There are a lot(!!) of European Multinationals, plenty of which are the typical slow moving bureaucratic mess where people who are good at meetings, presentations, and big talk end up moving up faster than people who just work hard.

In that sense, there are plenty of cities in the US where the software jobs are terrible, the pay is mediocre, and you work for employer who simply tries to squeeze as much from you as possible. That's one of the reasons there are so many people who migrate to parts of the US where they have more job options and better employers.