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While my company headquarters is local to me, I am considered remote. Phoenix-based and pull about $145k as a "DevOps" engineer. That's probably on the upper end in my market without extending into platform architecture. I'd say most seem to be around $110-$125k on average. We have a strong tech market like Texas and the Bay Area but tend to be the more "affordable" between the two.
Not that low. You'd be lucky to find anyone willing to work for £24k ($30k) anywhere in the UK for a programmer / web-dev role as a fresh graduate. In London, you would be closer to that $50k for a fresh graduate role. As soon as you have a year or two of experience, you should easily be able to move to another company for better salary.
There's also a massive shortage of good programmers at the moment, so I'd expect salaries to increase everywhere. I'm less familiar with other tech sectors, but it's probably a similar situation.
Central/East Europe: Usually 20-40k/y - if u work as employee (no my case) in some usual/or average company
so low... when consider prices are already near to west EU - for living
As many have already touched up on, it's highly dependent on many different factors. it also really depends on what kind of talent you're looking for.
I don't work in hosting (management consultancy/strategy), but on average my practice makes around 150k~250k/yr per employee, obviously more senior or accomplished individuals making more (some are a few mil a year) and those who are younger in their careers making less (80k for those fresh out of undergrad). I will admit, my compensation is significantly higher than mid-level (non-admin) tenure track faculty position at a R1 university, and I'm still very early with the doctorate (however, there's a reason why I didn't go pure data science route for the "crazier TC").
In a related way, tech counterparts probably make around 50k/year more due to the stock options they offer (but, in my opinion, less flexibility for promotions and opportunities for leadership). However, we've been getting like 20%+ raises every 6 months so it's one of those "up and out" systems with the expectation that you'll hit a director level position fairly early on in your career. Basically, it's another one of those firms that people find prestigious like "ex-googler" except from a management/business perspective.
Primary driver of compensation is usually:
Many firms can also diversify this based on their recruitment location. For example, you can recruit in San Francisco but maybe your $$$ will stretch further in Dallas. As far as the firm's concerned, that 500k in capital might be able to get you 3 employees in Dallas versus 2 employees in San Francisco or other HCOL areas. It's also why it's been a strategy for some early startups to move to a low cost of living area like Thailand and the co-founders live/hire there.
A startup I was actively working on is currently operating out of Kenya (thanks to a ton of non-diluting funds and other factors) and our funding from the UN and BMG Foundation would only last us a few months in places like San Francisco, but stretched significantly further in Africa, especially with the amount of affordable talent we've had access to. However, You really do need to operate like $1mil/month sometimes to get the right level of talent or even hit the right performance metrics within the acceptable time period.
Wow sorry for missing this entire section. Yeah I'm also in the Northeast USA.
Yes, EU/UK salaries are that low. HOWEVER, remember the US takes so much in taxes and (due to the health insurance market) those living in the US carries a significantly higher medical risk than our European counterpart that at the end of the day. Basically, if you live in the US, you're living with higher financial risks as so many organizations are focused on minimizing their own exposure surface and yet maximizing profits. US does have significantly inflated/increased salaries than the rest of the world though, so if you're fortunate to have great health and good luck, you'll easily be set for life. (I'll stop with the promo for universal healthcare bit. I love the US but holy shit do we have so many dickweeds who misunderstand the purpose of taxes). Remember, these systems are financed using different models and methods, so comparing direct taxes from one country to the other is not really a representative/comparative view.
But at the end of the day, yeah you make a lot more in the US than Europe hands down. But money isn't everything, since with that elevated compensation you're also taking on significantly more known and unknown financial risks. Not saying everyone's hunky dory in Europe and most of Asia, but at least you don't have to worry about medical expenses as much.
Just to re-iterate my point, no not all UK salaries are that low. You'd be hard pressed, for example, to find a senior programmer for less than $50k anywhere in the UK before COVID, and in London probably $60k, and in the last year it's definitely been a jobhunter's market.
Agreed. Based on various factors (YOE being a standard benchmark many people seem to use which would define the level of "senior programmer") you're going to see higher or lower compensations. Also, everyone can negotiate their own unique levels for compensation (they'll say otherwise, but... come on). However, this is a back-of-the-napkin rough cut on everything.
The last year has been unique and has definitely seen a significant shift up in compensations and titles. I'm not a labor expert and I won't forecast what will happen in the future, but I hope it sticks around.
At the end of the day (and this may come off as arrogant) all these jobs have to service a business function. Noone will hire a senior SDE unless there's a business need for those skillsets (the old why hire someone for 500k compensation to accomplish a task a 150k comp person can do). There are many startups where SDEs take the business question in their own hand and try to navigate around that, but again then you have to make the business case yourself. I mean that's a startup, you have a technology that you're still trying to find the funding model for (and perform those experiments on investor capital). That means economics will still come into play and, at the end of the day, business decisions will be made based on those metrics.