[bchanudet]

I may be wrong, but I think there is also a cultural difference: everything here revolves around your gross income.

You'll hear "I win 100k a year", not "I win 181k a year". During hiring, you negotiate on the 100k number. Your contract mention this number. In the end, if there is a tax raise on the company part, they have to maintain your salary to the same level, even if it ends up costing them more than before.

That'd be also why US salaries seem so high from the outside, but are less impressive once your factor this in.

[ryanwaggoner]

This is exactly how it works in the US. Salaries here are listed and negotiated around the gross amount that the employer pays to the employee, without any regard for the employer taxes. The difference is that employer-side taxes on that salary are about ~8% (and most of this is capped at the first $147k), not 45%.

Sadly, US salaries don’t just seem much higher than Europe: they are much higher. Take home pay after all taxes for a senior engineer at a large public tech company can commonly be $250k+ per year, in addition to benefits like health insurance and 6+ weeks off once vacation and holidays are taken into account.