[ehnto]

Like others have mentioned, the US pays it's developers like royalty because they are a key fuel in the tech bubble. In a playground full of millionares and billionaires developers are an enabling piece of the puzzle.

The rest of the world doesn't have such extreme market forces, and there are even subsets of the software market in the US that also can't afford to pay at that level because they have more traditional business models.

You could say wages for devs in the US are more closely tied to the value they provide to the tech bubble and it's inflated economics, not the value they provide to society in traditional business models.

This is also why there are more "family owned" style small software companies in the rest of the world. A single SV wage would be more than some companies yearly revenue.

[ornornor]

Switzerland developers salaries are the same or higher than US. You get a much better standard of living, 5 weeks vacation minimum, paid overtime (all time worked is logged and checked by the govt so it is paid), a pension.

Just putting this here for people to know it might be an option. I certainly wish I knew sooner. Visa can be tricky though, if you’re not at least an EU citizen (or better yet, married to a Swiss), it’ll tough getting a visa. And I’d you’re American, no bank will touch you with a ten foot pole.

[bosie]

How is the purchasing power with that swiss salary though? Are the job opportunities mostly in the financial sector?

[ornornor]

I’d say it’s very good. I don’t know about Zürich where rent is higher but overall it works out pretty well considering the overall package: much better employment insurance (1-2 years at 80% of your salary, including if you quit), vacation (5 weeks minimum by law + statutory holidays), health insurance (healthcare is not cheap here compared to Germany or France or Italy but the max deductible allowed for policies is 2500/year/adult), paid overtime (again, by law), 1-3 months notice period when quitting or laying off, and companies (generally) aren’t as trigger happy: if they hire you it’s not to fire you as soon as the wind changes. Oh and parental leave by law (don’t know the specifics).

That’s my understanding, if I made a mistake please correct me.

Yes food costs more, so does clothing etc. But taxes aren’t suuuper high in my opinion (around 20-30% with health insurance paid separately), VAT is 7.7%, and you can get anywhere by train for quite cheap (super saver tickets let you go across Switzerland for 20 francs, if you plan a bit ahead).

The caveat is that unless you have an EU passport or marry a Swiss, it’s almost impossible to get a work visa. And if you’re a US citizen, there is no bank that will want to take you as a customer.

Banks are a big employer but there are also insurance companies. I’m joking, these two are big but there are startups as well, consultancies, big entreprise type of jobs, etc.

[literallycancer]

Really? As in you have gone to levels.fyi and the numbers there are lower than what you are seeing in Zurich?

[ornornor]

For google etc yes they’re comparable.