Funny enough, I probably did more software engineering as a web dev than I did as a software engineer at some companies.
In the UK, at least, the only difference typically between a web developer and a software engineer is £15-20k in salary. Frankly, we’re all software engineers…
What are dev/engineer salaries like in the UK? Been considering places to move to…
About half of the equivalent in the US, often less. It’s exceedingly rare to make 100k here even in a senior position, although it does exist. Median is 40-50k (pounds, so times that by 1.2 for USD).
Holy crap. That’d be a pretty substantial cut for me, but I guess that said, is the COL a lot less?
Afaik it’s similar here in Germany.
BUT you need go remember: We have social insurance and don’t need to pay 5000$ when taking the ambulance etc. etc.
So if you exclude that we may come close if you need to see a doc on the regular.Even then it’s a pay cut. I know some people who moved to NA, and egotistically it’s a sound decision because engineers there are on the right side of the wealth disparity ravine. Money’s good enough that you don’t need social safety nets. And if push comes to shove, someone making $100k/y can definitely afford health insurance and the occasional trip for medical tourism.
Now personally I believe in income redistribution so I’m happy to pay a lot of taxes in one of the most income-egalitarian countries in the world. But I’d make a shit-ton more if I lived&worked in Luxembourg or Canada.
I did the math a few years ago when Trump was president.
I currently make double in America of what is made in other countries. It was something ridiculous like even if I had $35k a year in med expenses, I’d still be making more in the US.
Either American engineers are paid way out of proportion, or the rest of the world pays poorly. Either way, I’m going to ride this train before Skynet replaced me.
Then you need surgery and your COL is already >50% of your net income and you are a 100k in debt. And assuming you have savings, I’d rather spend them on myself (vacation etc.) rather than brace for my bankruptcy because I stood up wrong.
Now personally I believe in income redistribution so I’m happy to pay a lot of taxes in one of the most income-egalitarian countries in the world.
So same for me
These careers do have decent insurance in the US. Long term illness is a different beast, but the most of ever pay for a medically necessary surgery is $3800, which is my max out of pocket. And I’d get short term disability which pays both 80% of my salary to me, and some amount to the company to compensate for my lost time.
Good jobs in the US really don’t have as many horror stories you are always hearing on the internet. I mean, we have lots of other horror stories which are totally true, like our schools being violent and deadly. And rural areas being filled with the stupidest people on the planet. And even in lots of tier one US cities, the public transportation being useless.
COL is not anywhere near $50k/y ($4100/mo!) except maaaybe in some very narrow parts (basically just SV an Manhattan, assuming you want a decently large apartment). But in either of those places an engineer makes up for it by making $150k/y instead.
Also rich Americans have good insurance, I’m sure you could find an example of someone who had this happen but it’s basically a non-risk.
And if healthcare was the only problem, then Canada would be an option as well. Engineers there still make a shitload more than German engineers. Watch out for the real estate market tho.
Yes, depending on where you live rent might be similar (London isn’t much cheaper than NY or LA) but cost of living is otherwise less. Also, people tend to work much shorter hours (a limit of 37 for me, any extra is returned as PTO) and start with much more annual leave (25 days discretionary, for me, plus public holidays, plus we close over Christmas and new year’s). Furthermore there’s no health costs to pay etc. On the whole it balances out and I think the lifestyle here is better, but I do envy the extreme salaries of those in the US.
As someone in the US, 40 hours per week is the minimum. Recognition for “being a hard worker” has required 60+ hours at some places I’ve worked. This is for a fixed salary and no overtime pay, mind you. Then you’re usually on an on call rotation every few weeks where you may have to work off-hours if something comes up. That’s additional unpaid hours. My current company pays $80,000 USD for new college grad software developers.
US holidays are 8-10 days, and junior devs usually start with 5-10 days of vacation. Health insurance costs at least several hundred a month (your employer also pays about 3x more than you towards your insurance premium as a benefit).
You’re actually getting applicants at 80k? That’s nuts. Last I checked fresh outs were clearing 100k.
