I feel like there's a huge disconnect between salaries, job titles, and years of experience. 6/7 years experience and you're eligible for a staff software developer position at $500K a year? I've got 15 and still on 5 figures / year. In Euros, sure, but there's a huge disconnect there.
I find it weird that these companies don't have more offices in Europe, given they can easily out-compete any local companies on salary.
Do you work in a tech company or non-tech company?
I have a related question and answer in the FAQ page and am attaching it here:
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3. What does “best paying” mean?
Different types of company pay software engineer at different bands. The best paying companies are usually tech companies, where tech is the core competency of the business and software engineers are first class citizens who play a key role in building the core products, e.g. FAANG, Dropbox, Pinterest, etc. These companies pay top of market to attract top talents and build high quality software.
This differs from non-tech companies whose core competencies aren’t necessary tech but other areas. For example, a newspaper company like NY Times values editorial content over software, and an information provider like WebMD values medical expertise more.
Tech companies pay 2-3x more than non-tech companies for similar roles, and they are the focus of the RemoteSWE.fyi listing.
To learn more about compensation differences across the industry, Gergely Orosz’s Trimodal Nature of Tech Compensation is a great resource.
The most important point is that your compensation is far more sensitive to getting onto the next curve up than it is tied to your experience or your work at your current company.
This is why so many people say "Grind Leetcode, get into FAANG" as the goal in software engineering, because (at least until recently) being in FAANG even as a junior SWE pretty much guaranteed you were in the second or third curve, and once you were accepted into that curve you would generally find jobs in that same curve. With the way the software engineering job market has changed, I'm not sure that's true any more, but as recently as 2023 it was the rule of thumb.
6/7 years for staff (at a FAANG) is exceptional, I have personally never seen it. From what I have seen staff eng tend to be around 10 years of experience at the low end.
> have more offices in Europe
This has been hashed a million times:
1. Time zones
2. Lack of candidates building FAANG scale systems
3. Employment laws are hostile to employers
That being said, I have seen a lot of recruitment in Poland lately. It may not be glamorous though as people in Poland are expected to work with some amount of overlap with US time zones, so you are going to have to be working until 9pm most days.
Software engineering has trimodal compensation curves
Going between the curves isn’t tied to experience at all, but within the curves it moderately is. You should learn the field you are in if you want different results.
GB/s is one metric, but IOPS and latency are others that I'm assuming are Very Important for the applications that mainframes are being used for today.
IOPS is the most meaningless metric there is. It's just a crappy way of saying bandwidth with an implied sector size. 99% of software developers do not use any form of async file IO and therefore couldn't care less. The async file IO support in postgres has been released a month ago. It's that niche of a thing that even extremely mature software that could heavily benefit from it hasn't bothered implementing it until last month.
There's gold plated / jewel encrusted versions of phones or graphics cards [0] but that's just making things look garish for the people that want to look rich. But as far as I know there's no 'bespoke' phone manufacturer on the same level as Swiss watches or hand-built cars. No real reason either; with a watch, any performance has peaked years ago so the only thing that remains is design. Phones are mostly functional, although I suppose you could do something cool with the back side.
It’s remarkable how every market where Apple makes itself at home basically has no real luxury bracket anymore.
Almost every visible accessory or piece of functional equipment has luxury models that may be only slightly functionally better (sometimes not even better, sometimes actually worse) but also charge massive margins.
Not so much with phones, tablets, or laptops. It’s as if the world has collectively decided that you simply can’t beat Apple, which astoundingly in the meantime completely ignores the luxury market. Even if you charged $50K+ per unit—I’m sure Samsung and every other maker would love to charge exorbitant prices for end-game devices—you’ll make a fool of yourself: iPhone will objectively be more premium, work smoother, have all the high-end apps, etc. There’s no choice but to tighten your belt and thin your margins to stay competitive.
