
Ask HN: Why salaries are not going up? - jakark
I work in the south of France, for the past year and a half I have been hearing that engineers and software developers are missing and companies have been unable to fill roles for months and months.<p>Yet, I don&#x27;t see any significant raise in the salaries I&#x27;m being offered (2 years experience 40&#x27;000€ for 40 hour week), if the companies are so desperate to find developers why aren&#x27;t they making their offers more attractive? Or am I missing something ?
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geezerjay
IMHO when companies announce that there is a worker shortage, what they are
actually stating is that the negotiating power in the current job market may
be shifting away from corporations

These corporations may have started having some issues retaining key employees
and discovered that expertise and takent doesn't spring from nowhere, which
affects productivity to their surprise as highly skilled employees aren't
growing on trees and can't be replaced as soon as their employee leaves. So
before they need to do something about working conditions (i.e. absurdly long
hours and stressful environment) and wages they instead try to manipulate the
job market by requesting a sudden influx of canonfodder to shift the
negotiating power back into their hands.

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mattm
People don't like paying more for the same thing.

There can be cultural reasons which make this more sticky in some places like
France perhaps. I came across a survey in Japan where companies also said they
were having trouble hiring and only 1/11 companies said they would consider
raising wages. America has the highest software developer salaries in the
world because there is more of a cultural acceptance of the free market and
realization that it can make good business sense to pay more.

I come from a place where salaries advance very slowly and unfortunately, in
places like this, companies would rather pass on good candidates than pay
more. It means their company grows slower. But they get to keep the illusion
of control.

It comes down to the founder's dilemma [1] that permeates through the culture
of a company - Does the owner want to be rich or king? If the company
owner/managers are more interested in being king, they will generally not pay
higher salaries unless the situation gets so dire than they begrudgingly are
forced to. You want to try to work for companies where they want to be rich.
Unfortunately, in a place where the general culture does not encourage this,
these companies will be very tough to find.

[1] [https://hbr.org/2008/02/the-founders-
dilemma](https://hbr.org/2008/02/the-founders-dilemma)

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quickthrower2
> People don't like paying more for the same thing.

I think this is right, and it applied to your milk. For example I would be
shocked if the price of milk was doubled from AU$3 to AU$6 here, but at say 3
cartons a week the total cost of that would be about $40 a week. Whereas if I
have to pay another $40 a week due to an interest rate rise I'd take it. It's
a weird psychological thing (makes it hard to live in another country!)

> Does the owner want to be rich or king?

Another option is to work for a company (ideally contract work) that doesn't
have a single owner or small cohort of owners. This would be a large
corporation.

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bjourne
I bet it's the same problem in France as in Sweden. Programmers are managed by
managers. Therefore managers are ranked higher than programmers. Therefore
managers make more money than programmers. But there is no shortage of
managers. Therefore managers' salaries are not increasing. Therefore
programmers salaries must not increase because they must not surpass managers'
salaries.

~~~
frnkshin
I think that's exactly the reason why titles are all just b.s.

It should be more like, pay $200000 because he's good rather than because he
is a senior engineer. Companies should get rid of the titling bull crap and
just let it all be based on salary.

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scarface74
I’ve definitely noticed software development salaries for both “full stack web
developers” and mobile developers peak in my local US metro. Companies seem to
have stayed in the range of $105K - $130K [1] since around 2012 when we were
coming out of the recession. Web development has become somewhat of a
commodity and companies can outsource it or “rural source” it to cheaper parts
of the country.

Moving into “team lead”/architect role seems to change the range to $125K -
$155K. The only way to make more is by being a billable consultant. That
ranges from $145K - $175K.

[1] These are the salary ranges for most cities outside of Silicon Valley/West
Coast, DC, and New York where the salaries and cost of living are a lot lower.

[https://www.matrixres.com/resources/salary-
survey/](https://www.matrixres.com/resources/salary-survey/)

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yixiang
I've heard many companies say they can't hire a single developer, and then
pass on good candidates.

It's easier to blame the market than admit "we are terrible at recruiting."

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Hydraulix989
Yes, the prevailing attitude is that someone's GitHub, knowledge, experience,
and portfolio might as well be entirely a lie if they can't solve a particular
dynamic programming LeetCode toy problem du jour on-the-fly on a whiteboard.

It's also a potential killer advantage for startups to be able to recognize
budding coder talent that doesn't check off all the boxes that say FAANG
recruiters have. It's still very much an inefficient market, and people that
can't code aren't necessarily the best at recognizing coder talent.

~~~
mattmanser
I've never seen a whiteboard interview in the UK, I imagine the op would
probably confirm he's never seen one in France.

The whiteboard thing seems to be a US obsession.

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marssaxman
How else would you do a tech interview?

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mattmanser
I've had to code something that actually had to do with the job a few times.
Like write a basic page that displays X from table Y. Fill in the missing
JavaScript function that does Y. Write a SQL query for the report Z. Usually
left alone to do it at a computer in the de facto editor for that language.

I've also had written tests with questions to do with the job, not trick
questions, just straight, normal, day-to-day problems. Usually 10 or so that
start easy and get harder.

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n-gauge
I wonder how much of this is due to cheap outsourcing, keeping the salaries
lower for a non architect role?

(If you're in an architect type role I guess you have a higher salary)

~~~
jakark
It could be outsourcing, but also could be consulting. I have an impression
(and no way backed by data), that half jobs around here are not direct
employee but people working for a consulting company, even tho they're 100%
daily working for a client.

But even those consulting companies are having issues getting new developers
but don't seem to be getting their salaries much higher.

~~~
cbluth
^ I have seen much of this in the Netherlands. A lot of "Full Time"
Consultants.

~~~
jakark
I have always wondered about the reason for this. But I guess its mostly
because letting go a consultant is less expensive than firing an employee.

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shyn3
People like security, stability, and safety. They want a company to give them
salary, benefits, a decent life. They don't want to worry about running a
business, making next months paycheque, worrying about sales and so on.
Companies know this as well. Why would they pay you if you have no incentive
to do start your own business. It just means the people in your job market
have given up and don't care about money.

If you want more money, ask for it. If they offer $40,000, then tell them you
won't touch this job for under $140,000. If the rest of the developers did the
same, they would start paying that, but they won't because everyone wants
stability.

Then you get to the point where $500K is not enough as a salary, and companies
know this also, so you are going to quit and start your own business. If they
can keep you around for longer and longer before you quit, the lower they
start you, the more time they can keep you, in essence growing their business.

Either start your own company, or ask for a lot more and be prepared not to
receive the offer.

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alain94040
Salaries are definitely going up in some locations (Silicon Valley for
instance).

As a developer, you are better off working for a company where software is the
product, not a cost center. Don’t be perceived as interchangeable with other
SSII engineers.

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hnxp
I don't know about France, but in the U.S., those complaints just mean it's
become difficult to get H1B workers, not that they feel the need to pay
anybody any more.

The hope is that their complaints will be answered by a Republican congress
allowing them more cheap, disposable labor, not a recognition that labor
generally needs to be paid more.

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cm2012
Salaries are a very sticky and lagging indicator for the labor market.

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pasbesoin
Optics versus reality. Is the work still getting done? Then how, and _where?_

People (meaning also, people in business) can and do say any damned thing.
What are they _doing?_

