Ah, the explanation is quite simple and I should've included it, sorry. I'm working in France, so I was at more or less 25k in embedded (not poor by french standard for my age, and had a lot of extra perks (like free train) compared to other companies, but not great either. I doubled when I started working for a french startup, and doubled again when I started working for an US-based startup.
phkahler|1 year ago