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While I don't feel that there is risk of brain drain because of the reasons listed in the article, I do believe there is that risk. To be honest, even though ma

While I don't feel that there is risk of brain drain because of the reasons listed in the article, I do believe there is that risk. To be honest, even though many European countries don't pay as much as the US for the same job, I found much more comfort around the ideas pushed in those countries. The culture I found in Sweden for instance is one that is much better for the employees than the fast-paced top-gun style of programming expected in the US. Sure my peak will probably be 60k, but that 60k will also come with a much better social quality of life. That's the problem with the US that would risk brain drain in my opinion. Money attracts people, but treating them well will keep them and the US is starting to fall away from treating its workers well. Edit: just think about this. Most Americans talk about how they have so much work to do they don't get vacation. Well in Europe you usually get your 2 weeks and in many countries you get 4 contiguous weeks without question. Couple that with better healthcare options, and yeah the US is not looking so great.

rtx 9y ago
Who will buy products from such companies. They will have to compensate for the productivity from somewhere else.
ianai 9y ago
Yes, all of the above. Plus, those same sorts of policies keep the US employment rolls lower. More people would be employed if the full time work week was 30 hours (time and a half above that), for instance.
derping69 9y ago
Europe is able to do this because the US subsidizes their existence. 1. Pharma companies develop drugs with US subsidies and make their profits off US citizens while European countries put price ceilings on their drugs. 2. US essentially defends the world, allowing other countries to spend money elsewhere. http://www.ibtimes.com/how-us-subsidizes-cheap-drugs-europe-2112662 http://www.ibtimes.com/how-us-subsidizes-cheap-drugs-europe-...
- bauerd 9y ago
  >US essentially defends the world, allowing other countries to spend money elsewhere. You really think that? I mean come on
  - derping69 9y ago
    US spends more on military than every Euro country combined. If they are attacked we have to defend them and they know it. They would contribute a relatively insignificant amount if we were ever attacked.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > If they are attacked we have to defend them and they know it. They would contribute a relatively insignificant amount if we were ever attacked. If? In the entire history of NATO, the mutual defense provisions of the treaty have been invoked exactly once, and that in response to an attack on the US, and the non-US NATO contributions were not insignificant.
      - plantain 9y ago
        >the mutual defense provisions of the treaty have been invoked exactly once that's the point
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        Sure, deterrence is the point of the treaty, but the claim upthread was about the significance of contributions that would be made in the event of an attack, a claim which contradicts the facts of the time when an attack resulting in the mutual defense provisions being invoked actually occurred.
    - forapurpose 9y ago
      > They would contribute a relatively insignificant amount if we were ever attacked Many Europeans gave their lives in Afghanistan, responding to an attack on the U.S., and also in Iraq on a fools errand. The U.S. is the predominant power, but that doesn't make others insignificant.
holydude 9y ago
I found this to be pretty much a very biased subjective analogy. I am a european so I hope my "anti-european-rant" will be better accepted but lets see... Europeans often have this illusion of a working social democracy compared to the US suggesting their by default offered benefits to be superior to the offers from the US. That's not the case. In a lot of middle-income-class positions you get most of the things you described as perks. Health care support check. Additional vac days check. Plus a much bigger paycheck. Surely I can agree with treating the workers well and in my book this equals with not exploiting them (so no excessive overtimes, phone calls, onduties etc). But this is not a universal thing in Europe you cannot really generalize this and a lot of the EU companies can be very exploitative even if it's ILLEGAL.
- CorvusCrypto 9y ago
  So then I guess my takeaway is then that there's great and poor working expectations and conditions in both areas. I found the US to be a highly negative experience and don't wish the stress on anyone. Being able to go home at night and not have to be on call or work overtime because it's expected is a great relief. I'll take that over a 100k salary any day. And certainly over my middle income job in California. However since I'm in tech I also get free choice essentially. We in this industry have it pretty lucky in that our skills are easily transferable across borders. I am an American that found peace and happiness in Europe however because I am American you are right to say I'm biased. You don't live in a place all your life and not notice the negatives more.
  - holydude 9y ago
    Well I guess this is a classic case of the grass is greener on the other side :-). Enjoy living in here.
  - ynniv 9y ago
    There's so much variation that it's difficult to make a comparison. In my experience, it's reasonable for a senior developer in the US but not in SV to make over $130k in a 9-5 with a month's vacation. Compared to that, $60k and maybe an extra week's vacation doesn't look as nice. Developers are definitely pushed too hard in the US, but they are also definitely underpaid in Europe.
sikim 9y ago
Problems you mentioned are not unheard of from my personal experience but it's highly dependent on which company or industry. Most of my peers who work in the software industry never had a problem of getting vacation time of few weeks and never work more than 8 hours per day. Of course there's a few times during the year where working more hours are encouraged (e.g. before release/deadline), but even then it's pretty rare. A lot of my friends from foreign countries will not hesitate to come to U.S. to work if they can resolve their visa situation. Also, this article mostly addresses academic jobs which is a totally different story from typical corp jobs.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
gozur88 9y ago
It sort of depends on where you work. I'm in the US and I get five weeks of vacation. My colleagues take off contiguous weeks all the time. Of course you're not going to get that in your first year at a startup, but that sort of thing is available in the US if you're willing to take a bit less money and you stay at the same company for awhile.
e59d134d 9y ago
