> It all comes down to U.S. tech companies being much more successful, mainly because of the scale of the U.S. market. Any U.S. startup can immediately address

> It all comes down to U.S. tech companies being much more successful, mainly because of the scale of the U.S. market. Any U.S. startup can immediately address a market of $21T (GDP) without any regulatory overhead or language considerations. This causes engineers to be insanely productive in terms of economic productivity. In comparison, Germany, the largest country in the EU, has a GDP of only $3.8T. It's much harder to scale across the entire EU, and even then, the entire EU market is still smaller at $15T. I mean it's tech, the US market is open to everyone no? I don't know of many European tech companies that think they'll get anywhere only addressing their local market. My feeling is that European wages are gradually increasing due in part to the successes like Unity and Spotify, plus FAANG companies effects on local offices. It's a bit lopsided at the moment, someone noted there is almost a bimodal distribution of salary which I'm sure exists in the US as well but is more stark here. Remote work is also starting to have an effect. I earn quite a bit more (still nothing to write home about in terms of the salary I could earn in the US) working remotely for a US based company.