7 ms·
> A web and software developer in Africa earns from $10,000 to $20,000 dollars per annum whereas their colleagues in Europe and the US earns at least $100,000 d
by benzoate 7y ago
> A web and software developer in Africa earns from $10,000 to $20,000 dollars per annum whereas their colleagues in Europe and the US earns at least $100,000 dollars per year.
This is nowhere near true for Europe, the floor is more like $30,000, probably less in some areas.
- fopen64 7y agoLots of software developers (mainstream ones, but even someones that deserve way more) make no more than that in LATAM.
- enriquto 7y agowhat is LATAM? You mean the airline?
- liveoneggs 7y agoLATin AMerica
- saipardhu 7y agoYou could've simply typed it fully at first.
- uryga 7y agooff topic, but "latam" means "I am flying" in Polish, so it's a good name for an airline!
- PhasmaFelis 7y agoNot true for the US, either. I wish it was! Maybe in big coastal tech cities, and there are exceptions even there.
- adventured 7y agoThe median Web developer in the US earns close to $70,000. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/web-developers.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/... $100,000 however is definitely not all that typical for Web developers. You have to be in the top quarter or so. The line for the top 10% of Web developers begins at $124,000. For software developers in the US on the other hand, the median pay is up to $105,000 for 2018. The line for the top 10% (roughly 125,000 people) starts at $167,000. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- foobiekr 7y agoThis matches my personal experience. Developers in fully-developed countries like France, Italy and the UK are typically well under $100k USD per year on average, with a few outliers above that, at least for most companies, and falling very rapidly when you start talking about Poland, Estonia and so on. After tax incentives some of these areas are amazingly inexpensive. I think people overestimate the compensation outside the Bay Area and India due to lack of experience, and even those in 2nd tier regions (US-TX, US-NC, ...) still overestimate European and Canadian compensation whereas they likely know very accurately what compensation for India and China looks like.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mcv 7y agoI'm still regularly surprised at how underpaid programmers in western Europe often are. I mean, it's a solid job, but if you want to make more money, you have to become a manager, and that's really sad. Working freelance makes it a lot better, and demand for our skills is sky-high, but when I read about American salaries, I still wonder we we're being paid less. If African programmers make $20k, that's not that much less than what I made when I started out, nearly 20 years ago.
- foobiekr 7y agoI used to wonder why salaries were so low in Canada considering that, at one time, Canada had a pretty decent industry (QNX, Nortel, a lot of NMS/EMS companies, etc.). At least with Canada, the basic answer IMHO is that the country doesn't value software technology or perhaps even technology in general. It is basically a resource extraction economy that has killed off most high technology over a long period (including aerospace). In contrast, there does not seem to be any ready answer for the UK and continental Europe and so it's a mystery to me. Germany had just as big a small computer boom in the late 1970s and especially the early 1980s that gave rise to my generation in the US so why didn't a huge industry come out of it? The UK had a similar setting and a similar outcome.
- doktrin 7y agoYeah, 6 figures USD as a minimum basically describes SV and NYC, and that's it.
- rurban 7y agoTexas also.
- ilikehurdles 7y agoNo, I wouldn't even say Texas is close to 100k starting. Lower end of the bell curve is closer to 65-70k in Austin. Average (across all levels of seniority for software engineer) likely falls somewhere in the low 100s. Just basing this on a quick search and my personal experience working in Austin around 2012-2015.
- trashcan 7y agoWere you working downtown?
- ilikehurdles 7y agoNo. But like I said just take a peek at any job site that lists aggregate salaries. Starting numbers in Texas are not at 6 digits.
- rurban 7y agoThey are in Houston and Dallas, in the proper industry as SW dev.
- daman 7y agoSeattle pay is in that same range, but I agree, a few coastal cities.
- viklove 7y agoFresh grads are getting 100k in Chicago as well
- ousta 7y agonowhere true and stupid to compare. id rather make 20k in africa than 80k in europe.
- lesiki 7y ago> id rather make 20k in africa than 80k in europe. You criticise the comparison then proceed to make a vacuous one yourself. An anecdote to disprove your generalisation: I used to work in Europe (Reading, UK) and now work in Africa (Nairobi, Kenya) and can confirm that 80k in Reading would give me a far higher quality of life than 20k in Nairobi. Africa and Europe are both large, diverse places, just no point making a statement like this.
- ousta 7y agoyeah. my comment was as stupid as the article. Unlike the article I just don't have a first page on HN. your anecdote barely holds btw. comparing nairobi on of the most expensive cities of africa to a third tier city in england. just compare it to london to see. Consumer Prices in Nairobi are 43.15% lower than in Reading Consumer Prices Including Rent in Nairobi are 49.86% lower than in Reading Rent Prices in Nairobi are 63.97% lower than in Reading Restaurant Prices in Nairobi are 49.25% lower than in Reading Groceries Prices in Nairobi are 44.13% lower than in Reading Local Purchasing Power in Nairobi is 78.67% lower than in Reading
- sctb 7y agoWe've banned this account for posting mostly unsubstantive comments. We're happy to unban accounts if you email hn@ycombinator.com and we believe you'll start using the site as intended. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- emsy 7y agoBefore or after taxes? 30k before seems rather low for western Europe
- pantalaimon 7y agoThat's not unheard of for an entry level position in Berlin.
- postit 7y agoIf someone is willing to pay 30k to take my teenager from gaming all day long they can have him.
- loopbit 7y agoThat's a decent mid-level developer salary in many parts of western europe.
- ido 7y agoThat's just over €2.2k per month (after USD->EUR conversion). It's on the low end for junior devs in Berlin but not unheard of (although even among entry level positions many would start higher than that). I earned less when I just started working as a programmer (albeit awhile ago). However, after a couple years you can expect to earn significantly more: within about ~15 years I went from ~€2k/m to ~€6k & I'm pretty sure I haven't yet reached my salary ceiling. I'm sure in "bad" markets (Southern Europe and/or smaller towns) you will have worse pay but I would bet in most or all major (North-)Western European cities my experience will not be untypical. I think the main issue is that the term "Western Europe" couples the badly paid south with the better paid north.
- zerr 7y agoPortugal, Spain, Italy, Greece - interestingly, better the weather, worse the wage :)
- ivanhoe 7y agoIn many parts of Eastern Europe $20-30K USD a year is considered a fairly good salary... but then again there you can rent a place for 300 euros, and everything else also costs a lot less than in West, so that needs to be taken into the account - because after all a profit is income minus expenses, not just the income...
- arcticbull 7y agoAdjusting for purchasing power of earnings in their home countries flattens out the numbers too. In South Africa, PPP is 1.63$/$, so that's actually a range of $16,300 to $32,300 in purchasing power. In Nigeria, PPP is 3$/$ so that's closer to $30,000-$60,000 in purchasing power. In Canada the average software developer gets paid $70,000USD, which is $59,500 in purchasing power.
- fellellor 7y agoWith 20000 USD you can have a very comfortable middle class life in India. One interesting thing to note is that India has among the highest divergence between Nominal GDP and Purchasing Power Parity numbers.