Is the hype around tech/ programming/ coding careers the same as crypto hype?

[seattlecyclone]

Also the units.  The units are a problem also.  As long as there are places in the US that require plans be submitted in scales of "fathoms per league" your job is safe...

Hah, that's hilarious. Unit conversions are like our superpower here in the US I guess.

[neo von retorch]

I appreciate the push back. You guys have pushed me to apply to some new jobs. I'll be done with my MS in a month, so it'll be a good time to transition to something new.

I applied to Google and have a HR call set up in a couple weeks, and I've applied to a couple other positions. I'm going to insist on 200k base pay minimum. We'll see if I can get traction on it.

I saw pay going up quite a bit last year. I saw emails coming in at 120 - 140, then early this year I see more emails in the 180 range. So perhaps 200 is possible, maybe I'm under selling myself. I'll see how the HR reps respond.

Good luck!!

I'm ~45 minutes outside Philadelphia, no degree, lots of job hopping. But over 20 years of "some kind of" experience. Still pretty happily an Individual Contributor. In this area, any further from the big cities and pay is barely into six figures. NYC definitely pays better, but mostly just for "on location" jobs. Overall I have not put a ton of effort into job hunting or The Job (beyond fulfilling my responsibilities well, leaving things better than I found them, etc.) Sometimes I see threads like these, or discussions on Hacker News about all the pay out there, but it doesn't seem like something I'll find around here. I know some remote positions pay better, but I haven't put in the effort to try to figure out where the intersection of remote, good pay, my comfort level of job responsibility, and of course, my skill set/résumé lies. As it stands, I make $150k, my employer is 10 minutes down the road, but I've been fully remote since the pandemic started, with no requirement to ever go back to the office.

[Askel]

I appreciate the push back. You guys have pushed me to apply to some new jobs. I'll be done with my MS in a month, so it'll be a good time to transition to something new.

I applied to Google and have a HR call set up in a couple weeks, and I've applied to a couple other positions. I'm going to insist on 200k base pay minimum. We'll see if I can get traction on it.

I saw pay going up quite a bit last year. I saw emails coming in at 120 - 140, then early this year I see more emails in the 180 range. So perhaps 200 is possible, maybe I'm under selling myself. I'll see how the HR reps respond.

If you need the money- go for it, I guess.  But there's a lot more to a job besides a paycheck. And the great thing about careers like IT and programming is there's demand for us in almost any industry and almost any part of the world.  And there's a whole range of projects and work environments to choose from.

Personally, I've never regretted my choice to take a massive pay cut to work a low stress, interesting gig in a low cost of living area with excellent outdoor recreation.   

P.S. Study hard for those FAANG interviews.  A buddy of mine went through a couple. PhD defenses can be less demanding. 

[thesis]

Just wanted to briefly weigh in on the thought of outsourcing: my understanding is that cultural barriers proved to be far more difficult to navigate than people thought, which is why mass outsourcing of software never really happened. "It's just code, how hard can it be?" was the original spirit behind outsourcing, until people realized that good teams have great communication, and differences in culture can cause major problems with that.

But a note on language. One of my previous companies contracted with a center in India when we needed certain types of data crunched. I think my boss (much older guy) was slightly racist anyway, but he legitimately had a hard time understanding what some of the contractors would say during meetings because they had such a thick Indian accent. This might sound trivial, but it's a very real difficulty.

There will always be some outsourcing, and sometimes it will work really well. But I think trial and error taught many companies that it's not a walk in the park and it presents challenges of its own. What's sad to me is all the people who wanted to go into software one or two decades ago but didn't because they were afraid of outsourcing. Then again, maybe most of those people just wanted the money anyway.

(Sometimes I still experience a lot of imposter syndrome in the face of all the things I still don't know, but one of my greatest strengths is that I get along really well with pretty much everybody and people enjoy working with me. I honestly believe this is one of my greatest sources of job security, but who knows?)

[ender]

I appreciate the push back. You guys have pushed me to apply to some new jobs. I'll be done with my MS in a month, so it'll be a good time to transition to something new.

