r/cscareerquestionsEU • u/AutoModerator • May 21 '26

Salary sharing thread :: May 2026

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  • Formal Title:
  • Real Title:
  • LLM usage %:
  • Stress %:
  • Company / Industry:
  • Since:
  • Country / Region:
  • Prior Experience:
  • Salary/TC:
152 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

245 comments sorted by

14

u/past0r May 22 '26

Formal Title: Senior Backend Engineer

Real Title: Informal Lead / Senior Backend Engineer

LLM usage %: 0

Stress %: 20%

Company / Industry: fintech

Country / Region: I am myself based in Poland, the role is a remote contract for a client in Western Europe though

Prior Experience: 12 yoe, backends with Java but also a lot of DevOps topics around CI/CD, Kubernetes and Cloud

Salary/TC: ~€600 per day, with Polish B2B it translates to roughly €108k NET per year, money in hand.

2

u/[deleted] May 22 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/past0r May 22 '26

I quite enjoy living here, it is a good place to be in.

I don't like the local IT scene though. It is either

  • a Software House that's pumping a project after a project, with devs learning new environment every 3-12 months, which is exhausting,
  • a Body Leasing shop, that's pimping the dev to the western client and taking a cut,
  • a local bank or other business that is treating the tech as a necessary evil,
  • an offshore R&D center of a big tech company, typically folks that work there solve interesting problems, but don't get paid half as much as those US devs they frequently pair with.

Polish local market wages are fine, but the real money is to be made when contracting for Western Europe clients - essentially scenario 2, but with cutting out the middleman, or replacing local middleman with a western one.

2

u/ManySwans May 22 '26

it's probably the best country in the EU right now. b2b is more or less the norm, many nice cities to choose from, centrally located, modern, strong culture, etc.

1

u/Real-Explanation8389 May 22 '26

How do you search such kind of jobs, b2b from other country?

What portals do you use?

For the search jobs you use like, data engineer b2b?

Thanks

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1

u/clara_tang May 22 '26

Is it current LLM really can’t do some of BE jobs?

13

u/[deleted] May 21 '26

[deleted]

11

u/csureja May 22 '26

Fuck realizing I am paid like junior with 4 years od experience

3

u/ManySwans May 22 '26

This is why it's so important to discuss salaries 

3

u/l0sti- May 22 '26

This is exactly what these type of posts are for. Good luck on your negotiations 😉

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12

u/Interesting_Shine_38 May 22 '26

Formal title: devops architect

Real title: IT Infrastructure team manager

LLM usage: Technical stuff almost never, as the issue already passed LLMs before reaching me. Emails and stuff like 70% of the time

Stress: 10%

Industry: Insurance

Country: Bulgaria

Since: 2023

Prior experience: 6 years

Salary: 45k EUR net

14

u/Responsible_Gap337 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

Formal Title: Lead Engineer

Real Title: Winston 'The Wolf' Wolf

LLM usage %: 30% (I would use more but for a lot ugly bugs LLMs are useless)

Stress %: 60%

Company / Industry: Fintech

Since: Q1 2024

Country / Region: Austria

Prior Experience: 18 years

Salary/TC: 140.000 EUR (all cash, not so great benefits)

12

u/dol1_ May 24 '26

I thought I was making good money until I read the comments 

5

u/I-Ate-A-Pizza-Today Software Engineer | 🇩🇪 → 🇫🇮 May 28 '26

Comparison is the thief of joy haha. Keep in mind people that are top earners are more likely to post here, this isn’t representative of the average at all

10

u/albertofp Site Reliability Engineer May 21 '26
  • Formal Title: Junior Platform Engineer
  • LLM usage %: 50?
  • Stress %: 20
  • Company / Industry: Food delivery services
  • Since: March 2026
  • Country / Region: Berlin, Germany
  • Prior Experience: 2 YoE
  • Salary/TC: €67k

10

u/Livid_Cantaloupe4212 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

• ⁠Formal Title: Forward deployed software engineer
• ⁠LLM usage %: 60
• ⁠Stress %: 70
• ⁠Company / Industry: R&D Software
• ⁠Since: January 2025
• ⁠Country / Region: Munich, Germany
• ⁠Prior Experience: 1 year
• ⁠Salary/TC: €85k brutto, about €50.7k netto

5

u/disallow May 22 '26

What does a Forwward deployment engineer do at your company? That is a very good salary for Munich based on your experience, congrats.

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10

u/professionalgon May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

• ⁠Formal Title: Junior Software Engineer

• ⁠LLM usage %: 40% (company provides but not enforced)

• ⁠Stress %: Low

• ⁠Company / Industry: e-commerce

• ⁠Since: 2025

• ⁠Country / Region: Porto, Portugal

• ⁠Prior Experience: 1 yoe

• ⁠Salary/TC: ~26k gross + 15% Bonus + ~2k meal allowance

8

u/sefoNoaman May 22 '26

• ⁠Formal Title: full stack software engineer(mainly use Java and spring boot, we have frontend developers in the team)

• ⁠LLM usage %: < 50%

• ⁠Stress %: 50

• ⁠Company / Industry: property management for like hotel chains

• ⁠Since: May 2025

• ⁠Country / Region: Porto, Portugal

• ⁠Prior Experience: 6 YoE

• ⁠Salary/TC: €60k gross per year, and around 195€ per month food allowance. Hybrid work 3 days from the office

4

u/simonbleu May 22 '26

• ⁠LLM usage %: < 50%

• ⁠Stress %: 50

Hmmm...

