If You can't see that there is a middle ground between impoverished wages and what was quoted above that I can't help you
I can see a middle ground. Most people would probably name it as Europe. And you would have to go looking in Eastern Europe.
And I think you would find, if you are lucky, that a competent European junior-ish developer would not get out of bed for less than 60k Euros (65k USD), a more senior developer would demand more.
And you need more than one or two developers on your team if you're going to be competing against Adobe.
And then you need to pay taxes, pensions, accountants and lawyers.
And then you need to pay other business expenses.
And if you decide you need an office, then god help you ...
The numbers soon add up .... $235k will disappear within the year, probably within a single quarter.
Software development is capital intensive.
That's a very much extreme statement I think you confabulated. Take this developer median data from back in 2020 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1222324/developers-media... and reanalyze your statement.
And also compared to https://www.reinisfischer.com/average-monthly-salary-europea... where 60k euros a year tends to be above the average monthly salary in many EU countries. And if a junior doesn't get out of bed for less than that, well I have some bad news for them and their expectations.
You won't get qualified devs for much less than 60k around here. Especially since that is the amount of money people expect on their payslips before taxes.
On top of that employers have to pay additional stuff, that won't even make it on the payslip, like parts of the health insurance which are not considered to be parts of the compensation.
Quick Example from Austria:
* Cost to Employer 77k€
* Employee's Taxable Income: 60k€
* Income After Taxes: 40k€
* Childcare and University: 0€
Affinity[1] is a good example, I believe that’s created in Europe and its very reasonably priced.
Pixelmator too — based in Lithuania?
You realize that 60k usd after tax is 240k PLN which is like 6.6 times minimal wage?
This is good cash, not top, but good.
Junior people earn 36-120k PLN, so half of that.
Let me tell you that you are far off the reality. I live in Paris and junior developers don't get near as much as €60k/year. The 35-40k range is more realistic for juniors, and senior ones can get what, 90k? That's alread considered really good for an engineer here.
Of course you can make six figures, but that implies working for a silicon valley company that hires remotely in europe. And those that have offices in europe adjust their compensation accordingly.
Just for demonstration I looked at Datadog on levels.fyi for the three they accept to show me:
- Paris, $77k-$94k (so €70k-€85k)
- New York $180k (for level 1 SE, senior is through the roof)
So $235k is 200k€ so one developer and one PM, because the dev alone has a brownian behavior concerning progress (unable to take initiative).
