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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

#451

Post by robin_reala »

ktallett wrote: post #385
swarnie wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if we ever crossed over, i also worked for Intel in the west country (Swindon) and now whore myself out to aerospace/defence in the same area. I see what our engineers are paid and its genuinely concerning.

Is the UK more in line with the norm though and the US is the outlier? I would say the UK, Europe, and Japan all have similar wages (although Japan has worse benefits and on the whole a larger expectation of workers so it's not like for like.)

US is an outlier. You can look at self-described data for front-end engineers from the annual State of JS survey for an indication (try clicking on USA vs World): https://2024.stateofjs.com/en-US/demographics/#yearly_salary

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#452

Post by robertlagrant »

foldr wrote: post #417
robertlagrant wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it seems that the culture in America is that wealth is virtuous I don't think I've ever seen this claimed anywhere except as a criticism.

It’s not something that Americans in general explicitly believe, but you can see it in their attitudes and behavior towards the rich and successful. For example, HN (being somewhat weighted towards American cultural norms) collectively believes that people who have made lots of money are especially wise and hard working, and therefore have special insights to offer to the rest of us. True or not, this is a culturally…

I think this is just a bias. I've not seen much that makes me think Americans think rich people are more virtuous, at all. Certainly not enough to create a stereotype out of, even if I thought stereotypes were a good idea.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#453

Post by petesergeant »

lordnacho wrote: post #344

Here's a story I tell from time to time. When I was at uni, we had an internship as part of the course. The course was a joint course between Engineering and Econ/Management, so you could choose from a very wide variety of industries to satisfy the thesis requirement. The business school would coordinate the internships. So I went interviewing in the engineering firms to the west of the country. Aerospace, materials,…

> These days, what are your options realistically in this country? Particularly if you want to hang around your family in the south?

In 2013 I was working as a CTO in London, managing a team of 40, and I could just about afford a run-down 2-bedroom in a just-ok part of Zone 1, assuming I wanted to make some savings too. My salary wasn't bad for the role, outside of banking. Anyway, that was pretty much the end of living in the UK for me.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#454

Post by retrac98 »

GasVeteran wrote: post #448
retrac98 wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know plenty of engineers (web application developers) making over £100-£150k outside of London, usually in fairly low-stress remote jobs. The pay is clearly nothing compared to the US, but I wouldn’t say it was massively hard for them to get where they are. They all have 5+ years experience at a senior level, and are otherwise just reliable, capable, low-maintenance employees, but maybe that’s rare!

They are almost always contractors. If you work permanent it tops out max at about £75,000-90,000.

They’re not, they’re full time employees.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#455

Post by pjc50 »

Marazan wrote: post #427
graemep wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a Brit, when I was raising the seed round for my startup, UK and European VCs would consistently try to haggle you down on price while the American VC's were exclusively focussed on trying to figure out whether this could be a billion dollar business or not ( Yes we have many comments on HN talking about how harmful the US VCs attitude is because they force good businesses into choosing between being unicorns an…

It's because post GFC the USA stimulated and the EU went all in on austerity. It is fairly clear what was the best option.

Under-rated comment. This is basically the whole explanation. 2008 did a huge amount of damage, not just immediately but to long-term mindsets. Ironically I think it's even entrenched the meme that the only real way to make money in the UK is property. We're all Georgists now.

(this includes property as an export industry! Leaving increasing areas of the UK owned by overseas absentee landlords.)

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#456

Post by aa-jv »

r_thambapillai wrote: post #51

As a Brit, when I was raising the seed round for my startup, UK and European VCs would consistently try to haggle you down on price while the American VC's were exclusively focussed on trying to figure out whether this could be a billion dollar business or not (in the end we raised a $5m seed led by Spark, and have done extremely well and raised more since). The UK lost Deep Mind - which could have been OpenAI!! -- t…

>There are probably political reasons as well.

There are definitely political - and ultimately, military-industrial - reasons for this. The UK is deeply, deeply embedded in the Anglo-centric 5-eyes criminal superstructure, and plays a huge part in the subversion of human rights at immense scale around the world, that this criminal entity commits every second of the day.

