Companies asking if your desired salary is negotiable.

I wish I had the guts to just say something like that.

Me: No problem. I'll adjust my performance accordingly.

Them: I'm sorry, what?

Me: You get what you pay for.

Guys, what does a typical HR person earn.
More than us Engineers?

Don't take the job if the salary isn't what you want or think you're worth

@Hackshay Usually not. Well, the range for development is wider.

I can only speak about my own country... Typical would be €25-35k/y for common HR employees, maybe €40-45k for a department lead.

At a small website building studio you might fetch €25k updating ancient jquery plugins. A mobile dev gets around €35k, a skilled backend dev or database admin could expect €45-55k, tech leads maybe €50-60k, specialist stuff like security or finance could hit €60-80k. 6 figures is actually rare here apart from some CEOs, probably due to high tax brackets and good public services.

A lot is determined by supply/demand of course: Plenty of people learn some CSS, very few people learn in-depth Scala.

@bittersweet thanks so much, that was really a very good info.

I tend to give better than my previous best at everything I do even if I said I won't. Yeah, that's the kind of self-destructive person I am. :'(

@bittersweet Admittedly, those numbers sound a bit surprising at first (though slightly less so when you add 20% for EUR=>USD). While my experience is admittedly limited due to being self-employed my entire coding career, from what I've picked up over the years it feels like the salaries for comparable positions over here are about double if you're working for a medium+ size company.

@Kaji The difference is that in the US, you pay less income tax and have less publicly provided services. So you need to earn more.

Benefits like pension, various insurances, transport and lunch are commonly paid for by the employer here, because there are a lot of tax deductions for those things.

The highest tax bracket is 52%, which starts at €68k. This suppresses higher incomes, because the benefit for the employee is lower compared to the costs to the employer.

The high income tax does help subsidize things like healthcare. Breaking Bad wouldn't happen in NL because a disability insurance would pay most of his income, and his hospital bills would max out at €385/y.

The US is better for people who can take responsible decisions and assess risks accurately, but less forgiving to the inept and unfortunate.

@bittersweet
@Kaji
I love how we are discussing about income , taxation and social parameters in Europe and USA..

I am currently in same dilemma..
I am planning for my masters .. specifically looking at 2 countries Germany and USA..
Ofcourse I am researching about Universities, But am confused which country would give me better Return on Investment.

I have lived in New York City for an year, so I do understand little bit how USA is..
But Germany is totally new for me,

does Germany provide good Return on Investment? (Sorry I don't know how to put this in more correct words)

@Hackshay European universities are certainly MUCH cheaper in terms of tuition.

What the best choice is depends on reputation of the University, how you will pay for it (parents, loan, job, scholarship), what kind of visa you (can) get, etc.

For computer science bachelor's, TU Munich is ridiculously cheap (I think around €300/y even for international students) and quite reputable. ETH Zurich is €1082/y, and ranked #2 in the world for CS, after Oxford. And the American Stanford University, #3 in the world, is like $48k/y. Of course it's not all about tuition, Zurich is a bit more pricy to live, and a bit more protective regarding students visa, Germany hands it visa easily but housing can be hard to find, etc. Also note that very few European universities have an on-site campus with living accommodations.

But I think studying in Europe is a really good affordable option for US students though.

I think the difference in quality is fairly minimal, and most US companies actually appreciate well-travelled globalist employees.

@bittersweet

Thanks.. this was very informative.
I forgot to mention by the way, that I am from India... and currently looking at Universities in Germany for Masters.

From my research I looked at various universities and looks like Germany has very fine universities.

My query was, does Germany provide Return on investment, as in how do German companies pay if I work as engineer there.. and is tax in Germany high like other European countries
(I understand this high tax in other Countries is because of good health care and other public welfare reasons)

Also came across RWTH Aachen University in Germany..
It looked like a nice university, any thoughts on this.

@Hackshay As a Dutch citizen, I'm not super knowledgeable about German education, apart from the employees we hired from Berlin & Munich.

If residence permits/citizenship are no issue, I'd pick a college without necessarily considering employment yet. The main startup/dev hubs are London, Berlin, Amsterdam & Paris, but there are "specialist" hubs like Frankfurt (finance), Leiden (pharma), Eindhoven (engineering), etc.

A lot of the financial stuff balances out pretty well: Salaries are high in London, but so is rent/mortgage.

The best advice I can give you is to find an affordable place to live in a town NEXT to a major city, but still close to a train station. People often get obsessed about living within a capital, which inflates house prices, even though cheaper houses are close by.

I think the advantage of Germany is that they are pretty globally minded -- I've been to offices in London and Paris, and there were noticeably fewer foreign devs.

@bittersweet
Thanks so much , this was really helpful.

I am leaving for Germany maybe in August, will give a shout out in DevRant community , maybe someone might belong to the area where I am planning to go.

Job here for 21$/h CAN ... She get job at 21$/h XD