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The last days of Silicon Roundabout

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Re: The last days of Silicon Roundabout

#91

Post by jlarcombe »

cosmodisk wrote: post #32
dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kings Cross is a bizarre no man’s land where it’s hyper gentrified in some ways but also a shitty void with fuck all going on. Bizarre place that experienced 30 years worth of development in 5.

It is a strange place indeed but its development is almost a blueprint for many others in the capital: previously shitty, ran down places being converted into very expensive areas,yet they aren't very livable. I mean what one is supposed to do when they leave their flats that are minutes walk from King's Cross?

Go for a walk along the canal...

I enjoyed working in Kings Cross for a year or so, but it is a slightly odd place. There are some nice small pubs and restaurants etc (better than the ones near Old Street, though less numerous) and loads of great concerts at Kings Place. The whole railway lands development area is weird but if you avoid that then it's quite good.

Re: The last days of Silicon Roundabout

#92

Post by erdo »

refurb wrote: post #87
erdo wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe you're not paying close enough attention. A few tiny examples: Texas, a state larger than the UK, just became a state where any resident can sue anyone else that helps someone access an abortion after about 6 weeks of pregnancy (before a lot of people know they are pregnant) regardless of rape or incest and win up to $10,000 for doing so. States all over the country are busy banning voting on a Sunday becaus…

If you think what you read online or see in the media isn't filtered to get the exact response you're demonstrating now, you're being fooled. I'd invite you to turn off the computer, put down your phone and go out and enjoy life.

I don't really know what you mean, those are just facts, among many that exist whether I read about them or not. And American politics is fascinating to me, so I enjoy it.

American democracy is not out of the woods just because Bidden won, he has a healthy popular vote majority, but wafer thin control of the Senate. The two Democrat senators currently blocking reforms are from Republican leaning states so they're motivations are not typical for straight Democrats. Things very much hang in the balance at the moment. Republicans are busy gerrymandering their districts, so we could soon be back to Republican control of the House despite solid popular vote majorities for Democrats, at which point we can probably kiss goodbye to the US leading the world against climate change regardless of who's president.

Can I assume, that you don't know any of this because you enjoy "turning off your computer"? Then why comment about something you deliberately avoid learning about?

Re: The last days of Silicon Roundabout

#93

Post by kingosticks »

refurb wrote: post #78
erdo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally speaking (and I say this as a Brit who really likes the US, and Americans in general whenever I meet them). I haven't tried to move to the US because of the slightly distasteful situation in terms of education, healthcare and social security, car dependence, weirdly low holiday allowance, Foxnews, QAnon, an alarming gun lobby, and the current republican party in general is quite quite shocking to me in it'…

Methinks your view of the US is way too based on what you read/watch on the internet. It’s no different than the UK. I could say I don’t want to live there because of rampant alcohol abuse, random crime in London, racial strife from refugees, crazy politicians, insane media who focus too much on some old family with crowns. But I know that’s not an accurate representation of the UK.

You dont want to live in the UK because the media obsession with the Royal Family?! That's hardly in the same category as the GP's concerns.

Re: The last days of Silicon Roundabout

#94

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

erdo wrote: post #39
lostdog wrote: post #17

Everything I read on the internet suggests that UK tech salaries are extremely low, and that the profession has a low level of respect overall. I have many many foreign or first generation immigrant coworkers, but almost no one British. I'm surprised, because there's no language barrier and a minimal cultural barrier, but still the vast majority of my coworkers are from places that are much harder to immigrate from.…

Personally speaking (and I say this as a Brit who really likes the US, and Americans in general whenever I meet them). I haven't tried to move to the US because of the slightly distasteful situation in terms of education, healthcare and social security, car dependence, weirdly low holiday allowance, Foxnews, QAnon, an alarming gun lobby, and the current republican party in general is quite quite shocking to me in it'…

I moved from the UK to the US 32 years ago (as a developer).

The most important thing to understand about actual life here is that while all the things you mention are true, real aspects of the USA, they are not necessarily notable aspects of your own day to day life here.

The US is enormously varied in terms of climate, geography, political inclinations, cost of living, and public provisioning. By choosing somewhat carefully, you can find yourself in a situation that either stares your list in the face, or makes it seem like a distant roar somewhere far over the horizon. A couple of years ago, I moved from Philadelphia (after 23 years there) to a small village in NM. This is a far greater change in my way of life and my experience of life than moving from the UK to the US ever was.

It is true that in the US you are essentially forced into more self-reliance for a number of aspects of your own well-being in a way that seems crazy from a UK/EU perspective. Most developers will do well enough to not suffer dramatically from this "design", but the question of other's suffering under it may come up, as might bad luck.

Re: The last days of Silicon Roundabout

#96

Post by andresp »

lostdog wrote: post #17

Everything I read on the internet suggests that UK tech salaries are extremely low, and that the profession has a low level of respect overall. I have many many foreign or first generation immigrant coworkers, but almost no one British. I'm surprised, because there's no language barrier and a minimal cultural barrier, but still the vast majority of my coworkers are from places that are much harder to immigrate from.…

I would have to get a 5x+ opportunity to consider leaving London for the US and I am not even British. I think you have an idea of American exceptionalism which is not really shared by most people in Europe.