What you say is so true even that micro-level. At my company, we were driven by by high code quality. We would try our best to minimize escalations, we will never release new code on Friday or late in a day because people have lives. We really made sure no one was working late or on weekends. And we were still competitive and profitable business. Then we get bought by a Fortune 500 company. Slowly new rules come in. Deadline driven projects. Code Quality is no longer important. People are expected to release barely working code just so that we can do a press release. People are working late and on weekends. Code is released on Friday at 5PM because who cares about employee happiness. The result is smartest people have already left the company. This has led to more escalations and less gatekeepers to prevent bad design decisions. People are constantly leaving. I am still here but I am passively looking, so are most of the remaining people. Right now, market is good, so I might see a pay raise but I have told recruiters, I can take pay cut for a great work-life balance.
- kelukelugames 9y ago
  It shouldn't be a trade off. You can get a pay raise and get a great work-life balance.
- simplify 9y ago
  Can you describe what you mean by escalations?
  - jacobush 9y ago
    Probably incidents which are escalated all the way to rapid fix by programmers.
  - enraged_camel 9y ago
    An escalation is an issue that cannot be fixed by a support engineer using regular troubleshooting methods and known fixes and has to be escalated to the development team. They are usually extremely costly and disruptive.
    - e59d134d 9y ago
sol_remmy 9y ago
60k in Sweden: 30k after tax 60k in U.S.: 40k after tax
- ptr 9y ago
  It depends on where you live. It's about 37k usd after taxes in Stockholm.
- robotresearcher 9y ago
  Then remove health costs from the US remainder, equivalent to those provided by taxes alone in Sweden.
  - amag 9y ago
    Add to that in Sweden you also have: * Long (1+ years) state funded parental leave. * Childcare at a negligible cost. * Free education all the way through University.
- amag 9y ago
  According to my calculations 60k in Sweden would land you some 43k after taxes. At 60k the progressive taxes in Sweden are just starting to hurt. Somewhere north of 80k, it starts to feel like you only work for the government...
  - robotresearcher 9y ago
    If you don't understand how progressive taxation works, maybe. High taxes on the marginal dollar after your middle-class life expenses are met isn't so bad.
    - robotresearcher 9y ago
      Particularly if you realize that your late-career taxes paid for the two years of maternity leave your family enjoyed when you were 30 and didn't make a ton of money.
    - 9y ago
deong 9y ago
Yep, I'm a US citizen with an American PhD in CS. I did a five year stint at a research lab in Iceland, and after two years back in the states, we're in the process of moving back to Reykjavik now, for most of the reasons you're discussing (as well as the bleak outlook for US science funding, and well, the overall bleak outlook for the US as just a suitable place to live at this point, but hey).
- leggomylibro 9y ago
  It's not just academia and a bleak social outlook. I've been playing around with starting a business, and the USA is not, not, NOT a good place to bootstrap anything involving R&D or manufacturing. Without enormous capital reserves to back you or political connections, you're dead before you leave the gate. Case in point; my state offers a 40% tax break to manufacturing companies. No, sorry, the governor vetoed that. They offer a 40% tax break to ONE gargantuan manufacturing company. I'd have to pay full price. I could compete from China. I could play on an even playing field in Europe if I'm gonna pay out the nose anyways. Or I could stay in the US and get bled like a stuck pig until incumbent players can pay a pittance for my operation's desiccated corpse. American dream, my ass...
  - sjg007 9y ago
    You have to play the politics, some way, any way.
- sjg007 9y ago
  Iceland is great.. most likely place to survive a nuclear winter.
  - somethingsimple 9y ago
    Do you have a source for that?
panzagl 9y ago
Have you looked into employment with a US government (either state, local, or federal)? It's pretty much exactly what you described, plus you get to work on real problems instead of churning your minimally viable product into framework flavor of the month.
danmaz74 9y ago
> Well in Europe you usually get your 2 weeks Are there EU nations that give so little paid vacation? At least in the West, I think at least 3 weeks (non contiguous) is the norm...
- ecshafer 9y ago
  In the us, I get 4 weeks and can take it basically however I want. I can choose to get 5 weeks by buying it. Depending on my team I might not be able to take the month leading up to taxes off, but a month off is easily done and happens often.
  - com2kid 9y ago
    > In the us, I get 4 weeks and can take it basically however I want. I can choose to get 5 weeks by buying it. I can get up to six weeks with roll over. Used up 4 weeks for my wedding, still had 2 weeks left, saved one of them up so I'd have 5 weeks in total the next year. It is very hard to paint the US with a broad brush.
  - alkonaut 9y ago
    I have 25 days in Sweden and my UK colleagues 28 days, but they still envy me because of how my 5w are mine to choose and aren't used up on bank holidays etc. When summer comes I usually have 4-5w off and they have 2 or 3. Having to use pto for sick days also doesn't happen anywhere in the EU.
- Xylakant 9y ago
  In Europe 4 weeks of PTO is the minimum by law IIRC. I'm inclined to think the parent meant "2 continuous weeks" (I'd have to check but AFAIK at least in germany your employer has to grant that as well, either by law or by court interpretation of the law. Take this with a grain of salt, no legal advice, yadda yadda...)
  - alkonaut 9y ago
    It varies. Most importantly the "good countries" have 5-6 weeks plus all sick days, bank holidays etc. That is, you get at least 5W in summer (typically). The uk for exemple I think has 28days pto as a minimum, but as bank holidays count against those 28, it's hard to get a long holiday.
refurb 9y ago
This is interesting. I work for a Swiss company with an office in SV. We often joke about our European employees and their work-life balance. Well, I ended up working with a team in Switzerland and holy crap, they work hard! Emails coming in at all hours of the night, meetings that go well past dinner time. I didn't notice any difference in work life balance. Our office has the same vacation policy as HQ, so even that was the same.
- p1esk 9y ago
  How do the salaries in Switzerland compare to SV?
sjg007 9y ago
It's only a peak b/c you just need more people there to start companies. Get more people; more companies; more traction; more pay.
ahhhhhhhhhh 9y ago
I'd take a significant pay cut just to never fucking deal with a health insurance company ever again. I've literally made decisions on jobs based on their health insurance plan and it's so fucking stupid.

