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The last days of Silicon Roundabout

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Re: The last days of Silicon Roundabout

#131

Post by stillworks »

iso1210 wrote: post #124
stillworks wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying this at the risk of being downvoted but don't really care as I feel I have to let it out. The U.K. healthcare system is the lowest level of medical service possible being made available with tax payers' contribution. The highest tax rate contributors as a result are getting the worst possible service. And most of such high rate tax payers either get some kind of medical insurance from their employer OR they en…

> The U.K. healthcare system is the lowest level of medical service possible being made available with tax payers' contribution. Rubbish. International studies stick the UK health system high up, and typically far higher than the US system. On top of that if you're that bothered you can pay for private health care, which typically costs less than £1k a year. > People call out the U.S. health services being astronomic…

> The U.K. healthcare system is the lowest level of medical service possible being made available with tax payers' contribution. > >Rubbish.

Nice way to start :)

>> International studies stick the UK health system high up, and typically far higher than the US system. On top of that if you're that bothered you can pay for private health care, which typically costs less than £1k a year.

Totally understand and aware that I can spend more money on top of the taxes I pay towards the N.H.S.. What made you think I didn't have the faculties to grasp that fact ?

If you read well, then read again... The U.K. healthcare system is the lowest level of medical service possible being made available (to the people in U.K.)

>The US spends three times as much on healthcare than the UK, over twice as much as western european countries like Germany, Brelgium, France etc What is the point here ? U.K. should start spending even more ? Oh well more taxes are coming anyways now that Covid is here.

>For our first child we had prenatal classes, they were free. Didn't bother for the second, but they were available. Plenty of standard hospital checkups. Maybe you live in area which has less population density. My personal experience with the N.H.S is unforgettable (in a bad way)

Re: The last days of Silicon Roundabout

#132

Post by cameronh90 »

piker wrote: post #99
cameronh90 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

For me, holiday days are a BIG deal. If company policy allows me to take 6 weeks off without people getting upset, I would happily take a 2/3rd pay cut over the same with 2 weeks off. Of course, if the company allows unpaid leave that's fine, but US companies tend to get bothered if you actually take decent amounts of time off (even in the UK).

What's the point of living just to work?

Re: The last days of Silicon Roundabout

#133

Post by piker »

cameronh90 wrote: post #132
piker wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

For me, holiday days are a BIG deal. If company policy allows me to take 6 weeks off without people getting upset, I would happily take a 2/3rd pay cut over the same with 2 weeks off. Of course, if the company allows unpaid leave that's fine, but US companies tend to get bothered if you actually take decent amounts of time off (even in the UK). What's the point of living just to work?

Retire 3x earlier?

Re: The last days of Silicon Roundabout

#134

Post by ben_w »

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’m a British citizen who moved to Berlin.

My move was partly because of the Investigatory Powers Act, partly because of Brexit.

I considered several countries, including the USA, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand. My reasons for rejecting the USA were a mixture of political and economic: even the Democrats are uncomfortably right-wing for me; I place a negative value on the 2nd amendment; I would rather walk or cycle than have a car; the legal minimum paid holiday in the EU is 4 weeks[0], plus public holidays, plus (this might just be Germany IDK) paid sick leave and paid compassionate leave and (not that this has yet happened but it is on my bucket list) an enormous amount of paid parental leave; the American healthcare system is terrifying (I am currently getting adverts on Facebook to crowdfund some American strangers’ care, not even sure why I see that ad); every anecdote about American cops (even the experiences of people I know personally) has been negative.

I do like several of the things America has done — Big tech, everything NASA — and there is appeal in both the higher salaries and better weather the Bay Area has compared to both the UK and Berlin, and I severely underestimated the difficulty of learning German, but given the nature of my political rejection of the UK is such that even Democrats in control of every branch of DC would still be marginal for me, Trump winning (and on a platform that denigrated migrants, a category I became a member of the moment I left the UK) totally eliminated it.

[0] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX...

Edit:

Forgot to mention: when actually visiting the US on four separate one-month visits, I was repeatedly shocked by poor tech adoption, poor quality housing, and the high cost of healthy food options even in supermarkets.