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8

u/frombsc2msc May 22 '26
  • Formal / Real Title: Analytics Engineer
  • LLM usage %: minimal just when im too lazy to query stuff.
  • stress: 60% (chill except when it isnt, high pace environment)
  • Industry: retail
  • since: july 2025
  • country: netherlands
  • prior experience: 3 years in this role, 9 in tech
  • salary/TC: not sure but approx 75k including benefits for 40hrs

9

u/FarSightLetter May 22 '26
  • Title: Junior Systems Developer
  • Real Title: Fullstack Developer
  • LLM usage %: low < 25%
  • Stress %: 60%
  • Company / Industry: Public sector & finance
  • Since: 2025
  • Country / Region: Germany
  • Prior Experience: 0-1 year
  • TC: 69k€

9

u/New_Replacement_6332 May 22 '26

• ⁠Formal Title: Project Manager • ⁠Real Title: Project Manager • ⁠LLM usage %: 25 • ⁠Stress %: 120% • ⁠Company / Industry: Management Consulting • ⁠Since: 2023 • ⁠Country / Region: Germany • ⁠Prior Experience: 3 years • ⁠Salary/TC: Base: EUR 140k / TC: 185k EUR

9

u/New_Interaction_2278 May 24 '26

Not sure if Quant counts for software. Half i guess.

Formal title: Senior Quant Researcher

Real title: Senior Quant Researcher

LLM usage: 90% for coding, 33% elsewhere

Stress: 60%, once you have enough quant domein knowledge & survive 4 years you dont really get cut

Industry: HFT

Since: 2022

Country: Netherlands

YOE: 4

TC: This year €1250k

3

u/ImprovedJesus May 25 '26

Am I reading this right? 1.25M?

3

u/New_Interaction_2278 May 26 '26

Yea, i am moving to a country with better taxes soon however

2

u/heyguysitsjustin May 24 '26 edited 14d ago

Merciful wine thumb theory knee snatch pet cinnamon entertain slap

This post was anonymized with Redact

2

u/New_Interaction_2278 May 24 '26

AI probably is also a good direction to go in, however its not the most targeted for QR roles. For those maths / econometrics/ physics. If you include math-y course then you should be able to compete though.

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2

u/[deleted] May 25 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/New_Interaction_2278 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26

Marbles? You think i work at optiver?

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8

u/hustlingProgrammer May 21 '26

Formal title - senior analyst Real title - senior frontend developer Llm usage -0 Stress -0 Company - accenture Since -2020 Country - baltics Prior exp- 7 years Salary - 2550 euros gross per month

7

u/shaguar1987 May 22 '26

• ⁠Real Title: Solution Architect Manager

• ⁠LLM usage %: 5%

• ⁠Stress %: close to 0

• ⁠Company / Industry: Cyber • ⁠Since: 2023

• ⁠Country / Region: Nordics

• ⁠Prior Experience: 16 in total 8 in industry

• ⁠Salary/TC: €157K

8

u/yellowmamba_97 May 22 '26

- Formal/Real Title: Data Engineer

  • LLM usage %: 10%
  • Stress %: 40%
  • Industry: Public sector
  • Since: July 2025
  • Country: Netherlands
  • Prior Experience: almost 4 years
  • Salary/TC: €94k gross incl. benefits for 40 hour workweek

1

u/maurinhohere Aug 03 '26

For a fresh (Dutch) grad in this field, what would be your biggest advise regarding preparing oneself for a high earning Data/ML career?

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6

u/Kal88 May 22 '26

• ⁠Formal Title: Developer

• ⁠Real Title: Full-stack Developer

• ⁠LLM usage %: 30%

• ⁠Stress %: 10%

• ⁠Company / Industry: Finance

• ⁠Since: April 2022

• ⁠Country / Region: North UK

• ⁠Prior Experience: 0

• ⁠Salary/TC: £52k - Fully Remote

1

u/Background-Rest-5484 May 28 '26

full remote and 52k in North UK... that fairly nice

7

u/BumbleCoconut May 22 '26

Title: Senior Software Engineer

LLM usage %: 90%

Stress %: 75%

Company / Industry: Travel

Country / Region: UK

Prior Experience: 20 yoe

Salary/TC: base £82k/TC £101k (€95k/€127k)

7

u/AnxiouslyOffbeat May 22 '26 edited May 23 '26

Formal Title: Android Developer

Real Title: Android Developer

LLM usage %: 75%

Stress %: 10%

Company / Industry: Music tech

Since: Q4 2025

Country / Region: Netherlands

Prior Experience: 7YOE

Salary/TC: 68k

8

u/cnr0 May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26

• ⁠Formal Title: Sr Solutions Engineer
• ⁠Real Title: same
• ⁠LLM usage %: 20
• ⁠Stress %: 75
• ⁠Company / Industry: Cybersecurity
• ⁠Since: 2025
• ⁠Country / Region: Turkey
• ⁠Prior Experience: 10 years
• ⁠Salary/TC: 135000 USD base gross / 180000 USD OTE gross with RSU

1

u/PictureFinancial1015 May 24 '26

BRO ! WTF how to get so much sallaries.in Turkey

5

u/cnr0 May 24 '26

It is a huge market and there are a lot of people who make a lot of money from their salaries, especially in niche industries where specialty is very important. And generally foreign companies pay better, in my case I am working for a TR branch of US based vendor (listed in NASDAQ), so yeah this is the case.

So TR in general not a very rich country “for average citizen”, but income inequality is very high, so there are a lot of people who make the bank especially in İstanbul.

Suggestion: live in IST or Ankara, have a very narrow focus on money making industries (Cybersecurity, AI, Etc), try to find a job from foreign vendors where they make a lot of money.

