[sytelus]

There are no two schools of thought. There are no two "approaches". It's simple economics. Companies don't decide pay X, they have to pay X. In US, there are genuine software products company and software products happen to scale naturally and make a shit ton of money. In most other countries, software engineers are hired merely as IT guys for "main" businesses like insurance or government. They don't scale.

[alexgmcm]

But how does this explanation work when you compare Facebook/Amazon etc. devs working in European offices to those working in the USA.

They are both working on the same products, but outside the USA the pay is a lot worse.

[_5uxp]

Except Switzerland, In Europe they're literally robbed from the salary side and not much other benefits either.