Yes, these are very different job markets, and totally different markets in general with a very different cost of living. If you want to compare the job markets, you'd also have to take that into consideration.

The main reason why software engineers in the US make more on average are the FAANG companies and VC backed startups that pay insane salaries for their employees, primarily in the Bay Area with extremely high cost of living.

I don't think an entry level Google engineer making $120k living in the Bay Area can afford a better lifestyle than me making €60k (before taxes) living in Germany.

Entry-level FAANG engineers make significantly more than $120k in the Bay Area. Other than vacation time and job security, their lifestyle is comparable to any salaried person in Germany, and they save a lot more money.

There are a lot of reasons to live and work in Germany, but money is not one of them.

>Entry-level FAANG engineers make significantly more than $120k in the Bay Area

Yeah, people seem to conflate base cash salary with total comp, which is very misleading. Sure, you start making $120k in base salary at google as a fresh grad, and you top out at around $150k as a senior engineer.

However, the total comp ends up being mostly covered by stock, which is what drives that senior engineer total comp to be more in the $400k-500k range. And even at the fresh grad level, I expect the total comp at Google to cross $200k/yr easily.

I don't think an entry level engineer in Germany earns €60K?

Well I do, but that's an above average salary. As an entry level you can expect 45-50k on average, but I still think that's a fair comparison

We pay our juniors 50k in Berlin (hiring manager).

>American salary: .... Dutch salary: ....

American standard of living (or lack thereof) vs Dutch standard of living.

Considering this, I wouldn't bother to compare the US vs Dutch salary:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/23/most-americans-dont-have-the...

While it is true that US salaries are higher then EU ones, you definitely can get rich while working as an engineer. With disciplined and smart investing, 40 years of compounding interest can work wonders. In some cases in can be even more - I know a few friends who started investing for their kids the moment they were born.

>With disciplined and smart investing, 40 years of compounding interest can work wonders.

One problem is that this takes 40 years...

Agreed, and it becomes an even more significant difference thanks to compounding interest. With the same aggressive level of savings, you can get to the same level in the US at a FAANG company in under 10 years easily. You can even make it a bit less aggressive, and still easily get there in about 10-15 years, while enjoying a way more relaxed and luxurious lifestyle than you would have in EU.

On the other hand non engineers in a company are likely to be better off.

Hm.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/424159/pay-gap-between-c...

How is that relevant? I don't care about the relative gap in whatever other country. I don't live in the US (although I wish I did). In Germany, I see average compensation for a SWE 65k€ whereas management at the same company can have upwards of 300k€. Especially bad if you work a tech job at a non-tech company. There is definitely a culture of rewarding management with money and employees with "stability" which means accepting lower pay in return for not being fired.

>In Germany, I see average compensation for a SWE 65k€ whereas management at the same company can have upwards of 300k€.

I see that as a benefit. Less inequality, less golden parachutes, the average person making a better living with better public services and benefits...

I could not care less for special salaries that only apply to a small percentage, when https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/23/most-americans-dont-have-the...

The average US developer salary is about $110k so you're probably better off making €65k so they're not really much better off. If you have a family it's almost certainly a worse deal in the USA.

There are also places in Germany offering 2-3x that €65k in total comp for comparable roles as you see for the high salaries in the USA. Amazon Berlin, Google Munich etc.

> Amazon Berlin ... 2-3x of 65k

Lol no :) more like 80k base and some stock for sde-2

Plenty of early stage companies openly advertise €75-80k base in Berlin on AngelList so that's a pretty low offer for somewhere like Amazon! My total comp at Airbnb Berlin was approx double that €65k quoted. An ex-colleague makes more than that at Amazon Berlin but at a higher level.

Very accurate. And even if you're making good money, you're paying significantly higher taxes, will usually not own a house etc.

Might still be worth it for the benefits, but it should be mentioned.

Home ownership in the Netherlands is 69% vs 65% in the USA. Also the taxes actually pay for things like a public health system and police that have enough training to adopt a "talk first" strategy vs the "shoot first" strategy that seems to be so common in the states.

Interesting, my experience is from Germany where it's much lower, barely breaking 50%.

As I mentioned: it might still be worth it, but I really dislike this whole style of "look, everything is the same, only we have X, Y and Z". It's not, there are trade-offs. If somebody likes those trade-offs (e.g. better job security for lower compensation), then they'll prefer it that way, and that's completely valid. But to pretend that there are no trade-offs (that is: to only mention one side of the trade-offs) is misleading.

Germany is famously a bit of a European outlier over renting vs ownership: https://qz.com/167887/germany-has-one-of-the-worlds-lowest-h...

> Interesting, my experience is from Germany where it's much lower, barely breaking 50%.

It is not (only) a matter of capacity, it is (also) a matter of culture/habits.

In fact, if you look at various European countries, that's funny, because house ownership rates kind of go the opposite way of average wealth/income per capita.

Yes, home ownership in Germany is much lower thanks to urbanization, incompetent politics and other factors. Right now its at around 51%. Germany is last place in Europe and an extreme outlier. The comment you replied to for example referred to home ownership in the Netherlands which offers the same if not better employee protection and benefits, while surpassing the US in home ownership. Oh, and also the Netherlands is more representative of home ownership across EU countries, here are some numbers https://www.statista.com/statistics/246355/home-ownership-ra...

It's not accurate at all - in comparison to the US. Obviously management having a pay disparity is common (which is in itself interesting, and economically not that obvious - more likely a social effect of a hierarchy), but the disparities in the US are larger. (The US has fairly extreme inequality compared to other wealthy countries, generally regardless of what you're looking at, so it comes as no surprise that it's the case here). Furthermore, the actual statistics likely under represent the issue, due to how stocks and capital gains.

If you mean to say the inequality in NL or Germany is unreasonably high - sure! But the US is even less equal.

Edit: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/16/ceos-see-pay-grow-1000percen... also looks at older income inequalities, and the development is pretty stark.

> It's not accurate at all - in comparison to the US.

What? US SWE don't make significantly more money than EU-based SWEs? That's news, I'd love to see sources.

The pay differential between CEO's and workers in the US is larger than that in the Netherlands, which is larger than that in Germany.

In general, high earners earn more in the US, which includes both CEO's and SWE (but the point about how easy it is to fire people and about inequality was more general, not specifically about SWE).

Citation needed. Most engineers I know in The Netherlands (around 200) have bought their home.

His claim is simply false, see https://www.statista.com/statistics/246355/home-ownership-ra...

Even most blue collar workers I know own their house.

>you're paying significantly higher taxes

For much better public services, benefits, access to health, etc...

>will usually not own a house etc.

The Netherlands have a higher home ownership than the US (67.8% vs 65.3%).

Even most blue collar workers I know have bought a house, what are you talking about.