What I find completely demotivating is working for a FAANG in Europe, and seeing the massive disparity between US colleagues. You can argue cost of living is different, healthcare is public blablabla, but recruiters have told me straight out: we dont adjust for cost of living, we adjust for market rate. Therefore they dont give a rats ass about how much it costs to live in a specific country, they just pay based on the average going rate. Unfortunately, some EU countries (e.g. IT) have very low purchasing power due to stagnant wages and inflated prices. So we're getting the shit end of the stick.
There are over 1000 engineers in Amazon's Toronto office. Every one of us knows we could make a huge increase in total comp by moving to the USA. Amazon would even help us make the move, relocation support, everything.
I know ~3 people who've done so after 7 years here. We just like it better here, money be damned.
I think what this whole exercise proves is that remote working is an unsolved problem, that "can physically see employee at their desk" is worth well over 50% of their salary. Therefore it's not a global market. Proper global markets produce things that cost similar amounts almost everywhere, like crude oil or iPhones.
I don't think that universally true. I work for G in Munich, and salaries post cost of living are competitive with the Bay Area (maybe 10%-20% off, but OTOH consider quality of life). From what I can tell, Zurich beats the Bay Area.
Not really. Out of all FAANGs there's just Google in Zurich with a significant presence. They pay well above almost all other swiss and european companies, but are not really the top paying employer in the Bay anymore.
Not being able to job hop among FAANGs is a big risk to your compensation here in the long term and will make you eventually lose out to Bay Area, even despite lower taxes.
> From what I can tell, Zurich beats the Bay Area.
Yes, with the similar salaries and a 1:1 exchange rate between CHF and USD and the only tax is the Cantonal tax of 13% vs 50% for Bay Area, it makes Zurich way far ahead.
The offices in Zug down the street get only 7% tax.
And healthcare is free, but its a negligible concern at these compensation ranges. It just shows how the American arguments fall apart, since most of them are based on "how much Europeans must have to be taxed"
If you like having a 40+ min commute instead of a few minutes of walking/biking for a few thousands of tax savings a year. Some people don't. Generally the richer you are the more you get to value your own time.
Also we don't get free heathcare, we pay for it through taxation. I believe this is morally right, but that's beside the point: These well-paid American employees are also probably getting a great healthcare package as part of their contract, so they don't even have to pay for it.
Oh, healthcare still costs money in the US, when I was at Google in the bay area I still had monthly premiums and out of pocket costs. It wasn't super expensive though...as long as nothing went wrong.
Haha, your comment reminded me when I went to Las Vegas and the hotel told us to go into bus X that they offered as part of the service for their guests.
When we arrived to the bus, we asked the driver: "Is this the bus service that goes to XYZ place and it si free?" . The driver very seriously told us: "It is not free", to which we replied "but they told us it was free!", finally he added: "it is not free, it is complimentary"
I found amusing how the US culture finds the concept of "free" (gratis, kostenlos) somewhat dirty.
The Swiss offices have much lower tax rates than their bay area counterparts, a tax rate which includes health insurance (correct me if its a separate tax)
At 200k+ pay from FAANG swiss income taxes are not that low. In Zurich they roughly are comparable to US federal taxes, like what you'd pay in Seattle with just a few niceties like no capital gains tax. It gets a little cheaper in Zug and Schwyz but not much.
Health care is absolutely not free, in fact it's probably second most expensive country in the world for healthcare after the US. A doctor visit is going to cost you 100-200 franks at least. Insurance system works much better than in the US, but prices are (almost) as crazy.
Health isn't a tax as such, but an insurance service that everyone is obliged to buy from one of several providers. Importantly, it doesn't depend on your income, rather your age and health stuff like whether you smoke.
For what it's worth I moved from SF to AMS a few years ago for my employer (FAANG-ish) and they cut my salary by 30%. I was pissed and fought hard, but they didn't bulge. My quality of life (including buying power) was still more in AMS.
Depends on what you're buying. I made a similar move from SV to Munich, some things got cheaper, like rent, transportation, childcare, and groceries. "Stuff" (anything that comes out of a factory) was generally more expensive, as was media/digital subscriptions. Definitely feel poorer in Munich, though part of that was just an unfortunate school situation.
media/digital subscriptions more expensive than SV? Like which ones and at which scale?
My experience with europe (France and Netherlands) is that most of those things are also incredibly cheaper, 20e/month for unlimited data cellphone plan, 40euro for fast internet, etc.
What type of media subscription you have for those to feel like they lower your buying power? I feel like once you've paid cheaper "rent, transportation, childcare, and groceries" you mention, how are your media/digital subscriptions making a difference?
I can pitch in to say in London I make ~$150k + $50k/y options (not sure how to value these, strike price is only slightly discounted) for L4 (should be ~$300k according to levels)
From what i've heard London has by far the highest tech salaries in Europe
That is around £114k, which is a high salary for London, but nothing in comparison to what you can make contracting (and at the same 'salary', as a contractor you'll pay less tax in the UK). The base rates for web technologies are around £500/day, and if you specialise and have a track record for delivering you can easily push that up.
