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Comment by kevin_thibedeau | Hacker News Reader

Engineering has exploded with foreign students who will leave the US with a degree that prints money in their home country. Not so much in America. They need to look at the numbers closer to see where the US students are actually going.

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Seriously this times a lot. At one unnamed ivy league university I went to, there were tons of chinese kids, not chinese americans. They made no effort to integrate, because they seriously were only there to study engineering, go back to china, and make a ton of money.

There's even a trend for US grads relocating to developing economies. A lot of us (me included) have found very interesting work/life arrangements in places with lower taxes, lower rent and higher salaries (relative to cost of living of course). There's even a smallish trend of people expatriating to avoid crushing student loan debt. IMHO I'd expect that to increase.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/23/pf/college/student_loan_fugi...

As one of those people, I have to say taxes and prices are much lower in the USA than say china or Thailand. Especially when you get away from food and low end services.

I work in china but shop in the states on my visits back. As far as salary goes, I'm a bit below us levels but can save alot because I don't need, nor could I buy even I I wanted to, a car. Working in Swiss was like that also, things were just too expensive to buy so I was able to save alot.

Can you elaborate with some stats or articles?

The US, as far as I know, is by far the highest paying country to software engineers in the world, starting by 2-3x to rich countries. I seriously doubt ANY software engineer can make more money in China than in the US for any similar position of responsibility.

I've known quite a few people who return to their home countries and getting Director/VP positions moving from their previous titles of "Software Engineer" due to their US experience. There is a significant startup scene shaping up in Europe and Asia and so demand for US educated/experienced engineers is pretty high almost everywhere. US is revered as Mecca of software and startups pretty much everywhere so any experience at recognizable company in US counts a lot. Most of these startup typically attempt to emulate US companies like Uber and Amazon so work doesn't have lot of novelty or technical challenges as such but money could become significant - as if you had joined Amazon or Uber when before their Series A except that you are joining foreign counterparts afterwards. Most people I've known usually return to their home countries because of their families however.

Another fact I learned from my travels is that US is actually cheapest country if you keep the quality of goods and services constant. In most foreign countries - including tax free countries like UAE - things like iPhone, computers, cars are actually more expensive than in US. Almost all imported goods from China, Japan etc are typically cheaper in US than in other countries. Some services, food and labor could be cheaper but overall if you insist at staying at Hilton quality hotels or eating at nice restaurants, buying an equivalently nice urban home, or getting top quality spa treatment, cost usually comes out to same as in US.

Obviously these are anecdots so don't take it as statistical trend. Having said that there has been no better time to be expat if (1) if you have US education/experience (2) you can get work permits (3) you have freedom to travel around.

Its probably that VP/Directors of whatever in Europe dont make nearly as much for the same position in the US, though its a good point that the experience gives you an edge for a higher paid position like that.

I still would not believe China pays software engineers more than the US, even at a leadership position, without some stats. China as much as India has vast lower "engineering" cast based on price.

I have not yet heard of people from Argentina returning to glory after working outside, it is expected to take a dent in income, even though argentina is much richer than China/India for these purposes.

US is not the highest paying country. Not in the absolute sense -- and definitely not in a relative to living cost sense.

http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/best-and-worst//highest...

I have my doubts about this ranking, starting for taxes implications which are probably severe for several of the top 10 countries in the rank.

And Switzerland and Israel are very small countries, where the engineering sample is probably very low and so are th work opportunities.

Both the average and the median listed for the US seem way too low in this Bloomberg stat.

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