> However, if we looked up average household income, these countries aren't too different from the US. And I don't believe American coders are twice the better

> However, if we looked up average household income, these countries aren't too different from the US. And I don't believe American coders are twice the better than coders in the other countries. This isn't very relevant. The USA is a much larger market. It's a little bit richer than most european countries, but the total number of customers to sell to is 4-8X larger, and you can also sell to much of the rest of the world when your product is in English. The engineers who work for non-FAANG are not a part of those high salaries. The average is not a useful number, as many are either well below it or a well above it. But yes, in short, it's hard to hire US engineers due to them being so well-paid. This is why SMBs offshore their engineers from the rest of the world.