rtx 9y ago

Who will buy products from such companies. They will have to compensate for the productivity from somewhere else.

ianai 9y ago

Yes, all of the above. Plus, those same sorts of policies keep the US employment rolls lower. More people would be employed if the full time work week was 30 hours (time and a half above that), for instance.

derping69 9y ago

Europe is able to do this because the US subsidizes their existence. 1. Pharma companies develop drugs with US subsidies and make their profits off US citizens while European countries put price ceilings on their drugs. 2. US essentially defends the world, allowing other countries to spend money elsewhere. http://www.ibtimes.com/how-us-subsidizes-cheap-drugs-europe-2112662 http://www.ibtimes.com/how-us-subsidizes-cheap-drugs-europe-...

bauerd 9y ago
>US essentially defends the world, allowing other countries to spend money elsewhere. You really think that? I mean come on
- derping69 9y ago
  US spends more on military than every Euro country combined. If they are attacked we have to defend them and they know it. They would contribute a relatively insignificant amount if we were ever attacked.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > If they are attacked we have to defend them and they know it. They would contribute a relatively insignificant amount if we were ever attacked. If? In the entire history of NATO, the mutual defense provisions of the treaty have been invoked exactly once, and that in response to an attack on the US, and the non-US NATO contributions were not insignificant.
    - plantain 9y ago
      >the mutual defense provisions of the treaty have been invoked exactly once that's the point
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        Sure, deterrence is the point of the treaty, but the claim upthread was about the significance of contributions that would be made in the event of an attack, a claim which contradicts the facts of the time when an attack resulting in the mutual defense provisions being invoked actually occurred.
  - forapurpose 9y ago
    > They would contribute a relatively insignificant amount if we were ever attacked Many Europeans gave their lives in Afghanistan, responding to an attack on the U.S., and also in Iraq on a fools errand. The U.S. is the predominant power, but that doesn't make others insignificant.

