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Comment by jakub_g | Hacker News Reader

1) In Europe you don't get unexpected medical bills for tens/hundreds thousands of dollars when you have some medical issue.

2) Your kids won't get shot in the school.

3) You don't have to drive 20 minutes to the closest store to buy bread and milk.

4) I have 35d of paid vacation, while AFAICT in US you're lucky if you get 20. I'd get a brain melt or die from overworking if I had any less vacation days than now.

I've never been to US so I overly generalize and cherrypick based on what I've read, but I think what I wrote above will ring bell to many others.

Apart from that, other issues like: being close to family etc.

I could imagine going to US for a few years and get $$$ and get back, but overall, US does not seem to me like an American dream from the 90s anymore.

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1) That almost certainly will not happen with the health insurance as a software engineer.

2) An average of three children die per year in school shootings, giving odds of roughly 1 in 800,000 (hard to tell with such tiny sample sizes). Your child is more likely to be struck by lightning and far more likely to die in a fire or car accident. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/11/lockdown-...

3) That is just not true unless you live in a rural area. I don't know where you get that from. Denser cities have groceries often within walking distance, and most suburbs will have plenty of grocery stores within a 5-10 minute drive.

4) Unlimited PTO is extremely common for tech companies in the US. It's not uncommon for me to see people taking 7+ weeks.

There are issues in the US of course, but I really would not completely trust low-effort media narratives. There's a reason people come here.

I exaggerated in my post, but the general difference is: in US to access high paying jobs, you can either live in city centres where rent is sky high, or suburbs which are very car-centric. This is not compelling to many Europeans. I might not be earning six-digit salary, but I don't share a room with 3 people and don't live in a van (this is probably grotesque but there were many stories like that on HN alone).

About the shootings, yes, media coverage is skewing things a lot. I live in France and my friends abroad think there's an islamic terrorist attack happening here every week.

Anyway, the US society feels way more class-divided. Even if as an employee of FAANG I would get a good health insurance, the way the system works overall for average folk just doesn't make me feel like living in such a system. (What if I lose a job for whatever reason? No fancy insurance anymore!). And as someone with a "preexisting condition" I'm actually not sure how my case would be treated in case I wanted to apply for a visa.

> I exaggerated in my post, but the general difference is: in US to access high paying jobs, you can either live in city centres where rent is sky high, or suburbs which are very car-centric. This is not compelling to many Europeans. I might not be earning six-digit salary, but I don't share a room with 3 people and don't live in a van (this is probably grotesque but there were many stories like that on HN alone).

Rent in SF-NY is high, but it's not that high. It's far less than the extra money that you make. $3k/month will get you a nice apartment just for yourself, no roommates. $4k/month will get you something awesome.

On $150k/year, which is what my students make as their entry-level salaries at Google and friends, you can buy an apartment in almost every metro area in the US so that you don't even need a car. As a mid career developer you can easily afford a house even in SF-NY. I don't even have a driver's license...

> Even if as an employee of FAANG I would get a good health insurance, the way the system works overall for average folk just doesn't make me feel like living in such a system.

That's the thing. The US works for the people in the top 5% and is pretty bad for the people in the bottom 90%.

> And as someone with a "preexisting condition" I'm actually not sure how my case would be treated in case I wanted to apply for a visa.

Visas don't have healthcare checks. You'll be fine.

> As a mid career developer you can easily afford a house even in SF-NY.

I’m pro-US and SF/NY as anyone but this isn’t accurate. If you want a house comparable to one you’d get in a MCOL city like Sacramento/Portland (3-4 bd, 1800+ sqft, good schools), you’re going to be forking over $2m+. That’s not very easy to achieve even for SF engineers. You need to be staff at FAANG or similar and preferably with a high earning partner (lawyer, doctor, executive, etc). Otherwise you’re gonna be house poor.

I still agree US is generally very good for engineers, especially ones in SF/NY/Seattle. But let’s not fool people with saying real estate is also very affordable...

1. Even if you spend another $3000/month on housing (ridiculous and unrealistic), that's just $36000 a year. That's far exceeded by the pay increase in the US.

2. There is a long long long distance between the average case and the worst case that you are describing, especially for engineers. Sharing a room with 3 people or living in a van is very very very far from the average case. Pretty much no engineer needs to do this. If they are, they are doing it to save to the max or doing something very wrong.

3. Same with health insurance. You don't need FAANG for good health insurance. 92% of people have health insurance. Granted, that is of varying quality but being uninsured is far from the average case.

My sense of the US vs. western Europe is that the US is quite a bit worse if you are in the bottom 30%, slightly better in the average case, and much better for the top 20%. And engineers easily make it into the top 20%. So perhaps the peace of mind is worth it since rock bottom is so awful in the US. But there still is a big difference between average and worst case, and the media hyper focuses on the worst case.

Thx for the reply. It's always difficult to evaluate things from the outside without having full context.

Re: housing + medical costs, yep, the quick math says that unless things go really terribly wrong, in a few years one should build up a substantial safety net despite the costs.

For young and healthy (new graduates etc.) it definitely makes sense to go to US for a few years (and then perhaps come back as a remote person in Europe and start a small EU office, I know that's how many EU offices of US second-tier (non-FAANG) big techs have started).

Number 2 de facto doesn't happen in the US.

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