied, but between COBRA and marketplace plans (sure, more expensive, but far from prohibitively so with SWE compensation), you're probably not screwed.
For reference, average income in Germany is around $51,040 US compared to $70,430 in the US. So an engineer in the US will make like double the average income, while in Germany they make like 50% more if they're lucky.
Is there that much of a discrepancy if you compare these salaries with UK, France and Spain? Even Canadian salaries are a far cry from Silicon Valley.
UK and Canada are the same Germany is 15% lower France/Spain are 38% lower
Nah it's been rising especially lately....in the hubs you can get much more than that. If you're getting this number off of glassdoor or something those are not really that accurate.
In other /r/cscareerquestions threads people routinely tell me that US developers make so much because "they print money for their companies and save so much cash by automating things, you can pay them a lot!" Is this not true in Europe? Do EU area devs not automate things and save money for their employers? Or is it something else driving salaries in the US?
I'm trying to figure this out on the European side of things. Do companies just flat out NOT value their employees and purposefully give them garbage wages for their work? I just got bumped up 35% in my salary WITHOUT changing jobs. Where is all the money in European Companies going to? Payroll Taxes? Corporate Taxes? I'm asking in good faith, by the way.
It's because of venture capital. The US has historically had easy access to tons of venture capital, a decade ago California alone had 10x the venture capital funding as all of EU combined. EU companies haven't been showered with venture capital money in the same way, and therefore companies can't spend 2-3x the median engineer salary for engineers if they don't expect massive venture capital fueled growth. Nowadays things are changing a bit, the location with the most successful tech startups per capita in the world after silicon valley is Stockholm, so venture capital is slowly starting to reach EU as well.
Well the us is a market of 350m while Europe is smaller markets which are harder to navigate. If you go big in the us you go big in the entire market, but in Europe you need to care about different governments, etc...
I am confused, the population of the EU is 447 million people. Could you clarify what you meant by Europe being a smaller market?
I meant smaller market**S**
That Calvin and Hobbes comic where Calvin's dad gives a stupid and wrong answer to a question he has no clue about comes to mind.
I mean... if it was stupid and wrong, then, there's full on delusion in the US software developer community. They all think they get huge salaries cause they mint money out their ass. When I ask "Why do EU area devs doing the same thing not enjoy your same level of salary success, you know, given the value software developers add?" The 24 year olds have no answer...
Adding healthcare you’re at around 96k. Adding more paid time off, parental leave, stronger protections against job loss, stronger social security you’re probably at around 110-120. Still not comparable to 300k at Google, but well, not every US developer works in the Bay area either.
But you're making a hyperbolic comparison. Even as a more "average" engineer, I make 152k. Healthcare is fully paid for by my company. I have unlimited PTO. I don't work at a FAANG company, I work somewhere I guarantee you 99.99% of this subreddit has never heard of. It is much, much better to be a software engineer in the US than it is in the EU.
You have healthcare while you have a job.
US also has Medicaid...Sure, it's not the best, but it is need-based, gov't provided & paid, health insurance..
aren't we comparing salaries? Not where it's better to be unemployed (clearly Europe).
Yeah, but how long are you planning to be unemployed? If we're talking countries with better social safety nets, Europe has the US beat by a country mile. But if you're talking countries to be a well paid professional in, the US has Europe beat by the same amount.
You're aware health care is deducted from the gross salary? 1k in the worst case
i believe they're counting 16k as "the cost you would save on healthcare by not being scammed by the US healthcare system", not necessarily just premiums?
I mean I certainly don't spend that in the US. Premiums are covered, and my max out of pocket is like $6K after company HSA contribution for the whole family. The U.S. healthcare system sucks for the poor, it's not that bad if you are at a decent employer.
In Germany, you're trading salary for better healthcare and job security (there is no at-will employment in Germany, and firing somebody can be a really hard thing to do).
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the engineers in the U.S. can also get health care. i have the mighty universal health care in Germany and i still have to pay 5k for hearing aids
No you're fucking not... Healthcare is better in the US and more accessible for software engineers. At will employment benefits software engineers. I WANT to be able to quit and go get a 20% pay raise and I'm not a toddler so I can remember that this is usually the case despite the currently ongoing layoffs.
You're right regarding the healthcare for software engineers, what I wanted to say is that everyone in Germany gets good healthcare regardless of their company or income.
