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Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

politico.eu

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Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#271

Post by f6v »

clappski wrote: post #260
cosmodisk wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today I was looking at some job ads for mid-senior devs in London. £50K and 200+ applicants. And then it says:fruits, free parking, private healthcare after 1 year.. And this suppose to be the tech center of Europe..

That's pretty average for dev jobs in commercial enterprises in London (e.g. working for a B2C). In the UK, the big money for developers is in finance (either at a bank, or prop trading, or insurance, or gambling, etc). If you want a shock have a look at the wages in some of the surrounding areas (e.g. Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire) - you'll be lucky to break 40k£, even if your skill set is very specific to what is re…

> due to a lot of American businesses having satillite offices here

Transfer becomes easy then.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#272

Post by joelbluminator »

cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #258
joelbluminator wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are "a joke" because you're comparing them to the U.S. If you compared them to Japan / Australia / Canada let alone to the developing world they are great. Immigration to the U.S never was and probably never will be easy and the education there isn't affordable. Also, the work culture would be quite a shock for an European. Some people will always try to gain a "better future" , I don't see big numbers leaving G…

>If you compared them to Japan / Australia / Canada Can't speak for Japan, but the tech salaries in the big cities in Australia and Canada are far more competitive than those in Europe. The European tech industry is an absolute joke overall, and I say this as a European. It would take an utterly massive overhaul to correct without relying on outright Chinese-style protectionism, and as more companies move remote and…

Not according to most surveys I saw https://qubit-labs.com/average-software-developer-salaries-s... . Australia is just like Germany or west europe in general. The big payers are U.S and Switzerland

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#273

Post by mardifoufs »

cosmodisk wrote: post #231
Nextgrid wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any reason why the engineers from poorer countries will emigrate to France instead of the better-paying countries?

1) Closer to home country. 2) No visa needed. 3) Less anti-immigrant rhetoric. 4) Better work/life balance. 5) Free healthcare. If 10 years ago there were predominantly outfits servicing larger US/UK/Scandinavia companies, now it's shifting towards building their own products/services. Basically the guys learned how to do it and not they start spreading the wings. The only thing missing in Europe is active and mature…

Less anti-immigrant rhetoric... In France?

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#274

Post by f6v »

jlangenauer wrote: post #268
thecleaner wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech salaries in Europe really are a joke. Even American companies don't pay well here because why would they, the market itself sucks. Combine that with easy immigration to US for Europeans and good affordable education it seems unlikely that talented people would choose to stay here. Part of the reason is the old money in this ecosystem. The problem with digitization in Germany specifically is that our paperwork is…

Despite what you may think, there isn't some nefarious conspiracy keeping tech salaries low in Europe. It's that this is where the market is, an equilibrium between supply and demand for engineers. It's precisely the same reason that salaries in certain US markets are so high: FAANG don't pay high salaries because they have fundamentally decided that engineers should be paid X amount, nor because someone has read Mar…

> It's that this is where the market is

However, that also means software engineers don't create that much value. I've been hiring developers myself, it takes half a year to get a senior engineer, even with extremely relaxed immigration laws like in Germany, just due to shortage. It's a weird paradox. If companies had enough money, I'd imagine SV engineers jumping on a plane to Berlin right away.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#275

Post by 4636760295 »

heipei wrote: post #164

As a German who's been exclusively working in the US tech space for the past few years, there's so many anecdotes that come to mind to highlight how far behind the old world is, both in tech as in spirit: - Article about Gaia-X in major German newspaper FAZ explained that on AWS you can spin up your own infrastructure, "sometimes even without talking to anyone from sales", from your home! - When I tried to read or wa…

As a counter point, I have seen technology adopted in the EU in ways that the US has lagged far, far behind. Probably the best example of this is chip & PIN for credit cards. In the US we finally have chips, but still no PIN.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#276

Post by sitkack »

viraptor wrote: post #264
joelbluminator wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The talent is there, the money could be there if Europeans governments take it seriously, so why not? What's stopping EU from building an AWS equivalent? It's not rocket science. If Europe could come up with companies like ASML which are at the top of chip engineering, they can definitely build software infrastructure. Some of your points ring true but A) What used to be doesn't mean it will always be B) U.S has it's…

> What's stopping EU from building an AWS equivalent? Years of experience running their own massive platform before entering the market of renting those services to others? > they can definitely build software So can OVH and Rackspace. So why would this project take off better than those established companies? Don't get me wrong, I'll be cheering this to succeed, but how is this effort different?

Cern has more than enough folks that have run systems that are harder to run cloud scale compute.

Even if running a DC is rocket science (it isn't), it is no particle physics.

The EU should absolutely have its own homegrown tech stack, from silicon to billing. I'd start with an EU run internet backbone and federated object storage in each member state.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#277

Post by mark_l_watson »

I wish them good luck. I think that right now the US and China really have a lock on cloud and AI.

Europe has lead the world in user privacy and rights, so I hope they can leverage that and bake human rights into their systems. Hetzner is a very good cloud provider. I would use them exclusively if it were not for the tiny latency lag between the SouthWest USA (where I live) and Germany.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#278

Post by joelbluminator »

9q9 wrote: post #173
Udik wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely: as a European, I find these projects pathetic. We need the humility to learn something from the US and create an environment and a framework in which private companies can thrive, instead of being constantly dragged down by bureaucracy, regulations, and a legal-judiciary system eager not to help but to assert its power.

In terms of innovation in semiconductors, should also learn from the success of China, South Korea, Taiwan!

well ASML is plenty successful

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#279

Post by ThePhysicist »

Tomte wrote: post #44
zoobab wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strangely enough, the same both SAP and Deutsche Telekom doing the german Corona app.

What's strange about it? SAP and T-Systems are by far the largest IT consulting shops in Germany. Of course they get almost every huge contract. Now, I agree that a more diverse landscape in that industry would be preferable, but feigning surprise is not helping one bit.

The Swiss app is developed by a small independent development studio, and for what it's worth they seem to be doing a better and faster job than SAP & Telekom:

https://www.ubique.ch/index.html

I know for a fact that there was no formal tender process, it was just a matter of having the right contacts and being at the right place. Sadly connections still matter much more than experience in Germany.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#280

Post by jlangenauer »

f6v wrote: post #274
jlangenauer wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite what you may think, there isn't some nefarious conspiracy keeping tech salaries low in Europe. It's that this is where the market is, an equilibrium between supply and demand for engineers. It's precisely the same reason that salaries in certain US markets are so high: FAANG don't pay high salaries because they have fundamentally decided that engineers should be paid X amount, nor because someone has read Mar…

> It's that this is where the market is However, that also means software engineers don't create that much value. I've been hiring developers myself, it takes half a year to get a senior engineer, even with extremely relaxed immigration laws like in Germany, just due to shortage. It's a weird paradox. If companies had enough money, I'd imagine SV engineers jumping on a plane to Berlin right away.

Maybe. I was the CTO of a startup in Berlin until about 18 months ago, and built a engineering team of 13 people. There was certainly competition for engineers, but it never took 6 months to get someone on board[1]. That said, there was definite wage inflation being driven by that competition (at least in Berlin), but it still topped out at around EUR 80k (2 years ago, it may be higher now).

I accept that the Berlin expat market is also a little bit different, where 3 month notice periods aren't insisted upon, and companies know how to move fast. The situation in the Mittelstand software industry could be very different for all I know.

[1] The exception to this, for me, was DevOps, which took so long to hire for that we ended up developing a strong enough in-house capacity that we no longer needed them. Engineering management was also difficult to find.

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