I just left a job at a major bank where all the non-engineer roles got paid, or at least could be paid more than I got. There were 5 pay scales for engineers, the top 2 of which weren't even being used. I got there from a freelance contract, and I had to take a serious pay cut to continue working on the project. It was a really cool project, which I wrote the initial prototype for, and guided a growing team in its development, and I accepted the pay cut because I loved the project so much, but a year later I left to go back to freelancing. I think that's the only way to get paid your worth here. Meanwhile the company is wondering why they can't retain senior engineers. If I wanted to be paid more, I'd have to take on more organisational duties outside my team, and I just wasn't interested in that, so I left. For an interesting freelance project that pays even more than that bank paid me when I freelanced for them.
It doesn't have to be 6 figures, but I think senior software engineers absolutely should be getting manager-level salaries, without having to dilute their technical focus by taking on other responsibilities.
I've heard Goldman Sachs has attempted to make some strides in running their Marcus product more like a Silicon Valley tech company (within reason). But I've also heard that ultimately that it too fell prey to the burden of the old conservative bank culture. A friend who worked there until recently told me not to fall for the glitzy marketing, and that it was just all more of the same. Would be interested what someone who is actually working there now has to say, esp. someone that has worked in both SV tech companies and Goldman to compare.
At one bank, I was in a team that straddled the line between the international and domestic sections of the bank, which used to be more independent from each other, but we had to deal with both. Getting a simple firewall opened up between two systems on either side took 6 months.
[0] One bank that arguably took the tech company most seriously, wanted to be a bit too much on the cutting edge in my opinion. They were very active in the Angular community, which was absolutely great, but they also wanted to do CICD, which just didn't fit with all the security checks necessary at a bank. Parts were moving very fast, and parts were moving very slowly.
At that same bank, we also had a very clear mandate that we could say no to business. At some point, after we felt we put too much in production in rapid succession with insufficient testing, we had to block a next thing that a business guy really wanted to see in production. Really pissed him off, and he threw a tantrum I hadn't seen before or since at any workplace, but we insisted and our manager backed us up, so that was definitely good.
>> ([..] most businesses these days) are driven by tech and would fall apart without it
Yup. It's like, is Coca-cola a "tech company with soda department"? Pretty sure they have programmers and some non-trivial IT infra as well.
The 1st was the real product, the 2nd the nice-to-have
Obviously core tech in banking is infinitely more critical than an app but the point is the same; the tech in banks, unless its 'quant', HFT or ML is not the money maker and therefore won't be paid as such
Yes, there are some consumers for whom those everyday services are everything and they'll go to some 'app only' bank that does that well and without excessive fees. From the point of a traditional bank, that's not a problem, good riddance - if they don't use other products and aren't willing to pay excessive fees for everyday things, there's no money in having them as customers, and when they'll want to do something profitable (e.g. take a mortgage) they'll come back from that app-only bank as that product (the financial product, not the tech product) is actually competitive.
Note: this is from an EU viewpoint. USA may have a bit different perspective as the regulations there allow quite a lot revenue streams (e.g. bounced check fees) from people with no money and no other products, in EU much of exploitative payment practices have become restricted, so these customers simply become unprofitable and not really desired, the main value of "having them" is that this might help you sell profitable products to them later when they have more money and/or more plans for credit.
Of course for very specific high-value transactions, it may be useful to talk to someone, especially when it's something that also involves advice, but most people only do that kind of thing two times in their life: for mortgage and pension.
Modern banking does not function without the app (be it web or mobile).
Meanwhile, IT is an internal "cost centre", a necessary evil, a bunch of resources preferably outsourced.
- Where/how do you (as a freelancer) find your clients? (Do you focus on clients from the financial industry?)
- Where are those clients from (location-wise)?
- Do you work remotely? If yes, does your timezone need to match your client's timezone? Put differently: How flexible are you when it comes to working hours?
Contractors are paid from the project budget (capex) and often don't have to go through the central HR department which allows projects to pay what they need to in order to attract the right people. We typically work alongside FTEs but we get "rolled off" projects as they ramp down at the end whereas the FTEs either stay on or get reassigned within the company.
For me, contracts typically last 1-3 years.
- I find my clients through my network of people I've worked with in the past
- My clients are usually based in Toronto like me
- I've been 100% remote since March 2020.