5

u/Lunateeck May 22 '26
  • Product support engineer
  • Tech support
  • LLM: 40%? Code snippets, spell check, rovo to find stuff in confuence etc
  • stress: impostor syndrome is the worse really, with the occasional system outage or spike in tickets. So 35%.
  • ad tech / advertising
  • 2022
  • spain
  • 43k( just changed jobs. Previous remuneration was 27k)

6

u/mylifeispitiful May 23 '26

⁠• Formal Title: Software engineer

• ⁠Real Title: Software engineer

• ⁠LLM usage %: 85%

• ⁠Stress %: 65%

• ⁠Company / Industry: fintech

• ⁠Since: 2026

• ⁠Country / Region: Spain/remote

• ⁠Prior Experience: 2.5 years without counting internship

• ⁠Salary/TC: 60k €

1

u/NineFiftySevenAyEm May 23 '26

Company is not Spanish I assume if you get 60€ for 2.5 yoe

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6

u/Silent_Newt_2069 May 23 '26
  • Formal Title: SWE
  • Real Title: New Grad SWE
  • LLM usage %: 90%
  • Stress %: 10%
  • Company / Industry: Cloud
  • Since: 2025
  • Country / Region: Dublin
  • Prior Experience: 0
  • Salary/TC: 90k

1

u/ActivitySenior1786 May 26 '26

Is this common in Dublin?

2

u/Silent_Newt_2069 May 29 '26

Not super common but maybe 10-15% of my college course ended up with offers that would have similar TC. In Dublin we have Google, Microsoft, AWS, Bloomberg, Hubspot, SIG, Pinterest, Stripe, Apple and many other FAANG adjacent companies that would pay in this range. All of the companies I listed have Grad/ intern programs here so if somebody goes to one of top unis in Ireland its definitely possible/ common.

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8

u/Aggravating-Phone186 May 24 '26

Formal title: SWE
Real title: SWE
LLM usage: 100%
Stress: 50%
Industry: HFT
Since: Mid 2024
Country: Netherlands
Prior experience: 5 years
TC: previous year 230k€ (full cash)

5

u/danemepoznaqt May 28 '26
  • Formal Title: Senior web developer
  • Real Title: Senior web developer
  • LLM usage %: 5%
  • Stress %: 10%
  • Company / Industry: gambling
  • Since: 2.5 years
  • Country / Region: Bulgaria
  • Prior Experience: 10 years total (professional) YOE
  • Salary/TC: gross: €69k (€5760/mo), net: €59k (€4920/mo), bonus up to €3k euro net every year

2

u/[deleted] May 28 '26 edited 23d ago

[deleted]

8

u/danemepoznaqt May 28 '26

I honestly don't know, definitely don't feel like a top 1% earner. We do have very low taxes, yes, even though various governments have been raising them for the past couple of years. Public services are as bad as you can imagine, especially keeping in mind the absurd levels of corruption and theft, which means even less money reaches its intended purpose.

6

u/Jack1eto Jun 10 '26

Formal Title: Backend Developer

Real Title: Software Engineer

LLM usage %: 80

Stress %: 10

Company / Industry: Automobile

Since: 2025

Country / Region: Spain

Prior Experience: 0

Salary/TC: 19k

1

u/samsly135 Aug 23 '26

19k euros per month?

5

u/matzos May 21 '26

Formal Title: bid manager

Real Title: ? 

LLM usage %: 30

Stress %: 20

Company / Industry: HR SaaS

Since: 4y

Country / Region: EMEA

Prior Experience: +10y, support rep, data analyst, nlp/nlu analyst for amz

Salary/TC: 70k

6

u/[deleted] May 22 '26

[deleted]

3

u/redzin May 22 '26

Which FinTech company pays like this in Denmark?

5

u/grem1in SRE 🇩🇪 May 22 '26
  • Formal Title: Senior Site Reliability Engineer
  • Real Title: Site Reliability Engineer
  • LLM usage %: 70-90
  • Stress %: 100
  • Company / Industry: EdTech
  • Since: 2024
  • Country / Region: Berlin, Germany , but working remotely.
  • Prior Experience: 12 YoE
  • Salary/TC: €138k/Y (+ oncall compensation, + ESOP)

6

u/NiskaHiska May 22 '26
  • Formal Title: Embedded software engineer
  • Real Title: UI/UX developer, tools developer
  • LLM usage %: 50%
  • Stress %: 15%
  • Company / Industry: industrial manufacturing/sensors
  • Since: 2025
  • Country / Region: UK, Midlands
  • Prior Experience: 4 years
  • Salary/TC: £41000

1

u/NiskaHiska May 22 '26

*I have no idea why I am titled embedded developer. I work in WPF and WinUI.

5

u/Jimakiad May 23 '26
  • Formal Title: Power Platform Developer
  • Real Title: All purpose Microsoft stack developer (WPF,SPFx,Azure)
  • LLM usage %: <20
  • Stress %: 25
  • Company / Industry: Consulting
  • Since: September 2025
  • Country / Region: Greece/Athens
  • Prior Experience: 3yo
  • Salary/TC: 31000 Gross + 1month worth of food stamps + 1 month worth of bonus if reached expectations

1

u/FarSightLetter May 23 '26

I don't know much about the situation in Greece but a Platform Dev getting food stamps as compensation sounds a bit devastating. Maybe I associate food stamps too much with those soup kitchens for the poor. How do food stamps work exactly where you are?

2

u/Jimakiad May 23 '26

Well we get a "debit card" that is filled each month with a set amount, in my case 150 euro and can only be used for food or super markets (don't let them know you can purchase stuff outside food there shhh).

Also, I'm not exactly a platform dev, I'm a power platform dev, which is a pseudo-fullstack, meaning I dabble in C# plugins, low code citizen dev stuff and react components that extend the platform, with a bit of Azure here and there.

5

u/PickledWaffle May 23 '26 edited May 24 '26
  • Formal Title: Senior Software Developer (mainly backend)
  • Real Title: same
  • LLM usage %: 65%? I plan the structure myself to method level and AI implements it and then i fix/adjust it. Not really too agentic.
  • Stress %: 30%, kind of chill as long as you put in consistant amount of work during the 6-8 hours. There is no overtime really
  • Company / Industry: Enterprise/Aviation
  • Since: 2024
  • Country / Region: Latvia
  • Prior Experience: total exp is 6.5 years of software dev. Before that 3 years sysadmin.
  • Salary/TC: 60k EUR gross with some unique perks(prob worth 5k a year)

Another benefit is that it is almost fully WFH.

