> the consensus is generally that the US doesn't give much holiday to staff and that Europe is more generous. That's correct, the US has 0 legal holidays, ever

> the consensus is generally that the US doesn't give much holiday to staff and that Europe is more generous. That's correct, the US has 0 legal holidays, everything is contractual. That typically means around 7-8 days and builds up with seniority. It's pretty poor: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm But anything contractual for the most in-demand jobs (such as software engineers today), is way better than the minimum legal standard or the average contractual standard. From pay to insurance to holidays to things like housing, free food, sports and mental counseling. The basic rule is that you're better off in a more unequal society when you're at the top, and better off in a more equal society when you're at the bottom. There's of course a limit to this logic. Then if you take the software devs that tend to frequent HN, (the majority of devs at a FAANG firm will know of HN and visit it from some to time), you're looking at say the top quartile among software devs. It's quite clear that most software devs are better off in the US in many respects, and that their holiday perks can be way better than the average American or European. Plenty of great software companies in the US offer unlimited time off. Most people don't really use it though, it's more a cultural thing.