
Map Showing Ratio of Median Software Engineer Pay to GDP/Cap for 50 Countries - yaph
http://maps.ramiro.org/income-software-engineers-countries/
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tehwalrus
If I'm interpreting this correctly, this means a median coding salary in
USA/Canada/EU is about/slightly below average for the economy, but in the
developing world (particularly India) its waaay above average?

This kind of makes sense, although it sure shatters the illusion that software
jobs are well paid in the developed world.

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bjourne
You are forgetting about profits which in the industrialized world is about
35% of the surplus, only 65% is wages. Therefore an average salary would only
net a ratio of 0.65 in salary to gdp/capita. In other words the 0.9-1.1 ratios
in the EU are pretty good.

E.g the ratio in Sweden is 1.03 and if an average salary is 0.65, it means
that the average developer salary is 58% higher than the average salary. It
matches my own anecdotal data pretty well.

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mailshanx
I don't think i understand what you profits/surplus you are referring to. Care
to elaborate?

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seanflyon
GDP per Capita is significantly higher than median income.

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tormeh
It would have been better to compare the median developer wage to the normal
median wage. But median wages can be hard to get (often you get bullshit like
household median wages). Anyway, in the US median wage is a lot lower than
average, so the comparison does not really say much there. In other countries
the gap is often smaller, but still.

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jiggy2011
You mean median wage relative to GDP/Cap? I doubt that it is below average
overall!

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yaph
I created this map based on data from Bloomberg/PayScale. For more info on
what is displayed click on the i-button (3rd to right) in the top menu or ask
me here.

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brador
Software engineer covers a huge range of roles from low level java bot to CTO.
You can't just blob it together like this and expect meaningful insight.

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WoodenChair
What's going on with Norway? Does anyone who's familiar with the software
industry there care to comment?

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mzl
From the information blurb on the page:

    
    
        "The highest median income in absolute terms is earned by software engineers 
        in Switzerland (ratio 1.21) followed by Norway (81,400 USD) and the 
        United States ($76,000 USD). Norway has the highest GDP per capita (99,574 USD) 
        in this list with software engineers median income at about 82% of it."
    

Due to oil incomes and other stuff, Norway tends to be a serious outlier in
many cases when it comes to economic metrics.

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jjgod
Although Norway does have high GDP per capita,
[http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/best-and-
worst/highest-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/best-and-
worst/highest-paid-software-engineers-countries) said 99,574 USD is Average
annual income. That's unfortunately not true according to
[http://ssb.no/en/arbeid-og-
lonn/statistikker/lonnansatt/aar/...](http://ssb.no/en/arbeid-og-
lonn/statistikker/lonnansatt/aar/2014-03-20?fane=tabell&sort=nummer&tabell=168713),
where average annual earnings last year for all sectors is 489200 NOK, i.e.
77824 USD. (Meanwhile, the earnings of programmers, according to
[http://ssb.no/en/arbeid-og-
lonn/statistikker/lonnikt/aar/201...](http://ssb.no/en/arbeid-og-
lonn/statistikker/lonnikt/aar/2014-01-16?fane=tabell&sort=nummer&tabell=158312),
is 52900 * 12 NOK = 101021 USD.)

It's kind of unfair to compare annual earnings of programmers directly to GDP
per capita. If you actually compare it with the annual earnings of all
sectors, the ratio for Norway is close to 1.3.

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krfsm
What's up with Bulgaria vs Romania? One's at the top and the other at the
bottom.

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JoeAltmaier
Isn't this nearly a heatmap of poverty, or mean income?

