u/Illustrious-Tea-174

PERSONAL DETAILS
∙ Age: 33
∙ Education: Bachelor’s in Computer Science
∙ Work experience: ~11 years. Two years as a front-end developer, then shifted to design.
∙ Civil status: Single
∙ Children: None
EMPLOYER
∙ Sector/Industry: SaaS / IT
∙ Amount of employees: ~25 to 50
∙ Multinational?: Yes
∙ Listed company?: No
ROLE DETAILS
∙ Job title: Design Lead
∙ Seniority: Lead / senior
∙ Working hours per week (contracted): 40
∙ Average incl. overtime: ~50 to 60
∙ Shift 9 to 5 or flexible: Flexible (effectively evening hours, see mobility)
∙ On-call duty?: No
∙ Vacation days per year: Technically unlimited, realistically 2 to 4 weeks
∙ Responsible for personnel?: Yes, with direct reports
SALARY
∙ Gross salary per month: ~€16,500 (base plus holiday allowance, paid monthly)
∙ Net salary per month: ~€11,600
∙ 13th month?: No (but 8% holiday allowance / vakantiegeld applies)
∙ Car/bike/transport?: N/A (work from home)
∙ Pension contribution: Yes, ~€1,420/month into a Nationale-Nederlanden scheme (via employer, handled outside the payslip)
∙ Insurance?: None
∙ Other benefits: Performance bonus once a year, typically 15 to 20% of total compensation. Most recent was 20%.
MOBILITY
∙ City/region of work: Amsterdam (remote)
∙ Distance / commute time / how you commute: N/A, fully work from home
∙ Is travel compensated?: N/A
∙ Home office possibilities?: Yes, fully remote. Work is aligned to a US-based team, so hours skew toward the evening.
OTHER
∙ How easily can you take an extra day off?: Hard
∙ Love for the job (0-10): 8. The problems are genuinely complex and interesting, and I get to design things I actually care about.
∙ Stress (0-10): 9. High-stakes, multi-threaded work, plus evening US hours and an always-more-to-do nature that makes it hard to switch off.
∙ Advice to others: Work-life balance is hard in this kind of role. Given how fast the industry is automating, prioritizing income and accepting trade-offs elsewhere feels like the right call for me personally, but it’s something I still struggle with.
∙ Questions for commenters: How do others handle US-hours remote work and comp benchmarking? And why don’t more Dutch natives do this, working for American companies for higher salaries?

Salary check : Designer in Tech