There are often complaints here that American programmers earn more than their counterparts in Europe and other continents. American tech giants pay well in the U.S.
If you're a skilled professional, you always end up earning more in the US than most other countries.
This is not to say Europe is bad - hell Europe is a continent so broad brush stereotypes are stupid, as my argument with an Italian yesterday about ICT market dynamics in Romania vs Italy proved. You'll earn a higher salary in Amsterdam as a SWE than you would as a SWE in Jackson MI, just like a MechE in Minsk will earn a pittance compared to a MechE in Munich.
All this chest thumping on HN is so stupid.
Those happen to be two places my best friend has lived and worked and… 20 years ago at least Jackson paid much better than Amsterdam.
Europe just really has a low ceiling on pay, across the board.
The main difference would probably be income tax, which means post-tax salaries in NL can be lower than MS
[0] - https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/jackson...
[1] - https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/greater...
Also the levels.fyi data for both Amsterdam and Jackson is regional (hence why data about Vicksburg is included).
> My dad was pulling $100k in port Gibson as a systems engineer and that was a couple of decades ago
Oh wow that's good money even today.
[0] - https://www.expat.hsbc.com/expat-explorer/expat-guides/nethe...
Oh, that makes sense!
> Vicksburg also has waterways, but you don’t get many tech job centers
The Army Corp of Engineer's primary R&D center is in Vicksburg, so most devs are DoD employees (good gig tbh).
> Clinton was hotter before Worldcom imploded
Ah that makes sense. I didn't realize they were HQed there - they probably could have done wonders like Centurylink did for a lot of Louisiana.