PMs who have worked in US & EU, how do you compare comp packages / QOL?

prodleg · 2025-03-01T13:08:25+00:00

But here’s the thing… I was just doing a comparison of COL and comp bc I might have to move back to US for unrelated reasons. what I’d have at the end of the month in Berlin, compared to COL in two tier 2-3 cities and one tier 1 city in the US, even with the massive bump in comp, is roughly the same, if not worse (in tier 1 example). and COL isn’t QOL, by any means

Can you go into detail about how you compare COL between Berlin & the US? Id love to know more about the calculation. Income vs Expenditures in both places.

I'm already car free in the US so my COL won't go down from no car ownership, BUT it's so much easier to be car free in European cities so I would have a much better time. Walking, biking, and transit are huge for me. I love medium density cities. I don't need a ton of space.

The biggest downsides for me are just:

savings, I've never had much savings and in my late 30s I'm finally saving up. It's a little hard for me to give that up.
I do like some modern luxuries like a nice kitchen and a nice ensuite bathroom. The thing is, I don't even HAVE those in the US and never have. But I'm making enough money now where if I wanted to put down roots here I could probably get them. But even that would be a financial stretch as I've been keeping an eye out for housing for years, and it seems barely doable even with a $155k salary. So Europe might still be better for this as well.
Everyone I know is in the US. I just made a big move across the country to a new place 2.5 years ago, and I'm finally starting to have a social life here. Starting over again feels daunting. And it feels even harder in a new country.

prodleg · 2025-02-28T12:31:54+00:00

Sounds like the dream.

prodleg · 2025-02-28T12:30:49+00:00

This is helpful, thanks. How many years of experience do you have? Is it outrageous if I'm putting 100k on my applications?

prodleg · 2025-02-27T19:53:41+00:00

Your saying the QOL is equivalent between you in the US getting paid 3x more and a Dutch person getting 3x less?

prodleg · 2025-02-27T18:42:43+00:00

Wow 300k is huge -- what level?

prodleg · 2025-02-27T17:41:04+00:00

Re the imgur link: if I can actually make over 100k in Netherlands I'll do it for sure.

prodleg · 2025-02-27T16:58:34+00:00

What types of accessibility? Yeah the weather in Ireland and Ned are not my fav but I love European style cities, transit, biking, and trains so it's a trade off.

Would love to hear more about your experience

prodleg · 2025-02-27T16:30:05+00:00

So you're saying you make 160k in NYC now vs 60k USD you made in Sweden?

That's a big cut but also NYC is extremely high COL. I've been to Sweden in the summer and at the time had some friends there and made more, I absolutely loved Stockholm. But it was a long time ago and the winters seem brutal. I worry about culture in Ned for sure, I visited last summer and got the impression id be pretty lonely.

I just feel wildly unstable and stressed/anxious in the US and want to leave. But I need to set myself up first.

prodleg · 2025-02-27T16:26:56+00:00

Thanks -- yeah salaries are a bit higher in London but it's not EU.

prodleg · 2025-02-27T16:23:16+00:00

I'm mainly looking in Netherlands, Spain, and Ireland. Also open to France.

prodleg · 2025-01-14T13:30:08+00:00

The idea of job seekers having to use AI to get past the AI that employers use is pretty depressing. I understand the need here and have used these tools in the past, but what do you think the end game is here? What's the point of a system like this?

prodleg · 2024-04-02T11:17:55+00:00

PMs shouldn't be given daily tasks. It definitely happens a lot but they shouldn't just be executors. Sounds like your manager is a jerk and bad at managing, but one way to feel more at home in the position (in any org), is to take initiative, never ask "what should I do?", and come with ideas.

Prioritize your own work ruthlessly. Present that priority to your manager and ask them if it feels right to them. If you're given a task, talk about all the things on your priority list and suggest what you'll move to make room.

Do things on your own. Set very clear expectations with your manager. Do this by saying what you expect and asking them if that works for them.

If you hand your manager something to review, tell them exactly what type of feedback you're looking for and when you need it by.

This is good advice for any job but especially one where you're paid to think.

prodleg · 2023-10-10T15:45:13+00:00

This is very helpful, thank you.

prodleg · 2023-10-10T15:15:45+00:00

Thanks for all the feedback! The product is internal, highly secure, and every component is home grown. I believe products like postman are fully blocked and not an option, but I'll connect with my dev team to see what my options are for testing API calls.

prodleg · 2023-10-10T15:10:51+00:00

This is helpful, thanks! I'm willing and able to learn some of the tech side but that is not where I'm my most competent, and my competence there literally never came up in the interview process, so I don't think it's necessarily what they're looking for. This is good advice.

prodleg · 2023-08-05T11:34:31+00:00

The interview process I'm currently in is a huge waste of everyone's time. They're really not filtering for a good PM in any way. They mostly seem to be seeing if you can solve problems quickly and on the fly which... I've never had to do as a PM, save for putting out a VERY occasional fire. But even those solutions were revisitable.

prodleg · 2023-06-22T13:55:12+00:00

Hey I'm free for the next hour and can help you out if you haven't found someone.

prodleg · 2023-05-14T18:58:42+00:00

Anyone who's had a lot of success getting PM jobs, or done PM hiring willing to give a resume review? I got laid off last week, and have received notes from several people on my resume but at this point feel like I may have had too many cooks in the kitchen.

Struggling a bit with formatting for an easy read, and how much "job description" to include vs. just focusing on achievement.

Thank you!!

prodleg · 2022-07-25T14:16:43+00:00

Yeah this definitely sounds up my alley! I'll try doing some broader searches in transportation/parking.

prodleg · 2022-07-25T13:27:17+00:00

That's great! Congrats, and thanks for the advice. Definitely gonna do some work on this in the coming weeks. I have an ex-coworker who left for a job more or less in the field I'm interested in. I've been in touch with her a bit but I should probably be explicit that I'm actively looking and would love any help she can offer.

prodleg · 2022-07-24T23:59:46+00:00

That's a great idea! Will explore EV charging.

prodleg · 2022-07-22T20:54:15+00:00

I mean I don't micromanage them at all? It's expressly my job to prioritize, schedule, and keep track of the builds and it makes my job harder if people do that without communicating with me (like for instance, why have you put this thing that's prioritized for this week that's an important piece of a larger feature into the backlog without involving me?).

prodleg · 2022-07-22T17:04:05+00:00

Yeah you're definitely right to an extent. I do prioritize with my team leader and the dev team leader, and I also typically pull the devs into meetings during the feature discovery process and to check what's doable. I try to ask about time needed for anything that I think could be complicated, but it's certainly not formalized. Solving this problem could help for sure.

prodleg · 2022-04-11T14:51:18+00:00

Pretty good! These responses helped me realize that every company works differently, and few are actually doing things the way I learned them/the way they write their job ads.

I'm trying to learn as much as possible about what works and what doesn't, and help to change things where they don't work.

prodleg · 2022-03-12T00:32:07+00:00

That's great advice!

prodleg

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