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Comment by xiphias | Hacker News Reader

I'm moving back to Google Zurich. The male/female ratio is a huge issue there, so it's good to bring a girlfriend, but cost of living was never a problem. Taxes are minimal, salary at Google Zurich is huge.

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My colleague worked in Zurich for 6 years, he didn't even try Google because he was already making comparable money in other company, so I would call salary in Zurich as "huge", just average for Zurich.

Glassdoors shows pretty average. What do you call huge?

In most of the world (and certainly Europe), even barely touching or crossing six figures is virtually unheard of.

Yes, but Switzerland is a special case in general. Even post-docs (research assistants) at academic institutions have near six-figure salaries (CHF 85K, in quite theoretic field). A lot of non-hype tech companies provide six-figure salaries for engineers. I can't imagine any non-junior engineer to relocate to Zurich for anything below that.

Facebook average inc. bonuses £210K In London last year:

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-3268356/F...

In London, Google was paying GBP 70-80K, same for Skype/Microsoft.

That seems low for London since it's also a city with high living costs... Do they give any other extra benefits, or what about bonus/stock?

Surely there is a big range of salary from intern -> managing director? Does "the mean" matter in this discussion?

That was for experienced engineers.

I think you must be referring to base pay, not bonus or equity, which is a very large part of total compensation.

Glassdoor doesn't look at the tax differences (use a tax calculator), the fact that Google gives you 8.5% pension that you can use either to buy a flat (I have done it from my Swiss pension money), create a company or use it in emergency, and also you can take it out (after paying taxes) if you leave the country. Also I don't believe the 200k pound figure for Facebook London as a median compensation package. Can somebody confirm it?

No, I meant pretty average/standard within Switzerland, compared to other [non-hyped] Swiss companies.

You mean there's an imbalance at Google or in the city in general? Any idea why?

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