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Getting a job in San Francisco

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Re: Getting a job in San Francisco

#71

Post by hnriot »

fabienpenso wrote: post #26
thedjpetersen wrote: post #4

Would love to also see a follow-up piece about getting a job in Paris

Well there is a huge difference. As a Software Engineer you want to work in San Francisco because it's where your job happens. In Paris, nothing happens on that level. If you do want to come to Paris it's because of the amazing food, lifestyle, public transportation system, and certainly not because of the amazing startups we should have.

Not to mention working in Paris is like working part time here. 35 hour weeks!!! Mandated by law too. Of course this might also be why there isn't a vibrant startup culture.

Re: Getting a job in San Francisco

#72

Post by natrius »

fabienpenso wrote: post #56
danielharan wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say that in Paris, a referral is necessary and often sufficient. Le "piston". In SF, it's often necessary and hardly ever sufficient.

> I'd say that in Paris, a referral is necessary and often sufficient. Le "piston". +1. I think it's a core deep cultural issue about France. The whole system is completely corrupted, people are used to get "passe-droit" (not sure about the translation) for anything, and even the top Political leaders are acting this way. Politician asking cops not to be fined for something illegal they just did, a friend of a friend…

I think the English word you're looking for is "nepotism."

Re: Getting a job in San Francisco

#73

Post by bdcravens »

throwaway011001 wrote: post #34
rm999 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>cares about your look more than your technical expertise. In all fairness that's not what he said. Some companies - like google - have a very objective hiring process based almost entirely on technical skill. But many other companies include "fit" as a part of the hiring decision. I haven't interviewed at twitter but I could believe they are like that. I've thumbed down candidates who did well on the technical part…

Has the tech sector really come to the point where coders/geeks can't even be socially awkward anymore? I thought coding was one profession where socially awkward geeks could make an honest living.

They still can. Making an honest living can mean anything from coding Rails at a trendy startup to writing SQL Server stored procedures at a Big 4 to doing mail merges in Access for an ISD in rural Kansas. However, there will always be some companies where coding alone doesn't make them a good fit, whether that's being a programmer for Twitter or the Southern Baptist Convention.

Re: Getting a job in San Francisco

#74

Post by bdcravens »

JoeKM wrote: post #41
alloftheabove wrote: post #25

Where do these salary numbers come from?

I have to agree, 150k for senior engineer? I would say 100-120k for senior engineer, 75-100k for engineer, 50-60k for intern.

Are you in SF? I'm in Houston, and 100K is closer to the norm for engineers here, but of course, 100K wouldn't go as far in SF. Were I to take a job in SF, I'd probably need a $20K-30K premium.

Re: Getting a job in San Francisco

#75

Post by ownagefool »

auctiontheory wrote: post #64
cxx wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not only in France, it's in all Europe. Salaries in Germany, The Netherlands, UK and so on are much much lower than in SF or NY. Developer jobs that pay more than 60k euro are few and far between. A 50k+ job is already above average and upgrading is not going to be easy.

Interesting. Are these 50-60k/year developers available for contract hire? How would an American company find them online?

Recruitment agencies.

They don't really do that much besides spam the local job sites, but being from the US you won't know the local job sites, so you can either need to invest in figuring that out or you can pay recruiters their cut.

UK wise, there are a whole bunch of sites I guess the following catch most of the population:-

http://cwjobs.co.uk http://gumtree.com/uk http://jobsite.co.uk http://www.s1jobs.com/ http://www.technojobs.co.uk/ http://www.monster.co.uk

60000e is about £50000. Inside London or working within the finance industry, there will be developers who'll be earning more than that figure, especially contractors. However, typically contract rates seem to be between £200 - £400 per day, with some outliers on both ends of the scale.

Re: Getting a job in San Francisco

#76

Post by ownagefool »

cxx wrote: post #70
auctiontheory wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Are these 50-60k/year developers available for contract hire? How would an American company find them online?

Hard to say, every country has its own market gotchas. Those 50k something devs are almost always working in salaried positions. I can count in one hand the number of technical freelancers I've ever seen or heard about but I also have never actively searched for one. On the other hand there are a lot of companies that act as middlemen between contractors and companies. These contractors are employed and paid by the m…

Those middle men are just recruitment agencies, generally. As a standard they don't have guys on staff and will take somewhere between 15%-30% on top. The 5x as much usually have full time employees and are something different, though it does happen.

For the contractor, contracting via a respected agency means you're almost guaranteed to be paid. However, they don't really offer much value beyond that. I personally dislike dealing with them but then again, my last contract didn't pay the agent, and I still got paid.

Re: Getting a job in San Francisco

#77

Post by RDeckard »

tzz wrote: post #11

I am not from SF and hard for me to believe that a company like Twitter cares about your look more than your technical expertise. I will add than Twitter had a specific atmosphere compared to other so called startups. The employees seem to be hired on more than skills, everyone at their office is very much hipster like, beautiful looking, feeling super confident and ready to kick it. Walking around Twitter sometimes…

  I will add than Twitter had a specific atmosphere compared  
  to other so called startups. The employees seem to be ...
  beautiful looking ...
brb using imagination since no pics

Re: Getting a job in San Francisco

#78

Post by RDeckard »

pimeys wrote: post #67

I don't buy this. For me, the biggest problem in SF is that it is in US. Ever when I'm in that country I feel like I'm home. The politics, the crooked police, the expensive life... I don't want to be part of it. I really love Europe. This is my home continent with different countries and different people. I love to write code and I can get a pretty decent life also in Berlin. The weather is not so nice, but the city…

Know that feel. I am from Canada (which is probably closer to US culturally than Europe) and having been here for 5 years, I am really really home sick...

Re: Getting a job in San Francisco

#79

Post by nilkn »

JoeKM wrote: post #41
alloftheabove wrote: post #25

Where do these salary numbers come from?

I have to agree, 150k for senior engineer? I would say 100-120k for senior engineer, 75-100k for engineer, 50-60k for intern.

Those numbers are what I'd expect to find in Houston, not in San Francisco.

It'd be hard to get me to move to SF in a senior role for anything less than $120k.

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