Yep, i've heard that before. Currently thinking of finishing the modernization of the projects that i'm doing at my current place of work and then maybe looking at other opportunities.

However, i just had a look at https://www.algas.lv/en, one site that aggregates the local salary information, based on a variety of stats. As someone with a Master's degree and ~5 years of experience and whose job description states that i'm supposed to primarily work in Java (even though i do full stack and DevOps now), i input those stats and looked at what information they have so far.

The average net salary monthly figures, at least according to the site, are:

  - Lithuania: 1 858 EUR/month ( 464 EUR/week )
  - Latvia:    1 871 EUR/month ( 467 EUR/week )
  - Estonia:   2 233 EUR/month ( 558 EUR/week )
  - Finland:   3 767 EUR/month ( 941 EUR/week )
  

A brief litmus test makes me think that the values are vaguely believable.

For example, if we have a look at some other sources for Lithuania, such as https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/vilnius-software-develope..., we get a figure of 2 458 EUR/month --> 614 EUR/week.

Or, if we look at other sources for Estonia, such as https://www.payscale.com/research/EE/Job=Software_Developer/..., we get a figure of 28 000 EUR/year --> 2 333 EUR/month --> 583 EUR/week.

So there's definitely a bit of variance, but it's still in the same ballpark. Of course, there are better companies out there, but the reality for many is that they're not rewarded for their work with all that much money.

I actually wrote about how that has impacted my ability to make savings on my blog: https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/on-finances-and-savings