With respect to remote, my current client is trying to get people back to the office in a hybrid model. If they force it then I'll probably look elsewhere.
My projects tend to be 1-2 years where I'm part of a team working on the same thing. A single client at a time.
My clients are mostly from Amsterdam, where I live. I want to be able to bike to work. Well, normally; these days I work from home, but we're in the same timezone and I work normal working hours.
Also all inclusive contracts are quite common or some legal workarounds with payed overtime after x amount of hours (where x amount would be working 2 times as much per week), never heard of unions for this sector in DACH either.
Frankly getting a 10k salary bump in Europe is still pretty solid - for 20k I would bet most engineers around here would make a switch. (note that you tax down ~50% above the 60k you earn from now on).
> Ah, and in some countries having too many companies on the CV isn't well seen, it appears the candidate isn't able to fit-in anywhere.
True, but if someone switched jobs every year it feels like a red flag to me anywhere where the cost of hiring actually matters I would say.
Debatable. In most European countries, if you lose your job you still have health cover. If you lose your job in the US you do not keep the company benefit health insurance (except as part of a severance package for a limited time). For H1-B visa holders, they must leave the country (this is relevant for anyone based in Europe who is trying to determine whether to stay in Europe or use a visa programme to relocate to the US).
I agree that it is stupid to tie health insurance to your job, but it isn't the big deal you make it out to be, so long as you have savings
That phrase is key. Most Americans don’t have savings. Even among the professional class, savings are often nowhere near high enough to pay OOP for insurance at market rate.
That’s quite a hill to climb before I see a penny of income into my pocket.
If you are married and you and your spouse were on the same statutory health insurance, then you're covered by your spouse. Which can be the case in the US depending on your spouse's coverage.
And yes, if you earn below 450€ a month, you're generally covered by your spouse or family's health insurance with many little rules and exceptions. None of those exceptions are deal breakers though.
This page (https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/german-health-insurance) explains more, and has a very accurate calculator that takes those edge cases into account.
It's a huge difference.
It's not only diminishing returns at work but simply crossing that comfort threshold severely drops the incentives from "survival mode" to "eh... yeah... maybe".
And sure, if you like living just above your means you'll always be in "survival mode". Always the better car, the better house, the better vacation, they need to be financed and every little bit will count. I think that's not where most people are.
You mean, to avoid the social security fees (health/pension/unemployment/…)? After all, as a consultant (whether incorporated or not) you still need to pay taxes and the rates are pretty similar to tax rates for employees.
- That salary certainly does seem realistic, even though I'm on the higher end and have a base salary above that;
- I also get the same amount of paid holidays, might be even a couple more;
- we have great hospitality insurance, mutuality (general health care) has to be paid by ourselves however, even though that's cheap;
- they do help me save for pension in the form of a contribution, but it certainly isn't enough to retire of, I see it more like a nice base, but will definitely need money on top of that to actually keep living a good live (at least if I want to stay in Belgium);
- they are flexible in timing for sure, that is something I'm grateful for, as long as I get the work done it's cool;
- they do not expect work in the weekends or after office hours (if you do flexible hours it's of course up to you to do the promised hours at some point or another of course);
However, never ever:
- have I get overtime paid, in any of the companies I worked for in Belgium or the UK;
- have I get the chance to be in some kind of union that's standardised within the companies I work for, haven't even heard ever of a union for software developers;
Further more I'm always been told that despite the fact that they earn their 200k salaries they on top of that get also nice bonuses, options on stocks, 4k pension saving and premium health insurance covered. Or is that too much rainbows and unicorns I heard of?
If you have a modicum of talent and a flair for interviews, they will gladly buy your soul for $250k/year + bennies from heaven.
Not at all. You're expected to be productive to a certain standard (and even that is sometimes iffy), not to be 24/7 available.
DC/Mid-Atlantic salaries at an established (non-FAANG) company are more like $85-$100k for a recent grad, $130-$170 for senior developer positions. Most of those jobs are in the suburbs, where a nice house is in the $500-$1million range.
I'd say this applies to HCOL areas too like NYC or even the SFBA. If you're working for a cludgy old Fortune 500 tech-is-a-cost-center enterprise company (where the majority of SWEs are working), you're probably not making more than $200k-250k at best as a senior SWE with many, many years of experience unless you have some niche specialty.
