this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2026
326 points (99.7% liked)
LinkedinLunatics
6673 readers
617 users here now
A place to post ridiculous posts from linkedIn.com
(Full transparency.. a mod for this sub happens to work there.. but that doesn't influence his moderation or laughter at a lot of posts.)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yeah I was about to say. I'm an American software engineer at 10 years in the industry. That number is roughly my yearly salary, and they're talking monthly, so that's like 12 of me. From what I've noticed in online job searches, European positions of roughly equal experience and skill levels get paid somewhere between 30-50% less. Is that because of the stronger welfare systems? Or maybe the differences in cost of living, which could vary based on country and region?
FWIW a rule of thumb is that an employee costs a (US) company roughly twice what their annual salary is because of benefits, administrative costs, office space etc. That's still like 6 human engineers.
The cost of living varies a lot not only from country to country, but from city to city within the same country. But yes, it's the safety net that we have here. You don't go bankrupt if you have a medical emergency, your health care insurance isn't tied to your job, child support is better (varies by country), worker rights are stronger (varies by country, but on average it's better than the US), secured paid maternity leave, vacations, sick leave, etc. Generally speaking, if you live in Europe but work for a US company, you basically hit a lottery. As a software dev, at least.