Despite incessant reassurance from recruiting that they have the best market data and we’re paying above average, I have reasons to suspect that’s not the truth. One of them being we’re hemorrhaging mid-grade talent and focusing on hiring backfills in Ireland and Hungary for much lower salaries. It almost seems like they’re trying to offshore the dev group via attrition to work around having to do layoffs…
Wow those benefits are amazing.
It’s not too crazy here :) 25 days a year is the legal minimum and I get about 10 more than that, plus a few extra from doing overtime here and there. That’s why I say the lifestyle is on the whole better here even though we don’t earn nearly as much. It’s still plenty to pay the mortgage, and Europe is right on the doorstep to spend all that holiday time in.
You made that as a senior software dev in Finance more than a decade ago, more now (mainly because the pound went down versus other main currencies), especially if you’re working in the Front Office (i.e. directly with business, such as Traders and Analysts)
However breaking into Front Office IT in Finance without previous experience in your CV working in banking or similar is pretty though.
Sure, yes, but those kinds of positions in the US make 300k or more too. Also, then you work in finance and you have to live with the fact that you are categorically making the world a worse place every day.
Absolutelly, I agree with you, on all of it.
Varies heavily dependent on industry, but typically less than US devs. Also if you live outside London it’s going to be a lot less.
You average non-junior dev will probably make about 50-60k £ in london but about 25-35k £ outside london.
Senior developer can vary heavily. in london I’ve seen 60-120k depending on language and industry.
Wait so it’s possible a Senior Dev outside of London would make $35k??
I’m a senior in the north east and I’m on 32k. But cost of living and houses are sooooo much cheaper here. I am not scraping by, I’m doing good.
I’d say you’re very underpaid, I’m making about 50% more than that in a fully remote UK-based mid-level position. You should start looking for a new job, even if it’s just as leverage to get paid fairly at your current place.
To add to this, I get paid more as a junior in Wales which should be comparable to NW England economically.
Oh yeah, I’m severely underpaid in my current job, even for where I live and what my role is. But I’m happy with my bosses and my colleagues. They’ve got my back more than not and I can be happy knowing I’m not in a hostile work environment. They are my genuine friends. Also helps that I enjoy the work I do. It’s not going to be my forever job but I’m savoring it while i can before I move on.
If they’re genuine friends they’ll be receptive when you ask them to pay you fairly.
However things like cars, phones, vacations, gas/petrol or electricity still cost the same everywhere…
Vacations maybe because that also depends on where you want to go. Cars can differ wildly, unless you want a sportscar or some such. Same goes for phones, often you get one „free“ with your contract for mobile. Gas/Petrol vary a lot, because of taxes and other state side things attached to them. Same goes for electricity plus those also depend on availability.
A VW Golf or a Hyundai i20 costs the same in London as in a village, not only a Porsche.
Same for the phone, the contract per month is the same anywhere you live.
Taxes on gas usually are the same for all locations in a country, at least in the countries I’ve lived in. Only highway/town variations.
I’d love to see where electricity prices vary locally, never seen that myself.
Pounds and dollars are not the same. Also don’t move country just for a job, you can probably work remotely anyway!
£, not $, but yes.
Holy shit, that’s nothing outside of London. At that point be a restaurant server.
One thing in the US that has been encouraging is the very lowest earners are getting big jumps in pay, while people like devs are stagnating
The only real software engineer anymore is Linus Torvalds, everyone else stands on the shoulders of giants.
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His name was Terry Davis
His name was Terry Davis.
His name was Terry Davis.
His name is Terry Davis
It’s still is, but that would be a bad joke on my end.
Still is? I’m afraid I have bad news for you…
his name is still Terry Davis. “His name was Terry Davis”
Are you doing that thing where you troll by saying something really stupid and wait for others to correct you?
No, I believe it’s called a joke
No, jokes have structure. It could be sarcasm but it could as easily be trolling.
I take back my chuckle
Are you?
