What's the deal with London salaries? Why are they about half the amount you'd get in the US, while the cost of living is super high? Am I missing something? #engineering #software #swe #salary #london #sde
Tons of other benefits (e.g. ISAs), if you're smart about it it can be very cheap, bigger talent pool and generally a nicer place to live than bay area/seattle or even NYC for most people
Can you expand on ISAs and smartness?
Plenty of my friends spend £300 a month + £700 rent + £x for tube and live just fine, eat good food, go out, have fun, all museums are free, S&S ISAs let you invest £20k entirely tax free every year, stuff like that
From my research, it seems UK is more socialist and with high taxation and state sponsored health care, it tries to reduce the gap between different economic sections. e.g As of now, for a given level in tech industry, buying power in Bangalore is much higher than in UK. Of course ther are various other factors that affect people's choice to settle
I agree, it's the wrong mindset of people to compare US and UK. US is a place to make money, while UK is mostly about the quality of living and the savings will roughly be the same in India or UK. Infact UK taxes more than 50% for RSUs, definitely not a place to make money
RSUs are taxed like any other income, not sure where you got that information Taxes are also higher, yes, but not by as much as you’d think if you’re comparing UK to California
One thing you have to understand about Europe vs. US: Europe is all about empowering and lifting up the bottom 50% at the expense of the top. US is the opposite, with high TC for talented, in-demand individuals. European countries attempt to “normalize” although there are still obscenely wealthy families, they really only care to drag down non-generational wealth. US is the land of opportunity for those willing to put in the work.
Lol. It's a broken system overrun by crony capitalism where big corps don't pay tax and a school teacher has to do a side job to put food on the table. It's funny how the people who benefit from a rigged system don't have the capacity despite high education, to think objectively. Europeans know how to maintain dignity of life in society.
In America, you can have dignity of life if you earn enough. We have basic social services here which are designed to force folks back into the job pool. They were never designed to provide a comfy life. In Europe, one can easily life a comfortable life with the basic social services and can continue to live life on the dole. Since healthcare in the UK is state sponsored, and rent is taken care of by councils, there is no other incentive for people to work hard. Having private healthcare in the USA, sposored by employers is one factor that provides incentives for Americans to remain in the job pool, thereby leading to continuous economic growth.
You can't compare a developed country to India. Only Indians want to live in India. And actually not even many Indians.
Since I don't know much about India, this helped me get a better picture what developed and developing means: https://www.investopedia.com/updates/top-developing-countries/ Countries like Japan and the Netherlands look great. For the US, yeah, our infrastructure needs work. The rest is due to lower taxes.
It’s based on cost of labor for many companies, which comes from the competition in the market for a particular kind of role and how much companies are willing to pay there. Somewhat supply-demand. Not really based on cost of living. There is a ton more competition and mobility for tech roles in the Bay Area, and this has led to salaries that creeped up over the years.
@Google I don't understand what you mean? If I can find talent in India and they are willing to work there, it's only fair that I pay them the market rate for SWE by region. This base pay inherently always begins from the cost of living and then is driven up by competing companies.
How much money does the BBC make by selling technology vs eg Apple? You get paid for the value you generate.
BBC is notorious for low pay. I was offered £32k some years back and couldn’t believe it
BBC? What is that?
Yes I want to lodge my protest too. We leave our home country to come here. It is more expensive than US cities. We are paying more taxes than US folks. We are not working any less than US folks. We are being laughed at by job market rules. Well big tech companies its your responsibility to fix that job market issue. Its completely unfair
And what are you gonna do if they don’t? Quit Facebook and join the BBC?
Also may be Bloomberg if their hiring criteria doesn't include that I have to be an absolute idiot
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Companies pay as little as they can get away with while still attracting the appropriate talent level. Not everyone wants to migrate to USA. UK is close to Europe. It's easier to get citizenship. The taxation is residence-based, not citizenship-based. It's not fair that level N engineer in UK gets as much money as level N-1 in USA. But it is what it is.
Unless you are from India or China, USA is much faster to get green card and citizenship.
@kakashiSei To immigrate in USA you either pay 60k for a degree or have to work in UK and hope for a transfer
So many more vacation days
Can you give me a comparison example please?
@Microsoft is this a real answer or are you being sarcastic? Cos I don’t think “90% of the yearly work days with 50% of the pay” is particularly compelling