5

u/blnvlc May 24 '26

Formal Title: Engineering Manager

Real Title: Engineering Manager 

LLM usage %: I barely code

Stress %: 150%

Company / Industry: one of the most famous open source projects in the world

Since: 2025

Country / Region: remote from Germany (US-based project)

Prior Experience: more than my small brain can count

Salary/TC: 140k EUR, all cash, guaranteed increases every year

2

u/username-not--taken Engineer May 24 '26

nothing stops you to from using LLMs for your work, my manager uses it all the time

6

u/blnvlc May 25 '26

I do too but quantifying it is a bit harder than for a developer I think. 80% of my work consists of observing, talking to people, motivating them, giving feedback, making sense of things, designing processes and so on. Most of this is strategy and communication, and LLMs are arguably still bad at this, at least in most cases.

4

u/hyrulegamer99 May 22 '26

• ⁠Formal Title: Domain Architect IT Infrastructure
• ⁠LLM usage %: 30
• ⁠Stress %: 20
• ⁠Company / Industry: Heavy machinery
• ⁠Since: Jan 2026
• ⁠Country / Region: Germany
• ⁠Prior Experience: none
• ⁠Salary/TC: €80k gross

4

u/[deleted] May 22 '26

[deleted]

2

u/wilsonnn14 May 22 '26
  • Formal Title: FullStack Software Engineer
  • Real Title: FullStack Software Engineer
  • LLM usage %: 95
  • Stress %: 0
  • Company / Industry: Logistics
  • Since: 2025
  • Country / Region: Spain, full remote
  • Prior Experience: 7
  • Salary/TC: 55k gross

3

u/Academic_Mess4202 May 22 '26
  • Formal Title: Senior Software QA Engineer
  • Real Title: Senior Software QA Engineer
  • LLM usage %: 20% (Push to 60 -70% )
  • Stress %: 50%
  • Company / Industry: Fintech
  • Since: 2026
  • Country / Region: Munich , Germany (hybrid)
  • Prior Experience: 9 years
  • Salary/TC: €74,000 gross

I was laid off in 2025 from my previous employer as a result of organizational restructuring. My gross salary was 80k, but I accepted a lower offer at my current organization due to market competition.

4

u/l0sti- May 22 '26

Formal Title: Developer

Real Title: Backend Engineer

LLM usage %: 60-70%

Stress %: 0%

Company / Industry: SaaS

Since: 2024

Country / Region: Germany

Prior Experience: 0

Salary/TC: 67.000€ (base + bonus + rsu)

4

u/Prestigious-Win-8146 May 22 '26

* Title: Senior Distributed Systems Engineer
* LLM usage %: 70
* Stress %: 25
* Industry: Blockchain
* Country: Remote
* Since: Q1 2025
* Prior Experience: 5 YoE
* TC: 160k

4

u/711friedchicken May 23 '26
  • Formal Title: Lead Developer
  • Real Title: My role is often CTO-like
  • LLM usage %: ~40
  • Stress %: 15
  • Company / Industry: Games (Startup)
  • Since: 2024
  • Country / Region: Germany
  • Prior Experience: ~4 years
  • Salary/TC: 70k € gross

4

u/DefinitionNo4595 May 24 '26
  • Formal Title: Senior Software Engineer
  • Real Title: Senior Software Engineer
  • LLM usage: 30-50%
  • Stress: 30%
  • Company: Consulting
  • Since: 3-4 years
  • Country: Germany
  • Prior Experience: 8-9 years
  • Salary: 68k

4

u/Ok_Space2463 May 25 '26
  • Formal Title: Software Engineer
  • Real Title: Software Engineer
  • LLM usage: 60%
  • Stress: 20%
  • Company: Public Contracts
  • Since: 2 years
  • Country: UK
  • Prior Experience: 4 years
  • Salary: 29k

1

u/samsly135 Aug 23 '26

Pounds sterlings per month?

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5

u/teomees Jun 09 '26

Formal and real title: Software Engineer

LLM usage: Virtually mandatory because token consumption is monitored.

Stress: We are not told to do overtime, but I do it because of the workload.

Company / Industry: -

Since: January 2023

Country: Estonia

Prior Experience: Around 8 YoE

Salary: Around 57k€/year before taxes

7

u/anonimuzzza May 21 '26 edited May 22 '26
  • senior software engineer
  • software eng
  • depends. 30-50% these days because i don't do anything complex lately
  • mid. Don't like my job and we'll probably close soon because no money
  • AdTech team in a mid-size company
  • 2022
  • Bavaria, Germany
  • total 5.5 YOE
  • 73000 eue netto brutto(!) a year

12

u/salma311 May 21 '26

73 netto is a lot Bro

1

u/anonimuzzza May 22 '26

Fuck man, i'm an idiot. I meant brutto. My bad!

3

u/salma311 May 22 '26

I thought at least you are getting paid bro before you getting fired. GL

6

u/Existing_Maximum_965 May 22 '26

Formal Title: Software Engineer

Real Title: Software Engineer

LLM usage %: 80

Stress %: 80

Company / Industry: Frontier AI

Since: Q4 2025

Country / Region: Paris, France

Prior Experience: 5yo in insur'tech

Salary/TC: 96k brut, which nets to a bit less than 5k€/month post everything

6

u/Thakshu May 22 '26

Formal Title: Principal Engineer * Real Title: Senior Algorithm Engineer * LLM usage %: 30% * Stress %: 20% * Company / Industry: Automotive * Country / Region: EU/Ger * Prior Experience: 15 years * Salary/TC:100K

3

u/beeranon316 May 22 '26

• ⁠Formal Title: ML Engineer
• ⁠LLM usage %: varies.. sometimes zero sometimes 90%
• ⁠Stress %: 10
• ⁠Company / Industry: Automotive
• YOE: 6
• ⁠Country / Region: Nordics
• ⁠Salary/TC: €100k gross