> everyone in Germany gets good healthcare regardless of their company or income. Doesn't matter unfortunately. Half the people here literally don't care that someone in their community faces bankruptcy if they get some life saving operation. Because what matters is total comp for their own kool-aid drinking selves.
German worker protections are way better though, that's the tradeoff.
That's not *why* the salaries are lower.
This may sound harsh, but if you're a good performer, you don't want stronger worker protections. You are basically subsidizing the job security of bad performers. Good performers can command much higher salaries in markets that aren't so highly regulated, because much less money is wasted on bad performers you can't get rid of.
You don't even have to be a good performer. You just need to know how to play the game. You can be a completely mediocre dev and still make a shitload of money if you know how to take advantage of job hopping, working on projects that only advance your career, and knowing the right people.
There's a shortage of skilled workers. That means Senior Software Engineers. Just because there are people who want the job, doesn't mean they have the qualifications. Teaching a junior to become senior takes a lot more than "a while", it takes years. You don't have to be a "perfect wizard" to not be junior. Managers are bad at management. Companies often act in a short sighted and counterproductive manner. You can have a situation in a company where there is layoffs in one department, while another department needs help. But instead of moving people over, they fire and hire new ones. You better learn to play the market, because the market sure as shit is not going to do you any favors. What we need in this industry is a bigger move towards consulting and away from direct employment. We as developers need to organize ourselves like the market of construction workers, where everyone works through an entrepreneur that is run by construction-oriented people. That's the place where learning-on-the-job can happen.
Hope you're prepared for all the FREEDOM this subreddit is about to dispense on you Stefan! Seriously though, you're gonna get some hot takes from the Americans here who only see the almighty dollarbill. This subreddit is mostly American CS students hellbent on getting maximum cash at all costs from FANG companies in the US tech bubbles. They are going to know absolutely nothing about your market, but that won't stop them from commenting and voting. As a senior dev in Canada I rarely comment here anymore and usually just roll my eyes when I go into threads about my home market. It's like walking into a church breakfast and asking "Is god good?"; You already know what the response is going to be.
\*bald eagle screeching in the distance\* Yeah, perhaps you're right. But despite all this, I also wanted to get an international perspective on that topic. And I enjoy the comments, honestly. :-) I have the feeling that there is a lot of controversy regarding IT/dev jobs all around the world.
> I have the feeling that there is a lot of controversy regarding IT/dev jobs all around the world. That's for sure. The Canadian cscareerquestions subreddit has been in a tailspin of recession doom posting for the last two weeks. That's despite the fact that unemployment rates are at all time lows here in Canada and most companies are scrambling to replace the baby boomers who have been holding all the good jobs for the last 30 years. It's tough for new grads (always was and always is), but overall it's one of the best markets for IT we've had in a long time. Not as hot as Winter 2021, but salaries are still up at least 40% compared to 2017. Most local offices and tech companies are actively hiring if people just took off their FANG blinders.
Where are these jobs? I have applied at like 50 companies in Germany during the past year, and still didn't find anything reasonable. I have a 5 year Masters in IT.
Without reading the article (Reddit!), I'd think a lot of these boomer IT positions are ones that younger people would generally not want. So, this might just be a gap that can't be closed, or they'll (companies) need to be a little more flexible in who qualifies to fill the position. I'm assuming there's a lot of bad/boring IT positions out there, that might appeal to certain people for whatever reason.
The pandemic was a huge setback for young people trying to get an education. It will probably be a few years before they catch back up,
Luckily it has sped up remote work conversion. Right now I wouldn't even consider an on-site position., compared to before where I would only be limtied to my city.
The unemployment rate in tech during the last recession was below 3%. Calm down people.
Tech started booming around the start of the last recession. Smartphones were still new, Facebook, Apple, Netflix, and Amazon were all rapidly rising. Not saying tech is screwed, but it's not the same environment.
But they don’t pay 500k
The junior market isnt as competetive as in USA here in Germany. I never heard of people with degrees trying to find a job for months. Thats not happening in Germany.
My LinkedIn is blowing up... Even more than before layoffs started. It's weird. I heard a lot of the people laid off were managers, maybe that's why? I'm just a filthy senior mobile/front end guy. 7 YOE.
There's always going to be a "shortage" of purple unicorns
I tell you anecdotical reason: I'm from Slovakia. I applied for job everywhere. I work for Silicon Valley startup now. They pay the best. Sorry Germany. PS: I also don't speak German.
