[sxp]

https://danluu.com/bimodal-compensation/ covers this well.

This skew is not obvious to people outside Silicon Valley, but it's discussed more now that sites like levels.fyi are providing data. Even more shocking is the split between SV/NYC/SEA salaries and the rest of the world. When the Google internal Salary Spreadsheet was created, people were amazed and the difference in salaries between LON/EU SWEs and US SWEs given that both groups are equally skilled.

Getting a FAANG job is hard, but it's worth it for the ability to retire after a decade of hard work compared to working for multiple decades at a normal tech company.

[reidjs]

Equally skilled at engineering, but is there something special USA engineers bring to the table to warrant a higher salary? Easier to work with? More business sense? Longer hours/less holidays? Better understanding of the target market?

Don’t get me wrong. it might just be that life’s not fair.

[BuckRogers]

I'm American but have worked in the EU, France specifically. There's no comparison in how hard you're pushed in the US vs over there, as you're insinuating. Everyone knows that part. And most of us on the US side are not in Silicon Valley nor do we make those wages. The EU guys have the better deal. They just need to actually secure full-time employment at all, which is hard to do there outside of Germany. That's the part no one will tell you.

It won't happen here, because our working class is asleep to the economic game being played, but the best blend is probably the UK and it's where we need to head as far as our demands.