I have a somewhat similar experience! For a while I was working as a server-side programmer for a major gaming company making a MMO game based in Eastern Europ

I have a somewhat similar experience! For a while I was working as a server-side programmer for a major gaming company making a MMO game based in Eastern Europe. The background of my manager was network programming, and they did a lot of network programming, so he hired me as network programmer, not a game programmer. Salary was world-class. Then for personal reasons (got married) I moved to London, UK. The same company had an office in London but they were only hiring gamedevs for the same job. Those guys were offering less money in London then I had back home. Long story short I do my server-side programming in a social network company now.