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UK's hardware talent is being wasted

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Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#701

Post by Macha »

zipy124 wrote: post #584
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!

That is indeed very rare. A simple sanity check you can look at how many people earn about 100k in the UK, we know the figure for above 125k is 500,000 [1]. We can subtract the number of other jobs that we know for sure pay above this for example lawyers at magic circle firms which start on >150k for newly qualified lawyers, consultants in the NHS, directors of large corportaions, and we end up with a very small amou…

> and these are oxford/cambridge/imperial/UCL grads.

There are many bad things we can say about software hiring, but one of the good things is that (outside the US at least), it's much more concerned with what you can do than the name recognition of the institution where you studied.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#702

Post by hintymad »

pjc50 wrote: post #690
hintymad wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK ignited the First Industrial Revolution. It's sad to see that UK has slipped to number 16 or lower when it came to the market share of global manufacturing. And the problem is not to just UK, but to pretty much all the developed countries. Many nations and people have benefited greatly from globalization, but I have to ask: is it worth it if the cost is forfeiting my own country's manufacturing know-how and supply…

Even the Americans can't manage economic isolation. It takes a global civilisation to build a smartphone. We might have been able to get closer to it by being in the EU, but now we're on our own on that one.

Yeah, I do recognize that. I just wish that the US could have a healthy mixture of light and heavy industry, so that the cost building any mission critical systems will not go through the roof, and so that we will be able t build anything domestically if we want. Even though it's likely a pipe dream now, but at least the US can do so for the WW II and after WW II for quite some time.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#703

Post by UK-AL »

esskay wrote: post #618
retrac98 wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They're in the extreme minority. Most software dev roles in the UK top out between £40 and £50k, £60k if you're lucky.

I am not a top software engineer( (otherwise I'd be working fang tbh) and I earn 85k up north. Hybrid role that's local as well.

I know people that earn a lot more than me.

It's just the recruiters are a joke and advertise silly salaries from local companies that are out touch. You have to know what companies are serious or not, and just apply direct or via recommendations.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#704

Post by ta1243 »

makingstuffs wrote: post #254
CalRobert wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, my fabulous Dutch healthcare basically consisting of being told "you're fine" and overpriced acetaminophen.

Sounds like the non-existent British NHS where getting an appointment to see a doctor is about as likely as meeting the Loch Ness Monster for a spot of tea and crumpets.

Certainly not my experience. Phone up for an appointment and get it same day.

Seems to be a postcode lottery

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#705

Post by Earw0rm »

youngtaff wrote: post #466
Earw0rm wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't building stuff, it's building stuff where stuff needs to be. We built plenty of out-of-town shopping centres, business parks and industrial estates in the 70s, 80s, 90s. We stopped because it turns out they're, for the most part, shit. Given the choice, people will WFH and order off Amazon rather than go within a mile of these places. What we need is to tackle the vested interests in the towns and c…

It's also the quality of the build… most new build houses are shit because the house building companies are more interested in their profit than the quality of the product If we made cars like we make houses there'd be a long queue outside every car dealer as people returned them to get their money back

That's partly (but not entirely) survivor bias.

The Victorians built a lot of absolute garbage.

Much of it was destroyed during or immediately after WWII, or extensively - and expensively - renovated at the tail end of the 20th century. Some of it muddles on in not-really-fit-for-purpose condition: terraced houses with lath-and-plaster walls between units, street plans that can't accommodate modern requirements for recycling bins, parking and so on, homes that are difficult to insulate or retrofit with modern heating.

It's a bit like software that's been in use for 20 years. Most of the bugs have been worked out, and all the mid-tier stuff that was written at the same time has been abandoned and forgotten.

Meanwhile, a lot of those beautiful-from-the-outside Georgian and Regency townhouses that dominate the streets of much of inner London? In many cases they're really not that great to live in, unless you gut them and rebuild the entire inside.

I'm not saying all new-builds are great, mind. Some of what I've seen seems particularly mean - small and high-density, despite being in the middle of nowhere - all the cons of density without any of the pros. You'd think we'd have learned by now, but no.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#706

Post by izacus »

alecco wrote: post #309
realusername wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived and worked in both countries and I feel like the UK is in a worse situation than France nowadays. It's hard to admit for French citizens but the EU significantly props up the French economy and reduces the structural issues of the country.

Arguing about which sinking ship is going down faster.

When in reality neither are actually sinking.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#707

Post by CalRobert »

pjc50 wrote: post #691
Kallocain wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what the regulations are in the UK, but in many European countries, building a house isn't just about knowing how to build a house, it's also about knowing all the DIN requirements. These are necessary for insurance to pay out if something happens to your house. Let's take a simple example: You're wiring your house. Because of a mistake, the house burns down. Insurance: “Okay sir, who did the electrical…

I suspect that in any of the big cities in America you can't just buy a plot and start building, for exactly the same reasons. See also the complexities of CA fire insurance.

True, it's more common in rural areas. (I wasn't doing this in the middle of Dublin)

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#708

Post by mertnesvat »

> Sarah: Built a fusion reactor at 16. Now? Debugging fintech payment systems.

It's striking to imagine a fully functional fusion reactor that could benefit humanity, yet its creator now focuses on fintech payment systems. This highlights the importance of a strong middle class, which seems to be declining globally. A thriving middle class, with disposable income and free time, creates the conditions for innovation. Without it, even brilliant minds like Einstein might spend their entire careers working on immediate economic needs rather than pursuing breakthrough discoveries.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#709

Post by izacus »

sealeck wrote: post #632
James_K wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market fragmentation is a measurable phenomenon, as far as a language goes. The language barrier is just the cost of a translator. Is that cost prohibitively high in Europe? I hear a lot of explanations of why Europe has fewer tech companies than America, but they are almost never backed by statistics. The most obvious answer continues to be the Bretton Woods system, by which large amounts of money are funnelled into…

> The language barrier is just the cost of a translator. Is it? > Market fragmentation is a measurable phenomenon, as far as a language goes. Market fragmentation isn't about language fragmentation – the EU has no single market for services currently, which means if you want to launch a product EU-wide you are effectively launching a product in 27 different countries. There is some harmonization, but not much. If you…

The most bizarre thing is that the loudest critics of EUs market fragmentation are usually the most aggressive blockers of integration that would mitigate these issues.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#710

Post by backwardsmoo »

GamerAlias wrote: post #43
backwardsmoo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside of finance, I generally find UK software and hardware comp to be abysmal. Especially when contrasted to the US, and even Germany. For reference, I hold a doctorate in Engineering and a Class 1 MEng both at Oxford. I was offered £40k to work as an engineer in my niche (photonics). My lab partner who went to Germany sits on a ~€90k salary doing similar to what I would have done. Due to the limitations of hardwa…

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