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Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

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Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#301

Post by lultimouomo »

asjw wrote: post #274
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity what do you do that earns you 100k in Italy if I may ask? Most Italians I met working in Austria and Germany left Italy because of low salaries and they're not making anything close to 100k here either. I've even met Italians who moved to Eastern Europe for higher tech salaries than back home so something doesn't add up.

That's a completely fair question. I'm a senior developer who works on distributed systems for one of the largest Italian private held financial institutions. To be completely honest I know almost nothing about finance, I just know how to make reliable software for them. I've been there for almost 4 years now, I started as a contractor but they offered a substantial yearly bonus to the base salary so I accepted the h…

Are the 100k before or after taxes and social security? That's quite impressive for an employee position in Italy, good for you!

If you can say, how would you judge the competency of the developers working for your company? From time to time I interact as an external contractor with developers from banks/insurances et similar and the average level of their IT has seemed quite lackluster to me.

In general I think sofware development in Italy suffers from a low-balling syndrome. Developers are not held in high esteem and are not paid much, so developer positions do not attract many capable and ambitious people - most either move to management positions as soon as possible, start contracting or move abroad.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#302

Post by jonahbenton »

Sometimes I play a game with myself where I read the HN comments first, then read the piece. It's like watching a game of telephone.

To my reading

a) lidl is NOT launching an AWS competitor, per se

b) this is all about the data and the power of the logistics platform

Amazon is heavy in the food business.

Amazon observes the use of any of its primitive services by any competitors to determine where growth is occurring, then goes and eats competitor business.

Lidl will not use AWS, wants its supply chain to not use AWS, and would prefer to have adjacent businesses use primitives (like distribution logistics) it makes available so it can observe and eat them when time is right.

Walmart already two years ahead in this game.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#303

Post by TurboHaskal »

_the_inflator wrote: post #289
paganel wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Salaries are off the charts Just to add another data point, Lidl is also the retailer that pays the best market salaries in the Eastern-European country where I live in (they actually included that in several of their hiring ads), and I'm talking about shop people like cashiers and the people that put things on the shelves. > They are getting into the car sales and recycle business as well. In here they've also ope…

German in Management here. This "Du/Sie" thing is a local shit test in Germany in my opinion. Comparable to what I experienced in strictly hierarchical enterprises like Sony US in the early 2010th, where at least one Senior Manager would only talk to an employee directly, instead only to her senior manager (same level BS). Informal is owning the workforce finally, it is on the rise, and you can use it as a shit detec…

I always struggled with this in Germany as a foreigner.

Coming from a country in which the so called formal form changed significantly in the last decades and is now reserved to people you don't want to get along with (that's how politicians refer to members of other parties, or how customer support starts to address you after you tell them that you want to quit the contract), I always ended up using the informal form, which translated into many funny stares.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#304

Post by neuronic »

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #288
neuronic wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the person doesn't know what they are talking about. Germans will never prefer Amazon over known local stores - it's already enough to be an American company these days. People know what that means and they don't want it. Wal-Mart completely crashed and burned in Germany and it already started at the weird greeting person at the entry. When Germans see this, the business is basically already bust. Keep the fa…

Lidl in .de forced that fake customer relation smile onto us too, and it didn't crash and burn for it. My (late) mother liked Walmart for it's watercooler. I have been only one time into a german one, because too impractical location for me, and when i wanted to check it out again (because soooo laaaarge) it was closed down. That bagging thing... don't know what to make of it, since we don't have it, but let me tell…

Then you are one of the better/nicer people you encounter in supermarkets but in general, fast bagging performance is an a social requirement when shopping at the grocery stores (far more relaxed at other stores).

Also, some juicy reading on Walmart in Germany: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/02/business/worldbusiness/02...

I noticed one more stark difference: many Germans don't own a car and apparently the large Walmarts often needed to be located at the edge of towns. Germans do more local, atomic grocery shopping around the corner and carry their stuff home by foot, bike, or public transport.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#305

Post by k__ »

benjohnson1707 wrote: post #96

Former Schwarz employee here: The company made SO much money in the past 4 decades with big box / discount retailing, you won't believe it. Salaries are off the charts (it would make senior software engineers in SV look pale). Hubris is as well. The only thing that drives reasoning are statements like 'we're not just some random company, we're Schwarz Group'. It's the poster child Corp described by Andy Gorves statem…

"skill level did not take off so much"

Big problem in German enterprise.

They don't have any IT skills, but much money and are constantly crying for "digital transformation" what usually only leads them to being conned by big consulting agencies.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#306

Post by delcaran »

zerr wrote: post #209
delcaran wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm. As senior software developer I made 25K EUR in 2019.

Why? Go get a remote job and triple the salary, to start with. Of course don't mention your current one. Seriously, go scan HN Who Is Hiring thread for remote jobs - for US or Swiss companies, don't bill below six-figure. For German companies, aim high five-figure. Do it now.

> Why?

I used to like this job. I was looking for a new one but COVID-19 happened.

As for the remote job, I currently work 6:30-17:00 with 45 minutes of commute, and the work environment is exausting. I don't think I could handle another job.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#307

Post by fock »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #269
fock wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in Munich: starting salaries with a masters are 55-60k€ (before tax!) at average car related companies (even for non-CS-grads doing SWE with a physics/math background), 60-70k€ at the actual car companies. Social sciences/other jobs with masters: 42-50k€, below that with a bachelors/apprenticeship. Independent of the education in IT you should be able to reach 50k after 5 years (excluding grunt work) and 80k with a m…

Why can't non Germans get hired at those salaries in car or electronics companies?

they can of course (and are), but there are still a lot of underpaid jobs (compared to cost of lving) out there (and these companies are not going out business strangely, so they seem to find labor). Basically for a german it doesn't make a lot of sense to take a job, where you will be having the life of a barkeeper in Berlin (e.g. hustling through at <50k€) - and frankly, these jobs exist and they find employees, so imho this is mainly people "wanting to live in Germany" (at whatever the social cost)

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#308

Post by asynch8 »

lowercased wrote: post #240

Someone else mentioned 'hubris' here. We had a Lidl open up near us 2 years ago (in the US) - generally good store with good prices. Nice size. We were looking forward to more. We saw where they'd opened some of their stores, and couldn't figure out the justification - some locations just seemed odd. Read a few months later that they were 'scaling back' US development, and new build stores would be about half the siz…

Lidl's MO is focusing more on being cost-effective for both the consumer and themselves rather than the brands

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#309

Post by [deleted] »

BLanen wrote: post #139
montenegrohugo wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't they have the same situation with LIDL? LIDL is also a (very) successful retailer, other retailers would have little incentive of helping them make more money. Also, I'm quite surprised about this announcement. I knew LIDL was in a really good position, but to attempt to compete in the cloud market is impressive. Good luck to them.

Amazon sells everything. Schwarz group doesn't. Most products won't compete with them.

[deleted]

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#310

Post by tyingq »

jonahbenton wrote: post #302

Sometimes I play a game with myself where I read the HN comments first, then read the piece. It's like watching a game of telephone. To my reading a) lidl is NOT launching an AWS competitor, per se b) this is all about the data and the power of the logistics platform Amazon is heavy in the food business. Amazon observes the use of any of its primitive services by any competitors to determine where growth is occurring…

"It's like watching a game of telephone"

It's not really a mismatch of the comments and article though. The title of the article is "Lidl owner launching its own rival to Amazon Web Services". And the body says things like "While Schwarz IT intends to use Europe’s enhanced data protection laws as a key differentiator to Amazon’s dominant service".

So perhaps you're right about the true purpose, but the article is claiming otherwise.

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