[swat535]

This is exactly the case.

In my experience of looking for remote engineers, top talent costs the same pretty much everywhere and the great engineers in India (Russia, Poland,..) demand a pretty similar salary in USD when asked to perform the same tasks.

I think parent is under the impression that run of the mill engineers offshore SWEs can perform the same as a Googler.

[algo_lover]

I agree, but even great Indian software programmers are happy with much less. Getting half of what a similar American would get should make any talented dev extremely happy here.

I get around 1/3rd of what I would receive in the US, work with a globally distributed team, and I'm quite satisfied with my salary and the company quite satisfied with me.