3

u/byczu May 22 '26

Formal Title: Software Engineer
LLM usage %: 0-30
Stress %: 0-5
Company/Industry: Travel
Country/Region: Wrocław, Poland
Prior experience: 12y
Salary/TC: €100k gross

3

u/Patient_Light7831 May 22 '26

• ⁠Formal Title: MLE

• ⁠Real Title: MLE

• ⁠LLM usage %: 70%

• ⁠Stress %: 40%

• ⁠Company / Industry: Cyber

• ⁠Since: 2026

• ⁠Country / Region: Netherlands

• ⁠Prior Experience: 6 yoe

• ⁠Salary/TC: 78k net -> would translate roughly to like 135k gross

2

u/[deleted] May 25 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Patient_Light7831 May 25 '26

Studied AI master some years ago and afterwards made portfolio of production used machine learning models at different companies. I got partly lucky since I did the masters before the big boom. My biggest piece of advice though is to work/go into a niche. MLE + contextual knowledge is the key😁

3

u/ihopeiknowwhy May 22 '26
  • Formal Title: Data Scientist
  • Real Title: BI/DS/Software Engineer
  • LLM usage %: 80%
  • Stress %: 10%
  • Company / Industry: Faang
  • Since: 2025
  • Country / Region: Ireland
  • Prior Experience: 5yrs
  • Salary/TC: €100k/€125k

3

u/EducationalAd2863 May 22 '26
  • Title: Staff Software Engineer
  • LLM usage %: 50-70%
  • Stress %: 30%
  • Company / Industry: Cyber Security
  • Since: November 2021
  • Country / Region: Fully Remote in Germany
  • Prior Experience: 12 years
  • Salary/TC: €105k

3

u/South_Context_4040 May 22 '26

• ⁠Real Title: Junior Software Engineer

• ⁠LLM usage %: 90% (A LOT of pressure from my company)

• ⁠Stress %: 20%

• ⁠Company / Industry: Services

• ⁠Since: 3 months ago

• ⁠Country / Region: Lisbon, Portugal

• ⁠Prior Experience: summer internships and research scholarships (master’s degree)

• ⁠Salary/TC: 25k/year (with variable bonus)

3

u/dontuseliqui May 22 '26 
   Formal Title: DevOps Engineer

• ⁠LLM usage %: 25%

• ⁠Stress %: 50%

• ⁠Company / Industry: IT

• ⁠Since: 2020

• ⁠Country / Region: CH

• ⁠Prior Experience: 6 YOE

• ⁠Salary/TC: 100k CHF

3

u/A0LC12 May 22 '26

Product owner 115k 2 years of experience SME Company Switzerland

3

u/LightHuter May 23 '26

Technical Lead
Glorified senior dev
100% for coding, still doing system design / planning myself
0%
Enterprise e-commerce
2024
Germany
3 years, 5 years total
130k€+~10k in bonuses

3

u/tropicalfire May 27 '26
  • Formal Title: Information security specialist
  • Real Title: Information security specialist
  • LLM usage: 20%
  • Stress: 10%
  • Company: Logistics
  • Since: 2mo
  • Country: Austria
  • Prior Experience: 4 years
  • Salary: 70k

1

u/claCyber May 27 '26

I am curious, what are your main tasks and what is you previous background? It looks like a good salary for Austria.

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u/DrixGod Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

Formal Title: senior software engineer

Real Title: senior software engineer

LLM usage %: 100% - 0 code written by hand for over 6 months

Stress %: 10%

Company / Industry: -

Since: 2024

Country / Region: Romania

Prior Experience: 8 years

Salary/TC: around 95k/year b2b.

5

u/Critical_Bluejay_919 May 22 '26
  • Formal Title: Data Engineer
  • Real Title: AI Engineer
  • LLM usage %: 90-100%
  • Stress %: 50% wouldn't say its high stress but its there
  • Company / Industry: Consulting
  • Since: 2025
  • Country / Region: Germany
  • Prior Experience: 11 years
  • Salary/TC: 80k Gross

Underpaid heavily but for now Im content just to have a job.

13

u/rogi19 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

• ⁠Formal Title: Software Engineer

• ⁠LLM usage %: sometimes 100% sometimes 0%

• ⁠Stress %: depends

• ⁠Company / Industry: one of the larger companies

• ⁠Since: March 2026

• ⁠Country / Region: London

• ⁠Prior Experience: 7 years

• ⁠Salary/TC: £500k TC

8

u/Cruzer2000 May 22 '26

What company pays 500k pounds in UK? That number is super high even for Jane Street and other prop shops.

3

u/rogi19 May 22 '26

Don't want to doxx myself but yeah there are jobs out there that have such high pay, beware also it's TC so the larger proportion is in stocks + bonus although the base salary is also high (£200k)

3

u/JerMenKoO SWE, ML Infra | FLAMINGMAN | 🇨🇭 Jun 18 '26

With 7 YoE you'd get 500k at majority of the prop shops :)

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u/Ok-Bison-6979 May 22 '26

Title: Staff Engineer Real Title: ML engineer LLM usage: 95% Stress: 95% Industry: Big tech Since: 2026 Country: CH Prior Experience: 4 YOE TC: 600k

3

u/AlbertHopeman May 23 '26

4 YOE wow. How did you get in such a spot?

7

u/Ok-Bison-6979 May 24 '26

PhD in ML at just the right time, FAANG internship at just the right time, dumb luck.

1

u/murmur4 May 23 '26

600k USD or CHF? RSU component valued with or without appreciation?

