alt Hacker NewsAmerican hourly rates in IT are truly nuts. I wonder if the value-add to hiring American is really worth it, in German-speaking EU you'd get real top-notch engineering for 120€/h. Even less further eastwards.
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> German-speaking EU you'd get real top-notch engineering for 120€/h
No disrespect to German-speaking engs, but Colin isn't merely "top-notch", he's "the top".
Huge salaries (like those paid to "top" athletes in "top" professional team sports) aren't unheard of in Tech anymore. For instance, Google paid $2b+ to acquihire Noam Shazeer of c.ai back. Meta was rumoured to be paying $20m+ salaries to poach OpenAI researchers based in Zurich.
$120/hr gets you a very good developer in the US, too. Just not in the Bay Area or Seattle.
They just want to earn at least the same as a plumber.
Those pay packages are basically only on the west coast and in New York, a "small" region of the U.S.
100-200k, is what you'd expect elsewhere. Which is still pretty good, just not astronomical.