[BoorishBears]

But I was promised free healthcare and more vacation time makes it all even!

(I've always loved that narrative for its optimism. In reality if you have a modicum of self-restraint you can save more money on a US salary than most people are making on a European salary, and tech tends to have excellent healthcare.)

[niemandhier]

It does, I did the math when I was offered a 100k+ position in the US.

After computing what I would have to pay for: - Piano lessons for the kids - child care - sports clubs - golfing - private tutors - rent / mortgage

I concluded that my quality of life would decrease. Europe is crazy cheep for families. The UK is particular, brexit did not do them any good.

[pedrosorio]

> It does, I did the math when I was offered a 100k+ position in the US.

100k+ has been close to the floor for entry level for a while now. Did you do the math on how much you'd earn over 10 years?

[yoyohello13]

100k is the floor? Where do you live? I swear most devs on HN have had their brains addled by inflated salaries.

[titanomachy]

It would be unusual for a new college grad at any well-known tech company in Seattle to make less than $150k right now. Large companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google dominate the market here. If you were starting a software company in Seattle, $100k would probably be enough to interest only the most inexperienced and unqualified candidates.

New York City and San Francisco Bay Area are similar or higher. I don't have much experience with the rest of the US.

[fooker]

Not just Seattle, I am seeing tech salaries in Denver, SLC, Austin, etc starting from 120-30k nowadays (and growing VERY fast if you stick around for a few years because the smaller cities have trouble keeping experienced engineers from taking a 700k offer from some FAANG company.)

[Manuel_D]

Who's getting the 700K FAANG offers? I say this as someone who just took an offer with ~390K TC for an Amazon SDE III or Meta E5 equivalent at FAANG. 10 YoE. Aside from equity value increasing, I don't think 700K without factoring in rising stock prices is common, outside of niche in demand roles.

[lannisterstark]

>I swear most devs on HN have had their brains addled by inflated salaries.

Are you sure it's not just a coping mechanism (I can't find the right word, sorry), for those who didn't get those salaries to say this line?

Even in PHX my company offers 95k as starting base for junior devs.

[hirvi74]

I am seriously getting shafted then. That is more than I make currently as a developer, and I have almost 8 years of experience (I also live in the US).

[pedrosorio]

"had their brains addled"... no need to be mean

https://tomazweiss.github.io/blog/so_2023_compensation/

[Manuel_D]

Entry level for my job in the Bay Area was 110K salary an about a other 70K in RSUs. This was 2015. Granted this was probably above average, as it was a medium sized but highly regarded company.

[sethammons]

In socal, the dev interns I was managing a couple years ago were paid $50/hr. That is a bit over $100k/yr

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

Eh, I would have agreed maybe a decade ago, but the past years have seriously eroded USD buying power[1]. For example, for that 100k in 2014 to be equivalent in 2024, you would need 133k or that your adjusted for inflation dollars are 76K ( and that is BLS ).

100k is the floor, because 100k used to actually mean real money. I no longer think it is. I earn more than that and I believe we are struggling. I don't know how other people manage.

[1]https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=100%2C000.00&y...

[OJFord]

> 100k is the floor, because 100k used to actually mean real money. I no longer think it is. I earn more than that and I believe we are struggling. I don't know how other people manage.

I don't think that can be anything but 'lifestyle inflation'? Even if that's one income, supporting spouse and children.

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

'Lifestyle inflation' is a fascinating phrase and I may need to borrow it for future discussions. I think I strongly disagree, but I am open to convincing. Would you be willing to elaborate?

[Propelloni]

This sounds like starting up in the USA becomes less viable. And this begs the question why VC is still focused on the USA. 2-3 million dollars in seed money allow me to scale much faster in Europe (and much much faster elsewhere), if only for the fact that the same money I have to pay for an entry level developer in the USA will get me a very senior developer in Europe. Or two, maybe three, juniors.... what do you think?

