The vast majority of European companies pay programmers significantly less than US companies (even when controlling for cost of living).
So, your best bet, financially, would be to work for an American company, while being outside of the USA. Most of the giants have several offices in Europe.
Or you become a contractor on a day rate, but then you're not really permanently working for the same company.
In the UK you can easily find contractor gigs for 300-400GBP daily rate. 500 is not uncommon for some roles; whist in Spain 250-300 Eur is the absolute maximum.
If interested in contracting check Jobserve, and itjobswatch uk first before setting your own daily rate.
I live in Germany, work for an SV company, and a work visa in Germany is absolutely required.
Now, taxes though... that's a different beast.
Yes you get a lot of competition on entry level roles. The opportunities for engineers working as experienced consultants is massive in Germany and Switzerland incl some North European markets (not going into these locations due to my lack of experience and what I perceive - a high tax burden).
In most places (except Eastern EU) you can easily make EUR >200K/year and never be out of work. You have to register as a freelancer and learn a) what your service is and b) how to invoice that.
Though even you don't think about that (at all) and simply hire yourself out to whoever has a gig you probably can charge above €70,-/hrs (for some simple SW development). You have to maintain good relationship with agencies or find your own clients (I started out finding my own clients because all agencies demanded freelance experience regardless of my experience as an "employee", later I worked mainly with agencies to focus on my core skills and not worry about procurement, finally I created my own agency which I ended up regretting :D).
Quick start: go to www.gulp.de (sorry in German) and extract every agency who advertises through them, spam these agencies with your CV and let them know you're available within 30 days. Have enough references and if it's your first "gig" know how to avoid the question "do you have any experience as consultant" like the plague.
If you register as freelancer remember you have to pay your own taxes and healthcare. A good rule of thumb for how much you should charge: take the avg salary for a full-time/perm role in this domain and double or x2.5 it. You need to be able to live comfortably by working 8 months out of 12 (risk-mgmt: if you are suddenly out of a project - though in all the years this never ever happened to me). You need to deduct your healthcare (in Switzerland / Germany it is very low ~300 upwards for a good plan), social security: put away 30% for retirement. Any expenses (car or costs for transport that includes the leasing rate on your new BMW, Tesla or Porsche) is an expense provided that you use it for work most of the time (talk to an accountant which you would have to anyway to do the taxes for you at year end. costs €600-€800/year).
Things to avoid in Germany/Austria: agencies that promise you a full-time gig but contract you out to their clients as a freelancer. You would not believe the sh1t I have seen in this space. The system is called "Arbeitnehmerüberlassung" in German (and specific to Germany) which borders on modern slavery.
If anyone needs guidance feel free to send me a DM on twitter.
Stay away from bad agencies! (actually the risk of not getting paid is higher when directly working for a client and if an agency stiffs you for the fee then something really terrible is going on)
This is a plague in post-Communist EU countries. They provide defined-term employment contract and an Eastern European salary. The clients in DE/UK/US treat you like a disposable Angular- or React-whore.
There is a huge difference between bringing added value as a consultant that sees a new environment / incl all its challenges, every 3-6 months, and those remote workers peddling their service on upwork.com / freelance.com. Those who sell only their coding fall into this category while those who sell their know-how will be way above that rate. If you want to compete on price (and always stay there work via upwork & Co) but if you want to separate yourself from the rest some legwork isn't optional.
Just because somebody is a freelancer and writes an invoice (to the same client) every month doesn't add value to most clients. And so this doesn't get anywhere near the rates you get if you carve out your niche and name for yourself. If you work with 2 or 3 agencies w/ changing clients every 12-18 months then you are already in a sweet spot.
Pension plans are all government-sponsored Ponzi schemes, so I wouldn't count on them anyway, but if you insist then paying your own, private pension fund is hell lot cheaper than state-owned one.
The only significant downside of self-employment is that you can't get paid vacation so easily, but still it is possible to negotiate some.
All things considered, the only thing that could force me to sign full-time employment contract would be a gun put to my head.
In case of Switzerland I think it is similar: Switzerland has one of the highest rates of foreigners in their workforce in all of continental Europe. The options there are limited (if you're in Banking, Insurance you should have no problem around Zurich/Zug and even work on some exciting blockchain stuff) Other areas in CH would be security (both start-ups and well established mobile operators looking for experts). The typical SaaS landscape is too small both in CH and in Germany to compete with high traffic platforms from the US (some small "regional champions" excluded).
You can certainly find something in both Germany and Switzerland (even you don't speak German) provided you have the skills.
I just love these completely unfounded assertions
You work for a company that works in English as many exist and get paid a regular salary. A lot of people do that, your claim is baseless
Regarding salary, a job pays more to the extent that: a) it needs to get done and b) there are fewer people able or willing to do it.
Examples:
* web development - high demand (every business needs a website), but also high supply (relatively easy to learn)
* security - low demand (except after a breach), arguably lower supply (pentesting isn’t everyone’s cup of tea)
* machine learning - high demand (at least from startups), low supply (need advanced knowledge of statistics)
The European system assumes that you don't need to pay healthcare, your children's daycare and education, and pension savings from your salary.
It works is you live permanently in Europe. But of course working a bit in Europe while planning to move back to US for raising a family can be a bad deal. Then again, for young Europeans working for a while in the US and then moving back to Europe to settle down can be a great deal.
Thats not a thing. In Switzerland you pay healthcare yourself to a private company as well. As well as most of your pension savings are on a private contract. I am also certain Childcare needs to be paid out of your own pocket in nearly all countries around here. Except you are thinking of "Kindergeld" (Children Money) which adds a little to your household if you have children.
You also would profit from all of it while you are here and just cash out (most) of it when you go again, i dont see why this would be a bad deal.
TL:DR; You just generalized europe for whatever reason.
There are countries where your arguments are completely true (Germany for example i would guess) but others already are different enough to make them invalid again (Austria for example has no paid childcare, and healthcare is force deducted from your wage and usually even more expensive than in Switzerland)
I just like to enrage about phrases like "european system" :)
To avoid triggering phrase nazis like me talking about the "EU" instead of "Europe" often makes it more correct :)