A Senior Dev would be expected to operate mostly independently on day-to-day tasks, capable of contributing back to their immediate team (mentoring, working with product manager, etc), work directly with customers and leadership as needed, and be recognized as somebody with answers to problems within their immediate area.
In such cases is it still considered the terminal title, the one you either earn or are pushed out for not earning, but are not required to go beyond?
Assoc to Senior or Lead - being successful at normal tasks over time gets you there without much active career management.
Senior to Principal - you'll have to seek out interesting work, prove capable of working across product/business or technical boundaries, and start interacting with leaders outside you team.
Senior Principal - all of above, plus interacting regularly with VP, leaders in Product Management group, capable of high level design/analysis, trusted by peers and leaders across your organization. High level of ability mentoring and leading.
Funny to compare that with my previous experience at an IIOT startup, where I was employee ~#30 and the third or fourth engineer doing cloud stuff. Started at Staff, left at Senior Staff after two years but would have been Principal if I stayed another 2-3 months. The gap is big!
However, given that more and more companies are becoming more open to WFH setting, it will hopefully make the things better for the devs outside the States.
Technical skills wise, for areas from above, you'd usually be looking at the strong background in algorithms, math & statistics, internals of operating systems, underlying hardware but mostly about the CPU at the microarchitectural level and strong expertise in at least one programming language.
More info can basically be found on https://werk.belgie.be/nl/themas/werkbaar-en-wendbaar-werk/a... (also available in French).
As for unions, normally if a company reaches 50 employees they are required by law to have a union rep. How exactly that works I don't know. Also while I personally also have never heard of a software specific union, you can always just go with the big normal unions if you want, it's not like they're going to turn you away.
Now you have: https://prospect.org.uk/tech-workers/ or https://www.unitetheunion.org/ in the UK.
I had colleagues in both at a previous job, depending whether their jobs were more scientific (we'd call it data science now) or engineering.
Both unions are more general than just software/IT.
That, to me, shows that my salary is still well below the well off people in the city who can afford those houses (for an idea of what I'm talking about: houses in the more affordable areas around the city where you can get 20mins commutes or less, or even ride a bicycle to work, cost upwards of €700,000... with my current salary, the recommendation is that I shouldn't borrow more than €350,000 - around 4.5 times the yearly salary before taxes, so I need to first save around €350,000 or sell my current house and hope I'll make this much in return to be able to buy a house where I want... even then I would be playing with fire as interest rates are set to increase and any increase could get me just below water if I tried something like that). I would say that, given this, to be considered well off you need to make enough to be able to afford a house like I am talking about here, which would require you to probably earn at least €100,000 per year, which is well above my current pay and I don't know any companies here that pay this much for developers no matter how experienced (though I've heard it's possible - just never seen it concretely and never seen offers above 75,000).
>Healthcare
That's definitely a you problem, the US is the outlier here.
>30 paid holidays
24. Based on 6 day workweek. So 20. More is optional.
>Unions, Paid overtime
Rarely are there Unions specifically for the IT department. Employers here like "Vertrauensarbeitszeit", which means count your own hours, which usually ends up with you doing more (unpaid) work.
>weekends and calls off work come extra
Also very much depends on the job, many people do it without asking for compensation. In one place just being on call got me a good extra 20% salary, in another they refused to pay for it and now it's "non-mandatory" - but they know someone will likely still pick up the phone.
>Retirement
Biggest scam in history. I get the need for such a programm, but I'll be getting maybe 10% of what I put in out. Fuck being a millennial I guess.
>Flex Time
Already said. Mostly a negative because your performance review will check if your projects, planned with way too little time, will be completed. At least that's the case in development teams. I stick to platform teams for this reason.
Quite a well known names do it.
Cherry picking a specific company/domains doesn't help your argument of "everyone in Europe has it so good".
Yeah, everyone knows IG metal in Germany has it good. Others? Maybe not so much.
If you are in your 20's, it is totally worth moving to the US where you can get paid 500K+ per year if you navigate your career efficiently. I posit that making this much money more than covers any of these additional expenses that you call out.
I’m sure some can but this is not the norm and expectations need to be checked and called out when wrong.
