
How much do software engineers make outside of the United States? - kingnothing
Do hackers outside of the US have an above average lifestyle?
======
bespin_condo
In the city I am in Brazil, I've seen companies that offer from R$2,500 to
R$4,500 per month gross (plus the legally required one month's bonus per
year), plus other random forms of compensation.

Factoring in taxes and union dues (mandatory one day's wage per month go to
the union) at USD 1.00=BRL 1.75 it comes out to US$14,000 to US$29,000 net.
Some fudging is involved because the exchange rates fluctuate, and I'm not
sure exactly about taxes (max marginal tax rate is 27%, plus random other
"social" taxes plus union dues)

Wages may be higher in bigger cities such as Sao Paulo, but the rent is also
higher.

Rent in the city I am in may come out to, I dunno, US$500/month rent in a
reasonably nearby nice area. I've seen ads for rooms for US$285 taped to
streetlights.

Overall its not bad, especially since companies will often pay a lunch per
diem that is enough to stuff your face at a pay by the pound buffet and are
legally required to pay for your bus fare to get to work.

This is for nice jobs where everything is done by the book. There are some
pretty lousy jobs where nobody follows the rules and the pay is awful but I
suspect that they are rare for computer programmers as opposed to say
construction workers or janitors.

As a lifestyle it compares favorably in some ways to paying 50% of gross in
taxes on a US$100,000 1099 contract job in New York City that involves
commuting over an hour from some s---hole in New Jersey. Been there, done
both.

------
ancymon
I think this might partially answer the question:
<http://www.worldsalaries.org/computerprogrammer.shtml>

compared with list like this:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wa...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage)

------
djhworld
It depends on what you define as above average. The minimum wage here in the
UK is £5.93 an hour, so just under £12,000 a year (roughly $18.5k).

The 'average' wage in the UK is somewhere around £24k-£26k (roughly
$37k-$40k).

For developers I'd say graduates start out at around £25k-£30k (roughly
$38.5k-$46k) and the wages start to middle out at around £35k-£50k(roughly
$54k-$77k) depending on your experience and seniority.

So in terms of 'above average' I'd say yes when in comparison to the rest of
the population, but only by a marginal amount. There are extreme cases in the
development sphere though - many developers who work in Finance will probably
earn a lot more than those working in a more 'average' development job.

------
nl
Australia (salaries converted to US$), for a developer who can actually
program

Graduate $45,000

2-5 years experience: $65-$80,000

Highest salary for pure programming: $110,000

A lot of development here is done contract basis. Rates range from $40/hour to
$100+/hour. Most good programmers with 2-5 years experience in a language in
demand (say Java or C#) get $60-80/hour.

Specialist skills & good negotiating will get you more, bad negotiation or
career planning will get you in a dead end position and you'll get less.

------
checoivan
Mexico. From 10K to 30K usd per year. Then substract ~30% in tax. 50K if it is
a very very senior job.

Life is a lot cheaper though. Still, engineering isn't very well paid back
there, and options to work on something awesome are way more limited. Most
options are consulting, business apps, or move outside to work for a cool
company.

------
swix
Here in Costa Rica it varies a lot between working for government or private
companies, but a good salary for software development .NET, Java etc with
experience is around USD $2500 per month, entry level or recently graduated
around 1500-2000$ per month.

------
GeneralMaximus
In India you stand to make between USD10k to USD12k annually if you go to work
for a sweatshop (HCL, Infosys, TCS) straight out of college. This, I believe,
is the lower limit. No idea about the upper limit.

------
iworkforthem
In Singapore, it start from 25,223.88 USD provided if you are a degree
graduate. It varies a lot depending whether you work in a MNC or SME.

------
thdn
Here in Bolivia - South America, Software Engineers make between 10,000 and
12,000 $us. annually

------
iampims
In France, senior software engineers usually make between €50,000 & €60,000.