Re: The last days of Silicon Roundabout

#135

Post by refurb »

erdo wrote: post #92
refurb wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mot…

Your “facts” are actually carefully shaped narratives that come out of the shouting on social media and are based on a typically shallow understanding of the key issues and more based on sound bites than a carefully thought out belief structure.

The US seems like it’s unstable because that’s what gets clicks.

You can go back to any decade in the past 200 years and find outrageous “the sky is falling narratives”. Now is no different.

Re: The last days of Silicon Roundabout

#136

Post by flooow »

zimpenfish wrote: post #74
cameronh90 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FAANG in London will pay a lot more than £100k too, but parent specifically asked for outside of FAANG. Also there are a lot of fintechs (or pure finance) that will pay more than that. I'd say after about £160k you're going to struggle without moving into some kind of management type of position, though, if you're not at a FAANG or extremely well funded startup. Also bay area COL is substantially higher than London.…

> after about £160k you're going to struggle without moving into some kind of management type of position Or being a fairly experienced / niche contractor who can get £600+ a day - although that obviously forfeits the job security and benefits (but then is an actual £160k+, not £N+ with intangibles to bring it up.)

If you want a high salary with minimum fuss (i.e. no management, no clawing your way up a corporate ladder), this is way to do it. I've been contracting in London for 5 years. Rates are in the range of £500-£700 per day, never had a problem getting work, post-tax salary equivalent to £200k PAYE. You can often take several months off over the summer too, if you like that sort of thing.

Re: The last days of Silicon Roundabout

#137

Post by [deleted] »

KaiserPro wrote: post #109
45ure wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are labelling these locations as a 'shithole' without offering any real perspective. The urban regeneration, around the Google site and Kings X has changed the area considerably to shed its gritty image, even if it still lacks some soul. The transport links might be the key factor, but it is also situated in proximity to world leading universities and academic institutions (UCL/Birkbeck/SOAS/UoW/LSE), notwithstan…

Soho is pretty much equidistant to UCL, and is closer to kings. Everything is close in london. My issue is this, Kings Cross is basically what someone thinks a "tech hub" should feel like, rather than what will naturally pop up over time. My company is moving from Soho, which is a nice vibrant (now sadly diminished) cultural center, to kings cross. Everything is private land in kingscross, which means that the local…

[deleted]

Re: The last days of Silicon Roundabout

#138

Post by aix1 »

flooow wrote: post #136
zimpenfish wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> after about £160k you're going to struggle without moving into some kind of management type of position Or being a fairly experienced / niche contractor who can get £600+ a day - although that obviously forfeits the job security and benefits (but then is an actual £160k+, not £N+ with intangibles to bring it up.)

If you want a high salary with minimum fuss (i.e. no management, no clawing your way up a corporate ladder), this is way to do it. I've been contracting in London for 5 years. Rates are in the range of £500-£700 per day, never had a problem getting work, post-tax salary equivalent to £200k PAYE. You can often take several months off over the summer too, if you like that sort of thing.

Would you mind expanding on the maths of contracting @ £500-£700 per day working out as equivalent to £200k PAYE?

Re: The last days of Silicon Roundabout

#139

Post by aix1 »

sprafa wrote: post #126
ca01an wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK salaries are a lot lower than US salaries but every country has lower salaries than the US and the UK fares better than most. I would guess this means brits have less incentive to emigrate than people from India or somewhere were salaries are even lower than the UK. It’s also quite difficult to move to the US from the UK, a lot easier to move to Canada, Australia, New Zealand or the rest of Europe.

There are also virtually equally exciting opportunities, I think. Deepmind has never moved from london, and google essentially just built their HQ around them in kings cross.

The new DeepMind building and the new Google building are close to each other, yes. However, G building their HQ around DM is quite a claim.

Re: The last days of Silicon Roundabout

#140

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

sprafa wrote: post #126
ca01an wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK salaries are a lot lower than US salaries but every country has lower salaries than the US and the UK fares better than most. I would guess this means brits have less incentive to emigrate than people from India or somewhere were salaries are even lower than the UK. It’s also quite difficult to move to the US from the UK, a lot easier to move to Canada, Australia, New Zealand or the rest of Europe.

There are also virtually equally exciting opportunities, I think. Deepmind has never moved from london, and google essentially just built their HQ around them in kings cross.

Google have had a London office for at least fifteen years, well before they acquired Deepmind.
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