Where are those super salaries in excess of 200k USD coming from in the US and do such opportunities exist in Europe?

[witbos]

@ericn Salaries above 100kUSD are relatively common in Switzerland. Even for entry level / junior experience roles. Cost of living is extremely high, but savings in absolute terms are high as well.

Outside of Switzerland, best bet would be on top consulting firms (MBB) and investment banks / private equity. Tech at top companies. Pharma companies also an option. In general they need to be extremely profitable, high margin companies, which earn an outsized amount of money per employee.

A reliable source told me that starting salaries for investment banking analyst (fresh out of uni) have reached 60kGBP this year in London. And that comes with 50-100% annual bonus on top. And banks are struggling to find enough good candidates...

Entry level consultants (again, fresh off uni) at MBB firms are probably around 50-75k EUR, depending on EU country (plus 15-30% bonus)

 

[richardrhys]

@witbos I wouldnt say its fairly common to make 100k, especially not in entry level roles.

https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/de/hom...ohnniveau-schweiz/verteilung-nettoloehne.html

Heres official statistiks that shows only 23.6 of people make more than 96k CHF/Year. For women its only 15%. Those are most commonly representing people in their 50s in a senior career roles in one of the more expensive cities. Paying 3k in rent for a medium sized apartment in Zürich is normal. A restaurant visit for 2 people is easly gonna cost you 150-200 if you want to eat meat.

 

[witbos]

@richardrhys Fairly common, not; relatively common, yes. Try to find similar statistics for France, Germany or Italy and the % will be much lower. And that 23.6% is based on the general population. I think we can assume that for the purpose of this post we can take the subset of people with a degree, and probably a STEM or economics or law degree in fact.

Considering that the minimum salary (by law in certain cantons) is 3800-4000chf/month, so 48k year (e.g. the salary of a cashier at the supermarket), 100k is not so far fetched, for someone with a degree, working in one of the many multinationals. (salaries in small swiss companies are smaller)

The fact that paying 3k rent is "normal", means that a household salary of at least 9k is normal too (because of rules of real estate agencies that try to limit rent to 1/3 of salary): that's 108k CHF per year. Even allowing for just a small share of those to be single occupancy (and there's plenty of those in Zurich, Basel, Geneva and Lausanne), that's quite a few 100k+ salaries

 

[richardrhys]

@witbos Yea the average household earns 11k but the average household has 2 people working.

Obviously you wont have as many people earning 100k in italy or germany but you can cover all expenses of a family with 2k/month in italy while child care will cost you 1.6k/month in Switzerland.

A bachelor degree in your 20s will not make you 6 figures even at a fortune 500, except in top tier finance or IT but then again rent and COL is very high in those cities so its all relative.

You also have to calculate that taxes, healthcare, child care are not deducted from your salary.

Also factor in that you will be working A LOT more than our neighbours. I work in a fortune 250 and i have a contract without tracking my working hours so i end up working 50-60 hours a week most of the time. My german counterparts work 38 hours and track their time by law. They also have 35 days of vacation while i have 25.

 

[witbos]

@richardrhys Having lived and worked in various European countries, I find that in Switzerland I manage to save substantially more (even discounting for the different seniority in roles). And that seems to be the case for all the people I discuss this with. Lurking at some FIRE focused sub, it seems that exactly for this reason Switzerland is the country of choice in Europe for those trying to get to Financial Independence at an early age.

Regarding the amount of work, I had the opposite experience to yours (global multinational): I find that most people do their 42-45 hours per week and then enjoy their free time. Sure there are peaks and some departments may have different pace and work culture, but in general that has been my impression.

 

[ulrike]

@ericn It’s the tech sector. I made 300k nett this year. In germany. Also, you have to be really good at what you do. US is much more capital driven than the Europe.

 

[whollyschmitz]

@ulrike I remember you from your post 1 month ago because of your username lol

Hats of to you man, you could retire already with your portfolio in some south European countries and live nice but still working and making a ton per year ..

May I ask what's your financial goal?

 

[pascha]

@whollyschmitz

May I ask what's your financial goal?

MOOOAAAAAARRRR

 

[ulrike]

@pascha Exactly this.

 

[thedarkfigure]

@ulrike Darf ich fragen welchen Beruf du genau ausübst? Interessiert mich nur und vor allem, wie das Einkommen zusammengesetzt ist

 

[ulrike]

@thedarkfigure Ich habe eine Blockchain firma.

 

[thedarkfigure]

@ulrike Alles klar, danke

 

[rikdo]

@ulrike What position pays 300k nett? I know some very rare 300k gross ones incl stock, bonus and salary but does 300k nett exist in europe?

