[javajosh]

The money isn't as good, but the benefits are quite a lot better, especially for families. Universal healthcare is an enormous simplification of life (I really wish Americans who get mad about "socialized medicine = evil!" could experience it first hand; its clear there is no such thing as a free market in healthcare anyway). Universal education, even pre-K, is an enormous benefit if you have kids.

But yeah, total comp for devs seem to top out at around 100k, no matter where you are, and usually is more like 50k. (Evidence is anecdotal). Also, since the epicenter of the internet is still the SFBA they wonder why you are in Europe, when all of them want to move to the SFBA! I suspect this last one will start changing.