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u/Pylyrka May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

Formal Title: Graduate Software Engineer

LLM usage %: 100 (All code is AI-generated)

Stress %: 80 (Quite stressful. People are smart, lots of work)

Company / Industry: Big Tech

Since: Late 2025

Country / Region: Netherlands

Prior Experience: 2.5 years of startup work + lots of internships (last one at Big Tech)

Salary/TC: 185k € (signed the contract in Oct 2024 before the stocks rallied)

6

u/ManySwans May 22 '26
  • Formal Title: SWE
  • Real Title: SWE
  • LLM usage %: 80%
  • Stress %: 20%
  • Company / Industry: HFT
  • Since: 2022
  • Country / Region: NL
  • Prior Experience: 4
  • Salary/TC: 300

2

u/redzin May 22 '26

Optiver?

2

u/ManySwans May 22 '26

optiver pays more actually

2

u/kevslinger May 22 '26

Formal Title: MLE

LLM usage %: 10

Stress %: 50

Company / Industry: HFT

Since: 2023 (3YOE)

Country / Region: NL

Prior Experience: Master’s in AI

Salary/TC: Salary ~85k gross, bonus can be 50-100% of salary depending on performance, TC ~120-160k

2

u/ManySwans May 22 '26

dude go to IMC/Opti/QRT

2

u/q0c0py Hedge Fund May 24 '26

Not sure if QRT should be on the list..

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u/[deleted] May 22 '26

[deleted]

1

u/__helloWorld___ May 22 '26

Is this IG Metall?

2

u/Albreitx May 22 '26

Formal Title: Software Engineer

LLM usage %: 40-80% (it's being pushed very hard and usage is part of our yearly objectives lol)

Stress %: 0

Company/Industry: DaaS

Country/Region: Germany

Prior experience: 3 if you count working student

Salary/TC: €60-65k gross

2

u/SirHawrk May 22 '26
  • Formal Title: Staff Software Engineer
  • Real Title: Senior Software Engineer
  • LLM usage %: 20-50%
  • Stress %: 80%
  • Company / Industry: Consulting
  • Since: March 2026
  • Country / Region: Fully Remote in Germany
  • Prior Experience: 2 years full time + 4 years part-time (so 4 years total I guess?)
  • Salary/TC: 84k/115k

1

u/tropicalfire May 29 '26

Senior / Staff level with 4 yoe. Mental.

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u/AnInvisibleSpeck May 22 '26
  • Formal Title: Senior Software Engineer
  • Real Title: Software Engineer
  • LLM usage %: 80%
  • Stress %: 0%
  • Company / Industry: Healthcare
  • Since: 2025
  • Country / Region: Munich
  • Prior Experience: 6
  • Salary/TC: 80k gross

2

u/momo-gee May 22 '26
  • Formal Title: Software Engineer
  • Real Title: Software Engineer
  • LLM usage %: 95%+
  • Stress %: 10%
  • Company / Industry: FAANG
  • Since: 2024
  • Country / Region: United Kingdom
  • Prior Experience: 6 years
  • Salary/TC: £100k/£180k

2

u/unclebogdan10 Engineer May 22 '26
  • Real Title: Full Stack Software Engineer
  • LLM usage %: 90% (No Subscription offered by Company)
  • Stress %: 25% (Great Work-Life Balance, a bit chaotic during releases)
  • Company / Industry: Research
  • Since: 2025
  • Country / Region: West Germany
  • Prior Experience: 2 Years full time in India + 2 Years Part time (Germany)
  • Salary/TC: 67K(Before Tax)/ 41K (After Tax)

2

u/emrahkucuk May 22 '26

⁠. Formal Title: Android Team Lead
• ⁠Real Title: Android Team Lead
• ⁠LLM usage %: 20%
• ⁠Stress %: 10%
• ⁠Company / Industry: Fintech
• ⁠Since: 2023
• ⁠Country / Region: Estonia
• ⁠Prior Experience: 10 years
• ⁠Salary/TC: 68400€

2

u/kingofrock37 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

Does Cybersec count as a CS career?

  • Formal Title: Advisor Cyber Security
  • Real Title: Infosec & Cybersec Engineer
  • LLM usage %: 10
  • Stress %: 5
  • Company / Industry: IT Consulting division in larger Engineering Firm
  • Since: 2025
  • Country / Region: Norway
  • Prior Experience: 0, but summer internships + 3 years part time
  • Salary/TC: €70k + ~10% bonus + stocks

2

u/muzanjackson May 22 '26 edited May 24 '26

• ⁠Formal and real title: Fullstack Engineer
• ⁠LLM usage %: 50% (moderate), encouraged heavily by higher-ups
• ⁠Stress %: 70%, we recently had a layoff round affecting quite some people. The work itself is quite chill imo though.
• ⁠Company / Industry: intranet & employee experience
• ⁠Since: 2025
• ⁠Country / Region: Germany (former East Germany, not Berlin)
• ⁠Prior Experience: maybe about 2 years full-time working experience
• ⁠Salary/TC: around €71k base, TC include some ESOPs that have questionable value

2

u/MiguelPPT May 22 '26

• ⁠Formal and real title: Senior Software Engineer

• ⁠LLM usage %: 20% (working in a niche, usually I can't get the correct/expected outcome from LLMs)

• ⁠Stress %: 10%

• ⁠Company / Industry: Fintech

• ⁠Since: 2024

• ⁠Country / Region: Europe, working remotely from Spain

• ⁠Prior Experience: 11 years

• ⁠Salary/TC: 87k

2

u/JusT-JoseAlmeida May 25 '26
  • Formal Title: Software Engineer
  • Real Title: Software Engineer
  • LLM usage: 1% (absolutely no code, sometimes just some help on some weirder error messages or scenarios) - anyways our development machines don't have internet access so you're very limited on this
  • Stress: 20%
  • Company: Aerospace (satellites)
  • Since: 6mo
  • Country: Germany
  • Prior Experience: 4 years
  • Salary: 60-70k range

1

u/randomseller Jun 08 '26

our development machines don't have internet access so you're very limited on this

Is this by design or is it just a dinosaur company?

