Among all my friends from Europe working in IT, no one works or as far as I know wants to work specifically in a FAANG.
Ask HN: Is working for FAANG as big of a deal in Europe as it is in the US??
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Re: Ask HN: Is working for FAANG as big of a deal in Europe as it is in the US??
#22I don't work at FAANG but from knowing the EU market from friends and public data on Twitter, salaries in (non-FAANG) US companies like Uber, Yelp, Datadog are mostly not achievable in other companies for individual contributors, due to stock grants and general huge pile of VC cash the US companies have.
My answer above is not very complete so I'll add what some siblings wrote:
IMO people are not that desperate to work at FAANG in EU as in US (from what you can feel reading HN, blogs etc. "FAANG or die", "leetcode for life").
Reasons are: 1) FAANG have limited presence in EU. Often you'd have to move countries or at least cities. In many smaller cities you can also make good money in IT with lower cost of living outside of FAANG; 2) they pay better, but nowhere near the US market craze; you can get,say, 20k better but not 200k better; 3) FAANG in EU tend to hire rather senior engineers; 4) there's this feeling that it's hard to get there and you get whiteboarded with irrelevant process, so many people don't even bother trying; 5) many people are perhaps not very up to date with US companies' salaries possibilities (open salary sharing in EU is not very common, and glassdoor often has few / outdated data points; outsiders don't know about Blind, levels.fyi etc).
Having said that I'm in my 30s so I don't know what current students think.
Re: Ask HN: Is working for FAANG as big of a deal in Europe as it is in the US??
#23On every technical talk, there's at least one presenter bragging about previous experience at FAANG. No exceptions, always 1 slide.
Re: Ask HN: Is working for FAANG as big of a deal in Europe as it is in the US??
#24On every technical talk, there's at least one presenter bragging about previous experience at FAANG. No exceptions, always 1 slide.
I don’t think it’s bragging; I think it’s to establish credibility (“ethos”)
Re: Ask HN: Is working for FAANG as big of a deal in Europe as it is in the US??
#25I don't work at FAANG but from knowing the EU market from friends and public data on Twitter, salaries in (non-FAANG) US companies like Uber, Yelp, Datadog are mostly not achievable in other companies for individual contributors, due to stock grants and general huge pile of VC cash the US companies have.
My answer above is not very complete so I'll add what some siblings wrote: IMO people are not that desperate to work at FAANG in EU as in US (from what you can feel reading HN, blogs etc. "FAANG or die", "leetcode for life"). Reasons are: 1) FAANG have limited presence in EU. Often you'd have to move countries or at least cities. In many smaller cities you can also make good money in IT with lower cost of living outs…
Re 3), at least in my circles (finished uni past few years) plenty folks got junior positions at Google, Amazon, and MS (a good chunk through internships, but not only)
Re: Ask HN: Is working for FAANG as big of a deal in Europe as it is in the US??
#26> Are FAANG jobs really that different compared to the rest of opportunities people have in Europe (in the same way that they are in the US)?
The difference is exactly the same, just that salaries are much worse overall in Europe so even though FAANG pay the same percentage more those salaries here don't look as impressive. The main reason not a lot of people work for FAANG in Europe is that FAANG doesn't hire a lot of people in Europe so those jobs are really hard to get compared to in USA.
Re: Ask HN: Is working for FAANG as big of a deal in Europe as it is in the US??
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think these companies have been causing lots of ethical issues Pro tip: you can safely assume that any of the stuff you read online in terms of ethics in those companies exists solely for people to feel "woke" and for you to click on, and is highly biased. Do not take what you read online as the common viewpoint about those companies. Companies like Amazon, Facebook and Google has had way more positive impact on…
Strongly disagree. Facebook in particular. I'm with you on Amazon, and I founded a search engine because of my ethical beef with Google and general dissatisfaction with their product, their data collection is unethical and their search leaves a lot to be desired particularly for developers.
Sure, but developers and tech savy people make up a very small percentage of the userbase. Most people don't care.
If you go on the metric of how many people use the products these companies provide versus the drawbacks of using those services, both Facbook and Google are very valuable.
Re: Ask HN: Is working for FAANG as big of a deal in Europe as it is in the US??
#28I worked for companies at various sizes FAANG and non-FAANG in London and I would say what FAANG pays is much better than what most of the startups or other companies such as banks pay.
Base salaries are usually similar but RSU and other benefits make the real difference. For example, most of the tech companies in London don't even provide health insurance, since they rely on NHS.
Startups try to use options to convince people but what you're given mostly wouldn't make you a millionaire in the event of exit or IPO.
I guess the other group of companies who could match what FAANG offers as a whole package would be hedge funds. I would say it's harder to enter them tho, since they still can throw your CV to the bin just because you don't have a degree from oxbridge.
Re: Ask HN: Is working for FAANG as big of a deal in Europe as it is in the US??
#29I worked for companies at various sizes FAANG and non-FAANG in London and I would say what FAANG pays is much better than what most of the startups or other companies such as banks pay. Base salaries are usually similar but RSU and other benefits make the real difference. For example, most of the tech companies in London don't even provide health insurance, since they rely on NHS. Startups try to use options to convi…
Maybe it's a cultural thing - but as a British person I'd be fine with the NHS.
I'd be happy if they stopped the salaries being like 2-3x smaller than the USA though - I get it, the CoL is lower, but it's not that much lower.
Re: Ask HN: Is working for FAANG as big of a deal in Europe as it is in the US??
#30I worked for companies at various sizes FAANG and non-FAANG in London and I would say what FAANG pays is much better than what most of the startups or other companies such as banks pay. Base salaries are usually similar but RSU and other benefits make the real difference. For example, most of the tech companies in London don't even provide health insurance, since they rely on NHS. Startups try to use options to convi…
Maybe it's a cultural thing - but as a British person I'd be fine with the NHS. I'd be happy if they stopped the salaries being like 2-3x smaller than the USA though - I get it, the CoL is lower, but it's not that much lower.
I agree with CoL being not much different and companies just using that as a reason are misleading. It’s quite unfortunate that, if you’re a SR SWE in a normal company max you can make is 100k and that would translate into ~5500 net. If you have 2 kids and wanna rent big enough house near an outstanding school in zone 2, ok crime rate, with council tax and bills it’s quite possible to spend at 3500 of that just for housing. Not leaving much money for non-essential fun things.
Another reason for crazy salaries in the valley is limited talent pool, which might change soon with companies moving to remote or at least being remote friendly. It’s quite hard to get someone into the US with H1B. As far as I know even Facebook and Google stopped sponsoring.