I’m not sure how this (undoubtedly impressive) achievement makes me feel. Maybe it’s the feeling of finally being able to afford one, or the ability to say “it’s a cute expensive toy, but it’s objectively worse for X and Y reasons”, but there is something about the Leicas and Ducatis of the world.
Another related interesting one is that rich people don't wear brands anymore - brands are for normal people, they're advertised to look like they are for the rich but their prices are still in range for a lot of people if they put some money aside. This starts with iphones and airpods and goes to Louis Vuitton and the like.
The tech billionaires don't wear anything branded or flashy besides their $1M watches, just good and well fitting clothes.
The definition of rich is not a tech billionaire though. It is literally anyone that can afford the LVMH and co.
It is definitely aimed at rich people just not billionaires. But yes these brands become commodity from a certain point...although one has to be rich to be fully dressed in those clothes and change / rotate every day.
In theory, these rich people can do all of those "genuine" experiences too - and the lesser famous ones probably do? - but especially kings and the like are so valuable that they can't go to "normal" places anymore, for security and safety reasons. Rich people and their families are prime targets for kidnapping and extortion.
> People no longer need 50-100 years furniture, because nobody wants to inherit old stuff anymore.
I'm going to challenge this assertion: did anyone, ever? Looking around in my parents' house (retirement age), there's no furniture from their parents (post-WW2). I don't remember whether my grandparents had any furniture of their parents in use either.
I do recall going to the charity shops and finding older wooden furniture; while I recognize it as better quality as what you can get today, at the same time it's no longer useful today. TV cabinets (with doors) for CRT TVs and video tapes, writing tables, those kinds of things are obsolete. Tables are timeless though.
But also, over time a lot of that old furniture was either destroyed or bought up and exported. What you find in the charity stores near me today is mostly 90's and onwards.
Yes. Pre-railroad people mostly didn't move and inheriting furniture was extremely helpful. Go back earlier and the cost of buying your own furniture would have been prohibitive.
My grandpa had in his attic letters from his great grandpa (great great?? not sure how many generations)'s brother back in Germany, written around 1860. The letters were in the old script not used anymore, and language (Not German, but I'm not sure what it was). Grandpa got them translated and then following the addresses discovered some [great...] granddaughter was living in the house so he sent he a copy of the letters. She then found some cabinet described in the letter and was able to find it in the barn. Until she got the letter that cabinet was meaningless to her, but now that she knows the history it is an important part of her house.
This somehow a point in your question, but I leave it to others to figure out what.
Grandpa donated the letters to the local historical society so they are accessible, though I'm not sure how.
My entire house is filled with mostly inherited stuff. I'm frugal and grew up between both lower and old money upper class but i have to say if you can make it look coherent it's fine and has saved me tons.
Where it isn't it's a mix and match of thrifted high quality and low quality stuff.
My electric standing desk and chair being one of those modern things that costed a couple of thousands but i got secondhand for a combined 200. The desk is built like a tank. For the chair i replaced the cracking armrest covers with leather.
I also have some hardwood old tables and cabinets that are a couple generations old and as functional now as they were back then.
My stepmother (in her 60s) inherited or rather lot of furniture from her parents, enough to furnish most of a house. It’s spectacular and at this point it has to be well over 100 years old. She both wanted it and has lived with it daily for coming on 40 years.
And my wife inherited three pieces from her parents and they make up much of our dining room, and her uncle gave her two pieces that he made by hand, and that did not fit into his new house. I was dubious about the stuff from her parents, but it’s beautiful if dated and we’ve gone with a very “eclectic” decorating style, no room has to look like any other room. And now I’m very grateful for all of it.
> Looking around in my parents' house (retirement age), there's no furniture from their parents (post-WW2). I don't remember whether my grandparents had any furniture of their parents in use either.
