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

It actually is much lower.

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

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

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

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

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

From what I read on the internets, housing is also absurdly expensive in London, Lisbon, NYC, Toronto, Vancouver, Shanghai etc. Adjusting for the local level of salaries of course. So not sure what your point is?

Absurd compared to the local living wages, not compared to SF

Comparable to SF, but unsupported by the easy money.

> by the easy money.

A lot of this completely self-imposed (and very much by design) to prop-up real estate because there's no other industry to support the economy.

Vancouver is a prime example: it's extremely easy (compared to the US) for foreigners to purchase assets (even with questionable sources of incomes that wouldn't pass the higher scrutiny of USCIS) and for owners to collude into restricting the supply. They are happy since their investment appears to grow in value (they can get out of the game and cash-in if another foreigner decides to park his money into these assets) and the government is happy since a lot of people's retirements are tied to their home value and it gives the impression the economy is growing.

I don't think anyone is blind to how expensive SF real estate is?? I mean at least every single person I know who lives there talks about it!

I think most Americans are kind of blind to how absurdly expensive American housing, and the entire American lifestyle, is. It's not just housing, it's everything: healthcare, restaurant food, car culture, heating/cooling/lawn care for the enormous houses, I could go on and on.

I would also add the strength of the dollar. If the dollar appreciates to the value of the local country's currency, then the revenue earned from there using the local currency for pricing and transacting begins to be worth less.

If it was true, wouldn't we expect Japanese developers to be paid 0.7% as much as American developers?

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

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

> 80k US$/year puts one above many top executives, doctors and other prestigious jobs. Not bad at all for a remote position in software development.

The real question is: Who is creating the most value here? The top executive at a local company? The local doctor or the software engineer shipping products in markets around the world?

It's unclear whether or not the local doctor's qualifications would even be recognized in the US, yet the remote software engineer's work is making money there and countless other high-value markets as we speak.

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

More like people just don't want to leave their life behind... Those listed things are like the bottom of the reasons

On the other hand, I know dozens of people that left their life and higher salaries in the US behind to come to the EU for those stated reasons.

Dozens even!

:D

From my observation, the ratio of American Engineers coming to Europe vs Europeans Engineers coming to America is at least 1:10, if not more.

And most of the expats I know who did it seemed to be working for SV companies. So they didn't leave the higher salary behind.

Yes, it's definitely more than 1:10 overall. But the reasons to leave the US (unhealthy work load, less social safety, higher violence) are at the top of many people's minds when they move to Europe.

In my experience the social safety net doesn’t really matter for highly skilled workers making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. In terms of violence you’re statistically unlikely to be the victim of violent crime in the US as an upper class white collar worker.

It doesn't matter until it ends up mattering. Contracting an illness that prevents you from working and needs medical supervision can be life-ruining if your social security, etc. is tied to your employment.

Most corps carry long term disability insurance- I’d make more on that than an equivalent Euro paying job.

Now add in vacation and sick days, as well as the worker protections for things such as layoffs.

It's unfair, but I'm of the opinion US healthcare is much better if you have the means to pay for it.

Look at all the top surgeons and hospitals in the world for everything from neurosurgery to cancer treatment. They're all in the United States. The median level of care might be much better in Europe but they are behind when it comes to cutting edge treatments, rare diseases, and so on.

I'm an American living in the UK, and I've had to do medical tourism to the US. What I needed wasn't available outside the US at any price.

Yes. American health "care" is the best. Problem is with the "administration" that for basic stuff, there is crazy price gouging and no free market competition. It is ridiculous that you have to involve insurance in every visit to a doctor AND it's tied to your employer being able to provide something.

I got a bill from a lab last year that was for about $1200, and when insurance denied it as out-of-network (it wasn't, the lab and the insurance company had some billing procedure issues) it was less than $100 somehow.

Out of stubbornness, I fought with the lab for months to bill it correctly, and eventually got them to write it off by emailing the CEO.

Sums up our healthcare "administration" well. Unfortunately, I have done this a few times myself and what a colossal waste of time.

I would move to the USA if I could. As a European is that possible - e.g. don't you need a green card?

AFAIK the easiest way is to start working in EU for a company that has offices in US. Then you can transfer.

I can’t just move to the US. I’ve applied around 100 times and only brilliant.org replied and gave me an interview. All the other companies stated that Europeans don’t have permission to work in the US (and it wasn’t stated anywhere)

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

So, ironically, in that regard, the US tech labor market is far more socialist than its European counterpart.

