There are a few reasons why they're lower, which other commentators have addressed, such as: different tax regimes; the welfare state; and the scale of the European market.
As an aside I think it's also important to point out while there is a difference, it's not quite as large as you think when you factor in the pay of contractors being around the 500euro mark. These people give up the right to sick leave, workplace security, and supposedly career advancement. Personally, I only contract in the UK because there is little career advancement beyond being a senior engineer anyway, and the rate more than makes up for it. I'm a fairly middling engineer in London, I'm 24 and I made 120GBP last year (I just have to be content I'll never make anything more than that).
You're right in attributing the difference in pay to corporate culture in the USA. In the USA where a senior engineer at a Silicon Valley style company will be seen as a key part of building the product, as if they were a product manager.
At nearly all the companies I've worked for in London, engineering has played a subordinate role to product managers (who also stand the most to gain from a successful project). This subordinate nature often takes the form of siloed access to business data: where I frequently have to fight to run queries on PowerBI; or to sit in client meetings.
As an aside I think it's also important to point out while there is a difference, it's not quite as large as you think when you factor in the pay of contractors being around the 500euro mark. These people give up the right to sick leave, workplace security, and supposedly career advancement. Personally, I only contract in the UK because there is little career advancement beyond being a senior engineer anyway, and the rate more than makes up for it. I'm a fairly middling engineer in London, I'm 24 and I made 120GBP last year (I just have to be content I'll never make anything more than that).
You're right in attributing the difference in pay to corporate culture in the USA. In the USA where a senior engineer at a Silicon Valley style company will be seen as a key part of building the product, as if they were a product manager.
At nearly all the companies I've worked for in London, engineering has played a subordinate role to product managers (who also stand the most to gain from a successful project). This subordinate nature often takes the form of siloed access to business data: where I frequently have to fight to run queries on PowerBI; or to sit in client meetings.