The spook factor bleeds into every technological advancement which occurs in the UK, from GCHQ outwards, like a kraken with deep, deep tentacles.

I've worked with multiple UK-based startups which, as soon as they start to gain traction in international waters/markets, immediately becomes the target for GCHQ embedding/plants. This kills the startup.

Until the British people start prosecuting their war criminals and seeks justice for the immense human rights abuses that occur, every millisecond of every day, as a result of their out of control military-industrial oppression apparatus, there is simply no hope for UK technological industry.

The world sees this, even if the people of the UK do not - and routes around it, accordingly.

Nobody really wants to work with UK-based technology groups, knowing that they are liable for immediate corruption the moment their technology becomes relevant to, say, the people of Brazil, or Africa, or China.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#457

Post by youngtaff »

nobodywillobsrv wrote: post #331
alecco wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is policy is oriented to growing GDP and not GDP per capita. Large corporations benefit from GDP growth and lower wages, so they incentivize the political class to grow the population artificially (wink-wink).

The other problem is the welfare state or just the state. So much graft and just living off printed money. It pushes out success. What percent of the UK is effectively civil servants or people receiving benefits? What percent are net takers? A lot

Most of the benefits bill in the UK is paid to people who receive the the state pension

Of the others it's split between those who don't earn enough from work i.e. their employers don't pay them enough to live on so those benefits are essentially subsidising companies

And the other large chunk is people who aren't fit to work, this increased as a result of Covid but also the underfunding of health / social care by the previous government

The civil service isn't that big but the largest influx of people was caused by Brexit and the need to duplicate many of the things that didn't need to be separate when part of the EU

The people who've been living off printed money as those with assets, almost all the gains from the cheap money supply over the last 15 or so years has gone to the well off

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#458

Post by lordnacho »

gadders wrote: post #355
lordnacho wrote: post #344

Here's a story I tell from time to time. When I was at uni, we had an internship as part of the course. The course was a joint course between Engineering and Econ/Management, so you could choose from a very wide variety of industries to satisfy the thesis requirement. The business school would coordinate the internships. So I went interviewing in the engineering firms to the west of the country. Aerospace, materials,…

Fundholding GPs don't do badly. A lot get 6 figures if they are partners in a surgery. I think most Doctors etc need to wait until they're consultants until they make decent money. But I'm like you - fell into banking due to being a Lotus Notes developer when it was flavour of the month and have never left. I reckon I'm on over double what I would be if I'd ended up working for IBM or Cap Gemini or similar. [And I sh…

I don't know, the doctor route seems like a lot of work for the money. My FIL told his kids not to do it, and he was a surgeon who ran a department. They messed around with the doctors' pensions, and it made a lot of them quit. Conditions are also awful, he started the department in a temporary building and retired with it still there.

A doctor is also a kid who got full A grades as a high school graduate. They'd have the pick of what university course to do, and then they end up doing this thing that takes until you're 30, with insane nighttime hours. It just makes no sense to me that there are still kids who think this is worthwhile. It's not even as if you are guaranteed to be allowed to specialize in what you want either, that's a battle with all the other top students.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#459

Post by skirge »

amelius wrote: post #395
lordnacho wrote: post #344

Here's a story I tell from time to time. When I was at uni, we had an internship as part of the course. The course was a joint course between Engineering and Econ/Management, so you could choose from a very wide variety of industries to satisfy the thesis requirement. The business school would coordinate the internships. So I went interviewing in the engineering firms to the west of the country. Aerospace, materials,…

At this point someone please explain to me how finance doesn't exist to extract wealth from the rest of us.

if money come from printer and not from factory you need a "printer operator", not a worker or engineer

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#460

Post by Xelbair »

gambiting wrote: post #424
blitzar wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is the UK more in line with the norm though and the US is the outlier Mostly the US is an outlier. Unfortunately, UK property prices, food prices, utilities etc make Silicon Valley look cheep.

Not disagreeing with your general point, but UK food is very cheap, compared to almost anywhere in western europe and nowadays with the states too.

UK's food, not eating out mind you, is on par with even eastern europe in some cases.
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