Akka
Moody old mage.
Of course I would be insane to not accept 4 weeks for 30k.
But then I would simply only work those 4 weeks and drop the other work
As you said, the actual point is to, in the end, buy free time.
What is a good wage?
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But then I would simply only work those 4 weeks and drop the other work
As you said, the actual point is to, in the end, buy free time.
Narz
keeping it real
I spent about a week in Panama city and while the average working person is poorer than the average working new yorker I saw almost no homeless whereas in US cities you see about as many homeless as pigeons.
I visited this cute girl's hometown when I was there. Right near the sea. Lot of buildings unfinished, with parts of them having no roofs and certainly no air conditioning (though most seemed to have electricity) but no one seemed to be hungry, some guy offered me some crabs he'd caught, kids playing football between the buildings. I'm sure living there wouldn't be so romantic but I'd choose it in a heartbeat over sleeping rough in the US. We walked to the water & Yennii's little bro was showing me his plastic snorkel and we ended up playing catch w it and the current caught it & brought it out to sea. I felt so guilty I got him a new one back in the states plus a chess set & some other toys.
Anyway, life expectancy almost the same last i checked (between us and panama).
In the US being poor is considered disgusting and shameful whereas other places its like whatever, it sucks but its not some moral failing just a matter of reality.
This is just my subjective experience based on no study whatsoever (save life expectancy thing)
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Wages might. Skills won't. It's only because people require money to literally survive while the top X% hoard gajillions that we've got into the situation where skills correlate with wage, as supposed to skills simply being pursued for being skills. For being useful.
I was a programmer long before I was getting paid for it.
aelf
Ashen One
My role in tech pays a lot better in the US. Things are just a lot more advanced over there. Over here, I'm below the median wage for my age group and profile.
Of course, the places where such roles would be in the US would also have much higher living expenses. I'd say my wage is decent here. Someone like me in the US might be having a good wage, expenses considered.
Of course, the places where such roles would be in the US would also have much higher living expenses. I'd say my wage is decent here. Someone like me in the US might be having a good wage, expenses considered.
First, workers' wages have little impact on the top 15%? of the population no matter what they are. They are too rich to be affected. You, interestingly, want to divorce wages from skills. From a business stand point this makes little sense: pay for for people and not what they contribute to the success of the company. Wouldn't that just make companies less successful? Are better programmers worth more if to companies and people if their work has fewer bugs or problems? Would you rather have me or @uppi planning out your physics experiments?
Wages correlate with skill, but the confounding variable that we live with is scarcity. So a widespread skill set, no matter how useful overall, doesn't command wages anywhere near its utility.
This is why multi-millionaires can be completely dependent upon their smartphone and computer terminal to maintain their wealth, but because everybody over the age of 20 knows how to use them, no one gets to command income from helping out the old person retain their fortune.
This is why multi-millionaires can be completely dependent upon their smartphone and computer terminal to maintain their wealth, but because everybody over the age of 20 knows how to use them, no one gets to command income from helping out the old person retain their fortune.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
Well that's the idea, available if you want it. But it just means dropping the next year's work after working the last year's accumulated vacation. That's the American system right now. You're only expected to stay with your SWE employer for about a year. So if you take a year off you can come back to the industry living off those savings. Or grind through a few years, compound that interest, and take off even more years. If 30k saved is enough for you to take a year off, then doing that 4 times, doubling it in under a decade, you have 400 weeks free from 16 weeks worked. Do it a few more times and keep compounding for longer...Of course I would be insane to not accept 4 weeks for 30k.
But then I would simply only work those 4 weeks and drop the other work
As you said, the actual point is to, in the end, buy free time.
That $30k is the real difference for entry level USA vs what I gather about Sweden from the OP. Can be even bigger, if you check https://levels.fyi
I get 3 weeks paid vacation.* Other firms that pay more than mine offer "unlimited" PTO which leads to a culture of no vacations, many give 4-6 weeks as well.
So the OP offers a vision for his time + money + safety-net riches vs USA counterpart. I'm in California so If I lose my job, my health coverage in some ways improves, in all practical ways stays the same. I get social security, reduced taxes for paying into private retirement, etc. I'm pretty sure my taxes are already lower as a percent of my income, so I'm happy to call it a wash, even though taxes + benefits I might be ahead here.
This leaves money + value of vacation time. So 15 days vacation vs $30,000. That's $2,000 a day. Would any of you reduce your bank account by $2000 just to have one more day of vacation?
* I thought I had only two, but in the past couple days I re checked and it's three. So for the thought exercise, you can keep the same dollars but shorten it from four weeks to three weeks.
