
Programmer salary in mainland Europe? - socialist_coder
I am an American programmer living in Southern California making around $100,000 USD per year. Pretty much your average experienced programmer salary, maybe even a little on the low side.<p>I have been applying for programming jobs in San Francisco and in Germany, the Netherlands, and other mainland European countries. I finally got an offer from a company in Austria but the salary was a lot lower than I was expecting, only 45,000 EUR (~$65,000 USD). This is even a "Senior" programmer position!<p>To put things in perspective, I also got an offer from a company in San Francisco that is a significant raise from my current salary, but that is to be expected given the current programming job market in SF.<p>I was expecting the pay to be worse in Europe, but not <i>that</i> worse.
The company in Vienna insists that this is a fair salary for the region but I am finding this very hard to believe.<p>I'm not in this for the money at all, but I also don't want to sell myself short.
Can anyone help me out with their experiences with programmer salary in mainland Europe? Should the disparity be this great?
======
nchapin
You could not compare US/EU pays. The tax system and the benefits vary widely.

For example in France: a salary of 50k€/year like me, you should add 30% of
tax paid by the compagny you would have paid from your own salary in US.

This salary is brut. You could retire 20% of direct tax on it. So it give a
~3000€ net by month.

Benefits paid by tax: \- health insurance (70% rembursment for standard care
like a flu, 100% for emergency or expensive care) \- retirements (vary in
function of the employment status, but count 60% of the 10years best salaries)
\- job insurance (6month to 80% of the previous salary, from memory, need to
check)

All of this you have to pay from your US salary. If you want to compare a US
salaty with an european one, you have to factor all the social benefits you
would have to pay in US.

~~~
pfedor
In the US typically the employer pays for your health insurance and it's not
counted towards the salary number.

As for retirement, there is social security in the US, although not many
people are happy to base their retirement plans on receiving social security
checks. Whether the European retirement systems will fare better, the time
will show.

I believe you have a point with respect to severance packages.

------
patio11
Mainland Europe is a big place. (As is the United States, Japan, etc). There
are huge, huge, huge disparities in income between e.g. programmers working
finance in Paris and somebody cranking out back office code in Poland.

I have no specific knowledge about the market in Vienna, but find it easily
within the realm of plausibility. You'll still be making a 50% premium to e.g.
some fairly senior developers in the Midwest, and almost a 100% premium to
common programming wages in Nagoya.

~~~
xando
and Poland is not your target. I'ts quite sad, but and true.

Working as Python developer with 4 years of experience. Close to 23.000
eur(net), and used to think it's quite good, after this message it's no longer
true. Thanks guys ;)

~~~
rocco
Same situation in Italy.

------
FrojoS
I'm pretty sure that IBM Germany wouldn't pay you more either. Guess how
shocking I found salaries during my first time in the US ;-) Also, even though
taxes in CA are "high", taxes in Germany will prob. be a lot higher. I
recently spoke to a Norwegian who just moved here. He couldn't believe that he
has to pay more here than back home. >50% including social benefits etc. is
standard for a single.

However, you have to take into account, that, as far as I can tell, this
already includes quite a decent federal retirement package. Additional private
retirement plans are getting standard here now, but up until quite recently,
lots of people would be happy with their federal ones. My parents for instance
never bought a private plan.

Depending on what you prefer, there can be more bang for the buck, or quality
of life. For instance in my hometown Munich, rent might be higher than in any
other German city but even for European standarts its a joke. You can easily
live in the center for way under 1000 Euro per month if you're not to picky.
You can prob. reach everything incl. work, city parks and even mountains
without a car. In theory bike + train can get you anywhere. The crime rate is
a LOT lower. The best beer in town costs about 50 cents per bottle. There are
almost know bums on the streets. And so on...

As far as I can tell if you try to save money, the US is the better place to
be a high demanded employee. If you want to enjoy life, maybe central Europe
is better for you. Oh, and last but not least, don't expect to find a start up
community, larger than a few dozen entrepreneurs.

~~~
vpdn
> I'm pretty sure that IBM Germany wouldn't pay you more either.

Wrong guess, they do pay more. I worked for IBM R&D Germany right after
graduation and my salary was more than 45k, even excluding overtime, which was
paid extra.

