Edit: Looks like even London don't offer good enough salary for a good software engineer when compared to cost of living.

The biggest problem with India is that talent migration doesn’t really work the other way (same with China), so you have to build companies solely with local talent. That works for lower end software services, but for higher end R&D generally requires some amount of draw from a world-wide labor pool.

120k £ (equivalent of $150k at current exchange rate) becomes net 71135 £ which is 61.8%

In the state of New York: https://smartasset.com/taxes/new-york-paycheck-calculator

$150k gets you a take home that is 68% of gross. NYC imposes an additional local tax between 3 and 3.8% so in the worst case you’re still taking home more than 64% of gross.

Maybe the last time you checked $150k was a lot less in £ and therefore taxed at lower rates in the UK?

That's not how salaries in a career path work -- you want to have the largest base to start. In a worst case scenario ( no job hopping for massive increases ) the salaries increase based on percentage of the salary, not a percentage of what is left.

It's become really hard to hire good engineers in India at Indian salaries. It's actually good thing in the longer run if the overall salary levels rise. On the other hand the talent drain out of India continues to be quite high.

Stop rolling this lie about "only the best", there is a place for less skilled people. There is also no measure of "the best developers". Because of this lie, hiring in IT is broken, because people who belive that and are recruiting, shit on people who want to find a job.

No, there is something more complicated going on. India has a space programme and nuclear weapons. They have the talented engineers to make that happen. I guarantee those engineers are not all “we are facing an issue” and “please do the needful” like everyone who has dealt with Indian IT has heard when they lack the basic competence to do the job. So where is the disconnect?

It's like when people write entire programming languages for free. The job is so enjoyable that it lowers the salary to zero.

Dang, I thing you nailed it!

(I'd work on rocket engines for free, too!)

A vicious self-reinforcing cycle that drains underdeveloped countries of the best and brightest - the very people most suited to lead and improve the countries they leave.

The US has also been historically the biggest benefactor.

Just because of your interactions with few Indians and had a bad experience from those working in mega service companies like Infosys, Wipro doesn't mean everyone's a worthless engineer