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Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

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Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#171

Post by znq »

vemv wrote: post #29

Spanish dev here, 3 years in the business, been twice a freelancer and twice an employee. My main complaints: - The maximum salary a developer can earn at any given company is almost written in stone - around 36000 euros. Every public job posting will have that figure as the max. When it's higher, they'll water it down in the interview. Why? Probably because they don't have the notion of a 10x programmer at all. We a…

There are few, although not many counter-examples. We run Mobile Jazz [1], which is an international boutique agency with headquarters in Barcelona. We're trying to treat our employees extremely fairly and have managed to gain some of the best talent not only in Spain, but also internationally.

Here some of the things we do:

- Pay fair salaries: 54k€ / year (before tax) for those that work full-time

- We distribute the companies profits every quarter with our employees as bonuses. Although we're planning to retain more of that in the future to reinvest in internal projects.

- Everyone can choose to work from wherever they like (one guy is currently traveling around the world with his wife) and you can work as much as you like (as long as it is planned properly in advance). Some people prefer to work less and spend more time with their kids or go kitesurfing. Others decided to reduce to 1/2 time and study again (just for fun) the other 50%.

- 3-4 times per year we organize 1-2 month long company retreats [2], where we rent a villa in a nice location with good Internet and work remotely. This year we went to Cape Town and Bali. Last year we went to Thailand and skiing in the Alps. In October we're going to Martinique (Caribbean)

- We support our employees with internal project ideas, even the most crazy ones, like the automated Nespresso Ordering Machine [3] or those that have turned into actual products, like Bugfender [4].

Summarized we treat our employees very well and give them a lot of responsibility and autonomy. And it all pays off. Our clients and customer are extremely happy and since inception (2009) we didn't have to make on single outbound sale. All clients came to us through word of mouth and recommendations from existing clients.

On top of that it gives me personally a lot of freedom and peace of mind, because I know I can fully trust and rely on our employees. For example just two months ago I completely disconnected and decided to work on a small sailing boat for a month (just for fun, as a life and learning experience) crossing the Pacific from Micronesia to New Caledonia [blog post coming soon].

We're also about to launch a niche entrepreneurial community for similar-minded people called: O4H - Optimizing for Happiness (instead of profit) [5].

Feel free to email me (email address in my HN profile). I'm always happy to connect with like minded people.

For those that are looking for a job, check out our Jobs API on our website [1]. Although, to be fair I'd like to mention that we currently don't want to grow a lot more in team size (currently 20 engineers and designers), but rather focus on getting traction with our products. But that will probably change in the future again.

Links:

- [1]: https://mobilejazz.com/philosophy

- [2]: https://optimizingforhappiness.com/remote-office-cape-town-2...

- [3]: https://mobilejazz.com/blog/with-nom-youll-never-be-out-of-c...

- [4]: https://bugfender.com/

- [5]: https://optimizingforhappiness.com/

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#172

Post by igravious »

Waterluvian wrote: post #157
vemv wrote: post #29

Spanish dev here, 3 years in the business, been twice a freelancer and twice an employee. My main complaints: - The maximum salary a developer can earn at any given company is almost written in stone - around 36000 euros. Every public job posting will have that figure as the max. When it's higher, they'll water it down in the interview. Why? Probably because they don't have the notion of a 10x programmer at all. We a…

Developers are not fungible. But in my opinion: this "10x" term really has to go away. We need a better way to describe the reality that there's a range in quality and capability for developers that doesn't suggest an order of magnitude. That just means corner cutting.

I'm sure technical ability falls on a curve like all other human abilities/activities. Like take weight lifting. Most people will be around the middle. Some will be able to lift heavier, some will be able to lift less. But if two people are training I would not expect one person to lift "10x" the next person. No way, no how.

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#173

Post by MawNicker »

hexagonc wrote: post #149
MawNicker wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or, they cannot really appreciate the quality or even the speed of my work. Clueless people abound. Many "10x programmers" aren't anywhere near 10x faster/better/etc in an environment full of 1x programmers. I think "exponential" would be a better description than 10x. If you watch them in the short term they look similar to the 1x programmers. If you distribute their exponential gains over the whole team then this…

I think you can easily be a 10x developer, since 10x is relative. Especially in a world awash in bad developers. Just being familiar with the right algorithms and software approaches vis-a-vis your co-workers will do that. I've seen "enterprise" code that was doing tons of string key-value pair lookups using arrays. Just converting those to hashtables could very well speed up the app by 10+ times if the key-value loo…

> Especially in a world awash in bad developers.

