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What to care about in a job

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Re: What to care about in a job

#51

Post by dagw »

eikenberry wrote: post #21
expertentipp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A good manager would follow a bottom-up approach where he asks the team members what they need > An ineffective manager may enforce ridiculous deadlines coming from upper management This is not how it works in modern workplace. In large companies the pressure mechanism is delegated to a whole group of employees in the same place in the hierarchy - POs, PMs, Scrum masters, various process lunatics. In case of proble…

> In large companies... You could have stopped right there. In large companies the politics have firmly taken their place at the top of everything. And if you don't enjoy politics, they are terrible places to work and you should avoid them like the plague.

I've worked in places with 50 employees and places with 15k employees. The amount of politics was no different, and if anything where probably worse in the smaller companies.

Re: What to care about in a job

#52

Post by some_account »

thesimon wrote: post #33
some_account wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American culture seems to be incredibly bad for living a fulfilling life. Intelligent people on hacker news would do good to look at Sweden for a good balance between capitalism and socialism that actually works very well. Of course lately our politicians have allowed millions of immegrants to come in without having any sort of plan to give them jobs, so I expect Sweden to become pretty crap in the next 10 years. :)

Do you think the salary level reflects the high cost of living? 45k SEK pre-tax seems like a common figure, but appartments e.g. in Stockholm are around 12k SEK.

The rental market has crazy prices. You would be a lot better off to get a loan and buy an apartment in the outskirts of Stockholm. You need 15% cash to get a loan for an apartment, so if you buy a small one for 2 million Swedish SEK, you need to have 300 000 Swedish SEK to get the loan. That's about 30 000 dollars. But I'm not sure if foreign people can get loans from Swedish banks, need to check that out.

Re: What to care about in a job

#53

Post by some_account »

elgenie wrote: post #36
thesimon wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think the salary level reflects the high cost of living? 45k SEK pre-tax seems like a common figure, but appartments e.g. in Stockholm are around 12k SEK.

A $66k salary doesn't seem like enough to motivate someone from the US to uproot wholesale.

I make 3700 dollars per month after Swedish taxes, live in a big house 45 mins from work surrounded by beautiful nature, and pay about 400 dollars every month for the loan on the house. For me, that's a perfect life. More money than I need, and a great life / work balance since swedish culture is very relaxed and nobody counts hours at work. People work maybe 7 to 8 hours.

I should put up a web page with more and better info perhaps. You guys don't know what you are missing and there is a huge amount of tech jobs here. Stockholm is very hot in tech.

Re: What to care about in a job

#54

Post by eafkuor »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #13
eafkuor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's easy for many in our industry to get 200K+ salaries Where do I sign up?

Any non-startup tech company in the Bay Area should be paying at least this much if they're serious about hiring "top talent". That is the going rate these days for engineers / devops / sometimes designers / sometimes PMs.

Too bad I live in Poland :)

Re: What to care about in a job

#55

Post by oAlbe »

some_account wrote: post #53
elgenie wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A $66k salary doesn't seem like enough to motivate someone from the US to uproot wholesale.

I make 3700 dollars per month after Swedish taxes, live in a big house 45 mins from work surrounded by beautiful nature, and pay about 400 dollars every month for the loan on the house. For me, that's a perfect life. More money than I need, and a great life / work balance since swedish culture is very relaxed and nobody counts hours at work. People work maybe 7 to 8 hours. I should put up a web page with more and bet…

> I should put up a web page with more and better info perhaps.

Please do. Not only for the US people though, target it to EU too.

Re: What to care about in a job

#56

Post by indemnity »

Kurtz79 wrote: post #17
waytogo wrote: post #3

Wrong question, wrong perspective. Even the very best jobs where everything seems to be perfect still have significant setbacks because of the nature of a job: - Employees suffer from one single dependency which can make their live miserable—their manager; just compare: Entrepreneurs should be independent and build as many options as possible (e.g. not just one client but many) - A job locks you in, means all side ac…

"Getting jobs and being an employee has opportunities, it's easy for many in our industry to get 200K+ salaries" I wish we would stop repeating this, like it is some kind of universal truth. It might be easy for tech workers living in specific parts of the US, it is simply not true for the vast majority of their collegues in other parts of the world.

I’m not sure if Australia or New Zealand are special cases, but such compensation (in our currencies) isn’t outlandish.

200k USD is a bit high but in general our compensation in tech here is quite good as well.

I was frankly quite surprised when I compared incomes here to Canada/UK/mainland Europe, where one would be taking a 30-50% pay cut.

Re: What to care about in a job

#57

Post by vodkhang2 »

Seol wrote: post #14

I particularly like the "anti-priorities" section. You can't optimise for everything, and it's refreshing to see someone be upfront about the things which they're prepared to let be sub-optimal. Of course, it's important to read that section as "what I don't prioritise", not "what you shouldn't prioritise".

Yeah, I think everybody need to always think about what to say NO

Re: What to care about in a job

#59

Post by piva00 »

expertentipp wrote: post #27
some_account wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American culture seems to be incredibly bad for living a fulfilling life. Intelligent people on hacker news would do good to look at Sweden for a good balance between capitalism and socialism that actually works very well. Of course lately our politicians have allowed millions of immegrants to come in without having any sort of plan to give them jobs, so I expect Sweden to become pretty crap in the next 10 years. :)

Would intelligent people from HN do good in looking in Sweden for the sun, female partner, or an apartment for rent (in regions where there are professional opportunities)?

Sun? No, although summer here is amazing and bright and beautiful you'll have to live 3 months with the darkness (even here in Stockholm, wake up in the dark, go to work with the sun rising and get out of work in pitch dark when there's no snow).

Female partner? You can be lucky, sex is easy to come but relationships are much harder, there's a reason why "The Swedish Theory of Love" exists, people here are very autonomous, partnership is something very fluid and can crumble for things you'd probably linger more in other societies.

Apartment for rent... Well... I can definitely say this is not easy nor cheap.

Re: What to care about in a job

#60

Post by expertentipp »

dagw wrote: post #51
eikenberry wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In large companies... You could have stopped right there. In large companies the politics have firmly taken their place at the top of everything. And if you don't enjoy politics, they are terrible places to work and you should avoid them like the plague.

I've worked in places with 50 employees and places with 15k employees. The amount of politics was no different, and if anything where probably worse in the smaller companies.

People romanticize small workplaces. Cliques (e.g. most of the team transferred from a different company), little dictatorships, blurry private-professional life border, etc. - so many ways the things can go wrong and they oftentimes indeed do.
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