As for Germany, there's also a gap in salary depending on the size of the
company you work for. Generally, larger cooperations pay better than smaller
ones, so if you're looking to make more money, go for the bigger players.

~~~
FrojoS
Of course, there a huge differences in salaries for the same work, even within
a company. Anyway, I know some IBM Germany employees in development/project
management who don't make 70k after >10 years of job experience. Do you have
any data to share on how much your senior peers at IBM made? Even public
German research labs pay their Phd students >38k after graduation, so your
numbers don't surprise me so far.

And many employes don't get paid overtime. They officially have to take
vacation, which again is usually not possible due to project pressure. Hence,
many vacation days become void after deadlines.

I don't have any good data on this, just what I hear from my peers. So my post
is as anecdotal as yours. However, if you look at the Heise report, my numbers
are not so far off.

I second your last point, but thats not a German/European uniqueness, right?

------
pieter
In Amsterdam as a starter you can expect somewhere between €30k and €38k,
depending on your skill set and company you're applying for. I think €45k for
a senior position sounds about right, but this really depends a lot on where
you're going to live: cost of living in for example London is much higher than
somewhere in Spain.

As an indication for taxes: €45k before taxes would probably be around €30k
after income taxes in the Netherlands.

~~~
tomh-
I've seen financial companies offering around 40k for starting developers. I
would think 30k is a bit low for a university graduate, most offers will be
around 32k - 35k I guess. 45K euro for a senior dev sounds really low to me
though!

------
mrspeaker
I can concur that the pay sucks in France - ludicrously low compared to
Australian rates (like, half!) and it's not like living expenses are lower,
that's for sure. If you're only in it for the dollars, then avoid!

However, bonuses are (at least for me) much much lower working hours. Which
means plenty of time for side projects.

~~~
FrojoS
I second this. "If you're only in it for the dollars, then avoid!"

The usual employe is expected to take all of his 6 weeks (in Germany the
minimum is 4 but 6 is standard, in France I think its 8 weeks) of vacation
even though there are lots of federal holidays and <40 hour weeks. Maybe you
can even collect over hours for additional vacation. But don't expect to get
paid for them, let alone 150%.

And yes French food is expensive. But com'on its French food!

~~~
nakkiel
That's untrue. In France high responsibility positions have a different status
(called "cadre") and there is no such thing as RTT for them (although in very
large companies they might happen to actually take them into account): there
is practically no weekly limit and it's usually anywhere between 40 to 50
hours a week (known as the "you leave when your work is done"). Holidays are
at least (and usually) 5 weeks.

~~~
eneveu
This is not always true. I am a French software programmer, with the cadre
status. I have 9 days of RTT. With the 25 paid holidays, I have almost 7 weeks
of holidays / year (34 days).

As a cadre, I am not paid by the hour: I am paid to attain results ("you leave
when your work is done"). If I can do it in 35 hours, great. If I need to work
more, so be it. I often work 40-50 hours, but it's a choice. And I have
relatively flexible hours, as long as the job is done.

Now, while the actual number of hours worked varies, and nobody keeps count of
those hours... my employment contract still specifies that I am supposed to
work 37,5 hours / week. Which is more than 35 hours. Which means I get 9 RTTs
/ year to "compensate" for working 2.5 hours more than I should (I work a lot
more in reality).

Some cadres have contracts that specify they should work 39 hours / week, and
they get 18 RTTs / year to compensate. Regardless of the actual hours worked.

Some companies have contracts that specify their cadres work 35 hours / week,
and they get no RTTs... Even though they often work a lot more than that.

FWIW, I had 9 RTTs in my current and in my previous company. Both around
100-150 people.

(note: we should have 10 RTTs, but we lost one day due to
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journ%C3%A9e_de_solidarit%C3%A9...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journ%C3%A9e_de_solidarit%C3%A9_envers_les_personnes_%C3%A2g%C3%A9es)
)

~~~
nakkiel
Oh, I'm very late. Thanks for the information, I really thought it was not
legally possible to have RTT as a cadre (a quick Google search proved me wrong
and, as I see, you too).

So I guess, that's because there was a negotiation with your employer to work
on a 37.5h per week basis and get 37.5 - 35 of compensating RTTs (hence the
name, by the way).

I remember being paid on a 35h per week basis as a cadre a few years ago. I
guess this is what led me to a broken conclusion.

