How to CoastFIRE as a Software Engineer in Europe
"escaping the 9-5" as early as possible with little to no risks
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At 30, I hit CoastFIRE as a software engineer in Europe.
What does that mean?
I've saved enough that compound growth alone should fund my retirement, even if I never add another cent
My passion project now covers my day-to-day bills
I'm no FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) purist.
I don't chase a magic number, and I know you can't remove all risk from life.
But CoastFIRE clicks for me because it lets you:
Live the life you want as soon as you can
Be financially responsible: you have a nice cushion + keep working on your terms (so skills and income don't atrophy)
How I Got Here
1. Picked a career that paid well
Software engineer in Europe, mostly Switzerland
2. Practiced geo-arbitrage (without being frugal)
Enjoyed life more during trips to affordable places
Prioritized cooking, home comfort and nature over nightlife when in Zurich
3. Explored side hustles early
Studied investing, taxes, credit, ops
Bought & later sold a rental in Portugal for profit
Created content on high-paying tech careers in Europe
4. Doubled down on what worked
Grew to ~50k followers on LinkedIn in one year
Built a coaching program that gets people six-figure tech jobs in Europe
Launched a job board SaaS (EuroTopTechJobs.com)
5. Optimised for value-to-cost locations
Fully remote income lets me pick the best lifestyle/price mix
Geographic flexibility adds another layer of security
Balance is key
Sacrificing your life for a paycheck is not great.
Only doing what you like with no plan can lead you to misery.
Building a life that balances fulfillment and risk is no easy fit, but it has a lot of upsides.
Top-paying tech companies in Europe
If you want to achieve CoastFIRE (or FIRE), having an high income certainly helps.
As a software engineer, big tech companies are a great place to land large paycheks
Big tech software engineers in Switzerland make $200-500k a year in their 20s and early 30s.
In Germany, Netherlands, Ireland and the UK, the range is roughly $120-270k.
In France, it's about $80-200k.
In Poland and Spain, around $70-170k.
In Romania, it's closer to $55-140k.
In particular:
Junior big tech developers in Poland and Spain make $70k+.
Mid-level engineers make $100k+, Seniors make $130-150k+, Staff make $170k+.
In Romania, for similar roles, compensation is roughly 20% less (but also lower CoL).
In France, about 10-20% more.
In Germany, Netherlands, Ireland and the UK, it's roughly:
$120k+ for juniors
$200k+ for seniors
$270k+ for staff
In Switzerland (mainly Zurich), it's:
$190k+ for juniors
$300k+ for seniors
$450k+ for staff
The compensation is structured like this:
Base salary
Yearly bonus
Stock options: called 'RSU' (you get company's stocks, then you can sell it for cash)
If you want to join a big tech company in Europe, to maximise your chances, I'd recommend applying to roles in more than one country.
If you want to know which countries offer the largest amount of such jobs, here's the list from EuroTopTechJobs.com:
United Kingdom: 728 jobs
Poland: 623 jobs
Spain: 403 jobs
Netherlands: 179 jobs
Sweden: 132 jobs
Germany: 130 jobs
Ireland: 129 jobs
France: 124 jobs
Switzerland: 106 jobs
Romania: 84 jobs
Targeting a country with many openings - like the UK, Poland or Spain - will make your life easier.
What will also help is targeting countries with fewer applicants.
For this, you can exploit the asymmetry of information among devs in Europe, when it comes to "which country is good for money".
Many still think "Switzerland, UK or Germany" is where it's at.
Truth is:
Switzerland has few top-paying roles, which are also hyper competitive
The UK and Germany have high taxes and tons of applicants
Targeting Poland and Spain - which have many roles from top companies and relatively few top applicants - will increase your odds.
And don't get fooled: while the average person in these countries isn't rich, as a big tech worker you'll do quite well (as you can see from the above numbers).
If these figures seem unbelievable to you, it might indicate a gap in your understanding of salaries within top-paying tech companies.
Who Pays These Top Tech Salaries in Europe?
Big tech companies: Google, Amazon, Meta, etc.
