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The State of European Tech 2016

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Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#31

Post by cyberpunk »

lispm wrote: post #30
cyberpunk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contract rates in London are really rather good, at least in my particular little world (ops/"devops")... Really, we're talking minimum 500gbp/day and there is so much work you can quit a contract and have another within hours....

that does seem to be rather low for an expensive city and a falling currency.

That's an avg of 10k a month, then add 6% on that if you're on flat rate vat scheme. Take off 20% if you don't have a ninja accountant and with the (now sadly, over) dividend rules and such you're still looking at a pretty healthy 8-9k take home a month..

Even in london where a 2 bed 30 mins from the center is about 2k/month that's not exactly hard living is it?

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#32

Post by glenndebacker »

wrong_variable wrote: post #7

(cough cringe PR cough) You could create similar optimistic charts for US, China, India, etc. The EU ( 550 million ) tech industry is dwarfed by the US ( 350 million ) Looking from a higher abstract plane, EU produces the least new entrepreneurs and innovative companies compared to the beast that is US and Asia. The EU also has the most unstable political and financial system globally with entire countries on the ver…

"Every European developer's final 'dream' is to work in the US tech industry - London is the second best thing to reach."

Maybe in the pre-Brexit or pre-Trump era but today... . I turned down a London offer because of the uncertainty Brexit brings and I'm certainly not alone.

It's not that Great Brittain or the US is that political stable with al that happende the last couple or months.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#33

Post by falsedan »

cyberpunk wrote: post #29
exceptione wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not what you are asking for, but as I repeatedly hear is that The Netherlands is closer to the UK with regards to the business practice. Less strict, less formal, no hierarchies. But VC isn't big in The Netherlands as well. Salaries are still a joke compared to the US.

I worked in NL a few years ago and the corp culture there was good generally. I'll never acknowledge frikandellen as fit for human consumption however.. I'm not sure about the money argument still though -- a joke? How much more money do you think your avg dev is getting paid in the US vs what we get here in Europe? A regular employee/salaried dev is looking at at least 90k euro/year in nl, which is a very very comfo…

What company in NL pays 90k for new grads?

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#34

Post by lispm »

cyberpunk wrote: post #31
lispm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that does seem to be rather low for an expensive city and a falling currency.

That's an avg of 10k a month, then add 6% on that if you're on flat rate vat scheme. Take off 20% if you don't have a ninja accountant and with the (now sadly, over) dividend rules and such you're still looking at a pretty healthy 8-9k take home a month.. Even in london where a 2 bed 30 mins from the center is about 2k/month that's not exactly hard living is it?

As I said 500gbp/day is not much. I see a lot of IT people earning this is Germany, especially in the Devops field. With something like that you would get an average qualified person hired in, say, Munich.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#35

Post by kriro »

Regarding salary. I think 45-50k Euro is a pretty decent entry level salary in Germany if you're coming out of university (debt free) depending on the region. That may look shocking compared to the SV numbers but you can live a good life off 50k and a lot of the stuff will be taken care of (education of your children, healthcare) which reduces the stress level quite a bit.

If you want to start a company, you'll face some social issues (failure is considered failure) but the infrastructure is decent enough. The social issues have changed a lot in recent years though. Anecdotally I feel like recruiting good devs right out of universities is a lot easier if you're a typical startup because many of the good developers will have fought the standard curriculum of the java-bot and be rather happy to work in a more agile setting (but still want to stay in their home country).

