I have a coworker living and working in Berlin. He won't stop raving about how cheap it is to live nicely there. He's constantly trying to recruit me to move. I think US companies must just pay more.
Berlin isn't that expensive as far as Germany goes, it was considered a "shithole" for over a decade post unification, Munich, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf and even Hamburg are considerably more expensive
If you come from the "valley" yes Germany will look cheaper especially if you are planning to rent, but then you'll find out that even a tiny 2 bed (500-600 sq/f) in Berlin in anything that's not a low income project that looks like the backdrop set to the Wire will cost you 250-300K EUR and the prices go up from there, if you want a home that is comparable to US sizes 1600-1800 sq/ft which will be very large 3.5-4 bed in Berlin you'll have to say goodbye to 800-1M EUR.
The average dev salary in Berlin will be about 40-50K EUR, your friend might be very special and he gets much more and everything looks rosy but it's not the common case.
Now don't get me wrong you won't feel "poor" earning 40-50K in Berlin but you won't see nearly as much disposable income as one would in the US.
I earn about 100K GBP living in London and while I won't call myself poor I won't even begin to compare myself to friends living in the US making comparable or even lower galleries. The disposable income after tax is absurdly different, and the expenses in the UK and London specifically are several times higher on everything including rent even when comparing to valley prices.
Europe is quite good for lower middle class, and it's very very good for old money, but allot of absurdly bloated costs make it harder for people to actually advance in life, especially when their jobs demand or require a certain life style which comes at a premium.
By spending sometimes 80% or more of their post tax income on rent.
I'm lucky and spend only about half, not remotely broke but will never be able to buy in London either.
In the us a similar income would get you a nice house, a pool and even a tesla, in the uk a Prius plugin will cost nearly half of my yearly post tax income and a 2 bed where I live is about 10-12 years of post tax wages.
> In the us a similar income would get you a nice house, a pool and even a tesla
In a comparable place in the US (i.e. NYC) a similar income gets you similar housing - and not much more in food/services.
If you go out into the boonies, yes US housing is cheap but so is the UK. And in both places few people manage to earn six figures outside the bubbles of NYC, Boston and SF/Valley (nationwide, $100k is 92nd percentile of income give or take).