I applied to Google and have a HR call set up in a couple weeks, and I've applied to a couple other positions. I'm going to insist on 200k base pay minimum. We'll see if I can get traction on it.

I saw pay going up quite a bit last year. I saw emails coming in at 120 - 140, then early this year I see more emails in the 180 range. So perhaps 200 is possible, maybe I'm under selling myself. I'll see how the HR reps respond.

If you need the money- go for it, I guess.  But there's a lot more to a job besides a paycheck. And the great thing about careers like IT and programming is there's demand for us in almost any industry and almost any part of the world.  And there's a whole range of projects and work environments to choose from.

Personally, I've never regretted my choice to take a massive pay cut to work a low stress, interesting gig in a low cost of living area with excellent outdoor recreation.   

P.S. Study hard for those FAANG interviews.  A buddy of mine went through a couple. PhD defenses can be less demanding.

As someone who has now worked at two of FAANG, and known tons of people in them or similar tier companies, I think people who don't work there have.... totally wrong expectations for what working at that tier of company is like.

Pretty much without exception, the people I know complaining about WLB or other aspects to their work are at lower paying companies. I've written this elsewhere so I'll just quote myself:

Part of why I am so passionate about making sure people see BigN compensation (say defining BigN to be 250k+ total comp for senior folks) as achievable and more common than realized is my experience.

Several years ago I was working for a company making $120k/year as a senior eng and assumed several things (incorrectly) about BigN companies and jobs:

• workload and work life balance was terrible
• those companies were immensely elite and I’d never make it in
• BigN are a tiny percentage of jobs
• comp there must not be real and stuff like levels/blind are wrong

I think a major reason people avoid pursuing larger comp is believing one or more of these

So when we collectively reinforce any of them I just imagine people like myself, or even the conversation I had just this week with friend who is a far better engineer than me I talked with just this week who believes the same and was skeptical of applying to the numerous BigN companies in his city.

Maybe 5 years ago I would have lurked/read this conversation [about high paying comp being hard to get, similar to the one happening here] and gone, “huh, I guess high paying jobs are rarer than I thought” or otherwise not come away feeling that it’s attainable?

Information is power here. You want to know how to get the $50k/year engineers making more? Or the $100k engineer? Or the $150k engineers?
Help them realize just how many jobs are paying meaningfully more with better work life balance/perks and are full of engineers similar to them.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

This - when you have a good conceptual base, the specific language matters little to nothing (I did once get asked to look at an assembler program - that might be an exception to "just google the syntax. . . "). The specific languages shouldn't matter that much if you know what you want to do.

One thing I'm struggling with right now is trying to get other developers to actually do some useful work on a pretty big project - not even a new language just getting used to a somewhat different architecture within the same basic setup (VB.NET-Webforms / Oracle database). And I'm constantly fighting the urge to just say fuck it, stop waiting on them and do it all myself, but I'm just one person who works about 24 hours per week - everyone is going to be better served if the other developers are involved and learn this approach.

If computer languages lack meaningful differences, why do you get resistence from coworkers?  And here you're not even pushing them to learn full programming languages, but just parts of languages.

You mentioned "assember language"[sic], which I think is mixing up assembly language with the tool which turns text into machine code - an assembler.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_language

My strongest objection is this: learning one computer langauge does not make you competant writing all other computer languages.  My closest overlap with your idea is I agree reading computer code is a skill that generalizes - but has limits, as you've experienced with assembly language.

In regards to bolded:

I wouldn't say learning one computer language is what's important. It's the fundamentals such as design patterns, software development lifecycle, data structures, etc. Learning a new language is easy (as evidenced by boot camps churning out coders), learning to code well is not nearly as easy.