[mobiuscog]

Employee 'rights' are often much stronger outside the USA and so whilst you potentially pay more, you can 'downscale' much quicker as well. Look where most of the tech layoffs happen.

[Klonoar]

A cynical take is that VCs still focus on the USA because the environment is far more lax and/or easy to take advantage of.

That’s not an easy scenario for other countries that care to counter.

[vundercind]

Floor’s around $70k-80k for a new grad in my 3rd-tier (but still a couple million population) non-coastal US city. A couple major tech firms you’ve surely heard of are based here, plus some other really big ones you definitely know of if you work in the industries they serve. Not just offices—headquarters.

The benefits will be decent, but nothing special, at a big place and dogshit anywhere smaller, so it’s not made up there. You’ll probably have 10 vacation days, maybe like 14 if they pool vacation and sick leave.

[rustcleaner]

$100 is floor?! Here I am at $36 in Socal! I'm in the wrong line of work...

[BoorishBears]

I'm 30, I can effortlessly save 100k a year after spending money on everything you listed.

If you're happier in the EU that's fine, but the math definitely doesn't check out for people focused on finances: even when you take soft benefits into account

[nasmorn]

I made 245k USD before taxes in the EU last year self employed. Most people I know cannot believe how much money I made. To make that money you don’t just need to be an average leet Code drone but negotiate great contracts on your projects and take on and manage a lot of risk.

What I am saying is: the math definitely doesn’t check out because apparently someone in my position would be doing 3x in the US

[fooker]

Would you mind sharing your math?

I had concluded the opposite if you compound over 5-ish years.

With two tech incomes, you'll make approximately 4-5 million in the US counting equity, versus about 1 mil everywhere else except maybe Zurich. US expenses over 5 years would be about 800k-1mil excluding a home which you are likely going to sell for far more than you pay for.

[saithound]

Let me share my math.

Let's just take one perk I get to enjoy right now: I can afford to live in a high density city block with a long-term average yearly homicide rate below 4 per 100000 inhabitants.

In the U.S. I could replicate this only by purchasing a city block sized campus for myself and then investing in very very good screening of tenants and a private security force.

Based on average salaries of police and municipal infrastructure workers, combined with real estate prices in major U.S. metros, even with a bit of optimization, I couldn't get the cost to go below $2,150,023,240 for the first year (including real estate purchases) and about $1b yearly afterwards. I could maybe go lower by building my own city block somewhere outside a major metro, but I think infrastructure costs would eat that up.

And that's just one perk I got to enjoy: others, such as living within walking distance to my workplace, would be even harder to replicate. Yet others, like the ability to visit a borthel without having to worry about losing my job or going to jail, are nigh impossible.

Sure, there's additional efficiency where one action can help achieve multiple such perks, so let's assume I could replicate the lifestyle I enjoyed for a measlt $1b pa. That's about 8000x the annual income I had when I retired. And US salaries are not even 10x higher than Australian ones, so as far as I can tell, the math is not even close to working out.

(Of course, not everybody cares about these specific perks, and for some the U.S. may be a better fit. They're welcome to emigrate: the ones who don't appear to care enough to vote and keep these policies in place every 3 years, so I doubt anybody's getting the short end of the stick. The point is that it's stupid to compare salary numbers, because a lot of the things people want are trivial conveniences here and still unaffordable for even the richest people in other places, and vice versa.)

[titanomachy]

> achieving a homicide rate below 4/100k would require building a secure compound and hiring live security

This is a little silly. There are many US cities that meet that standard. Seattle's rate is 6/100k which sounds reasonably safe to me. I've never known anyone (and none of my friends knows anyone) who has died by intentional homicide. It's simply not something that we worry about.

> living within walking distance to work is hard to replicate

Why would this be the case? Major cities have both large tech offices and dense housing. My office has many apartments, townhomes, and single-family homes within walking distance. The neighborhood it's located in is quite livable.