 

[resjudicata]

@rikdo For sure it does I made over 400k€ after tax in Netherlands so far this year.

75% equity comp so mostly due to stock market heading to moon.

Which means I know a lot of folk in startup cycles who made more than a million this year.

You cannot usually get more that 1110-120k€ max before tax on salary but you can get equity packages worth 2-3mil in 4 years vesting where company does well.

Now Netherlands is bit special in that there is practically no capital gains tax and only time options get taxed is at exercise so with 400k income my tax is only like 7-8% most EU countries I'd pay half as tax and then potential again when selling shares. For salary instead I need to pay like 49% which is nuts. And they will eventually come after me for wealth taxes but in only hold partial residence so been able argue Dutch tax office so far.

 

[ulrike]

@rikdo CTO in blockchain tech. I do have my own company through which this is paid out but i have few big clients.

 

[mikedo]

@ulrike But not with a salary. You have to be a contractor (instead of employee) and work for multiple, likely not all German clients, and you're probably paying yourself from your self set up company. Nobody is paying 300k to actual code developers on a "retainer" fee (aka salary), and nobody is doing contractor work for upper management IT (non-code) because management requires exclusivity. Unless of course you're getting paid BIG STOCK. You say you got 300k net but I'm assuming you mean your company, otherwise you'd be making what, 700k gross? Taxes are no joke.

Not criticizing, it's what I'd do too. I just mean that OP is looking for actual salaries, not income, and definitely not shell company income which has 2 or 3 layers of taxes before it is actually "yours".

And btw you should be living somewhere else at this stage if you're banking on multiple remote clients in tech. After all Germany's weather sucks, cost of living does too, and taxes are not even close to the most competitive in the EU. You could be "chilling" in Spain or Portugal with high speed internets, 18C+ yearly averages and most important of all, low to no taxes as a tax-privileged program expat. Not to mention the minuscule cost of living compared to Germany. 300k alone gets you a 6 bedroom villa with an hectare or 2 of land 20-40 minutes from one of the top cities.

 

[hasanswers]

@mikedo Do you know where to get more information about those 2 or 3 layers of taxes for a shell company (i.e. freelancing)?

I'm considering this option, but I don't know if it will be worth it or not (compared to being a normal employee)

 

[mikedo]

@hasanswers Basically you have to pay VAT in most countries for services rendered by a company, then you have to pay capital gains tax for money kept in the company (i.e. not invested), or you eventually have to pay income tax when that money transitions to yourself.

The latter two layers are kind of exclusive: you pay one or the other, and VAT is deductible from your costs in many scenarios (e.g. buying gear for work deducts in VAT you have to pay). Some people will say VAT is not you who pays it (it's your customers), but that's money you deduct from the bill shown to your clients so it's effectively a "tax", much like what you charge for your own service needs to take into account individual income tax.

Other than that there are multiple overhead costs (the "cost of doing business") such as electricity, accountant fees, among others (maybe you rent an office space, maybe you pay for a company car...). These aren't taxes and they are kit you can somewhat make private use of without "the man" figuring out, but they are meaningful to the bottom line.

All in all using a one-man company adds a lot of work and cost, just like owning a single house does. But for IT contractors it pays big compared to being exploited by larger companies as a salaried employee. Especially because you get to chose to be paid by the most profitable client and country. Clients who contract IT services do so because they have trouble hiring individuals in other countries to the legality of it, so if they pay a service to a company that can provide it remotely, that's not as troublesome for them. So setting up a company yourself to "sell" services to these, remotely, is one of the most profitable ways to work, and IT people like us have it easy to be able to do so. Most other lines of work you have to "be there", even some very specialized stuff such as medical or academic/scientific work requires some local integration level at a point, which cannot compare to what IT personnel can do remotely.

The one, maybe 2 difficulties in IT contracting work though are: getting the right connections for a steady influx of profitable clients (this can take DECADES to achieve without luck) and, the most obvious one, you will REALLY have trouble with vacations or any form of time off, because you're not getting paid when not working. You don't get the big perks of big companies: medical insurance packages, company-sponsored retirement plans, sick days or personal time off, parental leave... You have to be making QUITE the buck to compensate for all of those, or be a total, responsability-free workaholic, or manage it all so well those issues are diluted.

 

[hasanswers]

@mikedo Wow, thanks a lot for the detailed reply!

 

[heathensguide]

@hasanswers If you're a competent software developer in Europe, then yes, freelancing definitely pays off. It's pretty straightforward to get 2-3x higher gross income vs. salaried developer.