On the negaive side, yeah, all the truly high talented people will leave because the salaries in Europe can be so laughably low.
Trying to figure out how to move back to my home country now, but short of director level positions, there’s just nothing with a comparable salary range.
I live in Southern France, which is a nice place (with good food). I have enough money to do almost whatever I want and have savings. I have 7 to 8 weeks/year of paid leave, which I can use pretty much when I want to. Health/unemployment insurance is included. Granted, I have no kids (by choice), but what more could I want? More money for what? Luxuries I won't even enjoy because I would be overworked?
I like the US and its people, and I understand that my way of life is not everyone's, but that's to give you some perspective on why some very talented European may want to stay in Europe despite the "low" pay.
A friend of mine, a mother of one, was almost begged by Google to work for them, with I suppose, the kind of pay a PhD in natural language processing can expect. She refused, instead preferring a much lower pay but with an incredible work/life balance.
Salary are insane here in the US. Like: not following sane guidelines.
I’m currently at times 5 what I would earn back home. I don’t think it’s gonna stop. Every job is a solid 20% increase.
As soon as I can, I’m still gonna go back to civilisation. Auvergne, here I come.
They are just pushing me out of the workforce earlier by giving me more money. Also: what is your fucking problem with vacations?
I am sure you are making the best trade off and respect that, but use the real values. Double is for a fresh grad in top US markets.
The Greater NYC area will net an entry level dev 60-75k max in most cases. 108k is much closer to the average, taking into account highly experienced outliers.
National average of entry level dev salaries for reference: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Entry-Level-Software-D...
But... he is self employed, which means a significant part of his work includes sales and management. That's something I don't enjoy doing and I am very happy having a boss do it for me. He also has more tax and less employee protection and other advantages, which he compensates by having insurance, but that extra expense is to be considered when comparing income (it is still more than me in the end).
As I said, I am content with my life, even though I know I could make is "better" if I really wanted to. It is just an insight on a reason why many engineers prefer to stay despite the "low" pay.
Also worth noting that many French people dislike the very idea of working in the US. Sometimes because they don't like the culture or the sometimes misguided idea they have of it. Sometimes it is the language, or just moving and leaving their relatives behind. Canada, especially Quebec can be a "milder" alternative, I have several friends who went there, some stayed, others came back, I think the pay was higher there every time.
I am French and live in the western suburbs of Paris. I have a job that does not require me to get into Paris and despite having had several opportunities, I passed.
I like the quiet environment, biking to the office, even if it means a lesser pay.
I'm sure there are also office-based US companies with good pay and W/L balance.
Let’s just start by saying that back home, every worker has 5 week of pays vacation by law.
Most qualify worker get 6 , and it’s not uncommon to go in the 7 or 8 with seniority.
Just with that simple fact the « work life balance » a US company has to offer is kinda cute compared to what I would get automatically.
Then come childcare, education and healthcare. Being childless in the US is fine, but when you see the cost of a child you understand the large salaries.
Something I still don’t get after 10 years is how poor people afford kids in this country.
They are increasingly difficult to find.
I would rather move to other European country to ever bother with US, exactly for the same reasons you mention.
It also sort of implicitly includes the assumption that you still won’t work more than your 7.5-8 hours a day. Working 50% more for 50% more salary obviously is no gain at all.
That said, while I know that the word ‘stress’ didn’t really apply to my jobs in Europe, I find it hard to turn back the clock on my expectations (for both pay and work/life balance).
If I don’t go back I’m hoping I can build a little enclave of sanity for my team here at least.