> visiting a brothel without losing my job is impossible

This one is probably true. If regular brothel access is a priority, then the US is probably not a good choice. Nevada might be an exception.

[varjag]

The brothels bit is oddly specific, but it's worth mentioning consuming prostitution in many European countries (including some of those with top wages) is illegal.

[saithound]

> I've never known anyone (and none of my friends knows anyone) who has died by intentional homicide. It's simply not something that we worry about.

I do know people who were hit by a car while crossing residential streets.

I don't know any people who were hit by a car while crossing a highway.

This doesn't mean highways are safer to cross on foot than residential streets.

Similarly, the people who are not murder victims in US cities must change their natural behavior in thousands of costly and humiliating ways so as to not become victims, and all that effort still doesn't keep the murder rate lower than the 30-60s that US downtowns have. Do you mind your own business while a teenager walks out of the grocery store without paying? Congratulations, you won't show up in those homicide stats. But it's not merely the stats that were the problem: it's the amount of social disfunction that it indicates and you won't buy your way out of that by any realistic higher salary.

Similarly, I don't personally know anybody who died of lung cancer, but would also not be keen to wear a respirator so that I can safely eat in a restaurant where people smoke.

> There are many US cities that meet that standard.

Oh, I'm sure there are many such _cities_. But that's not the rate of my city, it's the rate of the high density business district I live in. The city itself has a still lower homicide rate, but it's not relevant. I can't find data about the homicide rate of high-density living downtown areas of Seattle, but I doubt it's lower than that of the city itself.

> living within walking distance to work is hard to replicate

Because then you have to make your city block purchase in the immediate vicinity of your employer's office, which will further increase costs since you won't be able to choose among the cheapest high density city blocks.

[singleshot_]

Hello, I am an American who has never been murdered. I am curious to learn more about the humiliating ways I have unknowingly modified my behavior to avoid a violent death. Can you be more specific?

[titanomachy]

I don’t have access to statistics for specific neighborhoods either, but I’m willing to believe Australia is safer in that respect. Singapore’s rates are so low that they make Australia and the US both look unacceptably dangerous. Perception is relative.

I’m not aware of any humiliating ways that I change my behavior to avoid being murdered, although perhaps if you observed me for a few days you would notice some.

I have never looked into buying an entire city block so can’t comment on that. I’ve been content with a single home so far.

[fooker]

>I can afford to live in a high density city block with a long-term average yearly homicide rate below 4 per 100000 inhabitants.

It's great you gave a clear threshold instead of making it vague. Here are some US cities that would satisfy this criteria according to wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...) : San Diego, San Jose (yeah I'm surprised too..), NYC (also unexpected!), Portland, Seattle.

[saithound]

LOL. That's not the rate of my city, it's the rate of the high density business district I live in. The city itself has a much lower homicide rate, because there are large suburbs where people onpy sleep and nothing ever happens. The homicide rate of Downtown San Jose (the closest equivalent area) is a whopping 41/100k. So not a good look there.

[zelphirkalt]

But who is talking about 2 incomes and possibly living even with a partner in one household?

[ta1243]

Based on the OPs figures 1 income with the same expenses would be 1m profit, more than income alone in europe.

I don't believe those figures (and they're meaningless for europeans as you can't simply get a job in the US), but if you take them at face value finanically living in the US for a decade is the sensible approach.

Obviously you'd want to leave before your kids went to school

[fooker]

You don't have to believe me, look at the data points. The recipe you are looking for is: senior position at big tech, preferably doing something specialized.

For example: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/facebook/salaries/software-... https://www.levels.fyi/companies/nvidia/salaries/software-en...

>and they're meaningless for europeans as you can't simply get a job in the US

We have plenty of Europeans in big tech, though the usual path is either through attending university in the US or intra-company transfers. You can get a job directly if yoy are extraordinary, but I have not seen that happen very often.

> Obviously you'd want to leave before your kids went to school

We tried this, and the kid refused.

