2. Just for any engineering job in China there is a personal "middle income trap" of around net CNY25000-30000 per month. You reach it, and your career progression stalls, possibly for a decade or so.
Progress past the formal "senior" level is a rare, rare luck.
At 30000 net a month, you can live very very well in China.
Should be the same. Just because of their size there should be more space to grow for a senior, but in general they can afford to pay less then the market rate because they think that the talent will keep coming to them because of their big name.
In China, the salary distribution is very very homogenious, unlike in the West. Any kind of seniority, experience, or performance component will rarely contribute to more that 30% of your salary.
That is why China looses out to the West when it comes to retaining super senior level specialists. They either start their own business, or move to the West
If you can afford a house in London, you can probably afford a house in XYZ
The reverse doesn't usually follow (unless XYZ is Monaco :p)
So "global" is relative but if in my personal view "global" everyone in SV, or NYC or Dubai or London is competing with you on purchasing power and general access to resources so local quality of life is only half the picture.
Unless of course you choose to completely sign out of the "chase" which is a viable strategy and its own set of tradeoffs
Nobody is competing globally. If you're Chinese (or wherever) you can only work legally in a few places in the world and you won't be treated as well as the locals (lower compensation too). Moving abroad also means abandoning your friends and family and culture and inheritance, with financial and non financial effects.
Working in an high costs of living area for a few years -if at all possible- is of course a viable strategy to save some money before going back home.
2. Just for any engineering job in China there is a personal "middle income trap" of around net CNY25000-30000 per month. You reach it, and your career progression stalls, possibly for a decade or so.
Progress past the formal "senior" level is a rare, rare luck.
At 30000 net a month, you can live very very well in China.