You say the attitude is all wrong, but then you expect high salaries by default? I've made very good money in Europe (like 1% income before 30 good). But that was by joining the industry right after high school, so when my friends were done with with university I (and some of my other friends) had already been working 50 hour weeks for 5 years and were a partners at a consultancy company. Attitudes are "soft problems" that are great for people who are driven.
If you have more concrete arguments against Berlin I would be interested in hearing them.
What are the best prospects for your friends who did attend university or anyone else who didn't work 50 hour weeks for 5 years and become a partner at a consultancy company?
1. Fix the relatively low tech wages [in Europe]
You can make enough money in Europe to have enough runway to start a company. Especially if you give up working 40 hour weeks and having 6 weeks vacation.
2. Taxes [are high]
Many places in Europe have lower taxes than the US. Startups rarely feel the effects of taxes since they spend all their money on growth. To the extent they do it's just another cost.
3. The anti-startup culture [is bad]
In practical terms European welfare states are far more accepting of failure than other parts of the world.
4. Severe lack of capital
This can be a concrete problem, but most people making this statement have not saved their money and vacation time for at least year, taken leave from their job and started a company. So why should investors invest in them?
If you look at taxes that both countries have that can seem true in some places, but that's because European countries tend to have VATs and the US doesn't, so the rates on the shared taxes are often lower in Europe (also, the US tends to have more tax exceptions, so that the actual tax effective tax rates are lower than the nominal rates.) The US has the third lowest overall tax burden in the OECD, with only Chile and Mexico lower.
Which is very positive for workers.
I rather have that than the exploitation of workers in IT without unions.
I can enjoy my evenings and weekends without spending a second thinking to get reached from work, and if I need to be on call I will get properly paid for it.
for YOU! not workers. Thinking that what you like is good for everyone else is rather narcissistic don't you think?
> I rather have that than the exploitation of workers in IT without unions.
What does unions have to do with anything? ... I was referring to the work mentality as a cultural phenomenon. It is nothing to do with unions -.-
> I can enjoy my evenings and weekends without spending a second thinking to get reached from work, and if I need to be on call I will get properly paid for it.
That's what I am talking about. Your work for you is just that, work. Which is perfectly fine. However, There is no way for Germany to ever get a remotely interesting tech scene with that mentality in place. That's not how you foster a startup culture.
"I’m Zach Holman. I was number nine at GitHub ..."
"More than once I had been confusingly introduced as a founder or CEO of the company."
"I had been the top committer to the main github/github repository for the last two years, I had just led the team that shipped one of the last major changes to the site, and around that time I had had a mid-year performance review with my manager that was pretty glowing ..."
"I’m pretty broke after working part-time and living in San Francisco for so long. Even though I helped move a company’s valuation almost two billion dollars, I haven’t made a dime from the company outside of making a pretty below-to-average salary. That’s after six years."
I see why the two or three people CEO'ing a startup invest their free time, but it feels like you're advocating a culture where they can force that way of life onto all of their employees and calling it "good for startups". Well, it is, but so is slavery ;)
Although I do concede not all companies have them and some do some pressure their employees (like hints about possible repercussions) not to form one.
> However, There is no way for Germany to ever get a remotely interesting tech scene with that mentality in place. That's not how you foster a startup culture.
So how do you foster startup culture, exploring employees with 60+ hours week, promising perks that don't get delivered like in SV?
And showing them the door after yet another FB clone fails with a "Thank you and please shut the door on the way out"?
I rather be part of the European work / life balance.
What seems to be the problem?
If you are part of the union, you can either play ball, or ask for help.
It IT/software dev in the US there has been quite a bit of demand for the past several years, so when a company starts abusing their employees they see their dev team start to evaporate.
