The US is no longer in competition for that talent pool by its own deliberate actions.
Might we see a European flowering as the US chokes itself into a regional power?
Might we see a European flowering as the US chokes itself into a regional power?
Another thing no one is bringing up is how colonized minds works. Colonized minds don’t suddenly become uncolonized because of a brash leader.
Something not brought up much is how colonized minds works. Colonized minds don’t suddenly become uncolonized because of a brash leader. Eastern Europe since the fall of the Soviets is a great example of this.
Something not brought up much/yet is how colonized minds works. Colonized minds don’t suddenly become uncolonized because of a brash leader.
I should’ve also said that like the US, Europe, Canada, Australia, Israel are very very racist, chauvinist, exceptionalist. That benefits US hegemony.
Something also not brought up much is how many people have colonized minds around the world. Colonized minds don’t largely change because of a temporary brash leader.
But no, you can make 3-4x in the US. That’s not an exaggeration. And before someone says ‘free healthcare’, big-tech employers in the US provide pretty nice insurance for employees that caps maximum out of pocket expenses to about a week of your salary.
EU (except Zurich and London) tech salaries have sort of stagnated to a point that you make about the same in Bangalore, and spend significantly more.
But makes me wonder if EU policies are contributing to wage stagnation.
There had been several high profile cases in the US about wage stagnation, so much that tech companies are a bit wary of this topic.
In silicon valley, you can not afford to underpay good engineers, as they'll move across the street and get a job that pays double after a year.
In most other places, this ecosystem does not exist because it is ridiculously difficult to start and operate a company unless you are part of some conglomerate.
Not to mention the fascism problem of course.
> Not to mention the fascism problem of course.
Agreed.
The US is going in a terrible direction with this. I hope Europe has learned from history and won’t follow.
France was recently an absolute inspiration in this regard.
Turns out I can live a pretty comfortable life with EU salary. I could afford a house, car, family. Quality of Life is pretty great.
I am not sure if the extra money in the US would be worth it.
There are hobbies and interests you can pursue with a tech salary in the US that are somewhat out of reach in Europe without generational wealth.
Apparently it's much rarer in the EU, but that might not only be a cost issue.
Conversely, Europeans workers get to enjoy some hobbies more than Americans - such as frequent travel - not because of how much they earn, but because of work culture and paid vacation time rules.
The rule of thumb is that expensive hobbies cost in a year what the median yearly income in your area is.
A European tech salary would be about 2x of the median while a US tech salary can be 5-6x.
Not even that if you're a worker in rich/developed EU country, unless we're talking FAANG/big-tech, since here SW dev wages are relatively close to national medians so an average SW dev worker doesn't take home 2x the the median.
Issue further compounded by the high taxes on higher wages and more generous government benefits and tax credits for those on lower wages, and suddenly the take home difference at the end of the fiscal year between a SW dev and average worker narrows down even further, to the point that it's not a career you get into for the money, like in the US.
BUt if you're in the less wealthy EU countries, with lower taxes and less welfare benefits, where the national average wages are lower in comparison to tech wages, like from Poland to Bulgaria then yeah sure, you can easily take home 2x-5x the national median in tech because the other industries are a lot less developed compared to SW products and service industry versus places like Germany or Norway with more diverse and developed industries raising the national average wages for everyone making tech workers feel underpaid.
Even that is embarrassingly low compared to literally anywhere else with offices.
You're in the minority now in EU if you can afford to have those things now. The housing and CoL crunch is real and many industries suffered layoffs. Q3 2025 youth unemployment is around 20-25% in several EU countries including developed ones like Finland, it's no longer an issue just for the less developed southern ones.
>I am not sure if the extra money in the US would be worth it.
Since you already have a house and everything, then yeah it makes no sense for you. But I would do it in a heartbeat if I could.
A quick search tells me that home ownership in the EU is Approximately 70%, ranging from around 95% in countries such as Romania and Slovakia, to around 50% in Germany. Non-EU citizens disproportionately owns less houses.
So, no. I am not at all in the minority.
Youth unemployment is an issue, being 15% in the EU as a whole, with some countries hovering on 30%. The US has 10% of youth unemployment (considering their labor laws are appallingly bad for workers, I am not sure if this is much of an improvement).
> Since you already have a house and everything, then yeah it makes no sense for you. But I would do it in a heartbeat if I could.
Good for you, may you achieve your goals.
I didn't own a house until a year ago. Refusing offers from the US and moving to EU was likely the best decision I ever made.
