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Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

Most white collar jobs pay better in the US than Europe, be it in Power Engineering, Automotive Engineering, Pharma, Finance, etc (and all these jobs come with insurance provided).

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.

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Do you have actual comps for Jackson vs Amsterdam?

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.

I actually meant Jackson MS, not MI, but using levels.fyi there is a difference pre-tax [0][1].

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...

That’s a huge difference $30k, I don’t think taxes in Amsterdam are that high. You really should be comparing the greater Jackson area also, I’m sure salaries in Clinton for a SWE is going to be higher, Jackson is limited to state jobs. My dad was pulling $100k in port Gibson as a systems engineer and that was a couple of decades ago.

The income tax rates are very high in NL if you earn above $40k - it becomes 37.07% from €35,473-69,398 and 49.5% from €69,398 and above [0]

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...

Port Gibson is where the state’s only nuclear plant is. Vicksburg also has waterways, but you don’t get many tech job centers in that part of the USA. Clinton was hotter before Worldcom imploded.

> Port Gibson is where the state’s only nuclear plant is

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.

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