BTW, I'm French too, enchanté.

~~~
eneveu
You are not late, it's me who decided to comment 11 days after you posted ;)

I think it definitely depends on the company. Maybe I was "lucky" with my
first two companies? (both SSIIs, with around 100-150 employees).

I got offered a job at a smaller company (a "PME" with less than 20
employees), and it did not include any RTTs... Which is one of the reasons I
declined (since the compensation was not better anyway...). I think small
companies have a special status re: RTTs, and do not need to give them.

------
ido
I am a programmer living in Vienna (currently self employed, but I was an
employee not that long ago).

45,000 EUR is above average programmer pay in Vienna (that is about the same
as the highest offer I ever got here, for doing java enterprise stuff about a
year ago).

Sounds about right.

However, as a contractor you can make significantly more (500-600 euros/day).

~~~
IronIvan
Hey, I am also living in Vienna (or at least close to it) and I want to get
self employed as well - any tips how to start? (already have a few years of
programming experience under my belt and soon a master in mathematics)

~~~
ido
Send me an email! My address is in my HN user page.

------
miguel_lourenco
Salaries do vary significantly between different European countries. For
example, salaries in Germany are much higher than in Spain or Portugal. Within
a country you can also expect some variation depending on the city. I don't
know about Austria in specific but I would expect higher than that.

To give you a point of comparison, in Amsterdam (The Netherlands), I've known
of several people with a salary like that, take or give 5k, and around 2-3
years of experience.

Suggestions: Check glassdoor, payscale and those types of sites. Remember to
check how much tax you're expected to pay, some countries in Europe have very
high taxes. Finally, cost of living, especially property, is a big factor in
how much your money will be worth.

------
DeusExMachina
I'm a developer living in Amsterdam. From what I see around (in job offers and
my last two employments), the pay is around 50K EUR per year for a senior
position.

In the last company I was working there were also developers getting 60K. But
they had around 10 years of experience.

~~~
bnoordhuis
Sounds about right. My base salary, no benefits, would be about 58K a year if
I worked full-time. This is in Rotterdam, where salaries are slightly lower
than in Amsterdam.

~~~
Michiel
Senior ASP.NET developer in Rotterdam (Creative Agency), BICT degree, 6 years
experience, 42K

------
dangrossman
You're comparing to the one tiny part of the US that pays programmers more
than almost anywhere in the world. If you applied for the same position in
different cities across the US, you'd also not be offered the same salary you
get in California.

------
eik3_de
Heise, an IT publisher in Germany does regular surveys of IT salaries. See
[http://www.heise.de/jobs/artikel/Wer-verdient-wie-
viel-98184...](http://www.heise.de/jobs/artikel/Wer-verdient-wie-
viel-981845.html?artikelseite=8;view=zoom;zoom=12)

~~~
FrojoS
Yeah, the German slashdot. Highly recommended if you want to get in touch with
German IT - but don't expect to much ;-)

~~~
FrojoS
For those to lazy to fire up a translator: According to the heise.de
statistic, the highest pay category for a software developer is "group/team
leader" and will get you 67 800 Euro on average.

------
jqb
Hi! :)

I'm working in Poland (Python / Django / Java (in previous job)). 3 years of
experience. My salary is ~ 10000$ / year. I've talk recently with friends who
I've been studying with, and I earn quite nice comparing to them...

~~~
djipko
I would assume that you are either talking net income or you mistyped the
number?

~~~
jqb
Yes - I'm talking about net income. I've a small mistake: ~ 10.000 Euro (not
$) / year this is ~ 14.000$ / year.

~~~
djipko
Sorry to be inquisitive even further, I am not in Poland but my friend is
thinking about moving there. Are you talking Warsaw here or a smaller town
(Krakow, Wroclaw, Tricity area)?

~~~
jqb
I'm working in Krakow, but I know that salary in Warsaw can be much more
higher.

------
maxharris
You need money to flourish like everyone else, but you say you're not in it
for the money. Then what are you after?

Are you prepared to accept that Europe's socialism (taxes and regulation) are
the cause of these low wages? Are you even open to asking yourself if this is
true?

Incidentally, how did you choose "socialist_coder" as your username? Are you
trying to be facetious by doing so, or are you serious?

~~~
socialist_coder
I'm not in it for the money as long as I can keep my current quality of life.
I enjoy traveling, eating at nice restaurants, buying gadgets, etc.

I remember back when I used to make $65,000 I was not able to do all of those
things. I had a lower quality of life.

