[xyzzyz]

Surprisingly enough, tech salaries are not that much higher in Germany than they are in Poland. In Germany, the tech wages are surprisingly low, and when you couple that with higher taxes and high cost of living, it is not as attractive as US or Switzerland.

In more concrete terms: 60-70k EUR is what you are looking at in Germany in good job markets, while in Poland the figure is 30-40k EUR. When you consider taxes, housing, and other costs, the difference is really not that great.

[bonoboTP]

Life is pretty cheap in Germany if you live a simple life. Supermarkets are famously cheap. Clothes, electronics cost the same as anywhere else. Rent is bearable outside of big cities and jobs are quite well distributed across Germany.

The big difference is in the savings. Even if you just make twice as much, your savings per month can be several times higher than in Poland, which makes a lot of difference if you want to go back to your country later on and buy a house etc.

[blub]

One has to also mention that living a simple life likely involves living in a smaller town somewhere with all the negative aspects that it involves. i.e. lack of social life, no other like-minded expats, etc.

[bonoboTP]

Lots of "small towns" have social life especially university towns.

Also, yes, a simple life means not to live like an American expat lol. You can have a social life without spending lots of money if you socialize with "like minded" people who also don't want to waste money. You can have friends over for dinner at home with a few beers from the supermarket, play cards or boardgames or video games, soccer or basketball outside, have a BBQ, watch a movie at home, etc.

But it's not like you'd have an American expat-like luxury life in the alternative scenario of staying in Eastern Europe either. The point is, by keeping down your lifestyle you can multiply your savings and escape the cycle of poverty and be able to afford a home in a few years, if you go back to your home country and can support your relatives back home in the meantime. This is a great deal for a lot of people even without the fancy expat-like money-burning lifestyle.

[blub]

Not just American expat, but any kind of expat (or if you prefer foreigner) because these are the people most likely to become new acquaintances and friends since they're likely also looking to make new friends. Locals will always be more reluctant and less interested to make friends because they already have a social circle and it takes effort on their side.

University towns only really make a difference if the hypothetical person moving there is college age and if there's a significant number of foreign students. Otherwise why would German college kids want to socialize with a late 20s foreigner?

Someone which moves to a new country will leave their entire social circle behind: family, friends, personal and professional acquaintances. It's an immense loss that will never really be recovered and the older you are the harder it is.

[imtringued]

It must be a language thing but the oxymoron of "smaller town" strikes me as a very odd thing to say. I'm sure you use it to mean "smaller city" because according wikipedia a town has a population of around 5000 people. So when people think of a smaller town they may think of a place with a few hundred people.

Now lets cut to the chase. With the exception of the top 40 cities in Germany every other city has a population of less than 200k people. Unless you go to those 40 places which represent roughly 25% of the population the rest of Germany is nothing but "small cities".

[blub]

Technically small town's not an oxymoron, since the two don't contradict each-other. :-) Now adding small was probably too much, but on the other hand a city of around 200k people already has quite high rents/prices.

I have some friends living in what according to wikipedia one could call a half-town and looked at an apartment there out of curiosity. A 3 room apartment (newly built) was about 280.000 EUR and that's in a town where they have 1 hotel, 1 restaurant (or maybe 2) and 0 supermarkets. In my experience if one wants a 3 room apartment in a normal city, one would add another 100.000 EUR to that price.

[xyzzyz]

Outside of big cities, you're looking at <50k EUR gross. Granted, software wages outside big cities in Poland are significantly worse, but you can live pretty grand life in Warsaw for the same amount as simple life in Germany, while saving more.

[dukeme09]

It's possible to earn far more than 60-70k a year in Germany as a SWE. In my city, Munich, total cash compensation packages range from 85-110k Euros per year for 5-10 years of experience. The base salary trends to on the lower end, but there can be significant bonuses (company bonus, August vacation bonus, and Christmas bonus. For example st BMW, each of these are typically a month's extra salary). In addition, if your position is unionized, it's possible for you to accrue substantial overtime to further increase annual compensation.

[xyzzyz]

And it's possible to earn far more than 40k EUR a year in Poland as well. Google Warsaw starts at 45k EUR for new grads, and you're looking at 80k EUR for senior software engineers. There are a few high pitching companies that try to match that. I was rather pointing out the typical case that covers most of the workers.

[imtringued]

>When you consider taxes, housing, and other costs, the difference is really not that great.

I've made the opposite experience. Sure everything is 30% more expensive in Germany than in Poland but you also make twice as much money. The differences in cost of living are pretty insignificant but the salary is so much higher that it more than makes up the difference.