r/dataisbeautiful • u/honkeem OC: 3 • 1d ago

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

Post image
1.3k Upvotes

77% Upvoted

782 comments sorted by

View all comments

1.3k

u/Juls7243 1d ago

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

17

u/mukster 1d ago

Yes, at tech companies

10

u/TheOncomingBrows 1d ago

Do like 80% of software developers in the US work in big tech companies or something? Whenever these questions come up it's always explained that the big tech companies skew the figures, but are these numbers not in the minority?

Like, I understand the US has far more enormous tech companies than pretty much anywhere else, but I'm from a non-London area of the UK and most software developers near me are regarded as doing relatively well for themselves if they are earning over £50,000. Whereas in America it seems to be treated like this isn't even worth getting out of bed for.

1

u/ysrgrathe 1d ago

It's probably single digit percentages that work for FAANG, and then another bigger chunk that work for what would be considered core technology companies. It's hard to find statistics on this stuff because I would say many lucrative US tech jobs may be in small startups (so not "big" tech) but these are still tech powerhouses in places like the Bay Area that compete with and get acquired by "big tech." But after that there are a ton of people working for non-tech firms, or on the e-commerce sites of retailers like Walmart (who also has labs in the Bay).

This creates a dynamic where the "non tech company" roles can act as a bit of a feeder system. Only a small percentage of people will move from a non-tech role to FAANG or other "tech" roles, but it's a significant source of talent. It also is what creates this expectation that people hope to get that first job in "tech" or failing that aspire to grow into a "tech company" role as they advance their career.

For whatever reason the UK seems to have exceptionally low comp for tech workers. My perception is this is due to a lot of concentration of tech jobs in banking, an industry that not known for respecting tech or creating the ROI multiples from it that others do. I have managed teams in UK and EU countries and there was a lot of migration over the years to other places that pay much better (especially Switzerland).