Yes, depending on where you live rent might be similar (London isn’t much cheaper than NY or LA) but cost of living is otherwise less. Also, people tend to work much shorter hours (a limit of 37 for me, any extra is returned as PTO) and start with much more annual leave (25 days discretionary, for me, plus public holidays, plus we close over Christmas and new year’s). Furthermore there’s no health costs to pay etc. On the whole it balances out and I think the lifestyle here is better, but I do envy the extreme salaries of those in the US.
As someone in the US, 40 hours per week is the minimum. Recognition for “being a hard worker” has required 60+ hours at some places I’ve worked. This is for a fixed salary and no overtime pay, mind you. Then you’re usually on an on call rotation every few weeks where you may have to work off-hours if something comes up. That’s additional unpaid hours. My current company pays $80,000 USD for new college grad software developers.
US holidays are 8-10 days, and junior devs usually start with 5-10 days of vacation. Health insurance costs at least several hundred a month (your employer also pays about 3x more than you towards your insurance premium as a benefit).
You’re actually getting applicants at 80k? That’s nuts. Last I checked fresh outs were clearing 100k.
Despite incessant reassurance from recruiting that they have the best market data and we’re paying above average, I have reasons to suspect that’s not the truth. One of them being we’re hemorrhaging mid-grade talent and focusing on hiring backfills in Ireland and Hungary for much lower salaries. It almost seems like they’re trying to offshore the dev group via attrition to work around having to do layoffs…
It’s not too crazy here :) 25 days a year is the legal minimum and I get about 10 more than that, plus a few extra from doing overtime here and there. That’s why I say the lifestyle is on the whole better here even though we don’t earn nearly as much. It’s still plenty to pay the mortgage, and Europe is right on the doorstep to spend all that holiday time in.
