[CalRobert]

I really can't understand why they stay in the UK then, to be honest. We seem to have better salaries and generally lower cost of living across the sea...

I have no affiliation with this company but here's a recent example, quoted at 95k so you could presumably push higher:

https://www.ninedots.io/job/lead-react-engineer/

[apexalpha]

Family, friends, football club, being in ones own culture?

Not everyone is ready, able or willing to start a new life somewhere.

And an important detail to remember is that Europeans usually work a lot less than Americans. Due to progressive taxes people tend to choose for more time off rather than more pay.

[eertami]

>And an important detail to remember is that Europeans usually work a lot less than Americans. Due to progressive taxes people tend to choose for more time off rather than more pay.

Yep, anecdotal but time is just so much more valuable in my 20s than the extra (taxed) money. The sweet spot atleast for me is a 3 day work week. Pays enough and it has a decent balance.

I could never trade this situation for a US dev job even for 3-4x the salary.

[CalRobert]

Yeah - but I was referring to Ireland. When headhunters contact me it's weird how the British ones offer surprisingly low salaries compared to Ireland, Germany, Finland, etc. (obviously this is after converting to EUR). I suppose I should have been more specific about which sea I referred to.

And time is incredibly valuable, if only because for most of us enjoying time is the whole damn point of working. I find playing with my kid or traveling or working on side projects much more fulfilling than my day job (which is fine, but ultimately just a job)

[eertami]

Yeah that's fair, but (again, purely personal) I also wouldn't want to move from the Alps to live in Dublin, no matter the salary.

I agree that the salaries are lower, but also tax is a fair bit less in the UK than some EU countries. When I did the math on paying UK taxes vs registering in France for French taxes, the take home would only have been ~50% of net salary on the French system.

[CalRobert]

Ah, to be honest I love mountains and in the long term have considered ways to live closer to them. In Ireland we only have tall hills at best, but people are offended if you call them that...

However Ireland was where I got a visa, and now that I'm here it's not bad.

[n4r9]

Well, the places where you'd get better salaries than London probably don't have a much lower cost of living. Personally I'd consider working somewhere like California for a couple of years for the experience, but like a lot of Brits I just don't think the US would be a comfortable cultural fit.

[CalRobert]

Right, but I was referring to the Irish Sea. €95k (about $107k thanks to the atrocious euro atm) for that job would be ridiculously low in the valley, after all. As someone who left California for Europe because I wanted a better cultural fit I wouldn't tell Brits they should move to the US. But Ireland appears to offer better salaries, for all of its housing issues is still cheaper than southeast England, and isn't so dissimilar culturally.

TBF sticker shock isn't just for salaries. When I started looking at private health insurance in Ireland I kept double-checking to make sure they weren't quoting weekly rates or similar; I couldn't believe how cheap it was. Similarly, the cost of living is much more than it used to be, but SV dwarfs Dublin (and most other places) for COL.

Also, I just hated coming in to work on Monday morning and being greeted with annoyance that I hadn't read my boss' email from Sunday night. I wasn't too keen on the look of disbelief when I asked for two whole weeks off, either.

Funny enough being a European citizen working in California seems like the best of both worlds. You'd get very high pay but still have a fallback in the event of illness, injury, unemployment, etc. And, of course, some of us have partners who don't work in tech and the salary disparities there are much smaller (or in some cases, favour Europe - at least the northern bits)

[n4r9]

Hah, sorry, I assumed you meant the Atlantic and your username confirmed it in my head. Should have read your link more carefully.

Interestingly, Dublin ranked 19th in the Economist's 2018 Worldwide cost of living report, whereas London came 30th.

[dv_dt]

I don't know about the UK, but there was a recent breakdown of salary of US vs France and though there is a delta in the absolute salaries offert, the gap was almost closed when considering health care, vacation, or other benefits. It's important to consider that the salary can be buying you a lifestyle and some savings, not a high-score.