I'm to the point now where I feel like all my monetary problems are solved. I
don't want to go backwards, but I also don't think any additional salary
increase is going to increase my happiness.

The reason I was applying for jobs in Europe was because I thought the social
benefits outweigh the lower salary. I want to live in a society where there is
a good social safety net and where there is less income inequality than in the
United States. I was prepared for a lower salary but I was expecting about 20%
lower, not 40%.

~~~
maxharris
I just re-read pg's essay, "How to Make Wealth":
<http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html>

Have you read this? I think there's plenty in it that might stretch your mind.
Here are two paragraphs taken from his essay almost at random:

"I can remember believing, as a child, that if a few rich people had all the
money, it left less for everyone else. Many people seem to continue to believe
something like this well into adulthood. This fallacy is usually there in the
background when you hear someone talking about how x percent of the population
have y percent of the wealth. If you plan to start a startup, then whether you
realize it or not, you're planning to disprove the Pie Fallacy."

...

"This is why so many of the best programmers are libertarians. In our world,
you sink or swim, and there are no excuses. When those far removed from the
creation of wealth-- undergraduates, reporters, politicians-- hear that the
richest 5% of the people have half the total wealth, they tend to think
injustice! An experienced programmer would be more likely to think is that
all? The top 5% of programmers probably write 99% of the good software."

------
toadi
Working as experienced contractor in Belgium you can make between 500 and 650
euro's per day. Less experienced can go from 350 until 500 euro's per day.

As a foreigner working in Belgium and you incorporate in a tax beneficial
country you make a decent wage.

If you are going to work as a salaried employee you will take a lot less. So
contracting work can be more lucrative.

~~~
nolite
are you doing this? Whats your recommendation as for a country to incorporate
in?

~~~
toadi
I'm a Belgian working in Belgium. So my only option is to pay Belgian Taxes.
But with my incorporation I can optimize a little bit. But in the end I pay a
lot of taxes ;)

But If I would go to work in Germany or any other Shengen country I could
optimize better.

Now for an American you first need to get a work permit:
[http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/234826/how_to_move_...](http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/234826/how_to_move_from_america_to_belgium.html?cat=37)

Then your options are open: all tax free places are possible to start your
company. You can google for these places.

------
benregn
I can't comment on what the actual average salary for a programmer in Europe
is, but you have to remember that you can't just convert straight from EUR to
USD and compare the amounts. You have to consider the cost of living etc. in
the country you are getting the offer from compared to the cost of living
where you currently live.

~~~
b0rsuk
Good point. For this, I would recommend Purchasing Power Parity. See the map
here:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity>

The "2003" map may not be the freshest, but it gives a rough estimate.
Relative to US:

    
    
      * Canada, Australia have 90%
      * Africa typically ranges from 20% to 30%. South africa is much better, often 40%.
      * Most of Asia is 20%, sometimes lower
      * Poland is 50%
      * UK, Germany, France are around 100%
      * Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Norway...) are 120% (!). Japan should be around 120% too.

------
swolpers
Depending on your skills, a "senior" developer in Berlin would earn around 45
to 60,000 € per year. If you're specializing in Ruby on Rails or Magento, for
example, you would be paid higher. Finally, don't forget the additional 20% of
social security fees that your employer would have to pay on top of your
salary.

------
gte910h
California (and NYC) pay outsized salaries compared to everywhere else.

However, your US work ethic/hours/vacation is out of wack with what you'll see
in Europe. You'll work a lot of fewer hours there in general.

Compare hours, days working vs off, etc compared to what people _Actually_
work in a california software company.

------
vpdn
> I'm not in this for the money at all

So what are you in for? Are you looking to live in Austria for personal
reasons or is the new job scope intriguing?

If former is the case, maybe sticking to your current employer and
telecommuting is an option? Or you could keep ties to the US and do
contracting work remotely?

------
davidw
Pay is generally a lot lower in Europe, compared to the most competitive
market in the world for developer talent. Be sure, however, that you're both
talking about the same things: the number before taxes, and try and get an
idea of how much actual take home pay would be.

------
alextingle
Contract rates in London seem to be just shooting up. Two years ago £600/day
was a "high" rate. Last year £700. This year several places are offering
£850/day and I've heard rumours of £1000/day or more.

If you want to live in Austria, why not work in London and just commute ;-)

~~~
ig1
I had an offer of over £1000/day a few months back (it's was for a C++ lead
dev at a firm no-one wants to work at).

