Why_post: I wanted to talk about this here, because I've never seen a post from Portugal, and I want everyone to know how much we make, to hopefully help any Portuguese people here from getting lowballed (difficult, because just being Portuguese is lowballing). Intro: I am trying to change to another company, not because of the company itself, but because of the project. I need more YOE and a degree to move to another country. About_me: - I live in Portugal (below, are some info about Portugal averages). - I do not have a degree yet, I will start it next year. - I am 25 YO. - I have 1.5 YOE. - I have 3Y of personal experience, through tons of personal open source projects and some academic projects, with modern technologies, all available on GitHub, but no employer seems to care. Only YOE, even if that means someone that makes low quality code. - I've worked on the banking industry (2 banks, 1 somewhat big, nothing like some people here though) and now I'm working with monetary funds, that give credit/funds from the EU and gov to national businesses and organisations, for multiple policies, including COVID now. - I am at Avanade. Second company. - I make around 1350€ per month after taxes + 500€ 2x a year (holidays). - I've negotiated well, could have gotten more on another company but chose Avanade because Microsoft. - I have colleagues from my team receiving a lot less and I am receiving the same as some that are there for more time than me. - On my first job I was making 620€ after taxes. - I have a friend, with 8+YOE and a college degree that is making around 1500€ per month after taxes, on a big Portuguese company. - I have another friend with 3+YOE and a college degree making 1300€ p month after taxes. Conversation_with_recruiter: I was contacted by a no-name staffing company saying that they are looking for developers, and they even added the compensation after taxes. He said 1300-1400€ for juniors (which is not bad at all for Portugal) with 2+ YOE and 1500-1600 for 5+ YOE. We talked, it was a nice friendly talk, he was even friends with a big friend of mine, a software architect with 20+ YOE. He then began saying that he wanted to be honest so that none of us loses his time with the "let me think, I will call you some day". He said that he doesn't want to offer someone 1000€ after the first interview and not getting an answer (yes, I don't know about other countries, but here you have to answer what you want to receive on the first interview before proceeding). I liked this, I'm all for honesty. He asked me how much I make, I said 1350€, with parking lot and more goodies and he said that it was too much for my YOE. All fine by me, I prefer honesty. Then, instead of hanging up, he asked me if I would be willing to take a pay cut, with the possibility of being raised later. I obviously said that I would need to think, it would depend on the project, as I have bills to pay. He said, stuttering for some reason, that it wouldn't work out, because they're "looking for someone more committed". Questions: I mean, should I take a pay cut to show "commitment"? Am I being arrogant for not wanting to receive less? Hell, am I being arrogant for wanting to grow my career, on a better project, receiving more?? In my opinion, I was the one disrespected here. I know I'm doing well for my country, but even with what I make you can't live well here. Just renting a normal home here, on a normal, safe, well located and near the city place costs you more than 900€ (I even checked the averages online!), on worse places it can go down to 700/800€, there are single bedrooms that go for 400€ average, which is what a lot of people do, then add food, electricity, water, and other things. You could tell me to buy a house, that I will, but I need to save more because they cost 200k+, which is insane for Portugal! Positive_thing: On a more positive note, I was contacted today for an internal transfer because of a new contract with a big Portuguese organisation that I can not talk about. Hopefully I'll get accepted and get a raise, it would be great, considering all the weekends that I work. Portugal_info: (Dev wages is from what I see from friends and friends of friends and online) - First job after internship: around 600 to 800€ per month after taxes (some people go into junior sooner). - Junior (1/2+YOE): from 800 to 1400€, depending on if you're lucky, or from a good university, but usually around 1100€ even with a degree from what I see. A degree here doesn't mean much after entering the market, only if it's masters from a top uni. - Mid (5+YOE): 1400 to 1600/1700. - Senior (10+YOE): >1700 to ? (not really sure about the top, after this you'll have to go into a management role or more software architecture lead role) - Minimum national wage: around 560€ after taxes. - Average national wage: around 890€ after taxes. ; Maybe, this post is too big. cmp tldr, 1 jz Questions #offer #portugal #lisbon #wages #rant #lowball
Commenting for better reach 😉
Lol that recruiter is bullshitting you. Dont fall for his psychological games. Tell him pay the price or fuck off. You have a job right now, right? 1.5Y is still pretty green. If you like the people you work with, stay put for a while and build a bit more experience before you switch. You may also want to consider consulting on a portal like TopTal if you can crack the code interview. I think that Zalando has an office in PT too. Don’t waste your time with no name recruiters. Treat your time as more valuable and you’ll get somewhere. Start off leetcoding if you can’t crack the engineering interviews. Apply yourself on the job. If you get better at your job, the money comes with it. And you’re early enough that skill acquisition still can take you pretty far. Get those YoE up! Good luck! Reply on this thread if you have more questions.
This is a great reply. Cloudfare also has Lisbon office. Are u in Lisbon?
Yes! I saw the job post for Cloudfare, they want engineers with a good networking background, maybe too soon for me. I am Leetcode'ing, slowly, but I'll get there. I'm also reviewing some maths for next year, stats and probability. I'm 25 so I need to walk faster, that's why I started working before going to uni, too much partying when I was younger, but now I can't lose more YoE! To be honest, in this country, for most companies, you don't have very difficult problems, only things like palindromes (two pointer strategy), they've asked me a problem where you had to use the modulus because they wanted me to return smaller numbers using a function returning random numbers, one where you had to use a hash table to see if every word on a sentence is unique and stuff along those lines. I'm doing Leetcode to prepare to go international ✈️ Thanks for the replies mates, I am very excited for the future and I will fight for it!
Man get out of there ASAP. Sounds terrible. I would even think your pay in Portugal sucks.
I know man, but I need more experience, no one takes me seriously with 1.5 YOE
You said u are going to school right?u got time Then. People will hear u more once u get degree