Re: The last days of Silicon Roundabout

#97

Post by tiew9Vii »

glenngillen wrote: post #90
tiew9Vii wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you doing out of curiosity? I see lots of frontend React jobs, bunch of NodeJS jobs then lots of Python/Spark jobs. Full-time probably around $150-160k average or contracting $1k a day. Outside of that I see C# or Java using Spring Boot for I don't mind Java but the stuff out here I have done and used is so meh, Spring for everything when there's so much more than Spring. Java 17 was released last week and h…

I might be reading more into you brief analysis than I should, but one interpretation I could make from what you just said is: - there’s a bunch of companies that are using technologies that are a decade or more old, doing work that seems like it was maybe relevant and exciting a decade ago, and they are paying toward the lower end of the market - there are companies using newer technologies/more modern problems, pay…

Don't get me wrong I like paying with technologies, especially keeping up to date. In fact as a consultant that's why I'm brought in, to deliver the new thing the org doesn't yet have experience with. My list and breadth of experience is more than most from the CV's i've seen and the roles I perform going in as a consultant to some very large company's. In most cases up until recently due to job market shift I've been an early user. I've worked across frontend, backend and platform/devops for large flagship brand names and at a smaller scale and i've worked across all three in depth not just touching on them

The re-skilling for me to get employment with a good salary/maintain current salary from my point of view is to do what I was doing 10-15 years ago as a junior. So it's not re-skilling, I know and use/have used these things, it's lowering my expectations on the type of work i'm doing. Meanwhile I'm still on some UK agencies dial lists and there's a bunch of jobs i'd snap up and say yes to instantly. Same for jobs I see in the EU and US. Remote is an option but the timezones are pretty bad for AU, I have a friend who has ended up working overnight for a US company.

Re: The last days of Silicon Roundabout

#98

Post by test1235 »

michaelt wrote: post #38
lostdog wrote: post #17

Everything I read on the internet suggests that UK tech salaries are extremely low, and that the profession has a low level of respect overall. I have many many foreign or first generation immigrant coworkers, but almost no one British. I'm surprised, because there's no language barrier and a minimal cultural barrier, but still the vast majority of my coworkers are from places that are much harder to immigrate from.…

> If any UKites have made it to this thread, is be curious to hear why so few people leave for countries with a stronger and higher paying tech sector? First of all, working in tech in the UK you can make $130,000 which is 3-4x the median annual salary. Very few Brits would describe that is "extremely low". That's enough money to have a few kids, a wife who doesn't work, and a pretty decent lifestyle. Why move a 10-h…

To weigh in with an alternative viewpoint, as a pretty average not-even-ftse250-never-mind-faang developer, I've seen typical .net dev salaries hover around £40k/£50k for the past 10 years now even around London.

Re: The last days of Silicon Roundabout

#99

Post by piker »

cameronh90 wrote: post #59
lostdog wrote: post #17

Everything I read on the internet suggests that UK tech salaries are extremely low, and that the profession has a low level of respect overall. I have many many foreign or first generation immigrant coworkers, but almost no one British. I'm surprised, because there's no language barrier and a minimal cultural barrier, but still the vast majority of my coworkers are from places that are much harder to immigrate from.…

Extremely low? Not as high as SF, sure, but easily top 5% for the country after a few years experience. Salary aside, many people find life a lot more enjoyable here. I know plenty of people who've worked for a period in the US and come back, as well as myself having done a stint for a US company for a while. US corporate working culture is rather different to here. Here, if you don't take 4+ weeks holiday, your mana…

> US corporate working culture is rather different to here. Here, if you don't take 4+ weeks holiday, your manager will have a word with you for working too much. Complaining about being back at work after a holiday is expected. At the end of the day, you log off and go home, and you don't think about work again until the next morning except in exceptional cases. Everyone knows and accepts that work is work, not the point of your life. 3PM Friday drinks is still a part of the culture in many companies, as is knocking off early on a nice day and going to the pub.

This is a classic view in London's legal industry. In truth, solicitors in London work as hard as New York corporate lawyers and earn 25%-33% of the pay. Yes, they do tend to take more vacation days and don't have to pay for health insurance, but the health insurance component is made up for taxes and otherwise vacation days are about the only difference.

Re: The last days of Silicon Roundabout

#100

Post by wdb »

Computeiful wrote: post #24
lostdog wrote: post #17

Everything I read on the internet suggests that UK tech salaries are extremely low, and that the profession has a low level of respect overall. I have many many foreign or first generation immigrant coworkers, but almost no one British. I'm surprised, because there's no language barrier and a minimal cultural barrier, but still the vast majority of my coworkers are from places that are much harder to immigrate from.…

UKite here, active in the London fintech scene. Everything I say is based purely on my perception of the situation. Anecdotally, I see more people in this sector moving to places such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand than to the USA. I think there is a perception here that while salaries might be higher in the USA, there are hidden costs both financially and socially (such as health insurance payments, getting to…

That's true and the need to be able to drive a car is also a hard stop to move to the USA. I had a job offer but they wanted me to move from the UK to the US.

I didn't get the feeling you can live in the US without a car. Public transport is non-existent or very limited. Maybe my picture of the US or California is wrong

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