~~~
eliben
I'm not sure how £1000/day even makes sense. Isn't that like £20000/month,
which computes to ~$400K/year? What am I missing? Is it only part-time because
of consulting?

~~~
ig1
It's was for an investment bank, full-time 6 month contract, they were looking
for someone who was strong at multi-threading and networking, and could be a
lead dev. That's a rare enough combination of skills.

~~~
eliben
When working this way, do you get to keep more or less of the money as
compared with a "normal" position?

Well done anyway ;-) As a lead dev myself I totally agree that people strong
with multi-threading and networking are rare.

~~~
ig1
I'm actually trying to bootstrap my startup, getting people waving wodges of
money in front of me to do contracting work instead is really distracting :P

Typically you get to keep more (generally 73%-75% of the amount), but you'll
also need an accountant to minimize your taxes and that'll cost you about a
grand a year. But in most cases it's worth it.

------
rdouble
The rule of thumb is that programmer pay is crap outside of NYC and Silicon
Valley.

------
yardie
Developer in Paris here, 45K is about right. And this city is expensive, not
as expensive as NYC, SF, or London, but definitely more than Barcelona.

Keep in mind the further south and east you go the lower the salaries.

------
christkv
yeah in Spain the average salaries are quite a bit lower than most places but
you can get around 45K if you have a couple of years of experience. Throw in
low prices, benefits (extra tax free restaurant tickets, pension plan, health
care) and in the case of Barcelona awesome weather and lot's of beaches and it
becomes more of a lifestyle decision than a pure monetary one. Yeah you might
make 60K+ in London but the taxes are higher the rent is over double and the
food is 50% more expensive.

~~~
jmra
«45K if you have a couple of years of experience» LOL that's interesting
because, you know, it's false :) replace «couple» with "more than 5 years" and
I will begin to believe you.

It's true that in BCN and Madrid things are better, but not that much. And in
London you can earn more than 60K per year.

Spain is near Poland in salaries, we have tons of people with CS degrees
(which doesn't means that they are good at programming) that make the salary
lower by offer/demand law.

To put in perspective: rent a flat (average in the south) 600 EUR/months, buy
a car 10.000EUR/30.000EUR, buy a house 150.000 EUR. And that's the south, in
BCN you can increase rent and house price nearly by 100%.

~~~
christkv
It's not that bad. I rent a 3 bedroom flat for about 850 eur and most of my
co-workers rent for between 700 - 900 eur a month. Prices have come way down
during the crisis :)

~~~
jmra
Absolutely true, my 3 bedroom flat rent in the south is now 450 EUR month ;)

------
fcardinaux
In Geneva, Switzerland, earning more than CHF 100,000 / year (ca. USD 110,000)
as a programmer is not an exception, by far. Wages are rather high here,
compared to the rest of mainland Europe. The cost of living is high, but
overall Geneva is a good place to live. It is full of wealthy institutions,
which makes it a advantageous place to work as well.

This has a two drawbacks however. First, it's not such a good thing for us
programmers to have too many cash cows in one place. Indeed, too many
employers of software engineers here are service companies that tend to
neglect the good "explorer" mind set, resting on a more lucrative "milker"
working style, and sometimes even relying on "cowboy" techniques to catch new
clients. This is very disenchanting for engineers that cross their paths.

Another issue here is that you have within the same narrow space institutions
with huge cultural distances. It is well known that Geneva has a bunch of
international organizations, as well as banks and financial institutions. It
is less known that some of the biggest tobacco industries have chosen this
area to monitor their business, and that some health organizations have to
deal with this neighborhood. If you are a sensible worker with values, all
this will put you in trouble sooner or later, and maybe in very unexpected
ways. Pragmatic programmers, beware of the cynics in pragmatism clothing!

This leads to my suggestion: think twice before you leave your friends and
beloved ones in the hope of a better salary. There are plenty of reasons to
move to other places or to explore the world, but this should not be the first
one. Instead, concentrate on the good you can do with your skills, and the fun
they can bring you.

------
sasvari
I'm not a programmer myself, but I do know about CS graduates working as 'IT
consultants' in Germany doing actual programming work getting around 50-60k
EUR/year, fresh out of college, _before_ bonuses.

to be noted, the salary variation in Germany is actually quite huge with
Munich, Stuttgart, Hamburg (and some other high salary areas) being at the
top. in some rural areas you might only get half the pay as in these
metropolian areas.

