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European salaries are laughably low even compared to low ball offers from US startups.

Essentially options for good (but not great) sr engineers are

1. Get 120k salary in Europe (on higher end)

2. 500k at FAANG in US (salary + RSU)

3. ~200k at startup in US + lottery tickets

Both option 2 and 3 strictly beat option 1 (especially after taxes) so European should get off the high horse and recognize reality that they are poor and exploited by companies and government.

[const_cast]

It depends on what you value. For example, if you want a high quality of life and acceptable work-life balance, that is very, very hard to find in the US. IMO, 500K a year doesn't matter too much if you're fat, lonely, and want to kill yourself. Not saying that everyone in the US is like that, but certainly it seems to be a much higher degree.