Hardly. The tax system in the United States and California is markedly inefficient in terms of price and what you get out of it. CH taxes are minimal, and the body politic and municipalities just work.

Source: I lived and worked in S.V. and live in Zürich for several years.

It really depends on what you are doing, though pay for grad students and post docs was definitely higher in Switzerland than in the states. Living expenses were high also, and if you think finding an apartment in San Francisco is hard, it is MUCH harder in Switzerland as a foreigner, and probably more expensive to boot.

Zurich pay can eclipse Valley pay. I have friends who went to ETH for grad school and were getting close to 100k CHF a year. This is grad school -- the pay goes up from there.

On the other hand, you will need that much to live there!

Take this 250k googler, he's more frugal than anyone I know and yet they spend 90k/yr living in Zuerich. http://retireinprogress.com/2017-q4/

If you read the post, he spent $27K on two wedding ceremonies, and $10K on a huge trip (presumably his honeymoon).

Actual "normal" cost was closer to $50K.

And that’s the most frugal guy he knows!

> On the other hand, you will need that much to live there!

This is not true. (I live in Switzerland)

Do not forget that the taxes are way different and should be accounted for in a comparison.

I lived in Switzerland, paid 12% taxes and 5% for AHV (public pension fund, you don't get this money back), lived in a 100sqm (1000sqf) flat for 1800 chf a month, 25 min to zurich by train but only a 15min bike ride to work, ~110k salary

This is true. I know someone who works as a dev for CHF 150k+ in Bern, and Zurich has even higher levels of salary.

Getting paid while in grad school? Or you're saying the pay goes up as you go from graduate degree to Ph.D?

If you aren't getting paid to be in grad school, then that was a hint that they didn't really want to take you. Any reputable grad school place will be paying you.

Depends on the country. In New Zealand it's not common to be paid to do post grad.

Getting paid while in grad school. As a grad student at ETH, depending on your department, you'll earn anything from $60k - $100k (ballpark).

Yes (both).

Nice. Working in Europe is definitely on my list for the next handful of years.. just need to figure out how to make the move (have EU citizenship, just a matter of making the jump)

Zurich, along with London, has the highest salaries for development in Europe. You may need to work in a finance-related position, but you can make fairly big bucks.

The one major non-finance option is Google, which has a large and growing engineering office there.

https://careers.google.com/locations/zurich/

Disclaimer: I work for Google, but not in ZRH.

Apple also has an office in Zurich.

The population of Zurich seems quite small to support a large amount of developers. Everyone here is comparing London, SF, and other places that have over 4 million more people.

Zurich also has a high cost of living and well above any US cities.

If you include rent (which is high but not as insane as in SF), it's comparable to SF: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

Zurich can draw from around 1.6M people, which is its metropolitan area with >8.3% people commuting to the center. So yeah, >4M more people is probably underselling how small Zurich is in comparison to London and SF. Nevertheless, it's not a world capital, but with its concentration of highly qualified students and graduates from two of the top universities I think it is quite competitive. Plus it helps that it's not 1.6M people isolated somewhere in a desert, rather it's a continuation of Europe's most densely populated stretch of land (London-Netherlands-Ruhr-SW-Germany-Milano), which helps at getting lots of business/talent in neighboring countries.

> Zurich also has a high cost of living and well above any US cities.

SF and NYC are a lot more expensive.

You're right about the size of the job market though, it's tiny, even relative to the population size.

It depends on how you calculate the cost.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_citie...

https://www.atlasandboots.com/remote-jobs/most-expensive-cit...

https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/index

If you calculate unrealistically, yes, sure :)

Day-to-day expenses are a tiny part of a typical budget. In most scenarios, housing, income taxes and transportation alone will easily cost you twice as much in SF compared to Zürich.

As a software engineer, the salary difference should make up for it, or even reach levels that are unlikely in Switzerland. That's great, but for most people, I can guarantee you, Zürich is a lot cheaper.

I don’t argue that Zurich can be affordable (mostly because salaries are higher in general). But the median single family home seems to go for $1.5mn both in Switzerland and Zurich. I don’t think transportation is cheaper in Zurich but I guess income taxes alone can make a difference.

The point is that many things, including many things that “rich foreigners” use to do, are more expensive in Zurich than in San Francisco. For example [1] a hair cut is twice as much ($62 vs $30), a basic dinner at a neighborhood pub for two is 50% more ($74 vs $50), going to the cinema is 30% more ($18 vs $14), a gym membership is 30% more ($118 vs 91$), etc.

[1] https://www.finews.ch/images/download/Mapping.the.worlds.pri...

edit: in the linked document, monthly rent for a mid-range 2-bedroom apartment is 37% higher in San Francisco ($3449 vs $2520). However, the cost of transportation in its different forms is higher in Zurich.

> the median single family home seems to go for $1.5mn both in Switzerland and Zurich.

I meant both in SF an Zurich.

London has very poor salaries for development, especially compared to Switzerland. Standard developers make 30-40k pounds...

20-year-old fresh uni graduates or government employees make 30-40k pounds.

Seasoned competent devs easily earn twice as much -- or three times as much if they are contracting, or four times as much if they are good enough to hack it in the well-paying industries (bigTech or finance).

Yes but high end (financial industry and top MNCs) and contract jobs can pay 3-4x more than that. So when you are a good developer and are either from Europe or looking to relocate to Europe, London and Zurich are two top places you should concentrate your job hunt on.

You'll also make good money in Bern, Basel, Lausanne, and Geneva. It isn't just Zurich, the French part is good also.

Entry-level developers with a couple of years experience, perhaps. Not the case for senior developers (more like 60-90k), and getting six figures GBP is not difficult if you're working in finance.