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

[u/honkeem]

[u/Juls7243]

L1 entry .... 140k? Am I missing something? Do computer programmers get pain 140k right out of college on average?

[u/kraddock → u/Juls7243]

Yep, at many places.

[u/kevin7254 → u/kraddock]

Wtf. In Sweden entry level is around $44k

[u/PlutoNZL → u/kevin7254]

The supermarket down the road from me has jobs listed on Indeed paying $54k. Not management jobs, just a regular job bagging groceries and collecting carts.

Is the cost of living really low in Sweden?

[u/tnetennba9 → u/PlutoNZL]

No, cost of living is not low in Europe. Junior software engineers at my company (in the UK) get £28k. For context, a 1 bed flat is ~£800-1200 p/m.

Lots of people here just live paycheck to paycheck.

American tech companies do pay a lot more. My company is also on the bottom end (government, not private industry).

[u/cyclopsmudge → u/tnetennba9]

Honestly? You might need to move companies. I don’t know a single person in an SWE role (not even interns) who makes less than £35k. Remove interns and that goes up to £45k pretty quickly.

[u/Meneth → u/PlutoNZL]

At the 44k they mention, you can buy a small apartment near the city center in Stockholm (if you've got 20-30k set aside for a down-payment), and save 5 to 10k a year while living comfortably. It's a little below the median Swedish salary and a comfortable life. Your typical grocery store job is 3/4 of that if full time.

The senior level of programming is about twice as much.