[alexgmcm]

Maybe it's a cultural thing - but as a British person I'd be fine with the NHS.

I'd be happy if they stopped the salaries being like 2-3x smaller than the USA though - I get it, the CoL is lower, but it's not that much lower.

[gurkanoluc]

I agree with CoL being not much different and companies just using that as a reason are misleading. It’s quite unfortunate that, if you’re a SR SWE in a normal company max you can make is 100k and that would translate into ~5500 net. If you have 2 kids and wanna rent big enough house near an outstanding school in zone 2, ok crime rate, with council tax and bills it’s quite possible to spend at 3500 of that just for housing. Not leaving much money for non-essential fun things.

Another reason for crazy salaries in the valley is limited talent pool, which might change soon with companies moving to remote or at least being remote friendly. It’s quite hard to get someone into the US with H1B. As far as I know even Facebook and Google stopped sponsoring.