I don't see anything in my statement about what's important - you seem to be changing the topic.  The first three bolded words are "My strongest objection", which tells you that I'm responding to someone else, and if you ignore the context of the conversation, you're probably not understanding my comment.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

Maybe all this talk about languages and big-picture architectural awareness is missing the point. Writing code can be done from anywhere. There are fewer reasons preventing U.S. SE jobs from being outsourced now than there were to prevent U.S. factory jobs from being outsourced in the 1970's and 80's. Compared to relocating manufacturing, companies don't even have to make speculative investments in facilities or equipment, they don't have to commit all their resources to unstable governments, and they don't have to deal with logistics or tariffs either. The assumption that developing countries cannot produce millions of very talented SE's will be proven as false as the old claims that they can't handle the complexities of manufacturing or manage quality.

Maybe if there is "hype" around tech/programming/coding careers, it is around the idea that a freshly graduated SE today won't be competing for wages in a worldwide marketplace before we know it. The wages and social luster of these careers could fall as quickly as they did for factory work.

They tried this back in the 00's and it more or less failed. Some of the rote stuff has stayed in India, but for the most part engineering has stayed in the US. Why won't SE work go overseas?

That ignores companies like Google who have a reasonably large presence in Canada and Ireland. Are US software engineers really that much better than the Canadian and Irish ones? Or the Ukrainian ones that my company employs that are totally worth it (for their niche).

If Germany ever got their business environment together I think that they would eat our lunch. But they never will because they want you to adopt your employees.

Also there is the huge pile of startup funding in the USA. I think that there are lots of reasons that the US remains dominant, but I don't think that it is because US software engineers are any better than Canadian, Ukrainian, Russian, German, or Irish ones. (that list is not meant to be exhaustive)

Why would Germany have any chance of catching the U.S. software industry, let alone overtaking it?

In the U.S., various states try to have their own version of Silicon Valley - they're trying to replicate the success.  Once you have a critical mass of software engineers, employers can hire more and employees can switch companies more easily.

A more fair comparison might be Germany vs India - but I'd favor India heavily in that comparison.  If it hasn't changed, India has a national test where the top 1% can become doctors, and those within the top 2% engineers.  So you have these really bright software engineers who can get paid worse in India or a lot better in Silicon Valley.  So I'm really making two points: there's a ton of software engineering talent in India, and the U.S. benefits from that talent owing to high salaries.

As to the U.S. environment for start-ups compared to elsewhere:

"I think most people in America don't realize how good they have it.  Even as a foreigner with a funny accent at [age] 25, people would give me money with a handshake and say 'go start the company'."
- Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fDW5Hw3C1Y&t=585s

[Askel]

As someone who has now worked at two of FAANG, and known tons of people in them or similar tier companies, I think people who don't work there have.... totally wrong expectations for what working at that tier of company is like.

Maybe?  But I've met quite a few of you and call a few others friends, and from my experience- and none of them really inspire me to join their ranks.  Don't take it personally, you all seem like fine people who enjoy your jobs and find them rewarding. 

Moxie sums up my feelings on the matter best (even with a problematic reference to the stanford prison experience): https://moxie.org/2013/01/07/career-advice.html

It's not like I've chosen travelling puppet master. I'm a network engineer which is just a slightly different shade of gray- but it's the kind of person I don't mind becoming.   

[PDXTabs]

Why would Germany have any chance of catching the U.S. software industry, let alone overtaking it?

I didn't mean to imply that they could overtake it in nominal terms. But they could certainly put a huge dent in it. Because:
1. They are the fourth largest economy on the planet (the third largest in the G7).
2. They have easier immigration than the economies that are larger than them. This is because they are on the EU blue card system that makes it easier to import skilled labor that the US, Japan, or China. It is easier to import an Indian software engineer to Germany than the USA, and the immigration scheme is more attractive for the engineer.
3. They already have a tech scene.
4. They already have a critical mass of engineers and engineering companies (ever heard of Siemens?)

I've also heard it speculated that a lack of capital inside of Germany is holding them back (compared to the buckets of cash sloshing around in silicon valley).

[Gronnie]

Pretty much without exception, the people I know complaining about WLB or other aspects to their work are at lower paying companies. I've written this elsewhere so I'll just quote myself:

Yep. I've actually found myself with better WLB and more money each tech promotion I've gotten. Settled in pretty comfortably at Staff level now, not sure I'll pursue any higher.

