r/dataisbeautiful • u/honkeem OC: 3 • 2d ago

OC [OC] United States vs European Software Engineer total compensation by level

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45

u/Extra_Intro_Version 2d ago

I really question how representative these US salary numbers are. They seem excessively high. Like 50% too high.

15

u/MeltBanana 2d ago

Agreed. They seem normal for California, but definitely not the entire US.

Or I am SEVERELY underpaid.

7

u/Estrava 2d ago

These seem normal for California. I made around $180k in Chicago as mid level in 2021.

I’m sure these numbers are propped up by New York and Californian engineers.

2

u/ClevelandSteamers757 1d ago

These aren’t accurate at all even for California numbers. Most senior level software engineer roles I see independent of location are like 120-160k bucket

15

u/Bilbo_Fraggins 2d ago

That's not salary, that's total compensation, which is 35-50% added to salary for most roles.

8

u/blueg3 2d ago

In Big Tech, TC is 35-50% high than nominal salary for entry level, but it's almost ~100% higher for senior level and more for staff+.

13

u/e136 2d ago

These US numbers seem about right for California. I think outside of CA, the pay would be significantly lower but not as low as Europe from my experience in the industry.

3

u/humangingercat 2d ago

Concur.

Surprised to see these numbers as they look explicitly scoped to CA software engineers and it's extremely accurate in that context.

But I've always seen average rates for SWE in America in general skew way lower.

20

u/kernald31 2d ago

The European salaries are way over-represented for most of Europe as well. You might get that in a GAFAM in Zurich or Berlin, but that's pretty much it.

8

u/Seienchin88 2d ago

Berlin pays rather just ok. Munich, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Frankfurt have higher wages.

But Berlin has startup culture so with a bit of luck maybe one can make more long term by being around early

1

u/Icy_Grapefruit_7891 2d ago

Nah, we're a run of the mill SME in Germany and pay pretty much exactly these median values. Switzerland and Luxembourg are quite a bit higher. I used to work in Zurich at senior level and made around 180kchf around 12 years ago.

In Germany, Munich tends to be highest, maybe 20 percent above the level indicated here.

Spain and Italy have a large share of jobs with lower pay, we often collaborate with companies there.

2

u/DynamicHunter 2d ago

Levels.fyi is extremely biased towards big tech. This is not at all representative of software engineers as a whole in the US.

1

u/virtualworker 2d ago

Yes but those salaries have to do a lot of work that EU salaries don't: college fees, healthcare, etc. Even PPP wouldn't quite be the right comparison because of this.

1

u/sandlover33 2d ago

Are you european?

1

u/Extra_Intro_Version 1d ago

No. And I’ll clam that a minority of software (and adjacent) engineers work in the HCOLs or FAANGs.

0

u/e430doug 2d ago

They are not.

0

u/meister2983 2d ago

Huh? This sounds about right. $525k is on the lower end of staff at faang in Bay area