HACKER Q&A
📣 snerual

SF-Bay engineers, what would make you move to EU?


I've noticed a growing aversion towards engineering jobs in the Bay Area on Hacker News since the start of Covid. A portion of the, now suddenly, remote-working engineers moved away. But now that companies are trying to get you to move back into the office[1], what would make you move to the EU instead?

Although we have fewer SoftwareMegaCorps in the EU, we do have a growing startup scene yearning for experienced engineers. Looking out of my window in The Netherlands, we sure do have fewer wildfires.

[1] "Google employees who work from home could lose money" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28127240

  👤 dexwiz Accepted Answer ✓
Competitive salary would help. Bay area pay for engineers makes even basic web dev one of the highest paid professional jobs in the country. But everything I see about EU pay is that its much closer or even below average income for someone with a secondary education.
👤 Nextgrid
> we do have a growing startup scene yearning for experienced engineers

Money is a bit of a problem and equity rarely makes up for it these days (most of the legitimately profitable business ideas have been done, what's left is either complete shots in the dark that are unlikely to succeed or grifting such as blockchain or "growth and engagement" crap).

Besides equity, the salary itself for software engineers is terrible in Europe (unless you branch off into consulting which while more lucrative comes with its own challenges).