CDPR pays its junior developers $700/month

&quot;[...] he made around $400&#x2F;month when he started as a tester in 2015. In 2018, as a junior programmer, he said he was making ~$700&#x2F;month&quot;<p>Take this in context. $400 for a starting tester (aka zero qualifications) is standard for eastern europe. As a career, it&#x27;s on par with call center operator.<p>2-3 years later, he switched to &quot;junior developer&quot; in the same company. I&#x27;m reading this to mean there was a conversation with the management that went like this: &quot;You seem like a smart guy and you did a couple of javascript online classes. We&#x27;ll switch you to dev and teach you how to program properly - oh, and you get 10% raise along with it. When you can do useful work we can renegotiate&quot;.<p>One may teach himself useful programming in a couple of years while working full time as a tester - it&#x27;s definitely possible. But the baseline probability is that at that stage he wasn&#x27;t yet productive, and still required what&#x27;s basically paid training for 3 to 6 months.

In general $800 after taxes is the bare minimum for juniors in Warsaw. But yeah, gamedev...<p>Experienced devs can get up to $5000-$6000 after taxes but I know of a few making even more. The thing is you can rent a studio for $300-$400 and food is dirt cheap compared to western countries (another $300 or so, but $200 will do). All in all I’m Warsaw you’re saving much more money than you’d in Berlin or Prague at the same position. So $700 might look really bad but that’s actually enough to get by.

Game Dev. is not a lucrative SWE career in Europe, unfortunately. Pays less than most SE jobs. (and SWE salaries are lower in Europe to begin with, compared to the US)

In creative industries, some people will accept almost any salary, because the alternative is not working as a creative. Video game development is notorious for this, but it&#x27;s even worse in other areas. Try becoming a professional painter, sculptor, or writer.<p>I always advise people against going down that route, unless they are literally ready to sacrifice half of a lifetime of earnings for it. Unfortunately, choosing wisely requires a level of maturity that you do not possess when it is time to make the choice.

Salaries in Eastern Europe much lower than in the valley, news at eleven.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a game developer. I am happy I didn&#x27;t go down that route, all I hear from the industry are nightmare stories.

Why do people never consider Purchasing Power Parity when posting about the supposedly &quot;low&quot; wages of another area of the world? Other commentors here have said that 700 USD in Poland is about standard, if a little on the low side, but it&#x27;s comparable to how game developers are paid less than other software engineers here in the US.

How much is that compared to the average for Poland? Here[0] I am seeing a figure of 1,234€&#x2F;month gross or 890€ net (US$1075) for 2020.<p>[0]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_European_countries_by_...</a>

Mmm, another one of those what went wrong with the fastest selling game of all time pieces. Author goes on comparing it to BioWare&#x27;s Anthem :o. $700&#x2F;month is a starting salary in this poor part of Europe, especially for a game tester turned first time coder.

Its sad but junior devs in easter Europe do not get more than 1000€&#x2F;month from my experience.

Shouldn&#x27;t a reporter know better than to just drop that number without saying anything about the cost of living in Poland?<p>So now I have to go look it up if I want to gain any actual information from this tweet. Then as I&#x27;m looking up what city their office is in, I realize the only reason I&#x27;m checking at all isn&#x27;t because he told me CD Projekt is based in Poland, I just had a recollection they were based in a formerly-communist state.<p>So now I&#x27;ve been able to fully determine this Schreier guy is a scumbag faster that I can determine just how scummy $400&#x2F;mo or $700&#x2F;mo is.<p>Spoilers: Warsaw and <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.numbeo.com&#x2F;cost-of-living&#x2F;in&#x2F;Warsaw?displayCurrency=USD" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.numbeo.com&#x2F;cost-of-living&#x2F;in&#x2F;Warsaw?displayCurre...</a>