
How to break into 100k+ Euro salary in EU/EEA? - eskimo87
I have total 7 years of dev+DS experience and have ambitions to break into 100k+ salary range in coming year. Should I must move into management role for this?
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simonebrunozzi
Sorry mate, but if you'd like some good advice from this crowd, you should
spend more than 20 seconds to describe your issue and the type of suggestions
you are looking for. That's probably lesson #1 in how to get to a 100k salary
:)

You don't mention: where you are located; what current job you have; what's
DS; what kind of dev work have you done.

Also, any github / stack overflow link, so that we can get a better sense of
your skills?

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pierre_n
I don’t think a cursory glance at his/her stack overflow / github profile
would be a good indicator of his overall skillset _eyeroll_

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neoham
Plenty of contracting roles paying £500-600/day in London, a few even up to
£800 (and 'Head of'/CTO level consulting gigs hovering around £1k/day although
very rare as most of those positions are perm).

I know some rather mediocre developers on £550 day rates.

For perm positions, such roles aren't too uncommon for senior/lead level devs
in finance, tech consultancy (doing SAP/Salesforce work at some place like
Accenture, etc) or the top tech firms - though you'll want to avoid the
underpaying Shoreditch start-ups.

Does mean living in London though, where a £100k salary still barely gets you
a mortgage for a 3 bed semi. Plus, £100k will soon be worth about €27 but
right now it's about 1:1.

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cyberpunk0
$500 a day programming?

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vinceve
Belgian here. Day rates of 400+ euro are the normal rate over here for java
and php developers (even to the lower side) for freelancers. But I should
mention that you lose about 55% on taxes of it.

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Yoric
I suspect that the only companies with this kind of salary in the EU are
Palantir and trading companies (e.g. Jane Street).

So, it kind of depends on what you're willing to do for money. I'm personally
not quite enthusiastic at the idea of working for either.

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mattmanser
Nonsense, most capital cities in the EU have contracting rates at €500+ per
day.

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mschuster91
That level of salary... well I'd say you gotta sell your soul and head off
into banking or into a role as consultant somewhere, but no way for ordinary
devs, even in Germany. For what it's worth I know directors of 300+ employee
companies that don't crack the 100k.

Alternatively try to land a remote job for some Valley-based or other VC
backed company, but beware of the tax and legal implications of doing so.

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cporios
Google pays 120k+ for junior developers in Switzerland.

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mschuster91
Switzerland is not in the EU as OP asked, also you spend a large chunk of the
gains over Germany on higher living cost (rent, but also basic stuff like
cheeseburgers is up to 3x the price of Germany). Oh and they have both a
strict immigration regime as well as a huge right-wing problem, which might be
another factor against moving to Switzerland for work.

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literallycancer
You can pretty much just come to Switzerland and work if you are an EU
citizen, so might as well be.

Zurich has probably the best ratio of earning potential to COL in the world
(for the average person, not necessarily for software engineers). If you are
cheap/thrifty you can even go do your shopping in a neighboring country, since
Switzerland is so small.

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eskimo87
I am Non EEA citizen :( true that Swiss is not immigration friendly..
difficult to find jobs

