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For what casheers and janitors ? I'm talking about highly skilled professionals. If your making 80k you're making an average in that group, it's certainly not sky high

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A junior engineer (with a Masters) in most of western Europe makes 30-40k€/year before taxes. After 10 years, he'll make 50-70k€/year.

If you have a masters, >3 years of experience and aren't making 50-70k in Wester Europe, you either don't put emphasis on your career, or you need to switch jobs and work on your negotiation skills.

In Germany and Scandinavia maybe. In France, Spain, Italy, etc, this is normal.

For example here [1] you can see some reliable statistics for France, see page 2 (it's in French but the plots are easy to understand). The median salary (annual before taxes) when starting is 35k€, and roughly increases by 1800€/year. So it only reaches 40k€ after 3 years. It reaches 50k€ after 8 years only.

Also all engineers have Masters in continental Europe. You can't be an engineer without one. It's nothing special.

[1] https://www.iesf.fr/offres/doc_inline_src/752/IESF_Synthese_...

Sorry I assumed we're talking about Software Engineering here, I accept your point.

But Italy and Spain aren't really what I would consider Western Europe, they are the less developed parts and I admit I have no experience with France and know nobody who works there.

> But Italy and Spain aren't really what I would consider Western Europe

Yeah, well, you're American, right?

You really are living up to it in many ways.

No I'm Croatian, lived across EU, back home remoting now. Italy and Spain are not considered developed western Europe (neither is Portugal for that matter) it's not geographic, for example you often include Scandinavian countries in that bunch even if it's not geographically correct, so is Switzerland, their standard of living (Italy/Spain) is a tier below. Eastern Europe is a tier below that. Maybe it's a Croatian colloquialism since they are all west of us but I heard it used many times in other countries as well.

I’m in the area you consider “Western Europe” and can reaffirm that a €40k salary is the norm. The only people making €80k+ are working for startups or big tech and that’s a tiny slice of the job market. The average director at a successful company here earns €100-120k.

So... The UK is not part of EU, and you're not counting Italy and Spain, and don't know anybody in France so can't speak for that country... Yet you're arguing for western EU salaries...? I can only sense you having some knowledge of Germany from your comments.

I would consider UK part of the developed Western Europe for sure and salaries in London are low for standard of living in that city. Zurich is even more insanely expensive.

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