zlacker

Salary depends on your country (Swiss pays higher wages than Poland), region within your country (South Germany has many more engineering companies and pays higher wages than North Germany) and type of business (banks and high frequency trading companies tend to pay more for a boring onsite experience).

That being said: I am a Systems Engineer in South Germany, huge company, 85k€/year, no need to work overtime.

I asked myself what salary I would expect from an US company and factored in

  * paid sick leave
  * paid child sick leave
  * minimum 30 days vacation a year
  * job security
  * health care prices
  * ...

I would not accept an US position for less than 190k$/year, that is my personal break-even model.

Just for your interest: My salary is too low to buy a house and even buying a 4-room-flat and paying it off before retirement in 30years is out of reach.

Whatever your model, you will find something that works for you.

>>faiD9E+(OP)
30 days vacation is wild to me. Almost couldn't put a value on that

>>__xor_+kc
30 days of vacation seems normal? Most places in finance you're going to get at least 20 days vacation and you get all NYSE holidays off typically. So that's 30. My first software job I had 23 days, could buy an extra week (So 28) plus 10 NYSE holidays so I had 38 total. Because of financial regulations, Finance/Insurance is are both typically in that 20+ range.

>>ecshaf+tl
Definitely not normal or the norm in the US.

>>ecshaf+tl
Yeah, 30 days vacation really isn’t that crazy in the U.S. tech world at least. I currently get 20 days vacation, an extra 5 available to buy, plus ~13 federal holidays off. I went ahead and bought the extra 5 days for this year since an extra 5 days of vacation was worth more than a marginal $3k or so.

My previous employer had just switched to an “unlimited PTO” policy and had I not been laid off I planned on taking at least 30 days off.

>>ecshaf+tl
That's 30 European vacations days before public holidays, so closer to 40, and more important is that you are expected to actually use them with no eyebrows raised

>>faiD9E+(OP)
For comparison, I am in a moderately better position (re salary and vacation) and I similarly arrived at 220k$ break even, based on purely financial considerations, without factoring in one-time costs like moving, or other subjectively negative points like

- food,

- different housing costs,

- costs for education or

- security situation.

>>faiD9E+(OP)
Yeah, I want to see this calculation, because I'm definitely curious how you take $100,000+ worth of sick leave in a year.

It's great you find a way to justify being horrendously underpaid though. Kudos to your bosses for a spectacular job there.