t have much to
do with each other. Whether you can convert people from group 1 to group 2 is
an interesting question, but generally if it were easy to be in group 2, a lot
more people would be in it.

~~~
charlesdm
Very true. Just compare salaries of software engineers in most EU countries
with salaries in the US.

If you're a good developer, 99% of the time it's better to work remotely from
Europe for a US company. It really is a simple problem to solve -- pay
talented people in Europe more. And yet, for some reason, this is often
dismissed by CEOs as a ridiculous statement. They're probably the same people
who think you need 100 software engineers to complete a complex technology
project.

~~~
duckingtest
I don't think it's that developers are underpaid in Europe. They are just
objectively less productive there. After all it's a very specialized job that
requires modern, developed economy open to disruptions to be really
productive. On the extreme opposite end of a spectrum - a pre-industrial
economy - a developer's productivity would be zero.

American nominal GDP per capita is 2.13 times that of Spain's and 1.38x that
of Germany's, and the distance keeps increasing. There are many possible
causes, but I think lower salaries are a symptom.

~~~
pcrh
GDP per capita seems to be a curious way to estimate if a local dev is likely
to be productive. Would a Luxembourgish, Swiss or Norwegian dev be expected to
be more productive than one from the US or UK?

It seems to me that the prime determinant of pay is how close the worker's
"category" is to the money. So in a start-up intensive environment like the
Bay Area, the devs are also sometimes the executives, and executives are often
former devs, so devs get paid correspondingly.

~~~
duckingtest
Switzerland does have higher average pay CHF 91,374 = $93,703.5 [0] compared
to USA $68,082 [1]. Their nominal GDP per capita is 36.62% higher and the pay
is 37.6% higher.

Norway interestingly has almost the same pay as USA - $68,737 [2], probably
because of high share of oi