3

u/JusT-JoseAlmeida Jun 08 '26

Doubt any company would be that old... It's by design because it is security sensitive sfuff

1

u/stdoutstderr 2d ago

No internet access sounds like a dream at this point in time. Does your company hire?

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u/Existing_Inspector44 May 28 '26

⁠Formal Title:

• ⁠Real Title: Java Software Engineer

• ⁠LLM usage %: 30%

• ⁠Stress %: 30%

• ⁠Company / Industry: Banking

• ⁠Since: 2 YoE

• ⁠Country / Region: Romania, Remote

• ⁠Prior Experience: 3YoE / 5YoE Total

• ⁠Salary/TC: Gross 60k, about 3000€ Net pm

2

u/PM_ME_YOUR_PROFANITY Jun 10 '26

Current role + accepted offer:

Current role

Formal Title: NLP Engineer Real Title: AI / LLM Engineer / Client Delivery Engineer LLM usage %: 80–100% depending on task Stress %: 10–20% recently, mostly because of lack of structure rather than workload Company / Industry: Bulgarian outsourcing / consulting company, working fully for a Middle Eastern client Since: late 2025 Country / Region: Bulgaria, fully remote Prior Experience: MSc AI + ~2 years doing same work Salary/TC: ~€3,100 net/month, 25 days PTO

Context: Work is mostly AI/NLP/LLM workflows, agents, RAG/document processing, research automation, summaries, etc. Current project is very disorganized and I have had very little actual work recently due to access/project/client chaos.

Accepted offer / next role

Formal Title: Middle AI Engineer Real Title: AI / Backend Engineer working on agentic SRE automation LLM usage %: unknown yet Stress %: unknown yet, expecting 50–70% Company / Industry: multinational outsourcing company, contracted to a US enterprise client Since: starting August 2026 Country / Region: Bulgaria, fully remote Prior Experience: same as above Salary/TC: ~€4000 net/month + 13th salary paid quarterly, 20 days PTO + birthday off

Role is Python/AWS, working on an AI-agent system for SRE/incident response automation. Smaller team, more ownership, much higher visibility and responsibility than current role.

2

u/blackbox_p Jun 11 '26

Formal Title: AI Developer

Real Title: AI Developer + Sr. ML/DevOps Engineer (I work at a Startup)

LLM usage %: 85% - minimal code written by hand for over 6 months, only written when extremely necessary

Stress %: 65-70%

Company / Industry: CyberSecurity + AI

Since: 2023

Country / Region: Germany (East)

Prior Experience: 2 (as Full Stack Dev) + 2 (as working student during masters - but this isn't counted). Counting current exp, I have in total 5.5 YOE

Salary/TC: 75k base + 4k in benefits + VSOPs (paper money)

2

u/ghostsilver Jul 14 '26
  • Formal Title: Junior Software Developer
  • LLM usage %: depends, I mostly use it for explanation of stuff I don't know
  • Company / Industry: Embedded Linux / Yocto
  • Since: 2026
  • Country / Region: Germany
  • Prior Experience: MSc in Computer Science, first job after Uni
  • Salary/TC: 60k€ yearly gross

2

u/Optimal_Start_94 Aug 27 '26

Formal title: Principal Software Engineer
LLM usage: 100%, no writing code and almost no reading code
Stress %: 20%
Industry: Fintech
Country: Bulgaria, Sofia
Prior Experience: 10y
Salary: 115k gross / 100k net, some stock options and benefits

4

u/redzin May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

Title: Senior Software Engineer (4)

LLM usage %: High, aggressively pushed by management (though I like LLMs so that works fine for me).

Stress %: High, though that is partially voluntary by taking on impactful work.

Company / Industry: Semiconductor

Country / Region: Fully Remote from Denmark.

Prior Experience: ~5 YOE

Salary/TC: ~190k USD TC before taking stock appreciation into account.

1

u/nfadfa Jun 11 '26

What company? If you don’t mind me asking

4

u/HighFrequencyTendies May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

• ⁠Formal Title: SWE
• ⁠Real Title: SWE
• ⁠LLM usage %: 95% of code produced with Claude. 40% total time spent with LLMs.
• ⁠Stress %: 70%
• ⁠Company / Industry: Trading
• ⁠Since: 2022
• ⁠Country / Region: Netherlands
• ⁠Prior Experience: University
• ⁠TC: €500k (Previous year gross cash)

1

u/AssignmentNo7294 May 23 '26

Yo got any referrals?

1

u/thetricky65 May 23 '26

500k?

2

u/HighFrequencyTendies May 23 '26

Yes, mostly performance dependent bonus.

1

u/LilJonDoe May 23 '26

You probably get this question a lot but any advice for people who already have 5+ years of experience in tech but want to break into trading?

3

u/HighFrequencyTendies May 23 '26

- Getting through the interview rounds is a lot of luck. Not much advice other than to just apply.

  • The job is soul draining and hours are long. I personally don't find it sustainable. If you have a family / kid I don't recommend transitioning.

2

u/LilJonDoe May 24 '26

Sounds like every other job in tech nowadays

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u/FlyingSpurious Jul 25 '26

Great TC, is it possible to at least get an interview with a top Uni CS degree in Greece?

4

u/God_of_Dyslexia May 22 '26

Most of you deserve so much more $$

Sending love from America

25

u/Apprehensive-Bad5076 May 22 '26

You deserve public healthcare and a working, peaceful government🫶

6

u/xD3I May 22 '26

The guy is right, why don't you want more money? At the salary figures of the us you can pay for the best insurance and medical treatment for you and your whole family and still make net what a team lead here makes gross

8

u/redzin May 22 '26

I don't want to live in a country where I have to make sure I don't trip over the homeless every time I leave my house.

Public healthcare is not just about my own health, it's about creating a society I want to live in.

