Ah, you were thinking of the German branch, I was talking about the French one, in Toulouse (I have a few friends working there).

There, a team lead is doing ~$4000 net per month. So not poverty, but not great either.

I'm not sure of the situation for software engineers but ones on the aerospace and mechanical side working in aerospace in Europe are paid something on the order of 50% less than ones in the US. I always assumed it's just a supply demand problem but I haven't run the numbers.