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#36

Post by kriro »

wrong_variable wrote: post #7

(cough cringe PR cough) You could create similar optimistic charts for US, China, India, etc. The EU ( 550 million ) tech industry is dwarfed by the US ( 350 million ) Looking from a higher abstract plane, EU produces the least new entrepreneurs and innovative companies compared to the beast that is US and Asia. The EU also has the most unstable political and financial system globally with entire countries on the ver…

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the supposed quality difference of MBAs is mostly unrelated to tech startups.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#37

Post by kriro »

glenndebacker wrote: post #32
wrong_variable wrote: post #7

(cough cringe PR cough) You could create similar optimistic charts for US, China, India, etc. The EU ( 550 million ) tech industry is dwarfed by the US ( 350 million ) Looking from a higher abstract plane, EU produces the least new entrepreneurs and innovative companies compared to the beast that is US and Asia. The EU also has the most unstable political and financial system globally with entire countries on the ver…

"Every European developer's final 'dream' is to work in the US tech industry - London is the second best thing to reach." Maybe in the pre-Brexit or pre-Trump era but today... . I turned down a London offer because of the uncertainty Brexit brings and I'm certainly not alone. It's not that Great Brittain or the US is that political stable with al that happende the last couple or months.

To be fair, Europe isn't much stabler imo. AFD in Germany in the 15-20% range, Le Pen might win in France etc.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#38

Post by lispm »

kriro wrote: post #37
glenndebacker wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Every European developer's final 'dream' is to work in the US tech industry - London is the second best thing to reach." Maybe in the pre-Brexit or pre-Trump era but today... . I turned down a London offer because of the uncertainty Brexit brings and I'm certainly not alone. It's not that Great Brittain or the US is that political stable with al that happende the last couple or months.

To be fair, Europe isn't much stabler imo. AFD in Germany in the 15-20% range, Le Pen might win in France etc.

That does not matter much in Germany, where the political system is very different from the UK and the US. Germany has proportional representation, which does not produce the two party system of the US.

The conservative parties CDU/CSU are totally sane compared to large parts of the UK tories or the republicans in the US.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#39

Post by superuser2 »

kriro wrote: post #35

Regarding salary. I think 45-50k Euro is a pretty decent entry level salary in Germany if you're coming out of university (debt free) depending on the region. That may look shocking compared to the SV numbers but you can live a good life off 50k and a lot of the stuff will be taken care of (education of your children, healthcare) which reduces the stress level quite a bit. If you want to start a company, you'll face…

Healthcare is absolutely taken care of for American six-figure tech workers. My premium is $2.50/mo and all my care is free or for a nominal fee, like $20. US healthcare is systemically broken, but not for people who command high wages.

Having kids in college is at least 30 years out. Knowing that an expense 30 years away will be taken care of is better than the alternative, but would do nothing for my stress level in the next ~20.

I don't buy that either of these things make any actual difference for an early-career programmer.

Probably the most important thing is rent. I suspect most European cities can offer a 1-bedroom apartment within 30 minutes of work by foot/public transit for a much lower proportion of a developer's salary than SF can, even when developer salaries are much lower. And in places not SF, $50k USD is not particularly low for a developer salary.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#40

Post by matt_o »

kuschku wrote: post #15
throwthisawayt wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait...there was a glass ceiling preventing Europeans from creating companies ?

Well, there were actual problems preventing people from creating companies. Such as the 10'000€ minimum assets that were required for an Ltd. in Germany until a few years ago. (The problem was basically: How do you handle a company going bankrupt? The legislators said that any company should always have enough assets to cover its liabilities. Obviously not compatible with the snowball-scheme based startup scene).

It's actually 25000 euros. This was somewhat fixed with the introduction of the mini-GmbH (GmbH - something like Ltd.), but a mini-GmbH comes with some extra strings attached, so it's still very far from a UK Ltd. or a US LLC in terms of ease of setting up.

This is indeed an obstacle to creating a company, but there are quite a few more, all having to do with just plain ol' bureaucracy (handling monthly tax reporting, interacting with the tax authorities, handling insurance, etc.) The previous issue of The Economist made a case that these bureaucratic problems are even bigger in Italy.

I've recently been kicking around the idea that it's kind of weird that some hard-hit places in the EU like Spain or Greece sport up to 50% unemployed young folks (18-35) - these people are highly educated, just out of college, eager to build/work and yet they are economically inactive. My theory is that this is because it's hard to set up any sort of business activity due to the bureaucracy. It's also socially discouraged because it's risky.

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