So I think it is reasonably plausible for someone towards the older end of the range with a bit of skill and good fortune. It feels unlikely that the trend which I described above (of company stock going up 2x every two years) will continue so I would expect effective compensation to go down a bit. But on the other hand compensation can be pretty sticky and plenty of people will be willing to quit after reaching the 4 year cliff (where their stock awards would no longer be worth 2x what they were meant to be worth) to look for high pay elsewhere.
Also keep in mind bonuses are rarely guaranteed or part of packages, so they are completely speculative for new grads.
It's also baseline entry-level comp at Jane Street, and Hudson River Trading goes even higher.
First-year bonuses are generally guaranteed, and after that are "speculative" in the same way that stock compensation is speculative - largely dependent on firm performance (though personal performance can actually pull it them significantly in finance, unlike with stock).
I didn't say this was the majority of devs, I said this was entry-level comp for "top-end finance shops", which is true. It is also true that there are competitors in that space which pay much less, just like there are tech companies which pay much less FAANG & Co, but does not mean that FAANG & Co don't exist or shouldn't be relevant to people's decision-making.
SBF earned what... $22B in the last three years in crypto by the age of 29? If he posted his earnings on Levels.fyi at Alameda Research can I start suggesting people can earn $1B by 30 by moving to Hong Kong and working for top crypto trading firms because out of the massive amount of people trying to do that, it happens to people from time to time?
> If you are in your 20's, it is totally worth moving to the US where you can get paid 500K+ per year if you navigate your career efficiently.
I don't want to say that it's "easy" to hit numbers in this ballpark as a senior engineer in the US, but the way to do it is relatively straightforward and doesn't require any particularly unusual skills, connections, knowledge, etc.
1) There is a set of companies which pay that kind of money
2) Those companies employ a non-trivial percentage of the software engineers in the country
3) Those companies are _always hiring_ more software engineers at those levels
4) The interview processes for those companies are public and quite similar
Obviously nobody is guaranteed to get a job paying that well at one of those companies. Some people simply won't be able to clear the bar (either technically or socially). But the bar is not "one in a thousand". These companies already employ something like 8-10% of the software engineers in the country, so "one in ten" is a hard _upper bound" on how strict they are (and obviously, since their selection process isn't perfect and they don't in fact have every single 10%ile engineer or better locked up, the bar is lower, probably much lower).
I was in a partnership in a small plane, and one of the guys was "in his 20's making $500k+" at google as an L6 plus retention bonus. Several engineers in my circle (early 30's) are on $500k+.
Currently I'm living in Europe but leaving back to SF. I tell people all the time about salaries in the US and point them to levels.fyi, but these salaries are so detached from their realities that they seem simply unable to believe them. Go look at levels.fyi, it matches very well with what I've heard on the ground.
But more broadly, higher salaries correlate with better working conditions. That warehouse worker will have targets to hit every single shift, get in trouble for being five minutes late, will get written up for taking sick leave without a doctor's note, and will have to pay for their own food and drinks.
On the other hand, most jobs that pay a six-figure salary? There might be quarterly department-level targets, but you won't get fired for missing them. Flexible working hours, and no checks you're putting in your hours. Illness? Take as long off as you need. Of course there's free tea, coffee and snacks. Maybe there's also free breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Just because a job is highly paid, doesn't mean it'll be particularly onerous - in fact, often the opposite!
Amazon is obviously notorious. Facebook also seems to involve longer hours. Can't speak for Apple. My friend at Netflix reports working 40h/w on average as well.
I would argue that hours/week and salary are not necessarily directly correlated in the Silicon Valley tech companies.
Personally my most arduous job (50-60+h/w at a Korean conglomerate) was also the least paying (starting salary $35k, left after five years making $60k).
That said, while everyone's circumstances and desires are different, I would say typical quality of life making $300-500k at an above average 50h/w is arguably better than making <$100k USD equivalent at 35h/w even if you include all the European country social benefits. At some point an absurdly high compensation sort of lets you steamroll and acquire those benefits for yourself privately if you want them.
assuming the latter, you're looking at getting hired in at level as a senior engineer (maybe one level higher depending on the company) at most of your brand name tech companies that value engineering talent.
Want to retire early? Easy! Just become a managing partner at JP Morgan in your late 20s and you’ll be rich enough by 30.
And in so many cases, you might be losing out. Did you want vacation time or do you simply want to work while you are young?
