This 100%. It's rare to find anyone that wants to learn a complex biz domain.
I went through this myself early in my career. I did ML at insurance companies and got branded as an insurance ML guy. Insurance companies don't pay that well and there are a limited number of them. After I got out of that lane and got some name-brand tech experience under my belt, job hunting was much easier and my options opened up. I make a lot more money. And I can always go back if I really want to.
If you're an "ML insurance guy" outside of the US, it may be quite lucrative compared to other developers. It's really only in the US (and maybe China) that pure developers are demanding $200k+ salaries.
In most places in Europe, even $100k is considered a high salary, and if you can provide value directly to the business, it will add a lot to your potential compensation.
And in particular, if your skills are more about the business than the tech/math of your domain, you probably want to leverage that, rather than trying to compete with 25-year-olds with a strong STEM background, but poor real-life experience.
I think it's worth adding here that US developers can have a much higher burden for things like health insurance. My child broke his arm this year, and we hit our very high deductible.
I would like to see numbers factoring in things like public transportation, health insurance, etc., because I personally feel like EU vs US developers are a lot closer in quality of life after all the deductions.
I live in a location that wouldn't have public transportation even in Europe. And my healthcare, while not "free," was never expensive outside of fairly small co-pays and a monthly deduction that wasn't cheap but was in the hundreds per month range. Of course, there are high deductible policies but that's a financial choice.
However, some US areas have competitively priced housing and jobs that would make the balance tilt in favor of America. In EU, affordable spots with lots of desirable local jobs are becoming increasingly rare. Perhaps Vienna, Wrocław and a few other places in Central/Eastern EU.
The pharma & biotech sector is blooming in the Golden Triangle, which also includes London.
"Water supply issues are already holding back housing development around the city. In its previous draft water resources management plan, Cambridge Water failed to demonstrate that there was enough to supply all of the new properties in the emerging local plan without risk of deterioration.
The Environment Agency recently confirmed that it had formally objected to five large housing developments in the south of the county because of fears they could not sustainably supply water. It has warned that planning permission for more than 10,000 homes in the Greater Cambridge area and 300,000 square metres of research space at Cambridge University are in jeopardy if solutions cannot be found.
A document published alongside the Case for Cambridge outlines the government’s plan for a two-pronged approach to solving the water scarcity issue, to be led by Dr Paul Leinster, former chief of the Environment Agency, who will chair the Water Scarcity Group.
In the long term, supply will be increased, initially through two new pieces of infrastructure: a new reservoir in the Fens will delivery 43.5 megalitres per day, while a new pipeline will transfer 26 megalitres per day from Grafham Water, currently used by Affinity Water.
But, according to Kelly, a new reservoir would only solve supply requirements for the existing local plan and is “not sufficient if you start to go beyond that” – a point that is conceded in the water scarcity document. "
https://www.building.co.uk/focus/a-vision-for-150000-homes-b...
Same thing with transport. "We can't build new houses because it would increase car traffic", meanwhile putting up every barrier they can think of to stop East-West Rail.
edit: Yes they do employ a ton of people, but most people I know don’t make those salaries.
I am in my early 50s, and having worked in tech for the last 24 (with sane hours and never at the FAANG salaries) I own my condo in a nice town, my kids college is paid for and my personal accounts are well into 7-digits.
This is not all roses: schools in the US stink (I have grown up on the other side of the pond and was lucky to get a great science education in school so I can see the difference), politics are polarized, supermarket produce is mediocre, etc.
The biggest issue for me though is that I suspect that the societies on both sides of the pond are going to go through major changes in the next 10-15 years and many social programs will become unaffordable. I see governments of every first world country making crazy financial and societal choices so rather than depending on government to keep me alive and well I much prefer US salaries allowing me to have money in my own hands. I can put some of that into gold or Bitcoin, or buy an inexpensive apartment in a quiet country with decent finances and reasonable healthcare. Not being totally beholden to the government is what helps me sleep well at night. My 2c.
In similar places in the US it may not even be the risk of criminals that is the largest threat. It may simply be that the road network is built for cars only, with few safe ways to cross roads without a vehicle.
By comparison, where I live, parents are expected to act as a kind of traffic police a couple of mornings every year. That means that every place where the kids have to cross the road will have an adult blocking all cars from passing even if a kid is merely getting close (even if the speed limit is only 30km/h or 20mph)
In other words, pedestrians get the highest priority while motorists are treated as second class.
Nation wide, about 50-60% of the kids will walk or ride a bike to school in my country (and those who don't tend to either live far from the school or in a higher crime area).
Compared to ~10% in the US.
Also, while in the US kids of low income households are more likely to (have to) walk to school.
In my country, it's possible that the relationship is, if anything, inversed. Having the kids walk to school is seen by many resourceful families as healthy, both from the physical activity in a screen-rich world and to teach them to be independent and confident.
That means that in neighborhoods with a large percentage of such parents the parents are likely to ensure that the route to school is safe and walkable for kids.
If that's worth more than $50k or so anyone living in the US that's not making significantly more than the median wage or would be in pretty horrible spot financially.
> hit our very high deductible.
Isn't the maximum deductible that's allowed "only" $16k?
Also taxes are usually significantly higher in Europe with some exceptions (e.g. Switzerland vs California, though you need to pay for your health insurance yourself in Switzerland ).
I have never seen this happen. All the new grads I've ever worked with (from Ivy league schools as well) are pretty much incapable of doing anything without a lot of handholding, they lack so much of everything, experience, context, business knowledge, political awareness, technical knowledge (I still can't believe "designing data intensive applications" isn't a required read in college for people that want big tech jobs) and even the STEM stuff (if they're so good why do i have to explain why we don't use averages?).
Which is fine, they are new to the market, so they need to be educated. Other than CRUD apps, i doubt these people can do anything complex without supervision, we're not even in the same league to compete with each other.
I got branded as a compiler guy. My salary is $0.
Pay up. Pay up. Pay up. That's why!