holydude 9y ago

I found this to be pretty much a very biased subjective analogy. I am a european so I hope my "anti-european-rant" will be better accepted but lets see... Europeans often have this illusion of a working social democracy compared to the US suggesting their by default offered benefits to be superior to the offers from the US. That's not the case. In a lot of middle-income-class positions you get most of the things you described as perks. Health care support check. Additional vac days check. Plus a much bigger paycheck. Surely I can agree with treating the workers well and in my book this equals with not exploiting them (so no excessive overtimes, phone calls, onduties etc). But this is not a universal thing in Europe you cannot really generalize this and a lot of the EU companies can be very exploitative even if it's ILLEGAL.

CorvusCrypto 9y ago
So then I guess my takeaway is then that there's great and poor working expectations and conditions in both areas. I found the US to be a highly negative experience and don't wish the stress on anyone. Being able to go home at night and not have to be on call or work overtime because it's expected is a great relief. I'll take that over a 100k salary any day. And certainly over my middle income job in California. However since I'm in tech I also get free choice essentially. We in this industry have it pretty lucky in that our skills are easily transferable across borders. I am an American that found peace and happiness in Europe however because I am American you are right to say I'm biased. You don't live in a place all your life and not notice the negatives more.
- holydude 9y ago
  Well I guess this is a classic case of the grass is greener on the other side :-). Enjoy living in here.
- ynniv 9y ago
  There's so much variation that it's difficult to make a comparison. In my experience, it's reasonable for a senior developer in the US but not in SV to make over $130k in a 9-5 with a month's vacation. Compared to that, $60k and maybe an extra week's vacation doesn't look as nice. Developers are definitely pushed too hard in the US, but they are also definitely underpaid in Europe.

sikim 9y ago

Problems you mentioned are not unheard of from my personal experience but it's highly dependent on which company or industry. Most of my peers who work in the software industry never had a problem of getting vacation time of few weeks and never work more than 8 hours per day. Of course there's a few times during the year where working more hours are encouraged (e.g. before release/deadline), but even then it's pretty rare. A lot of my friends from foreign countries will not hesitate to come to U.S. to work if they can resolve their visa situation. Also, this article mostly addresses academic jobs which is a totally different story from typical corp jobs.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

gozur88 9y ago

It sort of depends on where you work. I'm in the US and I get five weeks of vacation. My colleagues take off contiguous weeks all the time. Of course you're not going to get that in your first year at a startup, but that sort of thing is available in the US if you're willing to take a bit less money and you stay at the same company for awhile.

e59d134d 9y ago

What you say is so true even that micro-level. At my company, we were driven by by high code quality. We would try our best to minimize escalations, we will never release new code on Friday or late in a day because people have lives. We really made sure no one was working late or on weekends. And we were still competitive and profitable business. Then we get bought by a Fortune 500 company. Slowly new rules come in. Deadline driven projects. Code Quality is no longer important. People are expected to release barely working code just so that we can do a press release. People are working late and on weekends. Code is released on Friday at 5PM because who cares about employee happiness. The result is smartest people have already left the company. This has led to more escalations and less gatekeepers to prevent bad design decisions. People are constantly leaving. I am still here but I am passively looking, so are most of the remaining people. Right now, market is good, so I might see a pay raise but I have told recruiters, I can take pay cut for a great work-life balance.

kelukelugames 9y ago
It shouldn't be a trade off. You can get a pay raise and get a great work-life balance.
simplify 9y ago
Can you describe what you mean by escalations?
- jacobush 9y ago
  Probably incidents which are escalated all the way to rapid fix by programmers.
- enraged_camel 9y ago
  An escalation is an issue that cannot be fixed by a support engineer using regular troubleshooting methods and known fixes and has to be escalated to the development team. They are usually extremely costly and disruptive.
  - e59d134d 9y ago

