281–290 of 534 posts
I personally find it strange how gleeful lots of US developers have been about remote work. It means our US salaries are going to be untenable and we'll be paid like the rest of the world. Why pay a Silicon Valley salary when it's remote anyway and 1/4 the price to get someone from elsewhere?
As a developer working in Europe, I would love to work for an American company and make 30 to 50% more. But, it's difficult: - I don't really want to adapt myself to their timezone. Perhaps 1 or 2 or hours of shift from my tz, but not more - I don't want to work as a contractor. I want to be an employee - I want at least 28 business days of vacation per year - I do 9 to 5. No more, no less. I'm not in my 20s anymore…
I don't understand the 28-day requirement since most vacation balances are divisible by 5 (5 days in a work-week). Are you counting holidays or are you getting that number from somewhere else?
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My anecdotal data is that I went really far in the process with a FAANG, got a verbal offer, and it was rescinded (never got the official offer). I always suspected it was due to lack of a degree. And no one explicitly ever asked, but they did ask for a rather detailed work/education history, and I never claimed to have one. I really suspect that they SAY they don't care if you have a degree or not, but at the end of…
>My anecdotal data is that I went really far in the process with a FAANG, got a verbal offer, and it was rescinded (never got the official offer). I always suspected it was due to lack of a degree. If your lack of degree was a dealbreaker, they wouldn't go with the interview process to completion. It makes zero sense to waste time and resources on a candidate that you already determined you aren't going to hire. My t…
The thing is, I was asked to provide certain details after my interview process, like an extremely detailed chronology of my education and work history, explain every single gap greater than 3 weeks, etc. etc.
The fact that this all happened after I rocked my interviews (which was the feedback provided via the recruiter) tells me that yes, it's possible that they wasted everyone's time to interview me and potentially disqualified me on some kind of technicality.
It was an odd experience altogether. I was even invited to spend an afternoon with someone on the team after getting the verbal Ok. Either way, it was interesting experience, but pretty unpleasant through and through. In hindsight, I'm quite glad I didn't get the job, but in principal I didn't like the way the process went.
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Agreed. The "worst" I see happening is some US tech jobs will go to Canada, since the time zones are "compatible" and culture is similar. People from Central and South America will get in the game somewhat as well, but I still think cultural and language barriers cause enough problems that there's still a bit of a moat. We've already been offshoring to Asia and Eastern Europe for decades now, and even though we shoul…
All the qualified Canadians move to the USA for USA incomes. Canada is going to be an immigration station for people companies want to bring in but can't get US visas for. Its already a thing.
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My anecdotal data is that I went really far in the process with a FAANG, got a verbal offer, and it was rescinded (never got the official offer). I always suspected it was due to lack of a degree. And no one explicitly ever asked, but they did ask for a rather detailed work/education history, and I never claimed to have one. I really suspect that they SAY they don't care if you have a degree or not, but at the end of…
I would lean towards the position being filled by a better candidate or the team having a hiring freeze. Who can say, though? That's a large waste of everyone's time and the company's money.
Except: - no country pay like the US. Worked for silicon valley companies remotely, and made twice the money I made in France, while being 3 times cheaper than local competition. - no country have the volume of hi-level coding gig job offers the US has. - few countries even have has many interesting projects. If you want to code in Haskell or Lisp in Europe, good luck. - the USA don't care about your diploma, only wh…
Yeah, I've heard about a classist element in Europe that might make the path I took unlikely. I dropped out of college, toiled in the service industry for 10 years, got sick of it, went to code school, got a tech job and 6 years later earn $130k. Still no degree. Is it true you can't do that there or is that just a stereotype?
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I think you overestimate the reputation of the US and underestimate how much it has rapidly declined the last decades. I also think you underestimate how much effort it takes to really start over and become properly integrated in a new country. It is a very enticing prospect for many to side-step this issue entirely and still get an almost unfathomable salary for some countries.
> I think you overestimate the reputation of the US and underestimate how much it has rapidly declined the last decades. How has it rapidly declined? Please list the ways. I don't necessarily disagree, but I am curious.
#1 Western Governors University (WGU) North Carolina 121,437
#2 Southern New Hampshire University New Hampshire 104,068
#3 Grand Canyon University Arizona 90,253
#4 Liberty University Virginia 79,152
#5 Ivy Tech Community College - Central Indiana Indiana 72,006
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> the USA don't care about your diploma, only what you can do That's a total bullshit, unfortunately. Everything else is correct.
Now a days, it's very much true. I've worked for FAANG companies, a number of mid-major sized tech/internet companies, have had a engineering job for 20+ years, been a CTO and co-founded a VC backed company. All without any degree, in fact in the 20+ years in the field I've never once been out of work. Early in my career I was rejected a couple of times for lack of degree but I can't even remember the last time I was…
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They do hire in Europe but pick expensive locales such as Switzerland, London or Dublin. I can't stop wondering why not open shop in Italy or Spain - wages may be much lower with way higher life quality.
Are there a big enough talent pool of highly skilled and experienced developers in Italy or Spain? It’s a chicken and egg problem, you need to go where there’s already a market for these skills.
Who would move just for the privilege of living in literally sea side resort.
I also think that some developers from Nordic countries will consider, and the rest of Europeans who would like the opportunity working at FAANG.
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28 business days of vacation per year? More than 5 weeks? I know of no company in America that offers that, not even informally. Few US companies offer most of the benefits Europeans expect, from free/cheap health care to child care to generous maternity/paternity leave to low tuition to job security to strictly enforced equal opportunity. Combine all of those into one employer in the US? That unicorn doesn't exist.…
> What's more, as soon as US companies hire remotely en masse in Europe, regulators there will surely demand the same benefits & protections for their people from remote employers. If US company doesn't have a local office in that European country they can't anyway offer a normal employment contract, that has never been possible. Social security, healthcare, pension needs to be paid. So either the employee is a freel…
This is important!
The labor market in most EU countries is very strictly regulated, mostly to the benefit of the employees. If the company you try to work for does not have a branch in your country (chances are, they don't) then there is a huge bureaucratic burden and sometimes even a legal grey area.
Speaking from a German perspective, its barely worth it to try to apply for a remote position at Facebook (at least based on the salaries I've found). As a contractor you'd have to battle a huge administrative effort in terms of social security and healthcare, not to mention that everything is more expensive as a freelancer since there is no employer contribution to your healthcare payments. In the end you may end up with slightly more money in the bank, but with fewer employee protections and a huge administrative burden. So I'd really question if it's really worth it.
However, Germany is actually a market with decently high salaries for the IT sector, unlike some other countries like Italy. So I could imagine that there is significant demand from other EU countries