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osrec
Not sure about a salary, but contracting can comfortably let you earn that
based on a daily rate. I've even seen Qlikview or Excel roles at banks in the
UK that pay 600+ per day! The trick is to have a niche - look at what's hot in
contracting job ads and read up about it. Get confident with the tech/software
they ask for and go for a few interviews. Getting a contracting role is
generally a lot easier than a permanent position, and in my experience, a
contracting job can be just as secure as a perm job.

~~~
mschuster91
Problem with contracting jobs is, depending on OPs country, they can be risky:
health care costs can kill you at that salary rate (eg in Germany with its
dual class health care system), contractors may not be eligible for ordinary
pensions (and you might be tempted to skip over saving for retirement...) and
when you're sick for more than a week (or, can't find a new project soon
enough) it can burn through your entire savings sooner than you'd like.

I wouldn't do contracting again without serious money (aka F-U-Money levels,
or a full year worth of expenses) in the bank.

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toyg
In the UK, contractors are considered high-risk for mortgages and car loans.
Even if you manage to lock-in a mortgage before starting your contractor
career, it will make things difficult should you wish to remortgage (which is
almost mandatory every 3 to 5 years, these days...).

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mschuster91
Oh yeah, totally forgot about that one... and in case you end up broke/in debt
with contracting, your _personal_ credit score will be screwed up, too.

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justinholmes
You can get a contractor mortgage based on your day rate in UK.

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jzwinck
You've asked how you can get 100k EUR per year. But you have not mentioned
anything about the value you can offer for this money (unless DS means
something there, I have no idea what DS is).

In many companies, low-level managers don't earn that much (especially green
ones, which it sounds like you would be during the time frame you specified).
Companies wouldn't want to distract all their employees by offering a huge pay
bump just to switch fields.

When you ask for money you should first talk about what you can contribute.
Which is?

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toyg
_> unless DS means something there_

I suspect it's data-scientist, which is a pretty hot field/buzzword these
days.

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cjbprime
Working remotely for a Silicon Valley company seems the easiest way.

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toyg
Work remotely for silicon valley companies.

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TimReynolds
The time you consider the tax implications you’ve got to be on a very good US
wage to break the 100k level.

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repsilat
100k in your pocket sure, but 100k gross? That's 120k USD, not sky high for
the US. And don't taxes net out so you only end up paying the higher of the
two rates in most places? In Europe total income taxes are likely higher than
US federal income taxes just about everywhere.

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hobo_mark
If the salary is all you are after and do not mind the culture shock, did you
look into relocating to Switzerland?

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eskimo87
I've heard that a lot.. but a) Swiss living cost is expensive b) Difficult to
find job as non European

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HatchedLake721
Look at contracting and London. There’s tons of £500+ per day rates dev
contracts around.
[https://www.jobserve.com/gb/en/JobSearch.aspx?shid=E1AD4AE0F...](https://www.jobserve.com/gb/en/JobSearch.aspx?shid=E1AD4AE0F7CE019CE8)

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eskimo87
Thanks.. but not an EU/GB citizen.. won't be possible contracting in U.K.

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polote
As others said, it is very difficult, a few devs earn that in EU.

Options are :

\- CTO but not early stage

\- freelancing : 7 years of experience could be more than 500€ per day. And if
you are in a niche, could be much more

\- Remote for an american company

\- I know some startups in Paris which hire at more than 100k euro but you
need to be outstanding.

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BjoernKW
Though technically not salary but revenue freelancing or rather self-employed
consulting is a realistic option for reaching that kind of annual income.

One piece of advice though: Don't do it for the money (or the money alone, at
least). If you want to run a sustainable consulting practice you have to be
passionate about what you're doing and constantly deliver high-quality work.

Confidently marketing your services is essential. If you're good at solving
important problems for your customers that should be reflected in your rates.
Speaking of which, if possible adopt value-based pricing instead of time-
based, i.e. daily or hourly, rates.

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smegel
> Should I must move into management role for this?

Do you want to be a manager? If not, you will be trading a life of misery for
a modest pay raise.

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cloudhead
I know several engineers making over 100k in the EU. You just have to be
really good at what you do and pick a company which pays well.

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eskimo87
What companies would that be? If you could name few..

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jlengrand
I know banking offers that kind of salary, in the Netherlands. But it's the
higher tier of the bucket though.

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eskimo87
ING/ABN? What kind of roles though? Sr/lead/principal or management role?

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jlengrand
Both, actually for ING. Though, again, this is achievable for the top tier.
Question of scale, more than position.

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pkrefta
Migrate to Switzerland :) Salaries there are much higher than rest of the
Europe but living there is more expensive too.

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sawmurai
True but you pay basicaly no taxes (especially compared to Germany)

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flotillo
> _So what makes you feel you deserve to earn more than 99.93% of the world 's
> population?_

Looks like you hit a nerve (perhaps a somewhat guilty one) with some users.

But I was wondering similar - why does the OP feel the need to earn this much
money? I suspect psychological rather than financial insecurity, given that
they're already likely to be a relatively high earner.

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danm07
Management makes less than devs in my experience.

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BLanen
Switzerland.