sol_remmy 9y ago

60k in Sweden: 30k after tax 60k in U.S.: 40k after tax

ptr 9y ago
It depends on where you live. It's about 37k usd after taxes in Stockholm.
robotresearcher 9y ago
Then remove health costs from the US remainder, equivalent to those provided by taxes alone in Sweden.
- amag 9y ago
  Add to that in Sweden you also have: * Long (1+ years) state funded parental leave. * Childcare at a negligible cost. * Free education all the way through University.
amag 9y ago
According to my calculations 60k in Sweden would land you some 43k after taxes. At 60k the progressive taxes in Sweden are just starting to hurt. Somewhere north of 80k, it starts to feel like you only work for the government...
- robotresearcher 9y ago
  If you don't understand how progressive taxation works, maybe. High taxes on the marginal dollar after your middle-class life expenses are met isn't so bad.
  - robotresearcher 9y ago
    Particularly if you realize that your late-career taxes paid for the two years of maternity leave your family enjoyed when you were 30 and didn't make a ton of money.
  - 9y ago

deong 9y ago

Yep, I'm a US citizen with an American PhD in CS. I did a five year stint at a research lab in Iceland, and after two years back in the states, we're in the process of moving back to Reykjavik now, for most of the reasons you're discussing (as well as the bleak outlook for US science funding, and well, the overall bleak outlook for the US as just a suitable place to live at this point, but hey).

leggomylibro 9y ago
It's not just academia and a bleak social outlook. I've been playing around with starting a business, and the USA is not, not, NOT a good place to bootstrap anything involving R&D or manufacturing. Without enormous capital reserves to back you or political connections, you're dead before you leave the gate. Case in point; my state offers a 40% tax break to manufacturing companies. No, sorry, the governor vetoed that. They offer a 40% tax break to ONE gargantuan manufacturing company. I'd have to pay full price. I could compete from China. I could play on an even playing field in Europe if I'm gonna pay out the nose anyways. Or I could stay in the US and get bled like a stuck pig until incumbent players can pay a pittance for my operation's desiccated corpse. American dream, my ass...
- sjg007 9y ago
  You have to play the politics, some way, any way.
sjg007 9y ago
Iceland is great.. most likely place to survive a nuclear winter.
- somethingsimple 9y ago
  Do you have a source for that?

panzagl 9y ago

Have you looked into employment with a US government (either state, local, or federal)? It's pretty much exactly what you described, plus you get to work on real problems instead of churning your minimally viable product into framework flavor of the month.

danmaz74 9y ago

> Well in Europe you usually get your 2 weeks Are there EU nations that give so little paid vacation? At least in the West, I think at least 3 weeks (non contiguous) is the norm...

ecshafer 9y ago
In the us, I get 4 weeks and can take it basically however I want. I can choose to get 5 weeks by buying it. Depending on my team I might not be able to take the month leading up to taxes off, but a month off is easily done and happens often.
- com2kid 9y ago
  > In the us, I get 4 weeks and can take it basically however I want. I can choose to get 5 weeks by buying it. I can get up to six weeks with roll over. Used up 4 weeks for my wedding, still had 2 weeks left, saved one of them up so I'd have 5 weeks in total the next year. It is very hard to paint the US with a broad brush.
- alkonaut 9y ago
  I have 25 days in Sweden and my UK colleagues 28 days, but they still envy me because of how my 5w are mine to choose and aren't used up on bank holidays etc. When summer comes I usually have 4-5w off and they have 2 or 3. Having to use pto for sick days also doesn't happen anywhere in the EU.
Xylakant 9y ago
In Europe 4 weeks of PTO is the minimum by law IIRC. I'm inclined to think the parent meant "2 continuous weeks" (I'd have to check but AFAIK at least in germany your employer has to grant that as well, either by law or by court interpretation of the law. Take this with a grain of salt, no legal advice, yadda yadda...)
- alkonaut 9y ago
  It varies. Most importantly the "good countries" have 5-6 weeks plus all sick days, bank holidays etc. That is, you get at least 5W in summer (typically). The uk for exemple I think has 28days pto as a minimum, but as bank holidays count against those 28, it's hard to get a long holiday.

refurb 9y ago

This is interesting. I work for a Swiss company with an office in SV. We often joke about our European employees and their work-life balance. Well, I ended up working with a team in Switzerland and holy crap, they work hard! Emails coming in at all hours of the night, meetings that go well past dinner time. I didn't notice any difference in work life balance. Our office has the same vacation policy as HQ, so even that was the same.

p1esk 9y ago
How do the salaries in Switzerland compare to SV?

sjg007 9y ago

It's only a peak b/c you just need more people there to start companies. Get more people; more companies; more traction; more pay.

ahhhhhhhhhh 9y ago

I'd take a significant pay cut just to never fucking deal with a health insurance company ever again. I've literally made decisions on jobs based on their health insurance plan and it's so fucking stupid.