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The State of European Tech 2016

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Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#71

Post by passiveincomelg »

cyberpunk wrote: post #69
passiveincomelg wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is my impression as well. My rate is currently around 445gbp/day for backend development in Berlin and it is far from being at the high end (according to a yearly survey run by gulp.de). My total monthly expenses including rent, health insurance, etc. are below 2k gbp. I do pay higher taxes though.

What's the situation like there with having your own business vs as things are here with a uk ltd company, or do you work via an umbrella corp?

As far as I know, setting up a "UG" is easy enough. I'm registered as a freelancer ("Freiberufler") with the tax authorities. I guess that's like a sole proprietor? Upside is that I don't pay corporate tax (because there's no corporation). Downside is that I pay taxes on all my income instead of keeping most of it in the corporation.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#72

Post by passiveincomelg »

cyberpunk wrote: post #68
passiveincomelg wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what this wild side is like. "letting your teams do whatever the hell they want as long as you're delivering" sounds like working remotely from a beach is common. Yet almost all job postings I see from companies in London are on site. Or does it mean I can leave work after six hours on very productive days?

Well, as it goes, as often as I'm able to (sometimes it takes a while to change the culture/gain enough trust to be left alone) I don't put any requirements at all on attendance/appearence/sanity/whatever as long as everything is being done and the team is performing. Nailed all the work for the day before 12:00 and want to hit up the pub -- how could any sane person stop you? Working remote makes you more productive…

That's when you are running a team, right? But it's not the norm to walk into any corp in London as a devops/dev/whatever contractor and work like this. There is no reason why you couldn't run a team that way in Berlin or anywhere else in the world.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#73

Post by cyberpunk »

passiveincomelg wrote: post #72
cyberpunk wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, as it goes, as often as I'm able to (sometimes it takes a while to change the culture/gain enough trust to be left alone) I don't put any requirements at all on attendance/appearence/sanity/whatever as long as everything is being done and the team is performing. Nailed all the work for the day before 12:00 and want to hit up the pub -- how could any sane person stop you? Working remote makes you more productive…

That's when you are running a team, right? But it's not the norm to walk into any corp in London as a devops/dev/whatever contractor and work like this. There is no reason why you couldn't run a team that way in Berlin or anywhere else in the world.

Depends on your attitude really.

If you rock up to a client and immediately let them set any kind of requirements on your life instead of having a "this is our goal, make it so!" relationship then a subtle kind of power relationship has been created, where they'll think it's acceptible to mandate employee rules on you like this.

If you're a contractor, then the corp you're whoring out to is NOT your employer and you must not let them act as such (this makes it worse for all of us, not just you).

They're paying your buisness to do something for theirs, how you do that is your business and yours alone. There's no need to be a total weirdo about the whole thing and go off on one because they want you at a meeting at 10 some day or whatever -- you have to be diplomatic and be mindful of the way you're being percieved by the perm staff -- but generally I will not tolerate requests from clients w/r/t anything like attendance outside of meetings, dress code, general sobriety or whatever else which isn't impacting the deliberables we're providing, and wouldn't attempt to push them on my staff either (contract or not).

I've walked away from several really lucrative contracts because of this sort of client behaviour and I don't regret that at all. Your clients aren't, and never will be in control of you, you're there because they need you and they should treat you with the respect an engineer with your day rate has earned.. shrug

Generally, this sort of attitude has been accepted in every contract I've had in london in the last 5 years or so..

The secret is to get this point across very soon after, or even before, starting the gig. Absolute confidence is probably rq too tho...

edit: butterfingers

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#74

Post by passiveincomelg »

cyberpunk wrote: post #73
passiveincomelg wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's when you are running a team, right? But it's not the norm to walk into any corp in London as a devops/dev/whatever contractor and work like this. There is no reason why you couldn't run a team that way in Berlin or anywhere else in the world.

Depends on your attitude really. If you rock up to a client and immediately let them set any kind of requirements on your life instead of having a "this is our goal, make it so!" relationship then a subtle kind of power relationship has been created, where they'll think it's acceptible to mandate employee rules on you like this. If you're a contractor, then the corp you're whoring out to is NOT your employer and you…

Makes perfect sense, thanks. I think the situation here is very similar. Telling a contractor when and where to work can get the client in legal trouble ("Scheinselbstständigkeit", one of those lovely german words ;). How that works out in practice probably depends on the company. If you work a gig at Siemens it might be different than at a startup (that is funded well enough to afford freelancers).

