In my case, I realized that US salaries were on a different level, for a very similar cost of living when outside of NY and the Bay area, and left. Every time I go back home, people try to recruit me, and then quickly give up when I mention what I make, salary, in the American Midwest.
But still, when I was still back in Spain, it seemed to me that the labor market was set up in such a way as to reward founders, and not so much their engineers. It's just that many of the successes I know started by having B2B customers before a single line of code was written. Very different from the idea of companies with venture capital that try to take off before running out of runway that you see in the US.
Can you elaborate a bit on that, please?
That's how an extremely small number of businesses are started in the US. It represents such a tiny fraction of the total, as to be meaningless outside of half a dozen cities that dominate VC start-ups. 0.05% of businesses in the US get started via traditional venture capital.
Most software companies in the US are bootstrapped and funded from personal savings, or from small angel investments from family & friends. That goes the same for most of the successful software companies, they're not VC darlings (venture capitalists have absolutely no interest in your typical, small to mid-size software start-up).
I would go back home for the quality of life, not for the salary. But only if I could join a company that is actually creating something, instead of just using products created by others.
King are hiring like crazy! I am curious to know how good must be working with them.
There're are many reasons why a large number of founders and developers end up in Barcelona, and the city in itself is a big one.
I'm British so I'm not being nationalistic here or anything :)
Learned powerlessness.