I know several folks who've migrated from US -> EU tech roles in the last few years. Yes, you earn less and pay (somewhat) more taxes. But if you have a few kids the difference in cost of education pretty much wipes out the difference, and some folks really value the stress reduction of a robust social safety net (layoff protections, healthcare coverage while unemployed, etc)

With a baby on the way, I'd seriously consider it for their lifetime benefits. Where does one begin looking?

Not everyone is optimizing for total comp. Some are optimizing for better lives. It's not a wild concept considering how many people get pulled into startups, 90% of which fail, under the guide of "mission" and lower market comp. Do you pick a mostly assured better quality of life? Or an equity payout lottery ticket/fairy tale? Certainly, there is a minority of folks making wild comp at FAANG, but that is a privileged minority of total tech and IT workers.

Taxes are not really an issue because of the services you get out of it: free healthcare, free education for your kids, etc.

But yes, salary before taxes is much lower than in the US. If your goal is to make as much money as possible, either stay in US or move to a different European country (Northern Europe or Switzerland).

But in the other hand you don't have to worry about mass shootings. You can freely walk (mostly) wherever you want without risking your life (that is not normal in most of the world). And you're not going bankrupt because of a minor/medium medical condition.

Europe is a _very_ different place.

Not everything here is so bad.

> They've been incentivizing it for years.

There is also NGI Sargasso which had EU grants being awarded to collaborations between parties in the EU and the US, working on internet innovation projects. Looks like that funding program has closed. Not sure if these open calls were slashed by the Trump government.

https://ngisargasso.eu/

> pay 30% more taxes

This is scaremongering - taxes are in no way 30% higher in EU.

Someone pulling mid-6-figures in the Valley is already paying a ~35% effective tax rate (state + medicare + federal). That same person taking a low-6-figures job in Spain would pay ~40% effective tax rate - and Beckam's Law would likely cut that to 24% for the first 6 years in any case

more like 50+ % less salary, just saying

Do you have a suggestion of where to begin looking? Doesn't have to be France either.

the first 10 what? Years? It's actually not like that: https://www.government.nl/topics/income-tax/shortening-30-pe...

From 1 January 2024, expats who meet the conditions receive the following tax benefits:

- 30% tax free for the first 20 months;

- 20% tax free for the next 20 months;

- 10% tax free for the last 20 months.

So that's a tapered reduction over the first 5 years and the amount of money that you gain after tax is between negligeable and insultingly small.

Basically in its current form "The Dutch 30% ruling" is not really worth it, if you want to move to The Netherlands do it for other reasons, and the advertisment of this mechanism feels borderline disingenious in its current form.

Isn't the primary tongue of locals in the Netherlands Dutch? Yes you know English, but don't the locals speak Dutch or German to each other?