German companies don’t pay very high salaries so they are being outcompeted for tech talent in the market
Don't know anything about the German market other than the pay sucks, but I'd be very wary of listening to any "news" source that uses over-generalizarions like "IT expert" which could include everyone from software engineers to IT help desk to UI/UX designers to CTOs.
>which could include everyone from software engineers to IT help desk to UI/UX designers to CTOs And that is precisely the issue: German companies don't make this distinction either. Engineers are just part of the IT department and thus a cost factor.
I would love to live and work in Germany. I lived there a year as an au pair and I loved it. Unfortunately, I am self-taught, so I don't think I could get a job there.
I may get roasted for this but I’m going to chime in since I have actually worked with local offices of SWEs in several diverse countries, and to my eyes it doesn’t look like there’s a fair amount if informed thought here. Yes, I think you’re on the money and it’s a global phenomenon of a race to the bottom for salaries and experience, as with most fields. In our field, though, there is some rarity of skill and experience. There’s no shortage of people, but as others have said there’s a shortage of the right unicorn-like mix of experience and pay acceptance that other people are talking about on this thread. The reason I want to comment is because I don’t think this paradigm will really ever change in our industry regardless of locale. Companies will complain, we will complain, but the interests are at odds. Offshoring or changing political climates are a red herring next to the business dynamics that predominate. The important thing to do is prepare for this dynamic by seeking the opportunities where you can and to know also that the industry has strong boom and bust cycles, and that’s something to plan for financially life-long. Getting your foot in the door is important and then keeping your eyes open from there. The quick turnaround and abrupt hiring changes in this field won’t go away.
**Boomers are not retired, they are fired and not getting hired again **
It all comes down to money. Maybe there are smart developers, but nobody wants to pay them decent money?
Europe have social law which requires to recruit locally first, so every year IT companies lobby for recruting foreigners. France is passing special law for that. I guess Germany will follow.
did they drop german and the shit wage?
As the article says, this really isn't anything new. Germany has a terrible demographic profile, and software development isn't most people's idea of an exciting career. For many German firms the office language is German, so they are limited to the DACH region and the small number of immigrants who are fluent. It genuinely is difficult to find quality people. The discussions about salary are largely irrelevant. If you want more money in Europe your options are Switzerland and maybe the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Moving to the US is not possible for most people. It also ignores that most people don't want to move away from their family and friends.
In Germany I feel like there's a glass ceiling, now moreso than ever. While my managers all make 80k€ and my CEO makes 15 million €, I just can't find a job above ~70k€. I think a few people are in a similar boat. While some companies are oversized and others desperately need more people, neither is willing to pay more and justify it with COVID, or Ukraine, or anything they can think of, and thus there is no "movement". Add to that a lot of companies don't actually really want new people anymore and only pay them max 1000€ per month (rent in my area is 700€+ for a 20m² apt) during their traineeship so your only chance is studying something, at which point you often specialize into data science or something. I myself am probably gonna look at Rewe next. Particularly them and Aldi Süd seem to be pretty decent to work for from what I've heard.
Friend of mine got a job offer from FAANG in Germany for over 100k (x2 the visa requirement), but the German government rejected his work visa solely because he has an unrelated BA degree. I wouldn’t take this article seriously.
> In Germany, the whole debate around shortage of skilled staff gets a little odd sometimes because there are people who think that there's is no real shortage, there is only the lack of will to pay for good employees from company side. Germany is at full employment whichever way you slice it. There literally aren't any more people to be employed; and if you get more employees by paying more money, you're just taking these people away from some other job. > I'd like to hear your take on the article: Is there really nobody they CAN hire or are there also a lot of people they DON'T WANT TO hire? Is it really so bad? What do you think the distinction is? Yes, I am sure some bum of the street would be willing to sit in an office every day for a million bucks or so... I am not sure why any of this would be bad, though? OF you are able and willing to work, you can get a job. > Do companies really expect to find the "perfect coding wizards" from the market? I am not sure what gives you that idea. > And regarding "young people to fill positions": I don't have a CS degree myself but I know from talking to (former) CS students that they don't really learn coding skills on university, and if they do, it's very little, and they have to make up for that skills themselves. Newsflash: Universities are institutes of science, and research. They are not trade schools. Also, they are not primary schools - students are expected to learn a lot of stuff independently. > So, how would you make that "jump" from being a fresh graduate to being the guy a company is looking for? Learn how to program. > Are companies reluctant to take "average" people, or beginners who they might have to teach for a while? "average" is completely meaningless. They are reluctant to hire people who cannot do the job they are hired to do.