Do you want to have children in your 20's? If so, maybe not move to the US. Your child probably will have citizenship of your home country - but maybe not, especially if you don't move back. Worse, though, is that the child automatically becomes a US citizen. This means that if you move away, your child must have a US passport if they ever want to visit again... or must pay $2350 to renounce. It means that the child will, until they renounce, be taxed by the US government on their global earnings.
You probably won't get 4-5 weeks of vacation a year - and even if you do, it isn't a legal requirement that they let you use much of it. And they probably won't let you take 3 weeks off at a time.
Or you might find that you get sick and lose your job. You might fall in love and realize that your partner isn't eligible to move to your country with you. You might find that your retirement in your home country isn't as much because you haven't paid into it as much (depending on the system). Or you could very easily find that your retirement is tied up in a 401k that failed miserably, leaving you without.
If you have dark skin, you might find yourself dealing with a US police force at a traffic stop in ways you didn't in your home country. Good luck if you are trans, and in some places, a same-sex relationship will get you ostracized. Of course, the places in the US where that happens most aren't places paying 500k - in no small part because those places are few.
So no, it isn't totally worth it to move to the US.
I did the calculation for my current job (Germany, huge telekommunications company, city of 200.000 inhabitants). It goes like this
* 72'000€ a year * 38 hours of work per week, distributed to my choosing * 44 days of paid vacation per year * approximately 20 days of paid sick leave per year * 10 days of paid child sick leave per year * covered health insurance
To match those conditions, a job in the US must pay 180'000$ per year (in cash) plus health insurance for me, my family and their education.
Though I do not know what equity is worth. Can those 500k$/y earners get their compansation in cash?
It shouldn't be an issue to take all of your vacation time all at once if you should so choose.
If the job doesn't work out, you can just pack and go home.
Worst case, you get to see a new city, meet new people, and have some memories.
It is changing though in the tech field. Yes, it used to be that 10 years in the same company showed that you're loyal and dependable, but now it's more like "so you haven't learned anything new or been in a different environment in 10 years?". There's a difference between changing jobs twice a year and every few years.
Many people just want to try out new tech and when that fun is over and they have introduced the cost of complexity for that new toy, they run off to the next job. "Improving" the world in another place.
Fun for them, maybe, but bad for the employer. 2 years is often barely enough to have experienced maintaining the full system of the employer for a while and have felt the costs of complexity. Someone who runs from that every 2 years ... I would be careful with that. I am not saying, that this is the case with everyone, who follows the 2 years strategy, but often it is.
In comparison, if I was visiting interviews and if someone interviewed me and asked something like: "So you haven't learned anything new or been in a different environment in 10 years?". I would probably start to laugh and mention to them, how I had a major hand in basically everything that was developed in the whole organization, have done everything from dev-ops to backend and frontend and more in my job and I have maintained it. If that is nothing to them, then they are probably do not value experience or have no idea what to look for.
For example, after 2.5 years, I am looking for a new job, as the company is simply refusing to make adjustments based on the market prices, even after a promotion, I am making 20 percent less than I should be making right now, and this is not an isolated incident.
Staying at a company for 10 years either means that the company is the perfect place (then, why are you trying to leave?), or you just acquired tons of skills in your job that are not transferable to your next job, which both do not look good. Especially, when the job market is so hot right now, it's either that you can not find a new job after withering your skills, or something unpleasant happened in your perfect company and you are looking your way out.
I get what you're saying about the salaries -- our company just recently started a program to normalize salaries with the market and it was certainly sorely needed as we had become notably out of sync. But from the perspective of the business, we don't start getting a strong positive ROI out of a new hire until about a year in. To turn over staff after less than two years is a real cost to us and potential employees that are prone to that are often not the best choices when that risk is factored in.
I also reject your false dichotomy. There are not just two reasons to stay at a company for 10 years. You could, as just one example, strongly care about the mission of the organization and/or the work that you are doing. People do work at nonprofits despite their generally lower salaries.
I'm sure you have pursued all avenues with the company you are currently at, but on the off chance you haven't tried it, I suggest talking frankly with your manager about your market value (backed up with hard numbers from reputable sources) and pointing out that their cost to replace you _and train your replacement_ would greatly exceed the cost of bringing you up to a competitive salary. If the manager has latitude and a brain, this might work for you.