------
IronIvan
Here are statistics for germany:

[http://www.heise.de/jobs/artikel/Wer-verdient-wie-
viel-98184...](http://www.heise.de/jobs/artikel/Wer-verdient-wie-
viel-981845.html)

From my personal experience I can tell you that colleagues at the company I
previously worked for in Vienna, Austria made about 42 k / year with a several
years of experience and a masters in computer science. But pay was always an
issue there.

------
JohnIdol
It really varies a lot in my personal experience - in the UK/ROI salaries are
much higher than for senior roles, salary basically spans from 45-50K to
80-90K euros, but contracting you can easily make much more than that. In
Switzerland you get good deals, but if you cross the border to Italy you go
back to figures similar to the one you mention for Austria.

------
Xixi
I can only speak about France. In Paris you could expect maybe a little bit
more than in Vienna, but it vastly depends on the company of course (small or
large).

What you need to know if you get an offer in France :

Official working hours are 35 hours per week, and ~7 weeks of holidays, but in
small companies expect to work much more than 35 hours (and don't expect to be
pay for the extra time).

Quoted salaries are vast fantasies, not actually tie to any sort of reality.
Or, more precisely, born out of the obfuscation dreams of some bureaucrats.

A 45k "brut" salary means :

\- you get ~35k ("net" salary), on which you still need to pay income tax at
the end of the year,

\- your employer pays ~30k of "social contributions" which pays for
healthcare, retirement, unemployment insurance (if you are fired you keep
getting a large chunk of your salary for a while), and other stuff like
URSAAF, which I'm yet to figure out the purpose.

So that put the total at ~65k, but you don't see much of it.

------
jmra
In Spain you can find net salaries from 800€/month to 3000€/month (if we
forget about big banks, and top notch developers in Madrid and Barcelona).

Yeah, we have substandard salaries and we are not that crappy. This could be
the reason why many London based companies are installing here their dev
shops.

I work for one of them :)

------
gurtwo
In Madrid (Spain), an engineer with 10 years of experience in a technical role
can expect an average of 55k€ per year, before a 25% tax cut. Similar (or a
bit lower) for a programmer. I won't call it a crappy salary. You can make a
pretty decent living with that. Welcome to southern Europe!

~~~
jmra
55k€ - 25% = 41250€ = 3437,5 EUR/month... after 10 years, in Madrid, which is
expensive for Spain.

More or less in the range I told in my comment :)

------
chrido
I'm from Vienna, I would say it's quite average. To calculate taxes and to put
it into perspective you can use this online-calculator of the federal ministry
of finance:
[http://www.bmf.gv.at/service/anwend/steuerberech/bruttonetto...](http://www.bmf.gv.at/service/anwend/steuerberech/bruttonetto/_start.htm)

Comparing salaries in europe is quite difficult, in Austria, for 45,000 €,
your employer have to pay about 14,000 € taxes additionally which you don't
see on your pay slip, so the employer is spending in your case about 60,000 €.
And you have 25 holidays a year and lots of public holidays
[http://english.bmf.gv.at/Ministry/PublicHolidaysinAustria.ht...](http://english.bmf.gv.at/Ministry/PublicHolidaysinAustria.htm)
;-)

------
troels
There are a lot of variables to computing salary. What kind of industry are
you in? What kind of technology are you working with?

As others have already mentioned, Europe is a broad spectrum. Salaries in UK
and Scandinavian countries is about comparable to US. When you move south and
east from here, expect to see a drop in salaries. On the other hand, living
expenses tend to follow that trend as well.

Regardless of salary, do your self a favor and get in contact with a union in
the country you're moving to. They will know what salary to expect and they
can help you with a lot of legal things. I don't know specifically about
Austria, but in Scandinavia, unions have considerable political influence.

------
R4cOOn
Your best bet is to go for the fiscal havens in Europe: Luxembourg,
Liechtenstein, Swiss. They have really LOWER taxes and banks pay VERY well.

As a graduate and competent C# developer you can easily get 65kEUR+ per year +
car + meal vouchers working for a service company in Luxembourg. That's a bit
more than 3500EUR/month in your pocket with pension + health insurance +
unemployment etc paid for. Banks pay MUCH more than that. And European
institutions pay about 5kEUR/month net with even better pension/health
plan/etc.

It's 40 hours/week in Luxembourg and 25 days of paid holiday. I have yet to
experience unpaid overtime.