My parents are both 70+, they have 3 big cabinets from their parents, made from solid wood. I’d not mind having them in the right place. They look and handle great, only the drawers could use some finetuning ;)
Why the down-vote? I do have a >40 years old spring bed, and these "modern" beds I can get from Jysk or Ikea (or wherever it was gotten from) are awful in comparison, in fact, one of them broke after a month of use (with my ex) (it cost ~222 USD) and most modern beds I have laid on, they were all too hard for me, unlike the spring bed. The mattresses might be good, however. I have not tried the memory foam ones, for one.
actually most of my furniture is either inheritend (mostly from my grandpa and an aunt) or just "was there" in the old house (1835) I bought...
Couldn't imagine living with modern Ikea junk.
> Similarly it took me a long time to realize just how much better the veneer wood furniture and doors are compared to laminated chipwood. Price is 3-4 times higher but it lasts 5-10 times longer and is much more pleasant to use. Unfortunately you need years to notice such long-term differences, unless someone tells you.
Isn't this also down to age? That is, stuff like that built 100 years ago is - in my head - better quality.
However, this may very well be survivorship bias - of course anything built 100 years ago still around today is good, because anything that wasn't as good is long gone. Like my ikea furniture will be as soon as I try to move it.
I'm not looking into 100 years old stuff, that's mostly solid wood anyway.
I'm referring to my consistent experience of buying both laminated chipwood and veneer wood things, then seeing the former disintegrate within 5 years and the latter last 10 years with no visible damage.
It's all good now, I just wish it didn't take me 10 years to gain this knowledge. On another hand if I got it much earlier it wouldn't benefit me either because I could only afford cheap stuff anyway.
We still know how to make the things that last. Modern engineering can do better than the 100 year old things. However we also know how to make things much worse. They couldn't make chipwood 100 years ago.
>However, this may very well be survivorship bias - of course anything built 100 years ago still around today is good, because anything that wasn't as good is long gone. Like my ikea furniture will be as soon as I try to move it.
It's a 100% surviorship bias. The knockoff "ikea" style flatpack dresser that I assembled (incorrectly) when I was 12 lasted 20 years, and only finally went away because I was moving in with my girlfriend and we could afford slightly more "real" and coordinated furniture. It would have continued to work for longer.
The stuff that lasts 100 years is primarily just whatever is bought by people who treat their stuff well. That has vastly more impact than any product design excluding the modern planned obsolescence and negligence with electronics.
Basically any Toyota can make it to 250k miles, but the Million Mile Lexus is still impressive to people because it tells you about the history of the car more than the manufacturer. If you want to know what cars will make it to 1 million miles, you don't look at reliability stats, you look at what was bought by middle aged wealthy men who were good friends with very careful mechanics.
It's hilarious of you claim survivorship bias and then go on to cheerlead for Toyota. Take a step back and apply the same logic.
Of course a brand that sells appliance commuter and family hauling cars to people who are generally rich enough to buy enough extra capacity they're not flogging it and just pay to have it well maintained is gonna have them go to high miles. The first owner or two are basically "free" from a wear and tear perspective.
Meanwhile the average Nissan is getting driven hard right off the lot, missing fluid changes and the owner's kids are doing WWE in the back seat all right off the lot.
Unless you really wad it up any car will keep going until you stop maintaining it and get in a maintenance hole. If you never neglect to maintain it you'll never be in a hole where the sum total of needed maintenance is more than it's worth barring exceptional circumstances relevant to specific models with exceptionally high costs or low values.
> RESPECT. The respect you get at this level is just over-the-top. You are THE MAN in almost every circle. Governors look up to you. Fortune 500 CEOs look up to you. Presidents and Kings look at you as a peer.
This was the one that made me question the whole post. I don't for a second believe this respect is genuine. This isn't about the person you are, but the money you could spend on whoever's kissing your ass.
I mean if you can delude yourself into thinking it's genuine I'm sure it can be enjoyable, but I for one am confident anyone "up there" is scheming something. Political and economic chess. I'd rather just be wealthy enough but unknown.
I find it weird that these companies don't have more offices in Europe, given they can easily out-compete any local companies on salary.
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