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this post was submitted on 20 May 2024
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Why do so many games companies have offices in Poland? Is there some kind of government incentive for gamedev there? No offense to Poland, but for such an economically small country, I feel like I hear a disproportionate amount of games come from there.
CD Project (owners of GOG and creators of The Witcher) are some the most well-known devs from Poland, but this article goes into the main reasons why they are among a dozen or so more game devs where such games as Dying Light and Frostpunk have been made: https://www.n-ix.com/polish-software-developers/
Poland is the land of good, cheap programmers. We are usually ranked 3rd or 4th on the "best programmers" indexes, behind countries like China, Russia. Foreign companies will pay you like $80k or less for a senior position and get a really skilled worker out of it.
That's really interesting. Do you have any insight on why Poland seemingly punches above its weight on software development? Is programming a heavy focus in public schools?
Former Warsaw Pact countries have really strong mathematics training in primary and secondary school.
Good universities that are free to attend and pass if you make it through the entry exams. The unis are setup to weed out people who can't keep up. Historically we have a great foundation for maths and physics. We also have tech centers in the major cities and some domestic, large companies. There is plenty of jokes about them, and they have a reputation of being "the job you get right after uni", but in the end you have a place that hires a lot of people at the same time, each year, that lets you get experience. Basically if you are a person that'll do well programming, then you are setup for success.
Yet it's still not worth for polish programmers to move literally anywhere - cost of living ratio to the earning is so great that devs don't even move from Poland
Nah, that's bullshit. Cost of living in Poland isn't as low as people abroad think it is. Plenty of people emigrated to GB or Ireland before brexit. Lots of programmers are in Germany and Austria, since they pay so much more. Like, if you go abroad and you get 2x or 3x your salary, no amount of "cost of life" will outweigh that.
So much of "its cheap to live here" comes down to food and rent. When you're living somewhere that charges $2000/mo for a 600ft loft and you can't eat out for less than $20/meal, every place else feels practically free by comparison.
Let calculate then
Germany tax is up to 42% scalling linearly from 10k to 58 k Eur.
Polish B2B has tax of 12%.
Comparing capitals, Berlin is 28.3% more expensive than Warsaw (including rent).
Average salaries are estimated like this: 65125 EUR Germany (38358 after all taxes) 25200 EUR Poland (17207 after all taxes)
You earn 122% more in Germany.
One more thing to consider is buying apartment prices, which are 41% cheaper in Warsaw (outside of city center) and 33.5% cheaper in city center.
So Is it worth moving for some poeple? Definetely, you were right. But person from Poland probably usually will get below average earnings there. Aside from that, person earning top 20% it earnings in Poland would be still taxed 12% when in German all of this goes to 42%. So for top of a line IT specialists this difference is smaller.
Is it as bad as you paint it? No, it's barely 2x, not close to 3x.
Is it worth moving for me? Hell no, because I work remotely from small city in Poland which is 49% cheaper than Berlin and property prices are dirt cheap.
Numbers are taken from numbeo for costs of living and property prices. Salaries average are taken from online sources, and calculation of taxes was made by online calculators taking into consideration Healthcare etc.
I took normal employment contract values for Germany, because I heard from German coworkers this is the most common and preferred by employers there.
Besides all of that, when you are already earning top 85-90% salaries in the country, it depends a lot on the person if they even need more money. Programmers in Poland can afford anything they want that is not multi-milioneere stuff like yachts or very expensive cars. So why would you leave everyone and everything and move? It makes way more sense to move for people that do not earn a lot of money to Poland.
Source for the numbers - pulled straight out of one's ass. Who cares about average salaries? We aren't talking averages. We are talking programmers. You also cherrypick Berlin and a paragraph later talk about you living in Bumfuk Alabama. Just because you stayed, you don't get to dictate what other people do with their lives. The "why would you leave if as a programmer you can buy a lot of things" is so out of touch it rolls over to just being funny.
I've written sources although not links, which takes 5 brain cells to look up. Obviously I took IT earning averages per year. I compared Berlin to Warsaw which is clearly written in my response which you would know if you actually read it.
If you don't want to put in any effort your comments are worthless, ending this conversation, bye
You literally pulled data out of your ass and are trying to convince people that programmers in Poland earn 25k euro a year. Go home, you are drunk.
Labor is relatively cheap despite how much IT is raking in at the moment. Most developers in Poland are registered as sole proprietors which contributes to one of highest rates of self-employment in Europe (source). Tax system favors those over regular work contracts leading to regressive burden (source) and to the point we could be classified as tax haven. Also means those developers are not covered under normal labor protection.
Poland right now actually have too many developers in the country - so I would expect more Companies open offices as earnings stabilized