Lexicus
Deity
If I had enough money of course I would. If you have $100 billion, say, $2000 is nothing.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
But to our Swedish friend telling me the prosperity per capita of the USA is more like Mexico than Sweden, would he on his take home wage ever pay $2000 just to get the day off, no emergency and activities not included
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
Well I guess by the logic exercise I suppose the answer is already yes, but I don’t think so once you liberate the trade from the embedded social structure, aka ask plainly and broken down to discrete units.
Kouvb593kdnuewnd
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It is pretty meaningless to compare $ numbers without knowing the cost of living, especially in USA in which I've been told in a cheap location, someone who earn $50k per year can be significantly better off than someone who live in an expensive location and earn $100k. Maybe you can find a way to avoid the huge expenses, but that don't seems realistic for most people.
Compared to Sweden I've been told the work conditions in USA is often significantly worse, it is not just about vacation time but the day to day work, not uncommon to talk with american software developers that stay at office for like 10 hours and they don't seems to have anywhere near as much money to just work a year and then be able to quite their job and like everyone say how bad the social safety net is, like basically USA don't even have one to even talk about. It seems to be a country in which people seems to worry about even the most basic things like being able to afford education for their children, being able to pay for healthcare and being able to afford food every day.
I very much doubt you move from job to job every year in software industry in USA, maybe once every few year, but I doubt any serious company would hire anyone who just stick around for a year in an industry in which it may take a year or two to really be able to contribute. Sure there are people who have it well in USA, but that group seems to represent a significantly smaller % of the population than in like Sweden while the people having it bad seems to be much higher in USA than Sweden and I get feeling that apply even to things like software development and a major contributing reason why life expectency in USA is lower than in countries like Sweden.
Like this don't seems particular well of
Compared to Sweden I've been told the work conditions in USA is often significantly worse, it is not just about vacation time but the day to day work, not uncommon to talk with american software developers that stay at office for like 10 hours and they don't seems to have anywhere near as much money to just work a year and then be able to quite their job and like everyone say how bad the social safety net is, like basically USA don't even have one to even talk about. It seems to be a country in which people seems to worry about even the most basic things like being able to afford education for their children, being able to pay for healthcare and being able to afford food every day.
I very much doubt you move from job to job every year in software industry in USA, maybe once every few year, but I doubt any serious company would hire anyone who just stick around for a year in an industry in which it may take a year or two to really be able to contribute. Sure there are people who have it well in USA, but that group seems to represent a significantly smaller % of the population than in like Sweden while the people having it bad seems to be much higher in USA than Sweden and I get feeling that apply even to things like software development and a major contributing reason why life expectency in USA is lower than in countries like Sweden.
Like this don't seems particular well of
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Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
Life expectancy in the USA is like 78 years, Sweden is 82. Life expectancy is lower here due to a mixture of things, most involving poverty, opium, and cocaine, which is ultimately one category, and as a long tail brings down the mean. The median life expectancy in the USA is about 83. And once you get to the salaries of an engineer here, it's more like 85.
All the SWE is basically done in rich states, which isn't a coincidence on both ends of the cause and effect, and is most pronounced in the metro I live in. The safety net here is pretty solid. As I said I get high quality free healthcare (no payments at all, short waits, vision, dental, and mental included). I can get food assistance, unemployment checks, free/subsidized schooling that comes with living expense help, etc.
As for grueling 10 hour days in the office, I'm at work right now, in my house, with nothing to do but watch training videos and practice on personal projects with almost no oversight. Most companies are remote or hybrid (four days in office every two weeks), and the hours go way down in time. One of my fellow bootcamp mates has been working backend, remotely, about 15 hours a week, getting over 100k, and is now swole, I mean ripped, with all his gym time.
Your serious doubts about how the industry work are skwed. In your early years you are expected, and even preferred, to move around. This is one ecosystem and everyone wants the talent pool to be better, which exposure to different companies provides. So companies hope you jumped around before you end up with them; they hope they can get you to stay, which they do by offering stock on top of salary that takes a couple years to lock in.
This means you're getting paid even more. On levels.fyi, median total compensation here is over $230,000, with above 90th percentile at over $440,000. That means that over 10% of engineers here are making almost or over half a million per year. However, average entry level TC is around $120,000.
Over half of the 350,000 engineers here half under 5 years experience, and the numbers are that high.
My question about how much you're willing to spend was based on the assumption you're making $60k with 6 weeks vacation comparing against a $90k salary with 2 weeks of vacation, and let's be real, showing how it's better. But if you want a more realistic comparison it can be $120,000 with 4 weeks, which is putting your daily extra vacation time-cost at $6000 instead of $2000.
When it comes to cost of living, it doesn't scale linearly. But cost of living in SF is almost double Stockholm, with about 75% of that difference coming from rent prices. So that's going to keep entry level more similar, but once you scale to having a few years of experience, the housing premium levels off, and the USA compensation is leagues ahead... and that's when our lower marginal taxes really kick in as well.
