Again, what part of the world are you on?
Even in Berlin, with all the talks about it becoming a top destination for tech people, I'm yet to hear any 6-figures offer. Even the blockchain companies that were flush with cash were paying 90-95k€ to their top people, maybe a 10-20% performance bonus. Mind you, we are talking about Germany where the tax is ~42% of your income at this bracket if you are single.
When I was freelancing, pay was higher, but my best year hit around 130k€ net income, and that only because I deferred a lot of it and got an accountant that advised me to put as much as possible into a private pension fund to have a bigger tax deduction. If I wanted to have that cash in hand, I would've ended up with maybe 80k€?
Yes, cost of living is lower (though rapidly rising, and it is not a post-pandemic thing) and there is plenty of social welfare benefits. Especially after having kids, I wouldn't go to the US for a $200k/year job. But to think that this kind of compensation is par for the course shows a huge disconnect from the reality in the rest of world.
Even in Berlin, with all the talks about it becoming a top destination for tech people, I'm yet to hear any 6-figures offer. Even the blockchain companies that were flush with cash were paying 90-95k€ to their top people, maybe a 10-20% performance bonus. Mind you, we are talking about Germany where the tax is ~42% of your income at this bracket if you are single.
When I was freelancing, pay was higher, but my best year hit around 130k€ net income, and that only because I deferred a lot of it and got an accountant that advised me to put as much as possible into a private pension fund to have a bigger tax deduction. If I wanted to have that cash in hand, I would've ended up with maybe 80k€?
Yes, cost of living is lower (though rapidly rising, and it is not a post-pandemic thing) and there is plenty of social welfare benefits. Especially after having kids, I wouldn't go to the US for a $200k/year job. But to think that this kind of compensation is par for the course shows a huge disconnect from the reality in the rest of world.