Berlin is nothing like Silicon Valley. It’s a great city but job offers there are 60-80% lower salaries compared to the US, which makes Berlin being marginally cheaper (but with higher taxes) not really worth it.
The complete elimination of auto expenses helps a lot. And frankly, it's hard to put a price on 6 weeks' _guaranteed_ vacation per year.
And true, salaries are lower, but 60-80%?? Obviously headhunters and published ranges are to be taken with a grain of salt but a HH was trying to entice me with 90k in Berlin for data engineering a while ago and that, while not SV money, is better than "60-80% less"
It's min. 4 Weeks (by law) + national/regional holidays, which differ based on region in Germany and might overlap with Saturday/Sunday if anyone is interested in it. It's still pretty nice.
With a higher education you won't find any job offer with less than 25 days of vacation, usually >= 28. In tech most companies offer 30 days. I've seen some offering 38..
But that's almost everywhere in Europe - salaries being a lot lower than in US, right?
PS. Based on my conversations with a friend who moved from Dallas to Amsterdam. He was in US just for ~3 years after completing his MS. He always wanted to work and live in EU for some years before returning home. He stayed in US for the loan.
Yes - I say this as someone who moved from California to Ireland.
Student loans are nearly evil - not that I think being irresponsible with debt is good, but they currently turn in to a near-prison for far too many people. You could spend 100k on lottery tickets and have an easier time getting it discharged than 100k on student debt.
Is your friend in Amsterdam or Dallas at the moment? I doubt you could find enough money to get me to live in Dallas (well, maybe 7 figures so I could tolerate it briefly and then retire) due to the fact that I quite like being able to commute by bike without dying.
3x isn't really 60-80% though? I understand fb median salaries are 240k usd rightnow, alphabet about 190k usd. Non-faang a fair bit lower. So offers of 70-100k eur in europe, doable in the more expensive bits, would be more like half-ish.
If Berlin salaries are 66% lower than California, then yes, it is 3x. For people like me, I would make about 80% less were I to work in Berlin vs the US.
Says somebody apparently... living in Berlin?
Calling Berlin "marginally" cheaper than the Valley is something I'd be highly sceptical of. Rents aside I've not been to many other places where food, shopping and leisure has been as cheap.
Also, OP did not mention he wants to optimise his income?
Calling Berlin "marginally" cheaper than the
Valley is something I'd be highly sceptical of.
Presumably sneak means "Costs of living are lower, but if you salary goes from $150,000 to €50,000 it's not clear you'll be left with higher discretionary income."
Your salary will just not decrease so disproportionately in relative terms. € 50,000 was a starting salary I was offered for a business position straight out of university. Any software engineer, much more so people with experience will earn considerably more. As other's have pointed out, senior positions rather range from 70k - 90k depending on the position and experience.
You can't directly compare the salaries without taking the living cost into account. You get much higher salaries in the US, especially SV, but you also have to pay way more for living. Flats are way more expensive and don't forget stuff like healthcare and so on which is, imo, cheaper in Germany.
10-20% lower salaries is something I would accept but 60-80? Come on.
