I think in Europe there's a bunch of local markets with a lot of companies that do not want to compete for developers, not within the EU and definitely not with the US. They'd rather push talented developers to leave than raise wages (and maybe it makes sense in their business).
You need to find the pockets in the market which do compete for talent on an international (at least EU-wide) level. That may be foreign tech companies, remote jobs, maybe the very hottest of startups in your country (with stock grants). I like this article (https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-sala...) which goes deeper into this.
A "trick" which works in my market (in France) is to work as a contractor instead of a full-time employee. When I did this move I basically doubled my income overnight while keeping the same job title. A lot of companies will balk at an engineer asking for 70k€ as an FTE, yet have no qualms paying the same person 7-800€/day for 2 years as a contractor.
- Social security: covered by the state through social taxes (URSSAF) like employees
- Benefits: you're the boss, you can be wild :)
- Renting / getting a mortgage: bankers are more and more inclined to examine your situation, especially if you can provide a good track record of recurrent / constant revenue stream
In any case, I agree completely with the original comment: going solo in France is one way to break the "glass ceiling" in terms of net revenue and career path is you feel entrepreneur.
So you can just contract for international companies out of France, pay your taxes as normal, and you still get unemployment if you get fired unexpectedly?
If you are a solo contractor / business owner, indeed you cannot pretend for unemployment compensation ("chômage"). But if you care about accounting, after some time you can live off several months / years without any revenue.
One last thing: at least in France (don't other countries) you are obligated to contract for multiple clients (at least 2) per fiscal year to avoid fraudulent employment and the risk of losing a client the next day. And in this day and age, landing a new client in the IT/Software/Data/AI/whatever industry is relatively easy!
Unemployment is the one benefit you can't get as a contractor (in France, I don't know about OP's country), but it doesn't work that great for higher income professionals anyway.
When it comes to health insurance or retirement you're generally covered though.
> ability to rent/get a mortgage by not being full time/CDI
You can plan ahead and take a FTE position when you need to rent/loan for real estate. If you do a lot of these investments then I agree it is a disadvantage, but for most people that's easy to sort out.
You need to find the pockets in the market which do compete for talent on an international (at least EU-wide) level. That may be foreign tech companies, remote jobs, maybe the very hottest of startups in your country (with stock grants). I like this article (https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-sala...) which goes deeper into this.
A "trick" which works in my market (in France) is to work as a contractor instead of a full-time employee. When I did this move I basically doubled my income overnight while keeping the same job title. A lot of companies will balk at an engineer asking for 70k€ as an FTE, yet have no qualms paying the same person 7-800€/day for 2 years as a contractor.