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To offer a bit of counter-perspective, do keep in mind that while American SWEs do get paid more on the average, the costs of living in the US are also sky-high
by noirscape 4y ago
To offer a bit of counter-perspective, do keep in mind that while American SWEs do get paid more on the average, the costs of living in the US are also sky-high the areas where big software companies operate.
Yes, in the EU I get paid a lot less, but the cost of living in Europe is also not nearly as expensive (although we also do pay more taxes). That's not even accounting for job security or workers rights, I seem to just have more money left over each month on average than any Americans I know of in the same industry because the cost of living is just lower and I have less heavy unexpected expenses (healthcare being the big one of course, but when I hear what US SWEs need to pay just to stay housed and fed, it makes absolutely no sense in prices compared to the EU).
That's not a case of risk aversion, its a case of relative vs absolute pay. In relative pay, the EU pays their employees just straight up better. The US is only better in absolute pay, but that gets drained quickly due to the local economy scaling up to match.
- xur17 4y agoI would be really curious to see the numbers behind this.
- therealdrag0 4y agoAnytime you compare things anecdotally to people you know be verrry careful. It’s easy to not be comparing apples to apples. Do those people have kids? Rent vs own? How nice of cars? Commute? Sq footage of house? Etc etc. for example, I don’t work for FANG and you probably haven’t heard of my employer, but out of ~300k TC I save 48k cash + 100k stock + ~20k 401k retirement, which I think is pretty good. Tell me if you think I could do better in EU. . And while I live in suburbs of HCOL area, I’m fully remote so could move and save even more. Also remember if you own your house the money is usually not being drained it’s building into an equity nest egg. So at the end of the day the HCOL person will have more wealth even if they have to sell a house and move to use it; that arrow only goes one way (LCOL can’t sell and move to HCOL area and come out ahead).