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Comment by ttul | Hacker News Reader

This was my thinking as well. The power and wealth of the big-five tech companies is staggering, with their smaller siblings (Uber, Cloudflare, AirBnB, Dropbox, etc.) trailing not far behind. It is very tough for startups to compete with public companies who can offer liquid RSUs monthly along with whatever salary is necessary to close the deal.

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.. I should add: This is a great time to be an engineer. Enjoy it while it lasts. The time to be a founder will be after the next recession.

My non US experience is I have seen no correlation of the boom/bust cycles and "how good it is to be an engineer". I realize that FAANG employees are of course raking it in like never before. But I thought that was because of a lack of a salary cartel and general software eating the world.

Yes GP probably meant it's a great time to be an engineer in the US other countries not so sure.

There is a cascading effect on software engineer compensation worldwide.

True to a degree. Thanks to the huge influx of SV companies opening up shops in Eastern Europe, even if it's just outsourcing the "boring stuff", has led to an increase in local tech salaries that they're now rivaling Western Europe.

Not that Western Europe has big IT salaries compared to the US. It never seemed to me that IT is viewed in EU as this big growth engine compared to the USA and salaries and prestige seem to reflect it.

That is changing as well. US tech companies are hiring more and more across Europe, and the local startup ecosystem is growing also. Some local founders who have made money in the US are coming back and seeding local startups, which has an accelerating effect. Another factor is remote work, with some developers getting nearly US-level salaries while living in Europe. The result is a new class of ultra-well-paid software developers enjoying the good life in many European cities. It's still a niche phenomenon, but not for long. The SF Bay Area was in the same place around 2011-2012. I expect a massive wave of gentrification and anti-tech sentiment in Europe in 2-5 years, similar to what the US is experiencing now.

Maybe I'm not in a good niche anymore, but seems to me many US companies are setting up local shops which means they won't hire you remotely as an independent contractor but as a local employee / contractor which has much lower rates.

There are some lucky few that still manage this or some that even manage to get US-level rates doing open source but that's like winning the lottery; outliers.

Yes, most of those new bigtech/startup employees are getting compensation in the local band. But they are in the very top of that band, and gradually shifting it up as US companies compete for talent, and VC-funded local companies start competing more seriously as well.

It’s a gradual process but in my experience it’s very real.

This gradual process might also happen because compensation has to cover the costs. While some things have kept their prices seems to me some services have gone way up. I was just discussing that a hotel we went to long ago basically tripled their prices. Real estate is also up.

Do you have any examples of cities or companies that pay well in Europe relative to the CoL?

Lost generation

Quite a bold claim. Care to give reasoning?

A colleague explained it to me like this:

"During a recession, all the big companies will tighten their budgets and not throw money to copy your products"

They then pointed out that all the companies that took off in the 10s started during the 2008 recession.

Look at what happened to Snapchat for an example of what happens when other companies have money to spend to catch up with your product quickly.

2008 was also when the iPhone SDK unleashed massive opportunity.

Waymo offers Waymo RSUs which are not liquid.

Yes, but they are worth waymo than your typical startup options.

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