Instead of... what? It's not like you can make 2x the salary easily by instead becoming something else. Salaries are pretty flat, if you want to make money you should invest in somethig or have your own company.

Also: I'm not sure it's' a good idea to pick jobs based on salaries. It's good to not worry about money at all (which almost no SWEs' need to). After that I'd recommend pursuing sommething one finds interesting.

Edit: I think there is a cultural difference in the US where one is expected to aggregate net worth/savings throughout one's career, for many reasons (ability to send kids to better schools, saving for rainy day e.g. sickness, ...). In a welfare state I don't have that priority. I wouldn't switch to a job paying 2x the money unless it's really a interesting job! Because there is almost nothing that 2x the money would do to my lifestyle, the future prospects or security of my family etc.

ALSO, this is only possible because we each make 150% of the median household income in our city. Our country is awful for the average person, it really really is.

Oh yeah forgot to mention the combined $90,000 in debt we have in student loans(so we can get these jobs) and car payments(so we can drive and exist in society).

It's just such a stupid way to organize a society...

To drive this point back to the conversation at hand--these American pressures are what drive the mindset that dominates most of any English speaking dev forum.

I just don't believe that's true. Many, many more Germans immigrate to Switzerland, the UK or even America than vice versa. That's primarily because professional salaries in the latter are higher. That strongly suggests that at least some non-negligible proportion of German professionals care about compensation.

Another angle I didn’t think of is the work-hard-retire-early mindset which of course means that a) you work hard and expect high comp for it b) if you do long hours and have little holiday, you have a higher interest in retiring early, which requires lots of capital.

My SWE salary is with 6w holidays, haven’t done many workweeks over 40h yet in a 20 year career. I don’t just expect to work to 70, I want to work to 70. My work life balance means I have more than enough time for gardening and travel without retiring. Retiring at 70 requires a lot less capital than doing so at 55.

German savings rates are 50% higher than America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_gross_nat...

and the cycle repeats

Most of the other professions pay less. From the list you gave, and the people I know, I would assume the sorting is roughly:

* physical therapists (can't go much lower in pay)

* pilots (there are just way too many, except for those in old contracts at the big airlines they are almost paid like bus drivers)

* accountants (usually a normal salary, but nothing special)

* civil engineers / software engineers roughly on the same level, although the latter has an easier time finding a job

Lawyers and doctors earn a lot more than engineers (at least looking at my friends in these fields), but they usually also work more, leading to a similar hourly rate.

One thing you have to account for in Germany vs the US:

* Much higher job stability.

* Most people work 35-40h a week and never do unpaid overtime.

* 6 weeks paid vacation per year is normal.

* You almost never get called into work on the weekend.

* CoL isn't as insane as in SF or Seattle, so your salary buys you a decent life.

* No copays if you get chronic conditions, cancer or some such. So you don't need to save up for a medical catastrophe.

exactly. I made that as a Junior in my first full-time job in Munich in 2000 already. Then moved on to freelancing and for the next decade never invoiced less than EUR 12K/month (average was actually EUR ~16K). I did a lot of hours and paid a lot of tax but it also got me fast cars, holidays in Italy, Austria or Switzerland (just for the weekends) and a nanny to help look after my kids. And I wasn't even an outlier since anyone who I worked with (often via places like Hays or Allgeier Group etc) was on pretty much the same.

What I've noticed in the recent years (I moved around 2009) is there has been a push to "Arbeitnehmerüberlassung", which is basically a racket where the outsourcing agency hires you out to their clients, they skim the margins and leave the employees with a crap salary. They sit in their clients office and are second class employees. When the project ends they're moved on to the next company if they're lucky or are asked to come in to the office (not on the client site but the place where they organize this type of slavery), then they get to call prospective clients and beg for jobs that they themselves have to do. It's surreal and idiotic but it's peoples fault for putting up with it instead of just freelancing and writing their own invoices.

25 vacation days per year and 40h plus overtime included sometimes are more the current norm for most dev positions on the market now.

Maybe you can show me where I can find these 40h/week no-overtime with 30 days/year vacation jobs so I know where to move next.

