[fooker]

Free education and childcare doesn’t come close to shrinking a 300k USD gap in total compensation. Real number in my case, I looked into moving to Berlin last year.

> Not to mention the fascism problem of course.

Agreed.

The US is going in a terrible direction with this. I hope Europe has learned from history and won’t follow.

[surgical_fire]

I could make 2x-3x if I moved to the US.

Turns out I can live a pretty comfortable life with EU salary. I could afford a house, car, family. Quality of Life is pretty great.

I am not sure if the extra money in the US would be worth it.

[joe_mamba]

>I could afford a house, car, family.

You're in the minority now in EU if you can afford to have those things now. The housing and CoL crunch is real and many industries suffered layoffs. Q3 2025 youth unemployment is around 20-25% in several EU countries including developed ones like Finland, it's no longer an issue just for the less developed southern ones.

>I am not sure if the extra money in the US would be worth it.

Since you already have a house and everything, then yeah it makes no sense for you. But I would do it in a heartbeat if I could.

[surgical_fire]

> You're in the minority now in EU if you can afford to have those things now.

A quick search tells me that home ownership in the EU is Approximately 70%, ranging from around 95% in countries such as Romania and Slovakia, to around 50% in Germany. Non-EU citizens disproportionately owns less houses.

So, no. I am not at all in the minority.

Youth unemployment is an issue, being 15% in the EU as a whole, with some countries hovering on 30%. The US has 10% of youth unemployment (considering their labor laws are appallingly bad for workers, I am not sure if this is much of an improvement).

> Since you already have a house and everything, then yeah it makes no sense for you. But I would do it in a heartbeat if I could.

Good for you, may you achieve your goals.

I didn't own a house until a year ago. Refusing offers from the US and moving to EU was likely the best decision I ever made.

I had a life threatening illness not long ago. In the US I would likely be either bankrupt of dead. I appreciate the safety net and labor protections here, even with the higher taxes.

[joe_mamba]

> to around 50% in Germany.[...] Non-EU citizens disproportionately owns less houses.[...] So, no. I am not at all in the minority.

Do you see the issue here?

[surgical_fire]

No?

Home ownership in the US is about 65%, but I presume that may vary a bit by state.

I also expect non-US citizens to disproportionately own less houses.

[joe_mamba]

I don't get the obsession with the US here. That's a different country than the EU where I(and you to afaik) live and the target of the topic.

If I can't afford a house, it makes it no better to me if you tell me that some people in the US also can't afford one, like that's supposed to make me feel better or something.

And with 50% home ownership statistics, it seems I'm not alone. I'm glad the system worked for you but it failed me and so I will vote to those who put my interest first and not devalue my labor.

[fooker]

You are right, going the other way can be tough though.

There are hobbies and interests you can pursue with a tech salary in the US that are somewhat out of reach in Europe without generational wealth.

[burnerzzzzz]

Curious: What hobbies etc are out of reach on an EU tech salary?

[bombcar]

I may be wrong but my understanding is that it's not uncommon to find out someone in the USA is a private pilot, no matter what their job is (e.g., if your grocer or mechanic mentioned they have a license you'd not be shocked).

Apparently it's much rarer in the EU, but that might not only be a cost issue.

[overfeed]

Cost is not a barrier. Entry-level kit aircraft are cheap in the US, as in cheaper than some of the fancier trucks. The very basic micro-lites are cheaper than any new car.

Conversely, Europeans workers get to enjoy some hobbies more than Americans - such as frequent travel - not because of how much they earn, but because of work culture and paid vacation time rules.

[fooker]

Planes, boats, racing, horses.

The rule of thumb is that expensive hobbies cost in a year what the median yearly income in your area is.

A European tech salary would be about 2x of the median while a US tech salary can be 5-6x.

[joe_mamba]

>A European tech salary would be about 2x of the median

Not even that if you're a worker in rich/developed EU country, unless we're talking FAANG/big-tech, since here SW dev wages are relatively close to national medians so an average SW dev worker doesn't take home 2x the the median.

Issue further compounded by the high taxes on higher wages and more generous government benefits and tax credits for those on lower wages, and suddenly the take home difference at the end of the fiscal year between a SW dev and average worker narrows down even further, to the point that it's not a career you get into for the money, like in the US.

BUt if you're in the less wealthy EU countries, with lower taxes and less welfare benefits, where the national average wages are lower in comparison to tech wages, like from Poland to Bulgaria then yeah sure, you can easily take home 2x-5x the national median in tech because the other industries are a lot less developed compared to SW products and service industry versus places like Germany or Norway with more diverse and developed industries raising the national average wages for everyone making tech workers feel underpaid.

[fooker]

Big tech is about 2x of median, yes.

Even that is embarrassingly low compared to literally anywhere else with offices.

[lostlogin]

> I hope Europe has learned from history and won’t follow.

France was recently an absolute inspiration in this regard.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgrlxn4ngdgo

[lawn]

Most people in the US don't earn SV top salaries, and for most people the difference is not that big (was my point).

[fooker]

Right.

I not talking about average wages, as that has no bearing on whether I would want to live somewhere.

I'll primarily look at what I can make and what my quality of life would be like.

[lawn]

You are however making sweeping generalizations that you extrapolate from your own personal experience, while making hard connections between quality of life and the ability to earn more than your peers.

Meanwhile the Nordics for example consistently rank much higher in health, happiness, and quality of life, despite having lower top wages.

[fooker]

I agree, not sure what the generalization was.

My point was that if you have a senior level big tech job in the US, it makes zero sense to move to Europe unless you have family there or want to make a significant financial sacrifice.

Obviously Europe wins for workers in general, and if I wanted to work in a car factory’s yes I’d do my best to work in Europe.

[dh2022]

I looked at your other posts in this thread. The lifestyle you describe is not the average US based developer lifestyle. You must live in a very selective circle. Because I only know one developer who owned his plane-that Canadian guy who literally coded the first version of S3, became irreplaceable so AWS let him move to Oregon and he was commuting by plane. And I only know one developer who owned horses-he actually made his money by buying a whole bunch of land in Kirkland in the 90s. These are the only two examples out of probably more than 100 developers I worked with.

I know developers who have motor bikes and a Porsche or BMW or, recently, Teslas that sometimes they take to the race track. But this lifestyle is common for EU devs as well.

[fooker]

Yes, you are right.

I am not sure why everyone keeps bringing up the average though.

You have to decide whether it makes sense for you to be somewhere, based on how much you can expect to make and what your quality of life will be.

What the average person makes does not matter except in an abstract sense that equitable societies are better in general (which is absolutely true).

> You must live in a very selective circle. > These are the only two examples out of probably more than 100 developers I worked with.

People can be very careful about keeping professional life separate. There is a boat owners club in a marina I frequent, the vast majority of the members (out of about 200) are techies, it's a common hobby.

I know several that have a pilot license but only one who bought a plane, it's somewhat convenient to just rent every few months.