The discussions with my team leader/manager has been going on for more than 6 months now, and it always hit up the same wall: The salary bands are inflexible and the short sighted approach of "making an offer after the employee puts their notice in" culture continues. The HR team believes that (as this is what they have been doing pre-COVID), they can just import people below the market value abroad and replace the people asking for more salaries, although this is just a false notion right now, and they are having extreme problems with hiring.
> You could, as just one example, strongly care about the mission of the organization and/or the work that you are doing. People do work at nonprofits despite their generally lower salaries.
Yes, but this is something that needs to be explained to the hiring manager. Leaving after 2.5-3 years are now the norm, and staying for 10 years is now an outlier, unlike what the GP trying to picture 2 years stays as red flags. I do not feel pressured to explain why I want to leave the company, mostly what I am being asked is what I am looking for in the new company.
I am talking from a position of never having had to ask for a raise, so I am probably biased as well. My job is not a job, in which one can sit back and do a lot of busy work. We have new challenges often and are developing the core product, while the organization is growing and there are more customers all the time. We are thinking about scalability of the product and such things. Many things are in the making. Is it the perfect job? Maybe not. It depends on what you value in a job. Pay, work-life balance, what you work on, co-workers, office setup. There are many things, so the answer might look different for different people.
Best wishes for the future and hopefully you will get that raise.
Well, interestingly, they are not being logical at all. I am not sure why, probably they think that they are making some kind of "savings" by underpaying their employees, as long as they can get away with it.
> Pay, work-life balance, what you work on, co-workers, office setup.
Exactly. I would be lenient on salary if the other factors were nice, but they are pushing heavily on not making working from home available. They are now pushing for a hybrid model, but, from their actions and the messages they are conveying, when the pandemic ends, they will ask everyone to return to the offices and cancel the hybrid model once and for all.
> Best wishes for the future and hopefully you will get that raise.
Thank you very much! I hope that as well.
> For example, after 2.5 years, I am looking for a new job, as the company is simply refusing to make adjustments based on the market prices, even after a promotion, I am making 20 percent less than I should be making right now, and this is not an isolated incident.
OK, that is just one job change. It is not like 5 in 10 years. It becomes increasingly unlikely, that every company you work in behaves like that, the more years and job changes you add. As in 6 jobs in 12 years makes that explanation more unlikely than 2 jobs in 4 years. I think everyone is fine with a few quick job changes. Just don't let it become a pattern. And even then I mentioned, that I would not immediately reject, but caution. I am not seeing, what is ignorant about that, tbh. So yes, if the company does not want to adapt, or pay for experience, then I would not argue against job change. However, also one should consider, that most people make way less money in the job market and that they are not in the position to ask for a raise every so and so many years, just because those years have gone by. Software developers already earn good wages usually, in many areas, and I am not merely talking about the valley or stuff like that. Just compare your wage with nurses and similar.
I am also not arguing about wanting to get paid a proper wage. Maybe I would argue a bit against always wanting more, because you can have more elsewhere. That does not really entitle anyone to "have a right to get paid more". Of course you are free to aim for money rather than solidity, but if you do it frequently, you will one day have to face the consequences. Those being, that people might have a hunch, that you will be gone at the first sign of higher pay elsewhere. (Exaggerating here, ofc.)
But now to the points, where I think you misunderstood me:
> Staying at a company for 10 years either means that the company is the perfect place (then, why are you trying to leave?), [...]
Well, I did use the conjunctive form there. I am not.
> [...] or you just acquired tons of skills in your job that are not transferable to your next job, which both do not look good.
And those are the only 2 options you see? That either skills are not transferable or that it must be the perfect place? Sorry, this is waaay to black and white. It is also possible, that you learn many skills on your job, which are indeed transferable. That is a possibility you do not consider.
> Especially, when the job market is so hot right now, it's either that you can not find a new job after withering your skills, or something unpleasant happened in your perfect company and you are looking your way out.
Why do you automatically assume, that everyone who works somewhere for a longer time has "withered their skills"? It's non-sense in that generality.
Doing the same job in the same company does give you blind spots, as 90 percent of the companies do not allow novelties in their processes and tech stacks, e.g. you might not be allowed to do containerize your applications, as the current procedure "just works". If your job allows you to sharpen your skills, keep up with the tech stack, allows you to learn new algorithms and add new skills to your arsenal, even after 10 years of work: Congratulations! You have the perfect job, please let me know of the company, so that I can apply.