Overtime is perhaps more about the company and oneself, but in my experience is something you decide to do it or not. If you do it companies pay for overtime. I never done overtime (because companies pay pennies for it :) )

Well that was my point. There's no EU law that prevents you from having to do overtime.

Also agreements with trade unions etc. take care of a sane base-level of holidays and payment.

Germany is also "heavy regulated" in the sense that good people will just choose a job with a competitor who gives you 30 days of free time and paid overtime, although he might pay less.

I think work-life-balance tips slightly over to the worker in a welfare state, because you can choose to earn 100 Euro/month a less but have more holidays AND still have not to worry about paying doctor bills.

That describes every job I've had in Sweden over last 6-7 years or so. But then again I've made a conscious effort to void some of the 'crunchier' industries (like game studios and certain startups), which admittedly does mean getting paid a bit less.

Overtime does happen but French law requires I be able to recover my time (RTT). In my experience there is a mad rush to use up that time before 31/12 so you'll see an additional holiday season around Nov-Dec. Else, it goes away and that time is lost to the fiscal year.

You can do it in Berlin if you go the freelancer route but that comes with it's own complications in Germany.

like what? being able to do your own tax and get refunds for all your expenses the way you should? an accountant who does once a year your "EkSt Erklaerung" costs you anywhere between 600-1000 (once a year) and it saves you anywhere between 5K - 25K depending on what your year was like and the expenses you had.

If you want to get rich either be a founder or go to the US for a chance at that. If you want a good and happy life with private time your average western European country is great.

Median incomes in Germany are about 25% lower than the US. Yet SWE compensation seems to be 50%+ lower than the US equivalent. That would suggest that other skilled professions must make significantly more than SWEs.

For example in the US, bankers or lawyers are roughly on par with high-end SWEs. I'm would assume German bankers and lawyers are making well more than 60k. If that's the case, what incentive would talented Germans have to pursue software instead of other higher-paid careers? (I could be wrong on my assumptions, maybe skilled professionals in Germany are just much less compensated relative to the median worker in general.)

Most numbers I can find via quick googling seems to put the median annual salary for a SWE in the US at around €75-78k and €55k in Germany. That is pretty close to the 25% number you quoted.

For me, I can say I didn't consider salary when choosing my field. It's just not a common concern, you're expected to study something you're good at and would enjoy doing. Medical and law were definitely not even remote thoughts for me.

It was a happy accident that software engineers are paid so well (relatively). I suppose I just assumed all MSc fields are roughly equal and quite acceptable as far as salary goes.

The US is very individualistic in comparison, and in my opinion it is not doing well in this regard. Things like crime, violence etc all increase when people are pushed into poverty.

Wealth should not be the absolute measure of a person in society, because that would mean the market would decide the value a person brings to society, which is the wrong take on things in my opinion. Mainly because not everything should be handled by the free market. (healthcare for instance, should not be dictated by market forces).

There’s nothing “tilted” for life when you struggle to make ends meet while paying sky-high rent and having no prospects of ever owning your home.

It's only fair. Once you get old, the young and healthy will pay for your hospital stay, too, through the insurance mix.

But we could also just let you die because you can't pay the treatment.

You'll have to decide, there's no free cake in the end.

Everybody will also pay for all the infrastructure you might be using and the others not.

So it's just lame to frame it like that's the only thing.

There's a nationwide pension fund, unemployment "insurance", long-term care insurance and what not. All of this is cross-financed in a mix by everybody who's paying into it.

Also: Lots of people switch from private health insurance back to public health insurance once they get old, because then costs are rising. A welfare state also supports those who have "suddenly" become poor so they had to make that switch... ;-)

In aggregate software engineers don't make less than any of those fields if that is what you are asking.

Why would anyone with the intelligence and drive needed to become a software engineer pursue that field?

Because it's pretty fun, relatively easy if you have knack for it, easier to find a job, and on the whole quite well paid and comfortable work.

My interest is largely orthogonal to that discussion. Assuming you're not leaving the continent, why would anyone (besides those who are very passionate about software) choose to be a European SWE instead of a European actuary?

Healthcare is a major example. Most people in the netherlands i know who work in healthcare do so because they want to help people, not to get rich.

So you have a much lower net amount of cash, but you get real benefits that would be part of your negociation in the US.