Not really. They are both neoliberal, just with different market conditions.

Workers getting a large share of a company’s revenue, much of which is in the form of fractional ownership of the company sure sounds quasi-socialist to me! It doesn’t matter that market conditions led to this compensation scheme (as opposed to direct political intervention); what matters is the end result.

That's not what the terms socialism and capitalism mean. They describe the process, not end result.

You can have full blown worker coops in the capitalist system, the question is if they are state mandated or not.

The definition of socialism isn't any sytem with a good outcome for workers.

So are you saying that socialism can only exist if it's imposed and maintained by the state? (i.e. no democratic society can be socialist by definition?)

All states impose things on their citizens, including democratic ones. That’s what law is.

>So are you saying that socialism can only exist if it's imposed and maintained by the state?

I 'm not sure I understand the question? Socialism is a political philosophy on how the state should operate and what it should permit. It IS a description of the states behavior.

Democracy has nothing to do with it. You can have a socialist country with a king, or with direct democracy and no leader.

You can't have a socialist state without socialist laws and rules.

I think some of the confusion is from how the word is used now.

People refer to systems which apply socialist thinking as socialism, even if the governance is not a state government.

For example, let's say a theoretical union takes guidance from the political philosophy of socialism, and requires union members to contribute the highest percentage of their salary as union dues, that they can legally get away with. Let's say workers are paying 90% of their salaries in union dues.

The union can then use those dues to support the union members in various ways.

This isn't a state government, but it behaves like a socialist system and people would probably call it an example of socialism.

The wikipedia page on [religious socialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_socialism) even has some examples of this in religious communities.

You also have socialist anarchy, which supports stateless socialism

> Let's say workers are paying 90% of their salaries in union dues. The union can then use those dues to support the union members in various ways.

Realistically that seems to be more or less completely unsustainable without some use of force. e.g. if individuals who contribute more than they pay in are allowed to opt-out the system quickly collapses. That's how universal healthcare, state pension/social systems work etc. so it's not necessarily a bad thing. However in general socialist "corporations" are generally incapable of competing in a "free" market so they can only exist when they are supported by the state or private/capitalist enterprises are banned or strongly restricted in one way or another.

> if individuals who contribute more than they pay in are allowed to opt-out the system quickly collapses

Sure, that's why I said this was theoretical. I wasn't using it as a demonstration of how socialism can be sustainable without a state, I was using it to demonstrate a system that might be described as socialist even though it's stateless.

Well by Democracy I implicitly meant freedom of speech, independent judiciary, protection of private property and individual civil rights etc. most of those things are not really compatible with state imposed socialism.

Democracy doesn't imply or require any of those things. A majority can democratically vote to suspend every single one.

You can have a democracy with 51% ruling and 49% in chattel slavery and poverty (but having a right to vote

I would agree that socialism isn't compatible with private property and civil rights as we commonly understand them today (in the US).

This is the correct answer.

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

8.7M people to be precise :-)

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

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

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

Not in my experience. At least not for SV-Caliber talent.

Something you have to keep in mind is that there are two parallel markets over there: SV caliber developers and the rest. The former won't have any issue getting a job in the US (takes maybe a week for a talented engineer to get one). Therefore, comp has to be priced appropriately. The later can't -and likely won't ever be able to- secure a US visa, mostly due to skills. A lot of them are immigrants to Canada themselves (there's a reason they immigrated to Canada, it's way easier and the quotas are close to 10x per capita compared to the US). Some companies leverage this and have floors of international devs they park in Canada for a fraction of their US counterpart through a subsidiary.

Most of what comes as "SV caliber" is mediocre devs.

There are just (way) more of them in Bay Area than anywhere in the world and they know right buzzwords.

> Most of what comes as "SV caliber" is mediocre devs.

That's an interesting statement. I assume the whole tech ecosystem and market is completely irrational since it seems to price these developer so much higher than their real worth? Where would one need to go to find non-mediocre devs who know more than just "the buzzwords"?

> I assume the whole tech ecosystem and market is completely irrational since it seems to price these developer so much higher than their real worth?

You somehow consider this less likely than the alternative where all less-than-leet-tier devs have decided to stay out of SV and therefore, the inflated salaries for everyone there are actually rational?

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

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

It should go to showing fewer ads

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

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

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

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