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Comment by capableweb | Hacker News Reader

I don't think there is any value in just comparing salaries across countries, but I'm sure you already know this. Make it more interesting by add in life expectancy or something else, salary is just a number that doesn't matter much unless you start including other numbers too.

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I'd rather work one year at Amazon than 5 years at a nice European country in a walkable city, and that's how the numbers pan out if you're saving for retirement

I'm guessing you're a US-native then? Where this salary/work obsession seems a lot stronger than around here (South-West Europe).

My impression is that you work in order to do what you really want later, while we tend to focus on getting a job that pays enough to survive + bit more, but still allows us to do the things we want now, rather than later at/around retirement.

Insert story about The Businessman and The Fisherman

You aren't sitting on a beach playing guitar with your friends if you get a tech job in Germany, you're doing the same boring pain-in-the-ass dead-end work either way. Just with less threat of being randomly fired or mistreated, which isn't even particularly intimidating or stressful when you're sitting on an enormous nest egg

Since you avoided the question, I'm guessing I was spot on :)

And I'd guarantee you that someone who worked five years for a average German company definitely has incurred less mental stress than someone working one year for Amazon, on average.

But I also recognize that it's hard to see the difference between the two cultures if you only have the experience of one of them, and the "hard working pays off" system is so heavily ingrained.

I think you need to go touch grass, or at least check out some real numbers and think about them

https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/berlin-...

https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/san-fra...

How many years are you going to have to save up to retire at $240k/year vs $80k/year, do you think? Would you rather grind 10 months a year until you're too old to do anything but sit around and watch TV, or would you rather grind 12 months a year for 5-10 years and then do whatever you want for the rest of your life?

> How many years are you going to have to save up to retire at $240k/year vs $80k/year, do you think? Would you rather grind 10 months a year until you're too old to do anything but sit around and watch TV, or would you rather grind 12 months a year for 5-10 years and then do whatever you want for the rest of your life?

This is the mindset difference I'm telling you about. The rest of us don't want to "grind" at all, never. Not now, not later.

We want a work/life balance that allows us to do whatever we want to do when we retire, but now. Spend time with family, enjoy hobbies or whatever, but not wait until retirement to do so.

This is how many of my friends already live, as they've chosen jobs that allow them a balance in life, without any "grind" or "hacking" or whatever you want to call it.

You're going into a bad, boring place for 8 hours a day. You're pissing away your precious time on earth while lying to yourself that it's a "balance" and you're happy about it.

I feel the same about you, so probably that's OK, people try to live the life they want to live, and that's alright :)

If this was real, then the people I know at the companies paying Valley money wouldn't be handcuffed to continuing to work late into their lives. And that's not to omit the many, many software professionals throughout the United States for whom a $70K USD salary is actually pretty good due to accidents of geography and credentialism.

As it happens, I've done quite well and I should, knock-on-wood, do pretty well getting towards retirement; I'm well-paid and I don't live in the Valley so my finances make more sense. But if you're in the same boat with regards to financial capacity, neither you nor I are remotely close to the median or modal software professional in the Valley (let alone in the United States), and it's worth thinking deeply about whether that median/modal software developer is well-served by this system.

This is a discussion about worker pay. Salary is the metric.

I'd say PPE is. Getting paid 5k to spend 4k on rent is pretty similar to getting paid 2k and spending 1k on rent (all else being equal).

> PPE

Personal protective equipment?

> This is a discussion about worker pay. Salary is the metric.

Disagree, the discussion is about much more than just a metric of salaries. Even if you consider the discussion to only be about salary, doesn't it matter how much of that salary you have to spend on things like health insurance VS other places? As that'd eat from your salary (or not).

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