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The State of European Tech 2016

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Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#61

(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 have been actively avoiding London for years as I dislike the place. Likewise with the States.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#62
post #46
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the broad strokes of your comment, but I have some nitpicks. I think it's culture that's holding the European tech sector back. Investors in Europe are generally very risk-averse and anything that's less than 100 years old isn't really taken seriously. It's fascinating to see how the more neophile countries pull ahead of the rest; how much financial conservatism holds the economy back. When Germans inves…

> Many countries (Italy, Spain) don't have functioning stock markets at all. Is there some kind of irony in this comment that I am not getting? I mean, both countries have fully functioning stock markets. The main index for the Spanish stock market is IBEX35 and the Italian is the FTSE MIB.

They have stock exchanges, but ordinary companies don't list there. It's mostly just big banks and similar.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#63
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, my "self-employement" form was actually 8 pages long and it featured a lot more items than address, name, purpose and processing it took about 4 weeks. To be fair, I could start my business as soon as I sent that out, but I could not invoice clients until I got the reply, which included my new tax number. This is how it works in Germany. Add on top of that the mandatory monthly VAT tax reporting. That is a sign…

Here's the sole proprietorship form, it's actually one page: http://www.hamburg.de/Dibis/form/pdf/Formular-Gewerbeanmeldu... – but obviously it depends a lot on the individual circumstances (like the tax ID you need for cross-border transactions). VAT is annoying, but it's only monthly if you're above 120000 Euro or so. We've started only filling in our revenue (which I can get within a few seconds) and file the tax…

I had to fill out this form: "Fragebogen zur steuerlichen Erfassung" and I have to report my VAT using the Elster system monthly, even though my VAT is always 0 (my clients are all outside of the EU).

I went this way after consulting some other folks in Berlin and a tax consultant that I found myself. I'm kind of surprised that there's a different, easier way to go. Thanks for sharing the information.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

Peace of mind with healthcare isn't so much about one-off costs when you catch a nasty flu. What happens if you're unable to work for months/years due to a health issue? Will you be able to pay your expensive rent and other expenses without worries? Also you're a bit naive if you think raising kids will cost you only once they go to college. If you compare direct (daycare, preschool) and indirect (like moving to a go…

Then those (like rent, as I mentioned) are the much more compelling arguments.

If I'm unable to work for months, I'll have to draw down my emergency fund (probably move somewhere cheap to slow the burn rate). If in Europe I don't have to save for this, and can freely spend all of my paycheck, then that's a huge benefit. Ditto with retirement, which takes ~15% off the top of American salaries (unless you are irresponsible or in crisis so not saving for it).

Preschool is a valid point; moving to a good neighborhood is captured in rent.

I'm just saying healthcare and education aren't the interesting arguments. Housing costs and socialized savings plans are.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What company in NL pays 90k for new grads?

or senior devs

90k is attainable at Booking.com for a senior dev, but you have to be into Perl :) And I imagine that your total comp is pretty big at Uber too (at least on paper). Clearly not the norm in NL though.

It might be easier in hardware, I don't know how well ASML pays.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or senior devs

90k is attainable at Booking.com for a senior dev, but you have to be into Perl :) And I imagine that your total comp is pretty big at Uber too (at least on paper). Clearly not the norm in NL though. It might be easier in hardware, I don't know how well ASML pays.

Not really into Perl or into moving anywhere, but good to know. :)

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. I'd really like to hear more about how you see things if you've got the time.. I'm about to exit london for .de simply because of quality of life concerns; the 1000ft view I'm holding though is I'm pretty sure I'll be able to build a crew there which will have fun working on difficult problems, and hopefully even find a reasonable amount of 'stuff' to do (surely with internet access and some good staff picks tha…

I'm curious what this wild side is like. "letting your teams do whatever the hell they want as long as you're delivering" sounds like working remotely from a beach is common. Yet almost all job postings I see from companies in London are on site. Or does it mean I can leave work after six hours on very productive days?

Well, as it goes, as often as I'm able to (sometimes it takes a while to change the culture/gain enough trust to be left alone) I don't put any requirements at all on attendance/appearence/sanity/whatever as long as everything is being done and the team is performing. Nailed all the work for the day before 12:00 and want to hit up the pub -- how could any sane person stop you? Working remote makes you more productive and no one else on the team feels you're just slacking, then go for it.

It's not some intentional psychological ploy or anything, but I've found that people generally don't take the absolute piss if you let them manage themselves totally (we are all adults, after all, and who the hell am I to tell anyone how to handle themselves professionally as long as our obligations are being met)

Sure, everyone has to get together sometimes, but being onsite and having a normal lifestyle doesn't work for everyone, especially some of the 'top tier' engineers I've had who tend to be a bit wild.. Pushing 'school rules' on people just leads to them exiting, and it's no use kidding yourself that they need you more than you need them.

One of the best engineers I ever had had some sort of really insane drink/drugs lifestyle, he would drop commits in between 2-7am and they'd be brilliant, then he'd vanish for a few days, and repeat. Did I depend on this person completely for the whole project? No. But why should I care as long as no one else is annoyed by this behaviour on the team, and the work was solid?

I've never had someone actually emigrate during a role, but often people would go away for a few weeks and it wasn't a problem, again, as long as work is being done.

I'm not really sure why this isn't the case everywhere, but as long as my staff act like adults then they'll be treated as such. Onsite requirements are usually a symptom of a lack of trust or an insecure lead.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#69
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is my impression as well. My rate is currently around 445gbp/day for backend development in Berlin and it is far from being at the high end (according to a yearly survey run by gulp.de). My total monthly expenses including rent, health insurance, etc. are below 2k gbp. I do pay higher taxes though.

What's the situation like there with having your own business vs as things are here with a uk ltd company, or do you work via an umbrella corp?

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#70

(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

Not me. I have no interest in living and working in the US.

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