>OK, that is just one job change. It is not like 5 in 10 years. It becomes increasingly unlikely, that every company you work in behaves like that, the more years and job changes you add. As in 6 jobs in 12 years makes that explanation more unlikely than 2 jobs in 4 years.
Exactly! The frequency needs to be slower, as with more experience, you are supposed to have a good sense what works out for you and choose a job that you won't be leaving after a year or two. That is why you are expected to stay longer as you get more experience, from what I understand with my measly 6 years of experience in the field.
But, maybe you should also consider that the job market has changed and 2 year turnovers may not present a huge red flag, as long as the candidate can explain why they wanted to switch jobs. Although, many companies are now optimizing their salary/perks/promotion structure and their culture for developers staying for 2-4 years, instead of 10 years as it is used to be. All my three companies were like this, maybe I am just too unlucky, I guess.
This is self-correcting though: if you end up with a CV with so much job-hopping that you don't get any more offers because of that, you'll just stay where you are until your last experience is long enough to prove that this is not a concern anymore. So I wouldn't worry about that.
No hard evidence here, but I think you really have to push it to end up in this situation, and I don't think 3 or 4 two-year stints put you in this position (especially not in SV, but even elsewhere as long as you have a story to tell). Talking about the market in general, of course some companies might have biases for candidates who only had longer experiences.
Also better have a good answer why having changed so much between companies, saying it was for more money isn't going to be a good outcome on an interview.
If you want a good answer for that question, tell them you switch jobs once it's become clear that there's not enough room for growth in a company anymore. And this growth isn't just about salary; it's also about learning new skills, new technologies, new responsibilities. If they want to keep you longer than that, they need to keep investing in you.
In my current situation (UK) I have all the benefits you mentioned with none of the drawbacks, especially not the salary $60k salary cap (which I think is a misconception since some jobs I looked at during the whole Brexit fiasco were in Europe and paying closer to €90k).
They might if you're in a teacher's union, or working in some minimum-wage job with a mandatory union.
But for any high-paying position like software engineering your union is there to have your back if you're being screwed over on your employment contract, to bust the balls of employers who worked you for 41 hours, but only paid out 40 etc.
It's essentially a form of collective employment insurance for your industry, for which you'd pay a small monthly fee.
I'm always angered by these over-generalizations for the whole of Europe. Europe is not a single country with identical laws and working conditions but they differ wildly by borders.
The minimum amount of vacation days by EU law is 20 per year for every full-time worker in the EU but workers can get more based on union negotiations of each individual country or individual company perks that wish to attract talent.
In Austria, the norm is 25 paid vacation days a year for all full-time workers including tech workers. I rarely saw more that 25 days of vacation offered for tech workers here even at supposedly "top" companies which Austria doesn't have many of.
>paid overtime
Same for this. In Austria, most tech jobs don't pay overtime (thanks to shitty "all-in" contracts) but, factory style jobs with clocked shift-work do, since those are usually unionized and the metall workers union is one of the strongest in the country. Also many jobs, especially in public healthcare sector do a lot of unpaid overtime due to underfunding and staff shortages. In low-skilled jobs with high competition, like hospitality and cleaning services, unpaid overtime and your boss being abusive is pretty much the norm.
>Ah, and in some countries having too many companies on the CV isn't well seen
Gee, let me guess, hyper-conservative, 100-year-old German boomer companies(factories)? They're free to expect that, but staying 10+ years at the same company was good way-back-when there wasn't rampant inflation, and rampant real-estate prices, and a factory worker could support a family and buy a home from his income and he'd be employed till retirement and the company would always invest in his training. Those days are long-gone now thanks to globalization, offshoring of jobs and unrestricted immigration, so any company is happy to keep your wage growth below asset inflation levels as you loose out and the company wins as inflation is eating their loan paybacks and the salary they have to pay you, so the only way for you to claw back some of those losses is to job-hop (if you can).