I had a life threatening illness not long ago. In the US I would likely be either bankrupt of dead. I appreciate the safety net and labor protections here, even with the higher taxes.
Do you see the issue here?
Home ownership in the US is about 65%, but I presume that may vary a bit by state.
I also expect non-US citizens to disproportionately own less houses.
If I can't afford a house, it makes it no better to me if you tell me that some people in the US also can't afford one, like that's supposed to make me feel better or something.
And with 50% home ownership statistics, it seems I'm not alone. I'm glad the system worked for you but it failed me and so I will vote to those who put my interest first and not devalue my labor.
This conversation, that you replied to, was a consideration of whether it made sense to move to the US. You mentioned that if you could move there, you would.
I presumed it worked as a basis of comparison?
> And with 50% home ownership statistics, it seems I'm not alone. I'm glad the system worked for you but it failed me and so I will vote to those who put my interest first and not devalue my labor.
I presume you live in Germany? I know some engineers who live there, I used to work with a team based off on Germany years ago.
They are doing fine.
I don't really care who you vote for. Based on your stance, I presume you blame immigrants for "devaluing your labor".
Contrary to you, I believe that with more trade and movement of highly skilled people, economic progress follows.
I don't believe stagnation is a viable strategy. You are free to believe otherwise.
Have a wonderful afternoon.
Define "fine". How many own homes?
I lost contact with a couple of them over the years.
I not talking about average wages, as that has no bearing on whether I would want to live somewhere.
I'll primarily look at what I can make and what my quality of life would be like.
Meanwhile the Nordics for example consistently rank much higher in health, happiness, and quality of life, despite having lower top wages.
My point was that if you have a senior level big tech job in the US, it makes zero sense to move to Europe unless you have family there or want to make a significant financial sacrifice.
Obviously Europe wins for workers in general, and if I wanted to work in a car factory’s yes I’d do my best to work in Europe.
I know developers who have motor bikes and a Porsche or BMW or, recently, Teslas that sometimes they take to the race track. But this lifestyle is common for EU devs as well.
I am not sure why everyone keeps bringing up the average though.
You have to decide whether it makes sense for you to be somewhere, based on how much you can expect to make and what your quality of life will be.
What the average person makes does not matter except in an abstract sense that equitable societies are better in general (which is absolutely true).
> You must live in a very selective circle. > These are the only two examples out of probably more than 100 developers I worked with.
People can be very careful about keeping professional life separate. There is a boat owners club in a marina I frequent, the vast majority of the members (out of about 200) are techies, it's a common hobby.
I know several that have a pilot license but only one who bought a plane, it's somewhat convenient to just rent every few months.
There are a bunch more expensive hobbies, about half of the developers I know (personally outside of work environments) have one or more.
Planes came up because I am getting started with the training for it, horses because my friend has a farm with horses twenty minutes from a major city.
Eh, we'll see how long that lasts as the transition from financial capital to global pariah progresses. It's quite possible that our labor is extremely overvalued.
That part seems to be taking an ugly turn nowadays by a bunch of military AI/drone swarm/etc focused startups. I'm guessing that eventually after the Apple/Google model of making money is dead, you'll have to work for Skynet if you want to make money.
There is not much difference in labor share of GDP between the US and the EU. People who work for living get a similar share of the value they create in both blocks on the average (maybe a bit less in the US), but it's less evenly distributed in the US.
Top 10% earners are now responsible for ~50% of consumer spending. That doesn't mean billionaires and capitalists, but upper middle class professionals and other high earners. The economy is great on the average, but most people don't feel it.
I don't disagree, as in an abstract sense inequality is bad for society.
Try to understand why the US has high tech salaries though. It is because the last 40 years have made it pretty easy and convenient to start companies.
Hence, good employees always have great options or can just start their own companies.
I thought this was because US trade and foreign policy coerced most of the world to open up their markets to high-margin American services via treaties. It's easy to pay high salaries when you're vacuuming money from around the world, and your product (software) has very low marginal cost of replication.
Swissre, UBS and many others all have open positions in Spain/Poland/India, not actually in Switzerland
Nobody gives out positions like that easily to non geniuses. And even for more ordinary very smart candidates, there are enough of them to have a few hoops to jump through.
Keep in mind the salary is 3-5x for big tech positions with 5+ years of experience. Check levels.fyi if you don’t believe me.
> Days that you can actually take without losing the chance for a promotion?
Europe wins hands down on this. I happen to have a great employer where I have taken 4-5 weeks off a year without issues, but that’s not the norm in the US.