Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

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> Engineering pay in the EU is bad

Yes, but it is comparable to the pay received in Asia - especially peer developed countries like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

The issues that have lead to laggard innovation in the EU outside of niches like Biopharma are institutional in nature.

> I think all the talk around regulations, taxes, etc. are a side show...

I disagree about this as someone who has first hand experience about this w/ regards to the American semiconductor industry. Having a single window to manage disputes, get answers within days instead of months, and tax subsidizes should decisions not be guaranteed in a timely manner help reduce risk for massive capex investments.

This is what EU member states like Denmark provide for the biopharma industry, and a similar template could have been used for semiconductors. The issue is, the talent density for large swathes of electronics and computer engineering just doesn't exist in the EU anymore.

It can be fixed, but egos need to be set aside and individual European states will have to adopt industrial policy strategies similar to those that developing countries adopted to build their own domestic industries.

>Yes, but it is comparable to the pay received in Asia - especially peer developed countries like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Not really. If you're an engineer in Asia you're in the top 5% - 10% of local purchasing power. While if you're an engineer in UK, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, etc you're not that wealthy by local standards, you're just average like most other white collar workers, unless you work for a US FANG.

>This is what EU member states like Denmark provide for the biopharma industry

Not just Denmark, but bio/pharma is a protected and state sponsored industry in most EU countries, unlike software, electronics and electrical engineering which has been treated as a race to the bottom industry.

> The issue is, the talent density for large swathes of electronics and computer engineering just doesn't exist in the EU anymore.

"Oh no, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions". This is what you get when for the past 20+ years you outsourced your entire industry to Asia for the sake of shareholder returns with no thought of the future.

Munich is still a strong tech hub for electronics with Apple, Rhode & Schwarz and others developing RF and semiconductors there, but it can't hold a candle to the sci-fi work being done in SV or even Israel.

> Not really. If you're an engineer in Asia you're in the top 5% - 10% of local purchasing power

Nope. You legitimately are not. The top 5-10% of salaries in both SK/JP/TW and Western Europe are primarily the managerial class.

And CoL is the same in SK and Japan with much of Western Europe.

> you're just average like most other white collar workers, unless you work for a US FANG.

Same in South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. There's a reason immigration to Western Europe still remains somewhat attractive to Korean, Japanese, and Taiwanese nationals to this day - similar salaries, but a better work culture and a stronger social safety net than in much of Asia.

> This is what you get when for the past 20+ years you outsourced your entire industry to Asia for the sake of shareholder returns with no thought of the future

Europe hasn't been at the forefront of this industry since the 2000s.

Yes Infineon, ASML, IMEC, and STMicro are supposedly European domiciled, but they were heavily dependent on defense R&D due to semiconductor's dual use implications and all of them largely subsumed American subsidiaries whose leadership became their leadership. As such, these companies haven't been "European" for decades.

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