Cost of living in Poland is not actually 1/3 of Austria, the difference in cost is much smaller than in salary. But it's true that the more senior you are the less geography affects your wage.

Austria != Vienna, similar to how London != UK.

Equating for standard of living (eg upper middle class) you'll likely be 3x in Vienna. Although I'm just guestinating on Gdansk, maybe it's a really expensive place.

I don't believe the difference is anywhere near 300%. Maybe 20 years ago.

Let's keep Vienna for comparison, but benchmark it against Warsaw (also substantially more expensive than the rest of the country). According to the data on Numbeo, "you would need around 2,562.64€ (12,036.56zł) in Warsaw to maintain the same standard of life that you can have with 4,000.00€ in Vienna". Making Warsaw only 1.5x cheaper.

Gdańsk is probably in the top 5 most expensive ones (meaning cheaper than Warsaw), more or less at a level you'd expect from a city of that relative size (at roughly 450k inhabitants it's the 6th most populous in the country).

OK - so roughly 2x. 1/3 was an exaggeration in reply to his 1/3 salary, but I actually did these calculations a couple of years ago and it wasn't that far off, I'm from Croatia and before settling down I considered moving to Western Europe. Turns out when I started freelancing and took advantage of low corporate income tax here (10% below 1M EUR/year and 10% gains tax) - the math for moving abroad never checked out - I made more money than my friends who moved to Germany/Ireland even before COVID, and it's just been getting easier with the move to remote working (that's commenting purely on cost of living/lifestyle I can afford - there are other factors to consider in these decisions).

Austria is a lot less variable than the UK, and Vienna is not really the most expensive city there at all (generally the further west you go the more expensive it gets). I'm pretty sure a lot of the smaller cities like Salzburg and Innsbruck are actually more expensive than Vienna and not at all certain Vienna is much or at all above the Austrian average (or at least urban average).

With the risk of sounding rude i am not even sure why austria is part of this debate as its totally irrelevant on the tech scene.

It’s simply a Westen European country I lived in, sorry I never lived and went to Uni + worked in the Netherlands to give a more topical example. My point was that borders are unfair in terms of compensation not just to Western Europeans but to a lot(most?) other people in the world outside [west coast/big city) Americans. And that true globalization will equalize things not only upward.

Well austria is firmly central european.

Dont worry, old tech will always tend to become cheaper. Once countries such as austria take the lead on new tech pay will follow. The us and uk have invested massively in modern technologies. Actually the uk started the trend with its industrial revolution and the us overtook it thanks to its size and dna engraved appetite for risk and innovation.

To increase your pay, austria would have to be less rigid and more open to risk. That will lead to the creation of more modern startups and more demand for your skills. Dont give into anti globalisation conspiracy theories as globalisation is benefiting austria by giving it access to vast markets. But since austria is mainly relying on old tech its now losing ground as it hasnt got much to sell.

I haven’t lived in Austria in almost a decade, I simply used it as an example than salaries in Europe aren’t just lower than in the US but also higher than other places. Equitable pay means equalizing with everyone not just those above you.

You can compare cost of living to an extent - assuming, for instance, that the worker won't go on holiday anywhere nice.

Checked at one of known tour operators, for the same hotel and destination in the Caribbean, same duration and dates you will pay ~£2900 when going out from London and £4900 when going out from Cracow.

Things like tech products will also cost broadly the same.

Also engineers these days don't live like upper middle class (unless they come from such background). It's more like upper working class. Progressive taxation prevents workers from amassing capital and climbing the class ladder.

People from upper middle classes get paid in ways out of scope of progressive taxes designed to keep working class in check.

>You can compare cost of living to an extent - assuming, for instance, that the worker won't go on holiday anywhere nice.

But that's my point - as you get more experienced your net salary levels by remoting and you have lower cost of living - you actually have larger discretionary budget for vacations.

>Also engineers these days don't live like upper middle class (unless they come from such background). It's more like upper working class. Progressive taxation prevents workers from amassing capital and climbing the class ladder.

>People from upper middle classes get paid in ways out of scope of progressive taxes designed to keep working class in check.

True as well, which is why moving to Western Europe never made sense to me - as a freelancer I get to claim most of my income as company profits - taxed ~20% locally - vs. ~50% if it was income tax. And I can afford private health care/kindergarten/schools so the shit public care isn't an issue either.