It's not hard to "work less" like that.
Maternity leave is much longer than paternity. And is paid for in full at my company for a time. FMLA allows 12 weeks total but it can be unpaid.
The main difference I've seen with the Europeans I work with is, they take big chunks off at a time in summer. They pay more taxes but have more time off. Most likely don't get full pay for Maternity/paternity leave.
All the money in SV could never make me go there if I never have time to spend it.
If I include national holidays I get 22 days off. No set sick days unless you're out for more than 5 consecutive days.
I'm not sure why you'd move to SV, startup life's seems like hell.
UK: 28
Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden: 25
Iceland, Malta: 24
Portugal, Spain: 22
The EU mandates a minimum of 20 days, so all other EU member states have 20.
Of course, these are just the mandated minimums. Many employers will give more to be competitive.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...
Most companies I've worked for offer a little more than the minimum, for example I get 23 days excluding bank holidays and that generally increases by a day per year you've worked at the company or something like that.
The legal minimum in Europe is 20 days' vacation plus national holidays. Competitive employers offer more.
I don't know about mountain view, but on Google's software dev salary you should be able to live within 10 minutes of pretty much all of their US offices. I know for sure it's possible in nyc.