[Symbiote]

>> Obviously you'd want to leave before your kids went to school

> We tried this, and the kid refused.

That also works the other way.

An American colleague left Denmark so his children could grow up in the USA, but after about 3 months came back because the children missed their personal freedom. (Freedom to walk/cycle home from school, see friends without needing parents to drive them, etc.)

[readyman]

Your math is based on you and your partner making 400k-500k/yr lol.

[fooker]

Yes, that's what we make right now on average.

If you work in tech for a few years that's kind of average. We are having a new PhD grad join next month with a 400k TC offer.

If you have trouble believing me, check out levels.fyi for (Facebook:E5, Google:L5-6, Nvidia:IC5, Apple ICT5).

[readyman]

>Yes, that's what we make right now on average.

>If you work in tech for a few years that's kind of average.

You should probably learn what "average" means if you're getting paid that much to develop software.

[fooker]

The first average is between two people over a few years.

The second average is for similar tech jobs.

But good job resorting to ad hominem.

[georgeburdell]

Ok so you’re in a hot sub-field. Your experience is not typical even at the companies you’ve named. And it’s definitely not typical “after a few years”, unless it’s a new PhD in hot field * top tier company * multiple good reviews. And you’re probably extrapolating the anomalously good stock performance that frankly you have no control over.

Your average Leetcode drone that makes it into those companies is making $300k after 5 years.

[fooker]

>Ok so you’re in a hot sub-field.

Compilers. Not hot, but a bit niche so it sometimes pays well. Not any more than ML or distributed systems specialists.

>Your experience is not typical even at the companies you’ve named

You can check levels.fyi for averages, don't have to rely on my word.

>Your average Leetcode drone that makes it into those companies is making $300k after 5 years.

You are right. So, now the question is: given you are not an 'average leetcode drone' do you work in the US or Europe. I hope this clarifies why competent European computer scientists and engineers move to the US in large numbers.

[yoyohello13]

Wtf? So if you and your partner get a top 1% tech job in the US you can out earn an average job in Europe. No shit!

[fooker]

The math is more like: top 10% of tech jobs in the US would make ~3-4x of top 10% of Europe. And there are so many tech jobs in the US that this top 10% is much larger in number than anywhere else. There's a reason people emigrate to the US from everywhere despite pretty harsh work environment and social security nets.

For example, a Google IC5/6 in Paris would make between 150k-200k vs ~500-700k in the bay area.

[jorvi]

That’s 150-200k on the earning side. In most European countries this has a bunch of social security pay-in, pension pay-in, employer-side employee tax etc. already paid for via the employer. The “real” wage is often close to double, so 300k-400k vs 500k-700k, which doesn’t sound nearly as grim once you factor in the much better quality of life.

[fooker]

Yes, you can make the math work for you by factoring in subjective criteria like quality of life.

> on the earning side

I'm not sure if you are aware but some of the things you mention are also provided by good employers in the US, but they are not obligated to.

[esoterica]

A pension is not worth 150k-200k a year in compensation. Also taxes are higher in most of Europe, even taking payroll taxes into account (I assume that's what you mean by social security pay in).

[isodev]

Very much this. Folks tend to compare absolute numbers at the top of their payslip while forgetting all the rest. You don’t get good roads and healthcare out of nothing.

[skullone]

And the bay area apartment would cost $8k/MO for a 3br/2 bath to raise a single kid in.

[fooker]

Yes, it does.

You are likely not going to be renting an apartment with that kind of money, you are just making your landlord rich.

Instead, you put a 200k deposit, pay the same 8k per month as mortgage (approx 1/3rd of your salary is the rule of thumb), and sell the house or apartment after a while. That way, you are not losing any money.

Check https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/mortgage-calculator for confirming these numbers.

[danenania]

The bay area is expensive, but not that expensive. 4-6k/mo in rent will get you a 3-4br in all but the most expensive neighborhoods. You could also rent a house for that much in many nice bay area suburbs.

