Rent in Zurich is $4000 a month and that as an advantage? Is that a joke? Many workers in Switzerland commute daily from foreign countries to save money.
Switzerland vs Silicon Valley for Software Developers
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Re: Switzerland vs Silicon Valley for Software Developers
#22I'm an American expat in Switzerland working as an independent software developer and startup founder. I can agree with a lot of the points listed in the article, but they apply universally to almost all jobs (not just to software developers). I would raise a few points it doesn't mention: - Negatively, it is much harder to find meetups close to you that apply to you. Unless you're based in Zürich (the tech hub of th…
1. How easy/difficult to get Switzerland citizenship if you live and work there? 2. How popular is English language is in Switzerland IT companies?
Citizenship is relatively hard: you have to be a resident for 12+ years to start the process. A lot of people never bother - a long term residency permit ("C") is almost as good, but you don't vote and do not have military duties.
Everybody speaks English; I know a number of people in Zürich who never bothered to learn German, as there is a large expat community and everything is multi-lingual.
Re: Switzerland vs Silicon Valley for Software Developers
#23I'm an American expat in Switzerland working as an independent software developer and startup founder. I can agree with a lot of the points listed in the article, but they apply universally to almost all jobs (not just to software developers). I would raise a few points it doesn't mention: - Negatively, it is much harder to find meetups close to you that apply to you. Unless you're based in Zürich (the tech hub of th…
Are there 95-100% remote jobs?
Re: Switzerland vs Silicon Valley for Software Developers
#24I'm an American expat in Switzerland working as an independent software developer and startup founder. I can agree with a lot of the points listed in the article, but they apply universally to almost all jobs (not just to software developers). I would raise a few points it doesn't mention: - Negatively, it is much harder to find meetups close to you that apply to you. Unless you're based in Zürich (the tech hub of th…
1. How easy/difficult to get Switzerland citizenship if you live and work there? 2. How popular is English language is in Switzerland IT companies?
1. (See above answer as well.) It's definitely difficult if you don't have a familial connections. Once you get in, though, it's pretty easy to stay and if you stay for 10+ years, you can get citizenship fairly easily.
2. It is mixed. I've had local interviews in (high) German but they were comfortable enough to switch to English if needed. Most jobs list proficiency in English + German as a requirement.
Re: Switzerland vs Silicon Valley for Software Developers
#25Go to Spain, same salary, free healthcare, better quality of life, better weather, no crunch culture, better social life (good luck making new friends on Switzerland), less taxes and the last nobel prize of literature was inspired meanwhile lived here like many others.
Re: Switzerland vs Silicon Valley for Software Developers
#26Cons: no Sun and the salaries seem to be capped at CHF 120-140K. Has that old school European mindset that managers and MBAs should be paid more than individual contributors, engineers.
Not only does Switzerland have a Sun, it has the same Sun as California, just on a slightly different schedule.
Like appearing once every 6 months
Re: Switzerland vs Silicon Valley for Software Developers
#27Cons: no Sun and the salaries seem to be capped at CHF 120-140K. Has that old school European mindset that managers and MBAs should be paid more than individual contributors, engineers.
They still have the highest salaries in Europe. Anybody moving there from another European country would see those salaries as pretty awesome. I don't care what managers and MBA-s make until I can make an awesome living. I'm not more special.
Also most expensive place to live in europe
Re: Switzerland vs Silicon Valley for Software Developers
#28The founder of Autodesk, John Walker, has written extensively on this topic since moving to Switzerland decades ago.
Re: Switzerland vs Silicon Valley for Software Developers
#29Re: Switzerland vs Silicon Valley for Software Developers
#30I'm an American expat in Switzerland working as an independent software developer and startup founder. I can agree with a lot of the points listed in the article, but they apply universally to almost all jobs (not just to software developers). I would raise a few points it doesn't mention: - Negatively, it is much harder to find meetups close to you that apply to you. Unless you're based in Zürich (the tech hub of th…
1. How easy/difficult to get Switzerland citizenship if you live and work there? 2. How popular is English language is in Switzerland IT companies?
I can comment on 2 as a swiss developer: It depends. While it might not be the prevalent spoken language, all small companies and startups i worked at so far had code comments, commit messages and issue tracker stories in english. The larger, more estabilished companies had most text in german. But everybody is willing to switch to spoken english in my experience.