So, when compared to the average (which factors in cost of living, social security etc.), the salary really isn't that much better in the US:
US: http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Senior_Software_Engi... UK: http://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Senior_Software_Engi... FR: http://www.payscale.com/research/FR/Job=Senior_Software_Engi... SE: http://www.payscale.com/research/SE/Job=Senior_Software_Engi... DE: http://www.payscale.com/research/DE/Job=Senior_Software_Engi...
Every single source I've talked to always said some variation of this: "You cannot speak German (as a foreigner) in Germany, because everyone loves to answer/reply in English for various reasons (considering that polite/more interesting/easier than trying to autocorrect the German)".
Older people (50+ maybe?) might be worse here, but in general I'd say that everyone speaks English.
I especially challenge your 'Speaking German due to national pride', because that's really, really wrong (even HN had an - English of course - article about the special and challenging issue of national pride in Germany).
Sorry that you had a bad time, I'm not challenging your experiences. But your generalizations based on that are wonky as hell..
(Disclaimer: I'm German)
Apologies if my experience does not reflect the reality of the situation but That's all I have to go by as that is what I experienced. The "national pride" thing is something you might be able to challenge as you yourself do not feel it or see it. But I could see it as clear as the sun. It might not be as apparent as when Americans yell out loud "USA USA USA", but it is definitely there!
I am not exaggerating at all when I say that I spent 6 months in Germany and the only people I met who could speak English well are the foreigners. In fact, I could not even get a single contract (bank acct, phone, housing, insurance, etc) to be translated into English without using a lawyer or a cousin. Even my employment contract was written in German. Heck once a week I still get emails like this because when I contact the customer support for these companies they cannot speak English to terminate my contract... :D
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For the rest: My employment contract comes in German and English, with the notice that the German one is binding in case of errors and the English one is a translation for convenience. I'd expect IT companies to provide this, even if they don't have it readily available.
Talking English: Maybe that was also because most people I know hate to stumble. Some kind of 'I try to avoid sounding stupid, so I rather feign to know no $foreignLanguage'?
Regarding contract issues: Let me tell you about random mails in Hebrew that I still get every now and then or my time in Israel, Tel Aviv, trying to get a bank account.. :-)
edit:
> Regarding contract issues: Let me tell you about random mails in Hebrew that I still get every now and then or my time in Israel, Tel Aviv, trying to get a bank account.. :-)
haha I guess we are on the same boat then!
More anecdotes: I know several people in Munich that don't have much trouble managing only with English - doctors, banks, landlords, travelling etc. I also know people doing the same in cities 10x smaller than Munich, but there it's quite tougher and the odds are higher that you'll have negative experiences.
I think knowing German is a big advantage in any of those cities. And depending on luck one can have pleasant or also quite unpleasant experiences when interacting with the locals in English.
Yes. And not only that. I would go as far as saying that it is the failing of the German system in general. Heck I am being too nice here. The way everything is structured in Germany is based on one idea and one idea only. The German worker > all others. Nationalistic pride at its best.
Why would bank employees speak English when dealing with foreign business consultants? its 2016, the world should speak German by now instead!!!
It is beyond me that in 2016 English literacy in Europe's biggest economy is basically 0. In fact, I speak 4 languages and all of them were useless there. Go figure...
In which other countries have you been and lived?
Would you get a bank account easily in the UK if you speak German? Ignoring German:
Are you certain that you'd get a bank account in France, Spain, Italy? You're coming off as rather agitated and aggressive here, plus these 'German pride' and 'Everyone should speak German' references are getting dangerously close to a rather painful and sensitive subject. I'm not sure if this is intended?
Syrian, Sweden, Austria, Germany, USA and Turkey.
I hold dual citizenship and speak 4 languages while learning a 5th (Spanish).
> Would you get a bank account easily in the UK if you speak German?
1. You make it sound as if "all languages are born equal". What a Jeffersonian claim that is...
2. Yes much easier than it is to open one in Germany if you speak English. how do I know? I have done it 3 times so far... When I first migrated to Europe I didn't know any English yet it all worked out within days.
