341–350 of 507 posts
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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.
Chip and pin hs been broken for 20 years, its security theatre.
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But we are super proud of coining Industrie 4.0, so, that's something. It would be wonderful to see more free and open innovation and investment in a couple of bleeding-edge tech centers in Germany. A lot of the big internationals are in Munich and Berlin is slowly growing steam for startups, but it's a disappointment to me that there's so many Germans with so much wealth prime for investment and creating a culture o…
"But we are super proud of coining Industrie 4.0, so, that's something." Regarding Industrie 4.0: Currently at a client of mine, a "hidden champion" i.e. world market leader in industry XYZ (1.6B in revenue), I'm struggling to have them migrate from Cobol to Java. They are using their versioning system as a backup for their data, not for versioning the code. Deployments are done via dragging a zip file somewhere. Eve…
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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?
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>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…
Be careful what you wish for: if we move towards a genuine globally-integrated tech market, where work can be done from anywhere, then companies might start asking the complementary question: "why would I, as a company, pay US-level (or even EU-level) salaries when I could hire someone from Russia or India or the Phillippines for much cheaper?" That particular knife cuts both ways.
What seems to work: Geographically distributed but autonomous product-dev centers, with remote workers aligned within a certain timezone.
What doesn't seem to work: Outsourcing pure dev work to timezones with no overlap.
I don't believe the above will change even if things become more remote-friendly. Perhaps we'll see more dev centers pop up to service the needs / wants / cultural or language asynchronicity of a given region, but that would lend more toward expansion than cost reduction. This also resonates with the approaches being discussed that I've read and heard first hand from company leaders during COVID.
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But then why hasn't France been invaded by US companies to hire these great engineers for half of SV money? I know they have some small offices on campus at top universities where they employ a hand full of PhDs for ML/AI research but that's a drop in the ocean.
Can't speak for France but London's tech scene is brimming with overseas offices of American companies. Out of my 5 tech jobs, 3 were with American companies, the other 2 being British.
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I think you did not get the purpose of the project and its context. 1. What should we copy ? We already have cloud companies in Europe. The issue is not about a lack of knowledge about cloud technologies. It is a matter of market share. Our companies are not big enough to provide adequate services to european states and sensitive industries. 2. The goal is not to create from scratch a European cloud giant that would…
True, I don't think we need to copy the technology: that is probably easily available, you just need good engineers and money. The problem is exactly the second you mention: why is it that EU companies don't have the market share that US ones have? Why are our companies not big enough? What prevents entrepreneurs in Europe from creating tech giants such as the US ones? These are the things we need to copy- not the te…
They created the Cloud and we arrived late on this market, so we lag, therefore our companies are not big enough. This FR-GER initiative will secure market shares for european actors, in order they can grow enough to provide a sovereign platform for EU companies which need it.
> Are you going to force EU companies to choose a EU cloud provider, even when they would have preferred a US one?
All defense/sensitive/state owned companies, administration and maybe banking companies will not have the choice as they must comply to EU or national rules about data management. And I guess many european companies competiting with US and Chinese ones in highly competitive markets where bleeding edge techs and secrecy matter are looking for sovereign European solutions.
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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? 1. Culture, tradition, apathy, risk-averseness 2. Regulations
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…
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…
I worked for a multi-national in Berlin; heading a team of 40 internals and another 40 externals, the latter mostly in Ukraine.
As a director I saw the salaries of everyone working under other directors under the same VP. Including the teams in Chicago and San Diego. Salaries were maybe 10-15% lower in Berlin.
We regularly swapped developers around. Usually for six months. People from both CA & IL that came to live in Berlin with their families were always overwhelmed about quality of life in here. Particularly the food. Well, then they fly to Italy over the weekend (affordable, with their spouse & kids, mind you) and they are completely blown away.
If you look at net salary and what it buys you, quality of life, quality of food, healthcare, rent, 20 days/y of paid holidays (+12 paid public holidays in Berlin, more if you live in a state with a Catholic majority ofc.), 6 months (unpaid) unconditional sabbatical after you complete five years with that company, job security because of German laws. The list goes on.
On these measures the US sucks compared to most of Europe. Compared to Germany for sure.
I pay 1,250 EUR/month for a bright, 1075 sqft apartment in the very center of Berlin. The city surely is one of the cheapest capitals in Europe but still.
From my friends in SF or Boston who work in tech, earn more (gross) than me and who visit me from time to time I always hear they're jealous about the quality of life we have here.
I was an expat for 15 years working in India, Australia, Asia and the UK. During the last five years I was on business trips to the US every 2-3 months. Affordable food sucks, good food will cost you $$$ and you can't get it just in any supermarket like here.
I have only one body. What do I care if I make 30% more and live 10 years less to enjoy it?
Being back on the continent for another decade now I know I made the right decision. The only country I lived in with comparable quality of life in many aspects (and even better health care) is Japan.
Finally, in software location is a non issue when you want to start a business. You can shop for money anywhere and you can set up the business where it is convenient, e.g. for tax reasons or access to investors.
I had a software company in Hong Kong seven years ago. I was in Europe most of the time. The team was from all over the planet.
My experience is that if investors want to meet f2f they actually love if you're in Europe as they have an excuse to fly there and meet you.
One of my best friends who's Mexican co-heads a big home delivery SaaS that is growing at crazy pace. He bought a flat here. His workplace is a modest desk in a rather mediocre co-working space in the center of Berlin.
He also bought a flat in Austin, TX. But he only goes there maybe for one month/year. Because ... quality of life. It trumps salaries every time ... if you have understood what it truly means to be human.
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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…
It's funny that when Europe is mentioned, many people think "Germany". Ask Italians about their tech salaries, I've been told people are happy with 2.5k as a senior developer there...
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We had a funny situation with a fax couple of years ago.My bosses were opening a new company and because of some situation in the bank,they did request to fax the paperwork to them(email not safe, f2f wasn't an option).I asked my manager how is he going to do it,as he seemed quite puzzled. Eventually,he found one dumped behind all the cleaning equipment in the office. Dusted it off and managed to fax it somehow.This…
Faxes are "signature-proof" for contracts. Scanned documents in an email are not. That's the law being broken. Not the tech.