No, you made a statement. I asked a question. My question isn’t a troll since it has a clear yes or no answer.
An answer you’ve failed to provide.
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Lol. tinder fact checks bios? Hilarious…
I have a CS Masters degree and it says engineer on it.
Did you Master Engineering Computer Scientists?
Darn skippy I did! Not much of a web designer, though.
can we ban web developers who call themselves “developers”?
also php programmers who call themselves anything?
Nah, no need for this kind of gatekeeping. Anyone who deals with js and its billions of frameworks on a daily basis deserves to be called a developer.
Agreed.
We also deserve to be called, every so often, to see how we’re doing.
Do you even know why you hate PHP?
For me, it was this
https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.mysql-real-escape-string.php
Note that that hasn’t existed in PHP for years.
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Never used it in over 23 years of using PHP. Also, I don’t thing that has existed anymore for the past 10 years or so?
Seriously, if we’re going to do this, can we also bitch about painful java apps from 10 years ago, or the hilariously shitty modules in node from 10 years ago? I can go on for a while, but you hopefully get the point.
The question was why do I hate it, and it was because of this. I don’t understand your confusion.
My confusion is that you hate it tosay because someone over a decade ago wrote 10 times the same complaint that was mostly fixed already since about a decade ago
yeah, i’ve used it and it’s absolutely trash…
but here’s an article that sums up my feelings: https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/That is literally a decade old article with basically 1 complaint that sometimes functions are strpos() and sometimes str_len(). Anything else it’s saying is “I don’t even know how to say it”. Really now? Any of your complaints have been fixed since about a decade ago, so why don’t you give it a try?
lol, no…
also this is a joke sub so stop trying to sea lion me about it.
also your “summation” of the article is pretty stupid
I’m a full-stack web developer and am involved all the way through including cloud infrastructure, API development, database creation/maintenance, test automation, architecture etc.
I guess what makes a “developer” in your context different? Embedded? Kernel?
Only those who code in the same language as I am can be called developers. Everyone else is just an impostor and their technology doesn’t matter! Real programmers use my language of choice
Have you heard about our lord and savior Rust? 🙏
If you don’t daily x86 assembly, do you even know anything about computers?
As if webapps aren’t usurping mobile and desktop apps, anything not C# or .NET is a toy language?
c# and .net? ewww…
gimme c, c++, go, rust, ruby, python…
and umm, no dude, native apps are a lot more powerful than web apps… they are not usurped at allthere’s more of them, but there’s more scooters than motorcycles…
Scooters are more efficient, get you where you need to go and cost less to maintain. Your analogy is actually pretty good in that regard.
yeah and they only get you around the neighborhood, any actual distance and a motorcycle is infinitely better…
but, it figures you’d miss that, since you’re a dumby dumbo mcpoopoo head webdevPlease refrain of using offensive words, specially if you are trying to actually communicate an idea that is by all means demeaning to other people. The community is about humour, keep that in mind ;)
word, “dumb ass” was supposed to be a joke too, but i edited it to be less offensive
Now you’re throwing ad hominem around. You don’t need to be toxic to communicate your point, web development did at one point have a lot of growing to do and I can admit that there is still plenty of progress to be made. In 2024 however, ignoring the web ecosystem as any type of developer is purely traditionalist elitism.
bruh, this is programming_humor… chill, im sure you’re a fine human being
To be fair, we do develop stuff. Nothing implies quality, so it’s not like we’re misrepresenting anything. Personally, anyone who calls themselves a software engineer and works with any web-related technology (PHP, JavaScript, etc) are the ones to be shunned.
🖕
sorry, my browser doesn’t support unicode
I mean who cares? But also why? My old job title was “software engineer” and I just did web dev.
it’s satire
Honestly, nobody should call themselves an engineer unless they literally drive trains for a living.
Driving a train is engineering?
In North America, the driver of a train engine is called an “engineer”, yes.
I see, TIL. That’s different from Germany, where Ingenieur is a protected term.