Your comment is totally reasonable. You're being down-voted because the sentiment of that statement is so negative but in some ways it's true. There is widespread encouragement from society for individuals to learn how to program. In the last 5 decades the group that operates primarily from this motivation has exploded. The much older fanatical nerd group (originating with Charles Babbage himself) has seen more modest growth. This latter group operates primarily from intrinsic motivation. They would have an earnest desire to achieve the improvements you've stated. Simply to see if they can. Their love for their craft and overall playful orientation eventually accumulates. They quickly familiarize themselves with the whole bag of tricks. They have wet dreams about things like binary search. You just can't compete with someone who loves what they do. The more monetary incentive there is to do something the more those people are few and far between. So yes, I agree that the phenomenon is relative and that it is so extreme (10x) mostly because so many developers are merely "good enough" (1x). I still think there's a lot to be said about how much an environment enables the expression of a 10x programmer. It is most common that "good enough" really is good enough and going extreme doesn't make anything better.

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#174

Post by duckingtest »

pcrh wrote: post #163
duckingtest wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's that developers are underpaid in Europe. They are just objectively less productive there. After all it's a very specialized job that requires modern, developed economy open to disruptions to be really productive. On the extreme opposite end of a spectrum - a pre-industrial economy - a developer's productivity would be zero. American nominal GDP per capita is 2.13 times that of Spain's and 1.38x tha…

GDP per capita seems to be a curious way to estimate if a local dev is likely to be productive. Would a Luxembourgish, Swiss or Norwegian dev be expected to be more productive than one from the US or UK? It seems to me that the prime determinant of pay is how close the worker's "category" is to the money. So in a start-up intensive environment like the Bay Area, the devs are also sometimes the executives, and executi…

Switzerland does have higher average pay CHF 91,374 = $93,703.5 [0] compared to USA $68,082 [1]. Their nominal GDP per capita is 36.62% higher and the pay is 37.6% higher.

Norway interestingly has almost the same pay as USA - $68,737 [2], probably because of high share of oil extraction in GDP (22% [3]) which skews the result. If you subtract oil share from the GDP, you get $56,195.88 nominal GDP per capita, which is almost the same as the American one ($57,220)!

Now Luxembourg is a tax haven/financial center with a population of half a million so I don't think it's a relevant comparison. Just due to population to get something close to true pay average you would have to ask a relatively (to other countries) very big percentage of their developers.

Same site for comparable data

[0] http://www.payscale.com/research/CH/Job=Software_Engineer/Sa...

[1] http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Developer/S...

[2] http://www.payscale.com/research/NO/Job=Software_Developer/S...

[3] https://www.ssb.no/en/befolkning/artikler-og-publikasjoner/_... page 40, graph

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#175

Post by rurban »

AndyNemmity wrote: post #168
emilburzo wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does one find these companies? Almost all remote job posts that I find end with "(US only)" Example: https://hnjobs.emilburzo.com/#remote%20%22us%20only%22

Usually people get the job while in the US, become well liked and needed, then move where ever they damn well please.

Or have to move because of H1B which ends after 3 years, and it's pure luck to get an extension in time. That's how I ended back in Germany doing remote for US.

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#176

Post by igravious »

duckingtest wrote: post #131
charlesdm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true. Just compare salaries of software engineers in most EU countries with salaries in the US. If you're a good developer, 99% of the time it's better to work remotely from Europe for a US company. It really is a simple problem to solve -- pay talented people in Europe more. And yet, for some reason, this is often dismissed by CEOs as a ridiculous statement. They're probably the same people who think you need 1…

I don't think it's that developers are underpaid in Europe. They are just objectively less productive there. After all it's a very specialized job that requires modern, developed economy open to disruptions to be really productive. On the extreme opposite end of a spectrum - a pre-industrial economy - a developer's productivity would be zero. American nominal GDP per capita is 2.13 times that of Spain's and 1.38x tha…

I would contest the hidden assumption/assertion in your comment that GDP per capita can be used to compare productivity. Especially averaged out across the entire economy disregarding wealth distribution.

