That second job (£70K senior) isn't bad. It's remote, so you could easily live somewhere dirt cheap and be better off than someone in London on £100K+ (the difference in take home pay is only £1450/mo, which could easily be the difference between a 2 bed at £2K/mo in London vs £550/mo in, say, Durham... also buying property outside London would be way more doable)

Imagine that (£70k senior), but instead of somewhere else in the UK, it's somewhere in Europe.

In Munich, Germany (one of the priciest cities in Germany), the overall average rental price is €700 for a one-bed apartment[0]. Compared that to London, a one-bedroom apartment rent is going to cost you over £1000! €1178.48 euros![1]

In Eastern Europe, you can have a very good quality of life for even cheaper. The only problem is the language barrier.

I live in Sofia, Bulgaria, and pay €340 euros for a 2-bedroom flat in a pretty nice area of the city. A coffee costs around 2 лв (about €1), average pint around 3.80 лв (about €2). With a London software engineering salary, I save a drastic amount of money compared to London, and can usually afford to go to more restaurants, bars and outdoor activities (Love that I can ski just 20 mins away in the mountains!)

I assume it would be similar for people who can work remotely for a San Francisco company but live in a different state?

[0] https://www.expatrio.com/living-germany/costs-living-germany...

[1] https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/housing-and-land/improv...

Companies in the US realized that up until a year ago, they didn't have to pay SF salaries to people who aren't in SF, because most cities don't have so many tech jobs laying around that you have to literally flag recruiters' as spam.

Post-covid, where many companies are allowing remote work, it's not at all so clear cut for them. You don't need to leave your hometown and move to a booming tech industry anymore, so paying people who live outside the bay as if they have no other options is resulting in a lot of the big tech companies' hiring pipelines drying up. Hopefully they figure it out

Oh yeah! I work for a Swedish company and live in South America. Just for some perspective, I make quite a few times _more_ than the president where I live. Albeit this all comes at a cost of some things like lacking tech advancements and lots of corruption and things just not working as well as they do in EU, but overall, can save a ton of money all while not sacrificing life quality and being able to go out and do fun stuff without having to think about money much.

Ahem. €700 in Munich gets you a room in shared accommodation. €1200 would still be a pretty good deal.

That's pretty similar to London, I wasn't aware Munich had got so expensive!

The remote has only come in in the last couple of years thanks to covid, and yes going forward if wages stay high. That's upto 70k, and note that it "depends on location". If you live in Durham you'll be on the 50k end.

Chances are by the time you're experienced enough to be pulling in that, you'll also be looking at wanting a family home rather than a small flat, which is going to be costing you more like £1k a month outside of London.

problem is that salary growth in last 5 years has been crazy

A senior engineer with 10 years exp 5 years ago made £35. Now someone out of a 6 month bootcamp can ask for that.

That doesn't even get into all the other roles that have popped up liker product / delivery which dilute engineer contributions and narrow their skillset - which someone in their 40's has.

I've noticed this too. It's rather alarming, but I certainly haven't minded milking it.

youre generally not supposed to make that much in socialist-ish countries, thats why youre taxed into oblivion after a certain point.

High marginal tax rates in the UK are mainly hit at low wages (when you come off universal credit and get taxed at 75p on the pound, when you're repaying your student loan when you get an extra 9p/pound, when you have two kids and the loan at 50k when you get hit by 69p (about to be 72p)

Once you're at say 200k, your marginal rate (as you'll have repaid your loan in the first couple of years) is 45%

Someone on $500k in CA will pay $210k in taxes. Someone on $500k (£375k) in the UK will pay $220k (£165k). That's not a massive difference.

Sources https://listentotaxman.com/375000

https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator

> thats why youre taxed into oblivion after a certain point.

Fun Fact: The nordic countries have a fairly flat tax rate (flatter than the U.S.) as well a 25% VAT and a low (20%) corporate tax rate. Most people don't realize this and would howl about regressivity if the U.S. introduced a 25% sales tax and lowered the top bracket to anyone earning more than $59K - which is Sweden's top bracket this year. So "beyond a certain point" for Sweden means "beyond $60K/year income".

You are right about the corporate tax, but for regular employees Sweden is one of the worst places to be in terms of taxes. Roughly half of the cost to the employer has to be paid in taxes (first withholding tax, then income tax). And then VAT, gas tax, alcohol tax, etc etc.

Yes, I agree that the tax burden is heavy in Sweden. I'm pointing out that with a 25% VAT and a top bracket of $60K, that burden is not nearly as progressive as, say, the U.S., where brackets go from 10% for $10K to 37% for 523K (after deductions). Whereas in Sweden, you pay 32% at $1800 and then 52% at $60K and you stay at 52% (again, after deductions).

Just so that we are clear, the 52% income tax is after 30% has already been paid in withholding tax.

Yes!