In the railway context an engineer was the person who worked the engine.
In German the word comes from Latin roughly meaning inventor. Presumably the general usage of the word engineer in English has the same etymology.
See I’d call that a conductor
In the US, a conductor is the one who checks tickets, makes announcements, and delegates tasks to the crew to help ensure things keep moving on time.
The locomotive engineer is the one who is “driving” the train. They run the engine and communicate with dispatch and traffic control to keep them informed where this particular train is fitting into the overall juggling act,. They also make every effort to keep things safe (watching for signals, obstructions, etc.).
I’m not 100% sure if the terminology is different outside of the Us.
(Source: My father is a 3rd generation locomotive engineer.)
See I thought a conductor was a person who grabs a live main wire while standing in water.
Infrastructure erasure in the states is so bad that people who build it for a living aren’t even considered anymore.
In many countries the term “engineer” is a protected title.
Yes, driving trains is becoming more and more important as we find out how terrible cars are for the environment. We should protect the profession fiercely!
Funny and infromative
I mean, engineering is really problem solving, and not do we web developers solve problems. We may have made most of them ourselves, and new ones when we solve those, but we do solve problems.
The term engineering is not about problem-solving, especially when differentiated from development. Engineering is about deliberate understanding and decision-making, about giving it an architecture, a structure.
You can develop without any structure, solving an issue, without understanding a bigger context or picture or behavior. But that’s not engineering.
Engineering is the use of scientific knowledge to achieve specific goals.
As long as they don’t start building tunnels under their house because they’re an ‘engineer’…
Nobody give them stamps!
As a non-software engineer, feels weird that they’re making this distinction.
I don’t have much to do with engines either.
I take engineer to mean: designs stuff that does some task, involving SOME kind of calculation.
Visual designer: not an engineer
Piping designer: not an engineer (although this one felt weird, that’s what the piping designer corrected me to say, so)
Chemical engineer: ya
Mechanical engineer: yeah
Software engineer: totally different flavour, but still yeah
Language is what we want it to be.
Web designers presumably still need to script things, I reckon that counts 👍
I get this is satire but people truly believe this. Web devs literally create software that runs nearly every facet of modern life.
I perused the comments and didn’t see anyone mention this. The term “engineer” is regulated by every state in the US. I doubt they had Tinder in mind, but calling yourself an “engineer” without having a Professional Engineer license is illegal, at least when it comes to offering professional engineering services. It’s a protected title so that schools and bridges don’t get built by scammers–at least that was the intention. I can legally call myself an Engineer!
Just go get your license, and you should be golden lol.
What if my job title says that? Who’s going to tell my employer they’re wrong.
Then again, “full stack software engineer” as a title might also well just be buzzwords.
!And yes, I know the site is satire lol.!<
Unless you know what “full stack” means.
I liken a software engineer to someone like an architect. Architects will spend countless hours doing research, sketching out designs, creating documentation and presentations, and maybe even building to-scale models. But one thing they don’t do is actually build their designs. The constructions workers do that. And in the case of software (be it web or otherwise), those people are the developers.
Now, there are exceptions to every rule. I acknowledge that - especially in computing - it’s possible to blur lines. But I still feel there many more developers than there are real software engineers.
But architects aren’t engineers either! We have engineers in building construction, they are called engineers.
They ensure all required calculations are done, all safety standards are adhered to, they complete detailed designs, and they sign off on a project legally so things like quotes and timelines have legal teeth.
And, unlike engineers in manufacturing whose deep-pocket corporations bought an exemption, Engineers in the A/E/C field are licensed. And if you screw up you can lose your ability to work in your field…forever.
I haven’t met an “engineer” who isn’t developing code. This is such a weird distinction. The people asking for a design are the customer, the high level design handled by the product manager, the nitty gritty is handled by the software engineers. Some businesses may make a distinction for payroll purposes but there is no prevailing standard.
What if they are actually a software engineer, with a cert? >_>;
I have worked with actual cert’d engineers on web projects, lol
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