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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?

#21

Post by dbetteridge »

swarnie wrote: post #12
dbetteridge wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Basically the way I did things.

2.5 years in London to level up my skills and work in a few startups, then buggering back off to Australia for CoL that while still expensive is less than London and much better weather and similar salaries to London.

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

#22

Post by psyc »

m_a_g wrote: post #18
hutrdvnj wrote: post #6

Nowadays it's called MAMAA instead of FAANG.[0] [0] https://fortune.com/2021/10/29/faang-mamaa-jim-cramer-tech-f...

I highly doubt that "MAMAA" will stick. Especially since it includes Microsoft.

There seems to have been a trend for people to really want to include Microsoft in recent years, and that’s part of it.

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

#23

Post by azangru »

m_a_g wrote: post #18
hutrdvnj wrote: post #6

Nowadays it's called MAMAA instead of FAANG.[0] [0] https://fortune.com/2021/10/29/faang-mamaa-jim-cramer-tech-f...

I highly doubt that "MAMAA" will stick. Especially since it includes Microsoft.

> Especially since it includes Microsoft.

FAANG includes Netflix, which everyone keeps repeating does not belong in this acronym.

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

#24

Post by MrRiddle »

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 after tax, pension and healthcare or before?

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

#25

Post by politelemon »

pawelwentpawel wrote: post #19
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?

It really does depend on the company. Within large companies, there is often a structure that lets you do that. There will be internal job postings, you can apply, get interviewed, accepted, and then the hiring manager begins the process to transfer you over. Visas, processing fees, moving costs, things like that.

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

#26

Post by [deleted] »

raphaelj wrote: post #20
volkk wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

£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...

[deleted]

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

#27

Post by bakuninsbart »

mettamage wrote: post #4

If you're European it's one of the few options you've got. I find it odd though that people make so much less compared to their US counterparts. Does anyone know why that is?

Here in Germany an employee costs substantially more due to various laws and regulations. For example, assuming an employee has a salary of 4000€/month before taxes, the employer is required to pay 7.3% to health insurance, 1.3% to long-term care insurance and 1.5% to unemployment insurance.

There are also substantially more bank holidays (on average 10), and an additional minimum of 20 days of paid leave. Sick leave is generally paid,too, and for at least the first week fully paid by the employer.

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

#28

Post by nickdothutton »

Keep in mind the centre of gravity for the company will be the US. Very few firms, tech or otherwise are truly global in their approach. Most are taking product built and launched in the US out to the rest of world. This is why they almost constantly trip over local market quirks or differences (privacy being only 1 in Europe). Some firms are little more than sales/marketing operations outside the US.

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

#30

Post by openknot »

hnxs wrote: post #29
hutrdvnj wrote: post #6

Nowadays it's called MAMAA instead of FAANG.[0] [0] https://fortune.com/2021/10/29/faang-mamaa-jim-cramer-tech-f...

no one calls it that i see more and more people dropping the amazon A though

Anecdotally, I see FAAMG (dropping Netflix for Microsoft) more often, keeping Amazon and Apple.
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