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Ask HN: What has been your experience with bigger tech companies in London?

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Re: Ask HN: What has been your experience with bigger tech companies in London?

#11

Post by phphphphp »

djohnston wrote: post #3

You make way less money than your peers in California and everything is still as expensive. It's a financially horrible decision if you can work in the US. If you want to work in Europe though it's pretty good. I've worked at FAANG in US and UK and am currently going back to the US for non-financial reasons. I don't regret being here but I find London to be impossibly expensive to build a family in.

A few years ago FAANG salaries in London were pretty weak, but they’re much better now and even within the startup ecosystem — traditionally much lower than FAANG salaries here — £90k is a reasonable base expectation and £100k at a minimum for FAANG (>150k TC is normal).

On £100k London is pretty affordable, so I’m curious, how much were you making in London and what do you consider to be a required salary to start a family here? London is very expensive but I’ve not heard the sentiment that FAANG salaries aren’t enough — would be helpful to learn more specifics of your view!

Re: Ask HN: What has been your experience with bigger tech companies in London?

#12

Post by swarnie »

dbetteridge wrote: post #9
tasubotadas wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of competition and venture funding

Also different employer expenses per employee, I don't know them off the top of my head but the UK tax levels are pretty high.

High and only getting higher, along with insane housing costs in that area its not an attractive proposal unless you plan to use the experience to move somewhere else.

Re: Ask HN: What has been your experience with bigger tech companies in London?

#13

Post by colinmhayes »

phphphphp wrote: post #11
djohnston wrote: post #3

You make way less money than your peers in California and everything is still as expensive. It's a financially horrible decision if you can work in the US. If you want to work in Europe though it's pretty good. I've worked at FAANG in US and UK and am currently going back to the US for non-financial reasons. I don't regret being here but I find London to be impossibly expensive to build a family in.

A few years ago FAANG salaries in London were pretty weak, but they’re much better now and even within the startup ecosystem — traditionally much lower than FAANG salaries here — £90k is a reasonable base expectation and £100k at a minimum for FAANG (>150k TC is normal). On £100k London is pretty affordable, so I’m curious, how much were you making in London and what do you consider to be a required salary to start a…

£150k is much, much less than non entry level FAANG engineers in the US are making.

Re: Ask HN: What has been your experience with bigger tech companies in London?

#14

Post by volkk »

colinmhayes wrote: post #13
phphphphp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago FAANG salaries in London were pretty weak, but they’re much better now and even within the startup ecosystem — traditionally much lower than FAANG salaries here — £90k is a reasonable base expectation and £100k at a minimum for FAANG (>150k TC is normal). On £100k London is pretty affordable, so I’m curious, how much were you making in London and what do you consider to be a required salary to start a…

£150k is much, much less than non entry level FAANG engineers in the US are making.

£150k is ~$196k base. I don't really see how that's much much less? My friend is an L6 at 220k base (with a shitload of equity). Definitely within the range.

Re: Ask HN: What has been your experience with bigger tech companies in London?

#16

Post by tennis_sort »

phphphphp wrote: post #11
djohnston wrote: post #3

You make way less money than your peers in California and everything is still as expensive. It's a financially horrible decision if you can work in the US. If you want to work in Europe though it's pretty good. I've worked at FAANG in US and UK and am currently going back to the US for non-financial reasons. I don't regret being here but I find London to be impossibly expensive to build a family in.

A few years ago FAANG salaries in London were pretty weak, but they’re much better now and even within the startup ecosystem — traditionally much lower than FAANG salaries here — £90k is a reasonable base expectation and £100k at a minimum for FAANG (>150k TC is normal). On £100k London is pretty affordable, so I’m curious, how much were you making in London and what do you consider to be a required salary to start a…

£100k London as a single person could definitely buy a flat somewhere. Maybe not a great area but it's doable.

A house with a garden, kids, private school etc. 100k won't cut it unfortunately.

For some reason I thought FAANGs in London were paid really well but seems like contracting or finance is the only way to get a reasonable income.

I have a buddy who was working for a DeepMind and now works for Google (UK). His salary is £140k. Meanwhile day rates of £600 per day are pretty standard and pay the same for arguably less hassle.

Re: Ask HN: What has been your experience with bigger tech companies in London?

#17

Post by mettamage »

Chirono wrote: post #5

To get an idea of comp for companies in London, levels.fyi is a good starting point. https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/London/ Bottom line is that comp is way under what you would get for the same job in the US, but better than most other engineering jobs in London outside of certain finance roles. The market seems to have been going up a lot in the past couple of years though. The interview process i…

I still wonder how to adequately prep for system design. I feel leetcode is simply practice, but system design, I can't seem to get a full hang of it. And I've noticed in my day job that I am not getting enough experience with it.

Re: Ask HN: What has been your experience with bigger tech companies in London?

#19

Post by pawelwentpawel »

djohnston wrote: post #3

You make way less money than your peers in California and everything is still as expensive. It's a financially horrible decision if you can work in the US. If you want to work in Europe though it's pretty good. I've worked at FAANG in US and UK and am currently going back to the US for non-financial reasons. I don't regret being here but I find London to be impossibly expensive to build a family in.

I wonder, is moving from UK to US easy within a FAANG company? Is that something people do?

Re: Ask HN: What has been your experience with bigger tech companies in London?

#20

Post by raphaelj »

volkk wrote: post #14
colinmhayes wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

£150k is much, much less than non entry level FAANG engineers in the US are making.

£150k is ~$196k base. I don't really see how that's much much less? My friend is an L6 at 220k base (with a shitload of equity). Definitely within the range.

Workers in UK also work less than their US counterparts (paid holidays, parental leave, sick days ...) [1]. Would make more sense to compare these countries by hourly income, not yearly.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_a...

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