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UK's hardware talent is being wasted

josef.cn

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Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#101

Post by tokioyoyo »

smartties wrote: post #88
James_K wrote: post #77

God, this place is such a sh*thole (literally if you count the sewage in the water). It's depressing. Every week, X is going downhill, Y is failing, we're out of money. I am so hopeless about my country's future. I feel that this is our century of humiliation.

This seems to be the case for most European countries, particularly here in France. We’re experiencing stagnation, or perhaps even a decline. Launching a product in Europe is significantly more challenging due to the market’s high fragmentation. I don’t have much hope for the future of tech companies in Europe.

If it makes you feel better, I'm having a hard time to think of a single country with more than 10M people that doesn't have the same problem.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#102

Post by devnullbrain »

refrigerator wrote: post #19

This is spot on. All the smart and ambitious people I know who studied (non-software) Engineering at university in the UK have ended up going into software engineering via self-teaching or finance/consulting because the only hardware engineering career paths seem to be working for Rolls Royce in the middle of nowhere with terrible pay, or alternatively working at Jaguar Land Rover in the middle of nowhere with terrib…

Been there, done that. I still frequently get sent Linkedin specs for companies where the hardware team lead is earning junior SWE money. UK junior SWE money.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#104

Post by wbl »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #95
GamerAlias wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Preach. My friend is a gifted passionate Aerospace engineer (top in his specific stream at Cambridge) and basically is withering away working for the above 2 firms. The location is grim being far from others and generally far from other young exciting people. Additionally in his org, there just isn't a sense of excitement/ urgency which leaves him with little to do. Prioritising career for a career that's not there W…

Wait what. Quality of life in rural UK is worse than rat race of London?

When a man is tired of London he is tired of life.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#106

Post by Onavo »

OP's views on British companies are questionable.

> Consider: Dyson: From a Wiltshire barn to a global technology powerhouse, now innovating in Singapore and Malaysia.

The founder of Dyson is a Brexit proponent who enjoys outsourcing and playing games with tax havens. I doubt he's doing any "innovating" in those places.

Does OP think CS prodigies are building world changing stuff? 90% of the top 1% are building SaaS. Perhaps the 0.01% get to work on actual foundation model ML research or cutting edge theoretical CS. Everybody else will optimize buttons in CSS to pay their bills. Software just pays more, it isn't an exception to economic forces.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#108

Post by pfdietz »

bell-cot wrote: post #99
r_thambapillai wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true, although I suppose a significant fraction of the decline at that time might be a result of the end of the Empire, which given that there are simply no such successful Empires anywhere in the world anymore was almost certainly inevitable. By comparison, the performance of the UK in the last 20 years vs the US or the Nordics is a singular tragedy.

I'd say ruin - in great part from the costs of two World Wars - came before the end of the Empire. Wikipedia notes of WWII - "Britain was left essentially bankrupt, with insolvency only averted in 1946 after the negotiation of a US$3.75 billion loan from the United States". Vs. the Partition and dissolution of the British Raj were in 1947.

Most of the world's gold was in the US by the end of the war.

The flow of gold into the US starting in 1933 is thought to be why the Great Depression was moderating so much there and then: the money supply was inflating.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#109

Post by rgmerk »

wbl wrote: post #104
dzhiurgis wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what. Quality of life in rural UK is worse than rat race of London?

When a man is tired of London he is tired of life.

Or maybe he’s just tired of a specific kind of life which might be fun in your early twenties but is less appealing when you’ve got kids and can’t enjoy the nightlife and culture anyway.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#110

Post by monero-xmr »

smartties wrote: post #88
James_K wrote: post #77

God, this place is such a sh*thole (literally if you count the sewage in the water). It's depressing. Every week, X is going downhill, Y is failing, we're out of money. I am so hopeless about my country's future. I feel that this is our century of humiliation.

This seems to be the case for most European countries, particularly here in France. We’re experiencing stagnation, or perhaps even a decline. Launching a product in Europe is significantly more challenging due to the market’s high fragmentation. I don’t have much hope for the future of tech companies in Europe.

It’s exhausting trying to explain this to American leftists. They believe the UK / EU is rich, their healthcare is amazing and “free”, and no one has to work more than 35 hours a week. They visit London and Paris once in 10 years for vacation and think they understand the economic order.
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