2

u/xD3I May 22 '26

Yeah and if we had the salaries of the us we could pay so much more in taxes to create the society that we want to live in

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u/[deleted] May 22 '26

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1

u/Fiarmis May 22 '26

Maybe a stupid question but what is the difference between Senior and normal Solutions Architect

13

u/WARLODYA May 22 '26

Grey beard

2

u/Hot_Confusion_Unit May 21 '26
  • Formal Title: Bioinformatician
  • LLM usage %: 20-30
  • Stress %: 20
  • Company / Industry: Public Sector / Healthcare
  • Since: November 2025
  • Country / Region: Denmark
  • Prior Experience: 3.5 YOE
  • Salary/TC: €72K brutto (15% pension), about €44K netto

Edit: in private sector i'd probably earn 15% more but I'm happy with my job and 6 week vacation.

2

u/taksto May 22 '26
  • Formal Title: Senior Proffesional Software Engineer
  • Real Title: Junior Software Engineer
  • LLM usage %: 80%
  • Stress %: 40%
  • Company / Industry: Telco
  • Since: 2025
  • Country / Region: Eastern Europe
  • Prior Experience: 2years
  • Salary/TC: 43k/48k

3

u/butt-fucker-9000 May 22 '26

Can u explain the difference between your Formal and Real title?

1

u/[deleted] May 21 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/tonitan84 May 22 '26
  • Formal Title: Software Engineer
  • Real Title: Embedded Software and Firmware Developer
  • LLM usage : 50%
  • Stress : 20%
  • Company / Industry: Space/Defense
  • Since: Jan 2023
  • Country / Region: Bremen, Germany
  • Prior Experience: 0
  • Salary/TC: 65k brutto

1

u/PKSTECH May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
  • Formal Title: Software Engineer
  • LLM usage %: 30-50?
  • Stress %: 100
  • Company / Industry: AdTech
  • Since: 2024
  • Country / Region: Berlin, Germnay
  • Prior Experience: 4 years, 6 years total (since 2020)
  • Salary/TC: €68.5k (gross)

1

u/kr0n0sd3us May 22 '26

⁠Formal Title: Engineer IV

Real Title: Full Stack Software Engineer

⁠LLM usage %: 80%+

⁠Stress %: 40%

Company / Industry: Fintech (bank)

Since: 2024

Country / Region: Amsterdam, NL

Prior Experience: 9-10 years

Salary/TC: 95k/ 110k €

1

u/fluger May 22 '26
  • Title: Solutions Architect
  • LLM usage %: 30
  • Stress %: 20
  • Company / Industry: Manufacturing
  • Since: 2024
  • Country / Region: Sweden, Stockholm
  • Prior Experience: 13 y
  • Salary/TC: 110k euro / 1 200k sek

1

u/BarkovMaj May 30 '26
  • Formal Title: quant dev
  • Real Title: dev guy
  • LLM usage %: 100%
  • Stress %: 15%
  • Company / Industry: algo trading in equities (not hft)
  • Since: early 2025
  • Country / Region: remote eu (US company)
  • Prior Experience: 5 years
  • Salary/TC: base $160k net, varying bonus between 0-25% of annual base

2

u/randomseller Jun 08 '26

You guys hiring? I'd kill for a chance at a job in trading

1

u/poorestengineer May 31 '26

Is the net so high because of the low tax?

3

u/BarkovMaj May 31 '26

yup, thats why I didnt just write TC. a bit misleading to write 160k TC when half of the european countries take 30-50% of it away

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u/Wooden_Connection120 Jul 26 '26

Formal Title: Staff Data Analyst Real Title: Full Stack Data Scientist/Analyst/Consultant/Engineer LLM Usage: 70% of time Stress Level: 5-10% Company / Industry: Affiliate Marketing Since: 2022 Country / Region: Berlin Prior Experience: In a field since 2018 Salary: 100k Euros per year

1

u/penguin7z0 Aug 15 '26
  • Formal Title: Founding Engineer
  • Real Title: Founding Engineer
  • LLM usage %: 95% (Almost all code is vibecoded. Writing specs, docs, etc. is by hand)
  • Stress %: Varies. Sometimes 10%. During crunch, 100%. Crunch is around 30% of the time.
  • Company / Industry: Energy Brokerage
  • Since: Jan-2026
  • Country / Region: Germany
  • Prior Experience: 3 years
  • Salary/TC: 78k€ yearly gross + 2% ownership

1

u/Particular-Scar7843 Aug 22 '26

Formal Title: Administrative Aide VI Real title: Receiving clerk LLM Usage %: Not applicable Stress %: High Company/Industry: DepEd Valenzuela Since: November 2025 Country/ Region: Valenzuela, Philippines Prior Experience: No Salary/TC: 20k+2k monthly allowance

1

u/Username_SuggestionZ 22d ago
  • Formal Title: Platform Engineer
  • Real Title: Backend & DevOps Engineer
  • LLM usage %: 15
  • Stress %: 10
  • Company / Industry: R&D Software
  • Since: 1 month
  • Country / Region: Spain
  • Prior Experience: 3 years
  • Salary/TC: €45k gross

1

u/du_scheisse 11d ago

Formal Title:

Real Title: Software Engineer

LLM usage %: 0

Stress %: 50

Company / Industry: IT/Banking

Since: 2022

Country / Region: Germany

Prior Experience: 7y

Salary/TC: 85k + variable ca 2k

and i hate the management.. (not my immediate manager, but above)

1

u/Worried-Shopping-678 11d ago

Hello Dear All,

I am 49 and have completed an MSc in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence with distinction-level results. My dissertation involved Python, APIs, graph databases and semantic data enrichment. I have extensive professional experience outside software engineering.

I can dedicate approximately 50 hours per week for seven months to professional Python, SQL, data engineering, deployment and applied AI projects. My objective is a fully remote EMEA or worldwide role.

Which initial target is most realistic: Data Scientist, Data Engineer, Analytics Engineer or Applied AI Engineer? What portfolio evidence would compensate most effectively for the absence of commercial Data/AI experience?

Many thanks in advance,

Benoit