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Comment by astone26 | Hacker News Reader

Dev costs are around 40-45 USD per hour for a lower average in Ukraine. Annual salary would be closer to 90K.

Is that 90k the "lower average"? In Ukraine? I find that very hard to believe. Even here in Czechia that would put you firmly in the top 5 %. I don't think I personally know more than 2 people who make anything like that, and one of them isn't even in IT.

They're hired through a firm generally speaking. I don't know anyone that hires directly. So you pay for the overhead and HR management. etc etc

Top 5% overall or top 5% of dev jobs? Former sure, latter might be not? I live in Prague, and there are definitely multiple companies that pay more than 90k to middle positions. especially if it's before taxes.

That's right. 90k is the correct value for a mid-level (real, productive) developer across Europe. 40-50k is possible, but for entry-level positions.

If you look at engineering salaries in Germany, 90-100k is what you pay for a senior engineer or PM, not a mid-level one.

Salary is not the same as paying a contractor. So, while salaries for senior engineers is 100k, as a contractor they might be charging 150K per year ($75/hr).

Yes, true.

Is this the thing where the 99th percentile people somehow think they're the average? I see that a lot on Reddit for some reason.

It is a selection bias, plus perception that the people with more (the 0.01%) are a lot more common. "I dream of being rich, and to me rich is..."

More specifically:

To be in the top 10% of earners in the USA, you need an annual income of at least $148,812

To be in the top 5% of earners in the USA, you need an annual income of at least $352,773

The median salary in the USA is approximately $59,428 per year

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