European Employee here: That is indeed correct. It has less to do with the capabilities of the people or the quality, but with the addressed market. I would arg

European Employee here: That is indeed correct. It has less to do with the capabilities of the people or the quality, but with the addressed market. I would argue that 90% of my software products are developed by US companies (e.g. MS Office, Android, iOS, Gmail, ... with only rare exceptions, eg. SAP). The US dominates the software market (mostly for historic reasons but also for its unrivaled entrepreneur/VC/risk-taking management style) which sells it products everywhere in the world, earning much more on that way. And the remaining software products in Europe are acquired one-by-one (e.g. Skype). Having said all of that: Being a software engineer in Europe is a privilege with a good income situation.