[rsynnott]

> For example, a Google IC5/6 in Paris would make between 150k-200k vs ~500-700k in the bay area.

Having worked for Big Tech(TM) in Ireland, I'm a _little_ sceptical of those numbers. There's a big gap, but, at least in the mid levels, it is not _that_ big.

Levels.fyi seems to have paywalled most of their data, so I can't find what Google pay in Paris, but the lowest they show for total compensation for an L6 is $390k, highest $720k. Both of those are serious outliers; median is $550k. While I'm always a bit suspicious of levels.fyi data, I think you're seriously exaggerating how big the gap is, at least in big tech (it can be a lot bigger in small startups).

[bobthepanda]

are piano lessons, private tutors, and sports clubs regularly affordable in Europe? those hardly sound like government provided services

[tyfon]

Most of it is government provided here in Norway. My daughtes do (private) piano lessons and theatre and it's organized and paid by the muni. Sports clubs might have a small fee for equipment, but it's also heavily sponsored by the government, the national lottery etc.

For the things not free you can often have them paid for if you are in the low income brackets, and some places just give credit for those types of activity to all children.

The reasoning is that children of low income families shouldn't be excluded.

[fooker]

A lot of US public schools provide this, but the quality can be questionable in/around large metros.

[mokkol]

Here in Spain, I pay €35/month for weekly piano lessons for my daughter. She loves it and we are really happy with her teacher as well. All from the public music school.

[ta1243]

> The UK is particular, brexit did not do them any good.

No shit. That's why working people voted to remain. That's why young people voted to remain. That's why educated people voted to remain.

The majority of people in the UK today that voted, voted to remain. Far more leave voters have died in the last 8 years than remain voters.

[admissionsguy]

Few people realise that the EU countries and the US are no longer in the same wealth category. There is a 50% difference in GDP per capita between Germany and the USA, for example.

It's not a matter of offering benefits in kind instead of money, but rather a fundamental difference in resources available.

[leipert]

The GDP per capita in the US is (85k USD) and in Germany (54k USD) nominal. That’s about 57% higher. At PPP (purchase power parity) 85k US vs 67k Germany, which “only” is a 27% difference.

Denmark rates at 68k / 77k. So much closer. Norway is tricky to compare and Netherlands, Ireland and Switzerland are tax havens.

- Nominal: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(no...

- PPP: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP...

[admissionsguy]

The population of Denmark is equal to that of Wisconsin. If we look at Denmark simply because it's among the richest EU countries, it might be more appropriate to compare it with the richest US states. Taking the top 5 state (California), we get $100k vs $68k (nominal), again ca 50%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

[varjag]

These estimates are really approximate and depend on the exchange rate. The lowest rate of NOK/USD on my memory was 5.6 and the highest nearly 12.

Developer salaries in Norway are decent as Europe goes but if you want to make money hand over fist there's no other place like America. Yes even with all the old world perks imaginable.

[mchaver]

Well, I also like that my neighbors and community also have access to no-pay-at-point-of-use healthcare, low cost education options and guaranteed time off. Makes for a relatively relaxed and content population!

If you don't invest in (or put up lots of barriers to) the health and education of the entire community, then you are going to have an unhealthy and uneducated community.

That's not to say we don't have many problems, but in my personal experience it's a lot less than the US in those regards.

[Nextgrid]

> have access to no-pay-at-point-of-use healthcare

This really depends on the country. In the UK you need to go private and pay if you want any kind of timely healthcare.

[lannisterstark]

>I've always loved that narrative for its optimism

Despite all the European love, most of Europe (and rather, most of the world) is pretty poor compared to US.

[datascienced]

Outsiders have the disadvantage of needing a visa but the advantage of a $2k excess (the cost of the return flight) for unlimited chronic condition management. Obviously ER is different as you can’t go home quickly.

Once you return home you might get to keep the job while in the hone country and rake it in.