[kayoone]

come to Berlin, nothing of what you say applies there imo. Salaries might be substantially lower than in SV, but it's also far far cheaper. Eg. as a Senior 70-90k EUR is realistic in Berlin (without management), allowing you a very good quality of live in a city that is nowhere near SV/London in terms of rent and many other expenses.

[est31]

IDK I'm not a very consumption oriented person. In the phase of life following my graduation I plan to save my money so "how much can you save" is the metric I compare places by. Yes, SV has a higher cost of living and I'm not an extremist like this very frugal guy who lived in a van for his mountain view internship (cool trick though!). But from my assessment even if you rent a room/condo, SV/London are still more attractive than Germany.

If your lifestyle is to spend most of your paycheck (which is a fine lifestyle btw, I don't want to be judgemental), then I think Berlin is much greater than SV. The fewer money you get is at the same time more powerful in Berlin. If you have children, even more so.

But you know you maybe want to buy a flat or house, but for that you need money. It's hard and takes years to use your SV/London wage to buy SV/London flats. It's hard to use your Berlin wage to buy Berlin flats. It is comparatively easy though to use your SV/London wage to buy a Berlin flat.

Germany is not unattractive for me on a permanent basis, but I think in the current situation I'm in, other places are more attractive.

Also I might be wrong, I'll conduct a final assessment once I graduated and have concrete job and wage offers and can do cost of living calculations and how much I'll be able to save after deducing all costs I expend.