I only have experience with two big corps so far (keep coming back to the second one ;), but I've seen quite a few contractors at both and some of them were just plain flaky. That of course makes it worse for all of us as well, wrt to clients tolerance for things like remote work, etc.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#75

Post by cyberpunk »

passiveincomelg wrote: post #74
cyberpunk wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on your attitude really. If you rock up to a client and immediately let them set any kind of requirements on your life instead of having a "this is our goal, make it so!" relationship then a subtle kind of power relationship has been created, where they'll think it's acceptible to mandate employee rules on you like this. If you're a contractor, then the corp you're whoring out to is NOT your employer and you…

Makes perfect sense, thanks. I think the situation here is very similar. Telling a contractor when and where to work can get the client in legal trouble ("Scheinselbstständigkeit", one of those lovely german words ;). How that works out in practice probably depends on the company. If you work a gig at Siemens it might be different than at a startup (that is funded well enough to afford freelancers). I only have exper…

Hmm.

I'll be in Berlin next week (I missed Nikolaus and I have some belated shoes to fill; failing that though definately again around silvester)

If you're up for a beer or sixteen on me, I'd really find the insider scoop useful on a more personal medium; I'm sure we could probably both get something from it, at least the worst would be a lot of free beer!

You can find me on freenode as 'cyb3rpunk' (inside a shiny new irssi in some tmux somewhere so might take me a while to respond) if you're up for it -- otherwise, prost!

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#76

Post by passiveincomelg »

cyberpunk wrote: post #75
passiveincomelg wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes perfect sense, thanks. I think the situation here is very similar. Telling a contractor when and where to work can get the client in legal trouble ("Scheinselbstständigkeit", one of those lovely german words ;). How that works out in practice probably depends on the company. If you work a gig at Siemens it might be different than at a startup (that is funded well enough to afford freelancers). I only have exper…

Hmm. I'll be in Berlin next week (I missed Nikolaus and I have some belated shoes to fill; failing that though definately again around silvester) If you're up for a beer or sixteen on me, I'd really find the insider scoop useful on a more personal medium; I'm sure we could probably both get something from it, at least the worst would be a lot of free beer! You can find me on freenode as 'cyb3rpunk' (inside a shiny ne…

Totally up for it! Will ping you on irc.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#77

Post by ForHackernews »

cyberpunk wrote: post #26
ForHackernews wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American who recently moved to London, I agree with this. The salaries here are shockingly lower, especially considering how expensive London cost of living is. I wound up just working remotely for a SF firm, which I realize is a luxury thanks to my US passport.

Out of curiosity what area are you working in and if you're willing to share, what sort of numbers are we talking about? London salaries have always been rather good in my view (if we ignore the shocking cost of living here) and although the higher remittances tend to based on experience here vs having a good degree, I'm not sure for me at least I could make more money anywhere else outside of the arab countries.

I'm a backend web developer (Django, Postgres, Redis) and I get paid right around 100k USD (plus some extra money in bonus and pension contributions). My understanding is that this is actually on the low end for SF/Silicon Valley.

I've interviewed for some UK jobs, and the best I've been offered was 60,000 GBP (which equates to about 75k USD at current exchange rates). I routinely see job postings requiring quite a bit of experience and expertise, and offering salaries in the 40-50k GBP range.

Honestly, I don't understand it. It seems like London tech firms are competing in the same market (in some cases, they literally are satellite offices of the same companies) as the US firms, so how do they get away with offering so much less money?

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#78

Post by ForHackernews »

cyberpunk wrote: post #26
ForHackernews wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American who recently moved to London, I agree with this. The salaries here are shockingly lower, especially considering how expensive London cost of living is. I wound up just working remotely for a SF firm, which I realize is a luxury thanks to my US passport.

Out of curiosity what area are you working in and if you're willing to share, what sort of numbers are we talking about? London salaries have always been rather good in my view (if we ignore the shocking cost of living here) and although the higher remittances tend to based on experience here vs having a good degree, I'm not sure for me at least I could make more money anywhere else outside of the arab countries.

Also: http://www.itworld.com/article/2947616/careers/developers-ma...
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