• El Barto@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        That’s what I was thinking. I moved to Europe and my salary was halved. I’m making 70K euros. After three years of scratching this “living in Europe” itch, I’m ready to move back to the U.S. An entry level developer should be making no less than 90K in the land of the free.

        • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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          11 months ago

          Yep. Few people where I live envy the US, but if you’re a developer the money is no joke. You have to expect that eventually all those big American tech companies will start offshoring, given the crazy money they could save.

          • El Barto@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            That’s what I tell fellow devs around here. Try the U.S. for one or two years, especially if they offer shares. Then move back. Profit!

          • dan@upvote.au
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            11 months ago

            I moved from Australia to the USA since salaries for developers are so much higher here. I live in Silicon Valley which helps too. If you’re a senior developer (say 5+ years of experience) then a lot of the large companies here pay $200-300k/year salary plus $100-200k/year in company stock plus a bonus that’s 10-20% of salary if you get a good performance review.

            • Doxatek@mander.xyz
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              11 months ago

              Ugh. Holy shit I went into the wrong field 🥲 I was just a kid. I didn’t know better

              • dan@upvote.au
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                11 months ago

                I got lucky since I’ve been into computers and programming since I was 8 years old (late 90s). My first job when I was at school was a part-time developer at a tiny IT company that did consulting work. Since then, all my jobs have been software development jobs.

                The fact that it pays well in places like Silicon Valley was a great bonus. I moved here 10 years ago (when I was 23) after I got a job offer, and the starting salary was literally double what I was getting paid in Australia at the time.

                The job changes a bit as you get more senior - there’s more mentoring of junior devs, project planning, deciding what your team should focus on, etc. I still spend a lot of my time writing code though, and still enjoy it. :)

                There’s some downsides to living in Silicon Valley. A lot of stuff is expensive (that applies for California in general, but especially here). Housing is extremely expensive too.

      • pomodoro_longbreak@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        How many years experience? It took me a few years before I started making a decent wage.

        Definitely keep honing your skills and applying around for different jobs, and taking jobs that you can use to “leapfrog” to other, even better jobs.

          • pomodoro_longbreak@sh.itjust.works
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            11 months ago

            Okay that is getting up in years. I was about there when I started to get more aggressive with the salary I was asking. You could probably start on the developer I -> developer II -> senior developer career path.

            Do you look at other jobs much? Do much networking? Talk to other devs about their salary? Even just grabbing a lunch with some workmates from time to time can help get you in the right mindset of recognising your worth.