> but the quality is nearly the same. Productivity is a bit lower

Slightly insulting to European developers?

Though I suspect a lot of European developers would say the same about their US colleagues…

Don’t Europeans typically work less hours than Americans and do so as a point of pride? I’ve spent over a decade lurking HN, Stack Exchange, later Reddit - and I always seem to see Europeans coming in with the “We work 32 hours at most in my country” or “We have a 35 hour standard here.”

Wouldn’t that necessarily imply a reduction in productivity?

No that’s a false equivalence. More hours ≠ more done.

Nope, because productivity is output divided by hours worked, so working longer can decrease productivity.

I think youre just using a different definition of productivity. Hourly is valid, but yearly is too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_factor_productivity is my definition, as it's the one that actually gets talked about in the press (as opposed to the nebulous "productivity" beloved of tech people (including me)).

I've worked in the UK, Europe and the US. From my personal experience I haven't seen any difference in the amount of effort, productivity or skill level.

Maybe I've just been lucky with the people I've worked with. In one company we had a representative of pretty much every major European country working there along with quite a few guys from the US. Everyone worked hard to get stuff delivered.

Maybe, but not really, obviously any one individual can have high variance. On a macro level though it's pretty easy to identify trends. The most ambitious European devs will come to America to get the much high salaries. The hiring standards for EU devs are considerably relaxed because of the reduced salary requirements. As a result many of the actively employed EU devs would be in a lesser role than their equally skilled American counterparts which results in the reduced metrics.

It's certainly not something any one individual should take personally.