Are these engineers working at the same company?
And frankly, the UK team was coding circles around much of the US engineers.
It was incredibly eye opening, and humbling.
They must know the market in London isn't competitive so they just pay a competitive rate in the market. It seems like salaries are generally going to go up everywhere for top talent but down in markets like Seattle and SV.
Another interesting aspect of London is that it is in a TZ so far away that there isnt any overlap with PST in the states, so they kind of know you are screwed if you are working there.
Another interesting fact about London is that it has some of the highest rents in Europe.
And as someone in said timezone who works with the west coast, it's OK as long as you travel once a quarter, and both you and your west coast colleagues take meetings from home because of timezones.
> They must know the market in London isn't competitive so they just pay a competitive rate in the market
It's actually worse than this, finance companies (hedge funds et al) actually pay really really well (like US FAANG well, with better bonuses), but all of the FAANGs have decided not to benchmark against finance, for bullshit reasons.
Essentially then, the only people who work for FAANG in London work for a year, then transfer to the US on an L1/L2 to actually get paid well.