3. English the 2nd most spoken language in the world, only surpassed by Mandarin. Spanish is a 2nd if you only account for native speakers only and English falls in 3rd place at that point. German is 13th on a falling scale.
4. The finance world has English as the dominant language so YES, I do expect a freaking bank to speak it.
> Are you certain that you'd get a bank account in France, Spain, Italy?
Yes I do. Especially in Spain (where I currently hold one and got it literally over the phone).
> You're coming off as rather agitated
no shit... What you said prior to my reply is just flat out infuriating.
> 'German pride' and 'Everyone should speak German' references are getting dangerously close to a rather painful and sensitive subject. I'm not sure if this is intended?
It is not sensitive at all since it is the truth. That is how people act when they want to exclude you and make you feel un-welcomed. They put up bullshit barriers that should not exist in 2016 especially not in Europe's biggest economy. All of this is purely designed to piss people off who are not a part of the German culture.
If you came over to Sweden and people acted like that toward you, I would be freaking ashamed and embarrassed. I would never make a ridiculous excuse such as "well you can't ask the most basic questions in my language"... It boggles my mind how you could even justify something like that in this day and age. It is 2016 ffs, if you are a middle-class European citizen and don't speak English, that means you have purposefully evaded learning it.
One can start seeing some positive results only after B1+ level.
And some banks do offer services in English while others explicitly forbid this.
Taxes are another very complex issue.
In general though we could go circles around each point and never end up with much of a conclusion. I do agree that capital is very hard to acquire outside of Silicon Valley and the anti-startup culture is strong.
But I don't think Berlin is a bad place to be in. In fact, at the moment I think Berlin is one of the best places to hack something together because there is tons of talent around and they would not need to be compensated much (low cost of living). You could do the same under a Delaware corp hiring people in Berlin as freelancers and you'd still be able to get US VC investment if you're solving a problem in the states and have customers there.
Thanks!
> Now, that might attract talent but wouldn't that also raise the bar for starting up? One of the problems with SF startups at the moment is that it's impossible to start anything without tons of funding. Taxes are another very complex issue. In general though we could go circles around each point and never end up with much of a conclusion.
You are absolutely right about that. However, it is apparent, at least to me, that the middle class in Europe has no savings. And that is the reason for the lack of capital. Both income and consumption is highly taxed on all levels which makes it hard to save up and invest over time for the average middle-class worker. When I was in the US, My community college teacher had money saved up that he wanted to invest, my neighbors, colleges and everyone I knew was saving up in a hope for a good deal to show up.
Just as an example. I am a 1% income earner (in my age group) in Stockholm right now. And I can BARELY save up 10k USD/year. Those 10k would basically be burned in the 1st month of operation if I decide to start a business due to how expensive and taxed everything is. All of this makes it impossible for someone like me to take a chance and try something out in this hostile climate.
> But I don't think Berlin is a bad place to be in. In fact, at the moment I think Berlin is one of the best places to hack something together because there is tons of talent around and they would not need to be compensated much
From my personal experience, I barely saw any talent in Berlin. I consulted for a few companies there and the general software/code quality was so bad for some reason. English literacy was also another major problem that was rather shocking to me. Most of the German developers I spoke to barely knew English, which to me was so surreal :S
> You could do the same under a Delaware corp hiring people in Berlin as freelancers and you'd still be able to get US VC investment if you're solving a problem in the states and have customers there.
If I had a US visa, I wouldn't need to do any of that :P but that H1B program is just a pain in the rear.
I don't understand how anyone can pick Berlin over the UK after seeing this!
The German tax rates for singles are ridiculous (40+%) and the salaries are way below what the UK pays. In addition, the German culture's work mentality is very similar to that of factories. On top of that, the benefits are non-existent compared to the UK (let alone the US).
http://demonshalo.com/the-sad-state-of-the-european-tech-sce...