Tech scaleups (competing for talent with big tech): Datadog, Uber, Airbnb, Snowflake, etc.
High-Frequency Trading (HFT) firms like Jane Street, Citadel, HRT, and AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic etc, pay even more (sometimes, a lot more).
Plus, you have fully-remote tech companies paying six-figure salaries.
Any of them will work.
In fact, contrary to what some people believe,
In 2025, you don't even need to work in big tech to make $$$ as a dev.
For example, there's enough top-paying startups (in addition to the other above-mentioned options like HFT and Scaleups) that you can join instead.
The best part? A great deal of them hire remotely.
You can get a $100-500k salary working fully-remotely in Europe.
Then you can choose in which country to be based in.
For this, I'd recommend countries with:
Contained CoL
High quality of life
Contained taxes (although these could be traded off based on your priorities)
Some great options:
Countries in Central Europe, in particular: Poland, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, Czechia, Serbia
Countries in Southern Europe: Spain, Portugal, Italy, Malta, Greece, Turkey
Targeting remote startups can also be done in parallel with targeting big tech companies.
For example:
If you like Spain, you can target both big tech and remote roles.
And that will give you a lot of options already with just one country.
You'd achieve a similar "single country solution" - abundance of big tech roles + good CoL for remote work - with Poland and Romania.
If you want to discover 40 companies that hire fully-remotely in Europe paying $100-500k, check out this other article.
Conclusion - achieving financial freedom
Today I talked about some ways in which as a dev in Europe you can get more freedom-enabling wealth.
I.e. how to reduce the amount of things you have to do (despite not wanting to do them) because of sheer need of money.
I highlighted how I went about it:
Learnt about business through real estate and content
Doubled-down on 2 businesses that I liked and that were working well (my coaching program and my job board saas)
Applied geo-arbitrage and strategic location planning throughout my career
And suggested some ways in which you can achieve similar financial results
(most of whom you can more effectively tackle with eurotoptechjobs.com).
There is one final point I’d like to stress out (maybe the most important part of this article)
“freedom is a state of mind”
Happiness is not found in a financial milestone.
Someone who’s broke all their life but is always happy about how they make a living, technically is financially free.
I don’t think there’s really a number after which you’re financially free in today’s world.
You can check out this video (in Italian, but with english subs) of an Italian programming legend (Salvatore Sanfilippo, who created Redis), who made enough money to call himself fully FIREd yet clearly explains how FIRE is a silly concept in 2025:
You can also provide the link to Gemini and ask it to summarise it (if you don’t want to watch the video).
And if you happen to have liked this video, check out this other one where he explains why he lives in Catania (and not, for example, in San Francisco):
The point I’m trying to make is:
Yes, being broke sucks and you should strive not to be
Don’t delay gratification too much sacrificing many years of your life with a routine you don’t enjoy just because of a “financial goal of freedom”
Instead, try to do something like this:
As you earn more, allow yourself to enjoy more.
You're broke?
Take any job that can bring your money up.
You're almost broke?
Take a job that can grow your skills and career while paying the bills.
You're skilled and have little money?
Take a job that pays well and build up some security.
You're skilled and have some decent savings?
Prioritise your passions, WLB and life quality over a higher paycheck.
You have enough invested savings to cover for some of your bills?
It could be a good time to bet on yourself and make a passion project or side hustle pay the rest (or maybe all) of your bills.
The End
This was a long article, but I hoped it provided you with some useful insights and frameworks - alongside practical tips - on how to go about buying freedom with money as a dev in Europe.
More than a year ago, I published an article on FIRE for devs in Europe.
And with today’s article I wanted to provide a more complete and up-to-date version of it (with less chatGPT-borrowed language as well xD), complementing also this other article I published about/against frugality.
Let me know if you enjoyed it and if you found it valuable!
Cheers
Nic
This article is brought to you by:
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Hundreds of jobs from 100+ fully-remote companies paying $100-600k per year.
Private guides - like this one - to help you land these jobs.
Six Figure Euro Engineer - Maximise your chances to boost your Tech Career in Europe, reducing time to success:
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