~~~
martain87
Hi R4cOOn! I've a question about work market in Luxembourg - can I send you an
e-mail? (My mail: martain87@gmail.com - please send me your address)

------
benmichael
Dont forget to factor in the welfare and pension differences between EU and
USA. I Work in Norway and people in our wider group in the USA get about 20%
more salary and a much much cheaper cost of living. That said, I get real
universal healthcare, excellent working conditions and employee rights, a
state pension and a company pension and good working hours. Dont be too
worried about getting paid less in Europe.

------
kjbekkelund
It's interesting to see the salary in different countries. I'm starting in a
junior developer position in Norway with a salary of €56k/year ($82k/year).
However, we have reasonably heavy taxes and cost of living. Another important
aspect is that our currency is crazy strong right now. Just 10 months back it
would have been about $65k/year.

------
brodd
I'm a developer in Stockholm, Sweden. Making around $72-75K a year. Pretty
average salary around here, I think?

~~~
FrojoS
How much do you get after taxes?

~~~
brodd
Around $55K I guess, maybe a little less.

~~~
FrojoS
Thanks.

I agree that there are so many things you can hardly put a prize on. Heck, I'm
sure for many people living close to Christiania in Kopenhagen is a quality of
life they would miss elsewhere.

------
zeroc8
I'm a senior developer in Salzburg, Austria (about a 1 hour drive from
Munich). 50400 Euros before taxes, which means I'm only taking home 31870 a
year. No matter how you look at it, Europe rewards lazy people and punishes
the ones doing the work. I'd stay in California, if I had a chance.

------
philluminati
€45K = $65K = £39K

In my eyes that IS a really good salary. I earn £36K (€39K) with 6 years of
experience in London.

It's certainly enough to have a quality of life in the region better than
most. Personally I think you're lucky to get the opportunity to travel and
experience another lifestyle.

~~~
JohnIdol
dude, you should be making _way_ more than that - in Ireland (not even dublin)
senior (perm) positions are going up to €70K

------
trin_
you have to take into account that cost of living will not be anywhere near sf
cost of living in germany or austria.

i cant say anything about austria but in germany 36-40k€ would be a good
starting salary for someone with a Diplom or M.Sc. straight out of college.

------
guilleiguaran
I'm working as Rails programming for a new startup in Madrid and I'm earning
40,000 EUR working as Senior. I think you can expect higher salaries in other
countries like Germany, Netherlands and Nordic countries

------
pfedor
Since you are thinking of German-speaking countries, consider Switzerland. The
pay is better than in Silicon Valley, and the taxes (in Zurich at least) are
lower.

~~~
socialist_coder
I'm trying to stay in the video game industry, and to my knowledge there
aren't many video game companies in Switzerland, but I am going to check now.
Thanks for the tip!

~~~
stebbi
Look up CCP in Iceland, they're hiring for positions in Reykjavik, Atlanta and
Shanghai.

------
bendmorris
You can find that salary for a "senior" position in Utah as well. California
salaries are much higher than the average.

------
helloworlt
I'm a programmer from Russia, Moscow. My salary is ~$3000USD per month, I
think its average picture.

~~~
porkbird
$3K is way above average in Moscow, and Moscow salaries are much bigger than
anywhere else in Russia. To give a comparison, a salary of $1K per month is
considered above average in most of the Russian cities, except for 2-4 largest
ones.

~~~
piranha
It's above average if you're not software developer or you have no experience.

------
elv
guys, <http://www.worldsalaries.org/computerprogrammer.shtml>

US has the highest income in the world for programmers. The only european
country close to US is UK, everything else is at least 50% less.

------
porkbird
What about Greece? Is, for example, 2000 EUR per month net a decent salary
there?

~~~
mino
That's a huge salary for Greece, believe me :)

~~~
jmra
In Spain/Greece most salaries for young people are 1000€/600€ month.

------
OliverSteenbuck
I made around 45K with 2 years experience at a big company in Hamburg,
Germany.

------
nolite
In Paris, its right on target

------
mdpm
Oh man.

Don't make me start on South African salaries. You'll cry.

------
itsme23
America just is the place to be. JUST FACE IT, europe sucks. They should nuke
it.