And if you don't like it, there's nothing you can do about it if you don't have skills in high demand in a filed suffering from a shortage in your domain, as unlike the 1960's when even workers with basic education(high-school) had leverage, the company can now hire through a plethora of more candidates thanks to easy immigration, or offshore your job completely to a palace with less employee/environmental protection, while paying fuck-all in taxes through their shell company registered at a post-box in Luxembourg, basically depriving workers of most of their leverage they had in the past. That's why political parties on both extremes of the spectrum are seeing a resurgence in Europe. If we don't fix the rampant wealth inequality yesterday, we're gonna see political extremes and civil unrest growing stronger in Europe. Which is why I guess the EU nation states are so keen on gaining more surveillance powers and banning encryption, to make sure they stomp out any civil unrest before it happens.
The biggest perk we have in most EU countries is paid sick leave and health insurance if you lose your job. If your health ever declines and you end up loosing your job this is invaluable to not becoming homeless. Although many of those social benefits suffered cutbacks and receiving them became stricter in some countries after the 2008 recession.
Yes benefits are better in Europe, but not so much that you're better off earning $100k here than $200k in America.
Like I live in a European capital and am just below $100k after almost 8 years of experience.
We're just colonised by massive US corporations which ship the profits back to the US (and avoid as much tax as they can!).
We're colonized by the over-regulation that doesn't appreciate entrepreneurship and stifles innovation. That's why big tech almost never starts in Europe. For better or for worse.
Contract normally specify the paid leave excluding such Bank Holidays, so will be a minimum of 20. It is only the days above those 20 where the employer is giving one something extra.
* 25 paid days off (vacation)
* + 13 paid days (national holidays/bank holidays)
* + 1 personal paid day off (this is quite new)
* + 5-10 paid days off to care for a sick child
* + 1-3 paid days off for moving/wedding
* + up to 40 days paid sick leave (per case)
* + 40-80 days paid off for pregnant women (Mutterschutz)
* + some companies/contracts offer more than that
additionally to that you have:
* Karenz - up to two years maternity leave (paid, but capped)
* Bildungskarenz - up to one year education leave (paid, but capped)
* Arbeitslosengeld - unemployment insurance for at least six months, but up to 5 years (paid, but capped)
All this stuff does not depend on your employer. For some
(everything based on 5 day workweek)
The standard is 20 days of holidays, although if you've been in the workforce for long enough (I think it's 10 years) or completed tertiary studies and worked for a few less years you'll get 26 days of holidays each year.
There is paid overtime with a maximum number of days and hours that you can work per year. Though in my industry some people end up chewing through that within the first few months. Things are better in this company for now.
As far as job hopping on the resume, I think the optimal thing to do is to hop every few years, but I don't see that as a negative.
Also get knowledgeable about work law and have a legal insurance.
Even downgrading my example to how things go back home in Portugal versus DACH where I have been for the last 20 years, I would pick our conditions over FAANG salary without the social part.
Claiming everyone in Europe gets 30 vacation days when that's obviously false is not a stereotype, but a gross over exaggeration. Just because you get that perk doesn't magically make it true for the whole EU.
The effect of immigration on wages is overblown.
If you have more people competing for the same job, then the wages go down, and vice-versa, the less potential employees you have, the higher the wages have to go to fill the position.
The supply/demands fraction is basic math. Are you saying math doesn't work?
That statement is pretty vague and pretty obvious on some levels but provides no concrete numbers and evidence that's generally applicable (basically it's easy to cherry pick some results and make generic claims afterwards that don't hold water).
I'm not pro-immigration and I'm not anti-immigration but I know math and personally experienced that whenever you have a lower supply of candidates then I have much more leverage for negotiations and better work conditions and have experienced the opposite, of employers being dicks due to over-supply of labor.
I therefore take those "research" findings with a generous train load of salt.
edit: sorry, just seen your edit. Care to elaborate why you think they are dismissible?
But (in Western Europe at least) all jobs offer the same nice things: tons of vacation days, unions, paid overtime, healthcare. So switching jobs becomes only about: am I going to get significantly more money or not?
30 days PTO instead of 15 or 20 and being paid overtime instead of just being paid 3-5x as much with overtime being “included” isn’t obviously better to me.
Yes, and we have plenty of nice stuff that goes along with it
Healthcare, 30 paid holidays, unions, paid overtime, weekends and calls off work come extra (it is 40h week period, want more pay for it), retirement, flex time, ...
Like the OP, my expenses are more than covered, getting more isn't worth the hassle to change.
Ah, and in some countries having too many companies on the CV isn't well seen, it appears the candidate isn't able to fit-in anywhere.