[froddd]

My understanding of bigger salaries outside the UK is that they are based on longer working hours, with very little focus on quality of life outside work. This may only apply to the US, but in any case I’ll always personally consider off-work time a very precious requirement.

[HyperSane]

How many hours do you think the average US programmer works?

[Barrin92]

probably almost four to eight weeks more per year than the average British or European programmer. In the EU and UK most countries have about six weeks of mandatory paid time off per year, and strict limits on overtime work.

Anecdotally from my own experience in the US I'd say Americans work probably about 20% more hours annually. Even people who had comparable vacation would often only take two weeks, and weekly hours seemed to be closer to 40-45 than the 35-38 that's common in Europe.

edit: btw that's not industry specific, it's a long running trend: https://www.stlouisfed.org/-/media/project/frbstl/stlouisfed...

[orwin]

I mean, I went from 11 weeks of PTO to 8 and I still have trouble adjusting 3 years later, I can't imagine having only 2.