Holy crap, when you compare the numbers, how can people still expect Europe to compete with the U.S.?
In Europe, tech is seen as an unfortunate necessity, not a groundbreaking solution.. And things won’t change until the mentality changes.
25% sounds like a lot, but my cost of living dropped more than 25% moving out of the Bay Area, so I was more than happy.
Once you become a senior enough engineer at FAANG the overwhelming majority of your compensation is stock, and when that happens the base salary becomes pretty irrelevant. My base salary is maybe 1/5 of my total compensation at this point.
Sorry but that's simply not true. Based on my personal experience at FAANGs (including management roles), SV packages are much higher compared to London, Munich, Paris etc. Only exception is Zurich.
> but my cost of living dropped more than 25% moving out of the Bay Area,
The number I look at is total saving amount each year.