It is a given that GDP per capita is a measure of a country's economic output per person. I know that is the technical definition of GDP per capita. And presumably then you would link economic output to productivity.

You've fudged together too many uncorrelated entities :)

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#177

Post by casta »

themartorana wrote: post #68
muse900 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that salary excessive tbh. I understand working remotely for a US company and get a US based salary, truth is that the companies that will do that are mostly startups and I don't think they have the funds for high end salaries. Except if you are a genius dev and they do need you and you go off and tell them that you want to work from home and live in another Country. I do think though you can get jobs that pay…

2000-3000 Euro/month is incredibly low. Fresh devs around here go for $50k+ annually, and experience costs 6 figures easily (and I'm in Philadelphia, I'm not talking SF/NY numbers). Edit (pressed submit early): some companies use remote workers to reduce costs, but I wouldn't expect to pay such a low $36k max in Europe. Remote, if managed well, is just as good as in-house. You're not worth significantly less.

I don't know how it works in Spain, but in Italy the cost of an employee is probably much more than his/her salary.

The employer gives you a salary, then they have to pay on top of it ~30% of INAIL, INPS etc. (pension, health "insurance" including sick days and so on) and ~10% of TFR (fund you get back at the end of your career.) In the U.S. those are costs you have to remove from your salary.

So, 3000 euros a month would be 6000 euros before taxes and if you add the other employer costs, it's about 10000. Now convert it to dollars and you have a 130000 dollars a year.

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#178

Post by igravious »

duckingtest wrote: post #174
pcrh wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDP per capita seems to be a curious way to estimate if a local dev is likely to be productive. Would a Luxembourgish, Swiss or Norwegian dev be expected to be more productive than one from the US or UK? It seems to me that the prime determinant of pay is how close the worker's "category" is to the money. So in a start-up intensive environment like the Bay Area, the devs are also sometimes the executives, and executi…

Switzerland does have higher average pay CHF 91,374 = $93,703.5 [0] compared to USA $68,082 [1]. Their nominal GDP per capita is 36.62% higher and the pay is 37.6% higher. Norway interestingly has almost the same pay as USA - $68,737 [2], probably because of high share of oil extraction in GDP (22% [3]) which skews the result. If you subtract oil share from the GDP, you get $56,195.88 nominal GDP per capita, which is…

Dude. You're not getting the objection. We're not objecting to the numeric ratios, we're objecting to using those numbers in the first place.

> GDP per capita seems to be a curious way to estimate if a local dev is likely to be productive.

Curious is putting it mildly. :) What is being objected to is your _measure_. Stop using the GDP per capita of an entire country as a proxy for software developer productivity. It's frankly stupid. Anyway GDP per capita using PPP (purchasing power parity) is seen as a fairer comparison. But even GDP per capita by PPP is a stupid metric to compare software developer productivity. I'm sorry for using the word stupid. But it's stupid.

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#179

Post by feklar »

fchollet wrote: post #126
gorkemyurt wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are saying NYC is much less expensive than Bay Area?

Yes. Specifically, rents are much higher in SF/SV than in NYC. SF has even higher rent than Manhattan. Most of NYC (not Manhattan or Williamsburg) can be quite reasonable.

Does SF gave rent brokers you have to go through? Manhattan you have to pay first/last rent to a broker plus deposit you need around 8-$12k to sign any lease up front

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#180

Post by smsm42 »

emilburzo wrote: post #154
smsm42 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a lot of US companies hiring remotely. Two reasons: 1) costs (you're not competing with Google and Facebook on salary, at least not directly) and somewhat related 2) bigger applicant pool. This is especially true if you're looking for specific skills - much easier to find somebody if you're looking at 10x market. For many developer positions, having a person in the office is not much better than having remote…

Where does one find these companies? Almost all remote job posts that I find end with "(US only)" Example: https://hnjobs.emilburzo.com/#remote%20%22us%20only%22

Unfortunately I can't give good advice as I know most of these people after they were hired, and didn't ask them how they were hired. I know there are companies doing that, and social networks are also very useful in it, otherwise there are companies like http://www.safeguardworld.com/ (just one I know, not a recommendation since I never worked with it, but I know some people who did and found good remote jobs) which usually help connecting employers and employees.
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