No one is calling you or Sweden poor, but yes you should be fighting for a fair wage and no you aren't getting one. But I acknowledge your life might be good enough that it's alright.
All the SWE is basically done in rich states, which isn't a coincidence on both ends of the cause and effect, and is most pronounced in the metro I live in. The safety net here is pretty solid. As I said I get high quality free healthcare (no payments at all, short waits, vision, dental, and mental included). I can get food assistance, unemployment checks, free/subsidized schooling that comes with living expense help, etc.
As for grueling 10 hour days in the office, I'm at work right now, in my house, with nothing to do but watch training videos and practice on personal projects with almost no oversight. Most companies are remote or hybrid (four days in office every two weeks), and the hours go way down in time. One of my fellow bootcamp mates has been working backend, remotely, about 15 hours a week, getting over 100k, and is now swole, I mean ripped, with all his gym time.
Your serious doubts about how the industry work are skwed. In your early years you are expected, and even preferred, to move around. This is one ecosystem and everyone wants the talent pool to be better, which exposure to different companies provides. So companies hope you jumped around before you end up with them; they hope they can get you to stay, which they do by offering stock on top of salary that takes a couple years to lock in.
This means you're getting paid even more. On levels.fyi, median total compensation here is over $230,000, with above 90th percentile at over $440,000. That means that over 10% of engineers here are making almost or over half a million per year. However, average entry level TC is around $120,000.
Over half of the 350,000 engineers here half under 5 years experience, and the numbers are that high.
My question about how much you're willing to spend was based on the assumption you're making $60k with 6 weeks vacation comparing against a $90k salary with 2 weeks of vacation, and let's be real, showing how it's better. But if you want a more realistic comparison it can be $120,000 with 4 weeks, which is putting your daily extra vacation time-cost at $6000 instead of $2000.
When it comes to cost of living, it doesn't scale linearly. But cost of living in SF is almost double Stockholm, with about 75% of that difference coming from rent prices. So that's going to keep entry level more similar, but once you scale to having a few years of experience, the housing premium levels off, and the USA compensation is leagues ahead... and that's when our lower marginal taxes really kick in as well.
No one is calling you or Sweden poor, but yes you should be fighting for a fair wage and no you aren't getting one. But I acknowledge your life might be good enough that it's alright.
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Kouvb593kdnuewnd
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As I said before it don't matter how much you earn if the cost of living is very high, like I've heard $300k may only be middle class in expensive areas in USA and talking about what the top 10% earn is pretty meaningless because most people won't reach the top 10%. Most of the information I can find and talking with people living in USA and working as software developers don't seems to support your claims.
I earn enough to probably be able to get a mortage, support a family and not worry about retirement while also getting 6 weeks vacation, seems much harder to get that in USA, especially with 0 years of experience.
I earn enough to probably be able to get a mortage, support a family and not worry about retirement while also getting 6 weeks vacation, seems much harder to get that in USA, especially with 0 years of experience.
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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You are assuming that the indoctrination to behave like a little nice homo economicus works on everyone. It is not so. I would not take that deal. It's like the joke of Churchill and the lady prostitute...
Work benefits are not for sale. Vacations are not for sale, period.
And outside the "advanced economies, where it may be a minority now that wouldn't, in the so-called "developing world" you have likely majorities who do not take those deals. To the continued fury of liberals whose tools are then to attempt to starve them to death in order to "modernize" them in line with capitalist thought. "They don't show up for work after getting paid!"... oh the drama for the capitalists.
Kouvb593kdnuewnd
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Compare USA progress in life expectency to Chile, which was far behind in 1960 but now significantly ahead, I suspect the overall economic conditions of american population is not particular better than in Latin America to be honest and several states seems to do very poorly and even the best ones is maybe nowdays no better than like Chile. Just because USA on paper look much richer don't mean that people there have it significantly better or better at all.
Lexicus
Deity
Have you ever been to either Latin America or the United States? How many American friends do you have? How many from Latin America?
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
Most people won't be born Swedish either, what's your point?
We're discussing wages as they pertain to software engineering.
You are saying you can't find things to support my claims. Google is an important skill as an engineer. I only linked this like twice https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/san-francisco-bay-area
But like, you're talking to me directly. I am in the industry, I am obviously credible by anyone with half a brain here at cfc. I live where there are 300,000 software engineers... this is the main place for this industry in the world. What are you looking at to think being a developer here doesn't provide well?
Kouvb593kdnuewnd
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Which don't tell me anything like, you can find people there living in cars while working in software development jobs. From what I've talked with people San Fransico, New York and other locations in USA it seems they only earn high wages on paper because once you take account for their expenses it don't end up sounding fancy at all.
This give a much lower wages for SF: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/...veloper-salary-SRCH_IL.0,13_IM759_KO14,32.htm
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