My proposition is that in Europe, if you're making tier 3 salaries, your life is actually shit. You're working for American companies with shitty work life balances, "we're making the world a better place" hellholes that layoff hundreds of people whenever there's a chance.
Working full remote for a nice European company with proper work life balance and tier 2 salaries is way better.
Is that proposition based on experience or conjecture?
I can offer the following data point. I work for one of those American companies (Google) based in Europe (Zürich) and I've never had better work-life balance in my 25-year career. If anything, I now have much more control of where I'm located, how frequently and for how long I come into the office, which hours I do and don't work etc than I've ever had. I basically have full flexibility in how I arrange my work around my life.
My only slight grumble is that I only get 25 days' annual leave instead of the 30 days I got at a previous location (same company). For reference, the legal requirement in Switzerland is 20.
> layoff hundreds of people whenever there's a chance
It may come as a surprise, but all those companies are still subject to labour laws of the countries in which they operate.
In my experience, working for US companies has actually been great, they're much better managed and operated than their EU counterparts. I don't mind the 5x higher pay than my local engineers as well :)
Working full remote for a nice European company with proper work life balance and tier 2 salaries is way better.