elephant0xffff

Hey HN,

I am a software engineer in Europe and I would guess the average software engineer makes ~40000 (around ~28000 net) euro a year (~47000 in $) if (s)he does "average" software dev (so between junior and senior).

Now obviously you can negotiate salary (which I recommend) and exceptional senior devs do make around ~80000 here in Europe I guess, but here on HN I always read that most devs make around 100K (even if not a team leader or just fresh from the university or even self-taught), but if I would propose that kind of compensation to some company I am sure that it won't work out. I know that Google & Co do pay decent salary here in Europe, but other (software) companies would roll their eyes if I would demand a salary in this category.

Of course it is not that easy to compare as you are automatically insured in Europe (I don't know how that works in the US, I often read about some 401-thingy) which I highly appreciate but I don't think that you guys pay 50000 for taxes and social benefits/year?

So is my view biased as I hang out on HN too much, or is salary in the US really that much higher?

Or is it implied that you just make your 50 - 60 hours a week (at least in my area most people that do full-time are <=45 hours a week)?

Thank you for your comments.

//edit: Obviously not everybody, but let's say the 50% percentile.

The big services (Google, Cloudflare, etc.) provide DDoS attack mitigation (and seem to succeed), but details on their tactics are rare (at least I did not find in-depth information on that).

I guess to make this work well you have to do classification (regular request vs. malicious) on several protocol layers and then reroute or drop packets accordingly. But how does that prevent severe service degradation - you still have to do some kind of work (in computation and energy) on the listening side or can fat edge-servers just eat that up?

I would like to go into consulting in a specific niche, but lack clients (currently working as software developer in a company).

There are related job offers at services like Upworks, where I could think make ~5000$/month (of course only if i get the jobs) which would be a lot of money in my current situation. However I read many horror-stories about Upworks, Toptal, Freelancer.com and related services, so I am hesitating.

Obviously I want to expand my field to direct customer interaction in the future, but short time it might be a decent idea?

Thank you for your insights and sry for my bad English, HN.