> like Google India or Gojek Engineering in Bangalore, Jakarta, etc can pay German or French level dev salaries
Not even close. Indian devs at top companies earn way more then European devs at local non-top-tech companies.
>unless by "middle class" your peers meant the professional class in China (the kind that can afford to splurge on a new iPhone every year, buy a Xiaomi SU7, and send their kids to do a bachelors degree at UCB, UCLA, or UIUC)
How many Chinese families (percentual speaking) can actually afford that?
Depends on the company you are working for in India.
At a product company like Ola or a top MNC like Google you are earning way above most Europeans excluding Netherlands, Switzerland, and maybe London, but if I had to estimate, Product+MNC companies only make up like 30-40% of the ecosystem in India today.
If you're working for a mass recruiter your mid-career salary will top off around the $8-20k range, which is Eastern European level, but lower than France and Germany (where it's around the $40-60k range).
Also, there are regional variations in salaries in India as well. You're more likely to earn much higher working in an established tech or MNC hub like BLR, HYD, NCR, or PN than in Indore, Kolkata, Chennai, or Ahmedabad, where the tech scene skews towards outsourced contracting.
Government dev salaries are lowish (depending on the Ministry and whether it's central or state), but the perks are solid.
I'd probably say the split is 35-45-20 Product-WITCH-Govt.
Edit: You said "Top". Fair enough. Yea, the salaries at top employers like Google India or Flipkart are extremely competitive by European standards and are comparable to those in Mainland China, Israel, and Canada.
Are you talking about software and tech in general? Because that's several times lower than the average. In every single East European country in the EU, the average ~~monthly~~ [edit: yearly] wage (I'm talking about the whole population) is at least 18-20k and you certainly can't find any actual developers for anything even close to that.
> single East European country in the EU, the average ~~monthly~~ [edit: yearly] wage (I'm talking about the whole population) is at least 18-20k
Median disposable household income in Poland is around $600/mo [0], only $200/mo more than in China
Median monthly household income in Romania is around $545/mo [1], so disposable is probably comparable to China.
Median monthly household income in Bulgaria is around $600-700/mo [2], so disposable is probably comparable to Poland.
The only Eastern European country that broke the $1k/mo barrier was Estonia with around $1k/mo [3].
These are all government statistics from the Polish, Romanian, Bulgarian, and Estonian government.
Eastern Europe has developed significantly, but still lags behind Western Europe massively.
Based on the hiring packages we've given to developers in Warsaw, the salaries were around $30-40k, but we could have paid much less if we hired someone from EPAM.
I'm taking umbrage to the fact that OP said the "average ~~monthly~~ [edit: yearly] wage (I'm talking about the whole population) is at least 18-20k" when it is obviously bull.
I gave direct sources from the OFFICAL Stats Agencies of Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Estonia in 2022-2023. You just gave Wikipedia.
The numbers which are on Wikipedia are AVERAGE. I'm using MEDIAN
The fact that the AVERAGE income skews significantly higher than MEDIAN income is proof that you have a subset earning much much more than the majority.
I have to question your reading comprehension. You're talking about median DISPOSABLE INCOME per capita (so it would include, disabled, retired, unemployed, part-time etc. workers). The Wikipedia link showing the average WAGE/SALARY. These are not the same thing.
Even in Poland the median household disposable income (the metric I am using for China) comes out to around $600/mo [0] and is comparable to Thailand.
Polish boosterism is almost as annoying as Indian boosterism tbh - both seem to come from a place of insecurity and heavily play up some positives while ignoring the negatives. If you listen to Polish or Indian nationalists, you'd think Poland or India are major superpowers already and have been for decades.
Is this a side effect of PiS's hypernationalist media in the 2010s? Or is this some weird alt-right Catholic White Nationalism fetish?
> both seem to come from a place of insecurity and heavily play up some positives while ignoring the negatives
> Or is this some weird alt-right Catholic White Nationalism fetish?
I see a lot of projection going on here. No, you were not talking about average disposable income you were talking about salaries for workers in tech. This is what you wrote:
> if you're working for a mass recruiter your mid-career salary will top off around the $8-20k range, which is Eastern European level, but lower than France and Germany (where it's around the $40-60k range).
The average salary for all employes in all sector in Poland is > $24k. Are you implying that you can hire tech workers or even software engineers for considerably less than the national average? Seems highly far fetched.
Was this an unintentional mistake or are you doing it on purpose. Considering the totally uncalled for diatribe about Polish(I'm neither Polish nor have anything to do with it for that matter) nationalism unfortunately it's probably the second?
You made it about average incomes when you said your average Eastern European - not Eastern European techie - earns around $18k-20k a year when every government from Poland to Romania to Bulgaria has provided statistics proving otherwise.
No, I was talking about average salaries because we were comparing salaries.
> government from Poland to Romania to Bulgaria has provided statistics proving otherwise
Can you please stop being obtuse? That's not particularly entertaining at this point..
> earns around $18k-20k a year
The average salary in Poland AFTER TAX is around $17k, GROSS is almost $24k. I'm not sure why are you fixated about this. That average income is tangential to the whole discussion fact is you certainly can't find any software developers/etc. for $8k primarily because that's actually below any minimum wage in any EU country besides Bulgaria. You would really struggle to hire anyone even remotely decent for $20k as well.
Not even close. Indian devs at top companies earn way more then European devs at local non-top-tech companies.
>unless by "middle class" your peers meant the professional class in China (the kind that can afford to splurge on a new iPhone every year, buy a Xiaomi SU7, and send their kids to do a bachelors degree at UCB, UCLA, or UIUC)
How many Chinese families (percentual speaking) can actually afford that?