> American software engineers get paid more than basically anyone else in the world, but we also have less job security. What's preferable just depends on your risk aversion vs marginal utility of money.
Of course, this comment is predicated on the assumption that America's loose labour laws are the reason for this salary disparity, and I'm not personally willing to follow you to that conclusion.
I think it's far more likely that American software engineers get paid more because the industry was effectively born there, and it was born there due to historical accidents like the US being where the transistor was invented, the advancement of technology due to government spending during World War II and the subsequent space race, etc, not to mention the US being the center of the VC world, which has its own deep history.
A tradeoff can exist without implying that the tradeoff is necessary.
In other words, America has A but not B, Europe has B but not A, and there doesn't happen to be a place with both A and B, but it's not impossible in principle. Workers would still need to decide if they value A or B more, even if in a perfect world they could have both.
Fair enough. I took the parent comment to be implying that that tradeoff was necessary--i.e. to have high salaries you have to have loose labour laws--as opposed to a simple statement about the current world we live in.
If it's the latter, absolutely you are right, and it is certainly the case that tech employees today are forced to make the choice between New York/California tech salaries and strong labour laws, regardless of whether or not there's a necessary inverse relationship between those two things.
If you can fire low performers, average performance will be higher, which means average pay will be higher. The risk is that you personally get mistaken for (...or correctly assessed as...) a low performer. Hence, tradeoffs.
Of course, this comment is predicated on the assumption that America's loose labour laws are the reason for this salary disparity, and I'm not personally willing to follow you to that conclusion.
I think it's far more likely that American software engineers get paid more because the industry was effectively born there, and it was born there due to historical accidents like the US being where the transistor was invented, the advancement of technology due to government spending during World War II and the subsequent space race, etc, not to mention the US being the center of the VC world, which has its own deep history.