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Comment by Wilya | Hacker News Reader

To be honest, the US companies probably have also more money to throw at the problem than those of any other country.

Everytime I see someone speak about the absurdly high salaries around Silicon Valley and saying that they are too low, I cringe a bit inside.

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Why do you cringe? Do you know what the average price of a house is in MV/Palo Alto/Sunnyvale? Cheapest housing I could find that was decent (not fancy but descent by my personal definition) was just over 2K/month in rent. 6 figures in Silicon Valley isn't the same as it is in most parts of the world.

That said, what I find strange is that experience in software doesn't seem to be rewarded. I keep hearing about fresh grads getting offered nearly a 100K right out of school. How much does a veteran developer make? Almost the same as far as I know.

A naive search shows you get a 1000 sq feet house for 2K$ in MV/Sunnyvale. If it's really true, that doesn't exactly sound a huge amount. Look at the rents in Paris or Stockholm, and imagine you're paid 50k$.

You are right. A 1000sqft place in London will cost you at least $3500 a month ($42k a year). In certain locations outside of SV programmers have lower salaries and higher cost of living.

I guess its a supply/demand thing. SV has high demand for engineers and not enough supply of employee talent, therefore salaries increase to compensate. (Although judging from this thread they haven't increased enough..)

Europe does not match the talent demands of SV (maybe because fewer big internet companies based there), therefore salaries don't need to increase as much to attract talent. The demand is a lower proportion of the supply...

In the US, you are responsible for your own retirement (in most of the private sector). If you lose your job for a prolonged period of time, you also need to have funds saved up (generally, the safety net is thin). You're comparing apples and oranges.

Take Stockholm as an example. I found it to be ridiculously to be expensive .. even to eat out! That just means people don't eat out as much as they do in NYC or SF. However, the wait staff were wearing far better clothes than me and didn't seem to care about tips ... I believe they get paid better wages than the US. That's good for them. I don't think they should get paid any less. I'm just saying it is a different social structure.

Honestly I more cringe when I realize my coworkers in Texas only make 10k less than me and the cost of living is 2 times less.

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