European CS graduate here. I will never do salaried software engineering work in the United States. The countless stories like this one, and the horror stories in the comments under this story (most of whom aren't even consciously described as horror stories) describe a toxic culture which would ruin my mental health. There is no way in hell I will subject myself to this kind of pressure, even if the pay is 30% higher. (Per year at least, per hour it looks very even since 40 hours a week appears to be a pipe dream in most places).
I never thought I would type this out, but there you have it. I did actually have some vague ambitions of working in the US once, but I have eventually realized that the work environment is a bad fit for my style of work. Declined an on-site interview with Microsoft this fall due to a vague feeling that my questions about vacations and overtime were answered too vaguely, and after reading this thread I think I finally have a grasp on what stopped me.
It's really too bad. You guys have the most interesting environment for software developent in the whole world, with a huge amount of opportunities for growing and learning. But it's just not worth it.
I never thought I would type this out, but there you have it. I did actually have some vague ambitions of working in the US once, but I have eventually realized that the work environment is a bad fit for my style of work. Declined an on-site interview with Microsoft this fall due to a vague feeling that my questions about vacations and overtime were answered too vaguely, and after reading this thread I think I finally have a grasp on what stopped me.
It's really too bad. You guys have the most interesting environment for software developent in the whole world, with a huge amount of opportunities for growing and learning. But it's just not worth it.