[bacchi]

The best WLB I had was as a 1099 contractor. The pay was simply good, not rising to current base+RSU heights, but the hours and flexibility were outstanding.

What is missing from the conversation is that stratospheric salaries were only in Tier 1 cities until fairly recently. You wouldn't be able to pull down $250k in Atlanta or Tampa in 2010. It's probably still impossible in Huntsville,* home to NASA and various space and defense companies, but it's certainly possible in Denver and Austin with the right job and the right company.


* Ignoring remote workers who recently moved to LCOL cities

[LennStar]

Why would Germany have any chance of catching the U.S. software industry, let alone overtaking it?

I didn't mean to imply that they could overtake it in nominal terms. But they could certainly put a huge dent in it. Because:
1. They are the fourth largest economy on the planet (the third largest in the G7).
2. They have easier immigration than the economies that are larger than them. This is because they are on the EU blue card system that makes it easier to import skilled labor that the US, Japan, or China. It is easier to import an Indian software engineer to Germany than the USA, and the immigration scheme is more attractive for the engineer.
3. They already have a tech scene.
4. They already have a critical mass of engineers and engineering companies (ever heard of Siemens?)

I've also heard it speculated that a lack of capital inside of Germany is holding them back (compared to the buckets of cash sloshing around in silicon valley).

I am not in a position to really judge the IT quality of German companies. But I can give anecdotal evidence.
In my small company, there are currently 4 programmers. The head is a German who's parents went to New Sealand when he was small. He came back to study in Germany because thats free for Germans.
We also have one Greek, one Hungarian and one Pakistani. During my time there were three Germans, one left shortly after I joined, one recently.

It's very hard to find good programmers and it's not like they are trained nowhere. My state has less than 2,2 million inhabitants but at least one university and two similar level institutions that teach "informatik".
One of the biggest problems for Germany is that the public sector can't get programmers because every position is bound to the wage rule book, and for programmers that is not competitive.

[BlueMR2]

Also the units.  The units are a problem also.  As long as there are places in the US that require plans be submitted in scales of "fathoms per league" your job is safe...

Hah, that's hilarious. Unit conversions are like our superpower here in the US I guess.

Once you've spent time in the trenches of date/time conversions, Imperial vs Metric is a total non-issue.  :D

[mtnrider]

Whenever I see everyone piling into something I'm cautious as it usually turns out to be a bubble e.g everyone investing during dotcom bubble, everyone buying real estate prior to the gfc, crypto/ nft's as some examples. It seems like everyone is currently 'getting into tech/ programming' etc right now, bootcamps popped up, youtubers are selling courses/ giving their stories/ advice etc, it all leads me to believe this is another bubble like bitcoin.

Anyone agree/ disagree? Anyone in the industry able to ad their thoughts/ advice?

My experience is that it's hard to find good engineers. 

I'd also agree with GuitarStv that quality engineers are rarely self-trained, or come from code camps.

[rant deleted]

[seattlecyclone]

Also the units.  The units are a problem also.  As long as there are places in the US that require plans be submitted in scales of "fathoms per league" your job is safe...

Hah, that's hilarious. Unit conversions are like our superpower here in the US I guess.

Once you've spent time in the trenches of date/time conversions, Imperial vs Metric is a total non-issue.  :D

Oh man, the amount of headache my team recently went through to fix our tests that failed between midnight UTC and midnight PST every day...whoever decided the earth should be round instead of flat wasn't thinking things through.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

Why would Germany have any chance of catching the U.S. software industry, let alone overtaking it?

I didn't mean to imply that they could overtake it in nominal terms. But they could certainly put a huge dent in it. Because:
1. They are the fourth largest economy on the planet (the third largest in the G7).
2. They have easier immigration than the economies that are larger than them. This is because they are on the EU blue card system that makes it easier to import skilled labor that the US, Japan, or China. It is easier to import an Indian software engineer to Germany than the USA, and the immigration scheme is more attractive for the engineer.
3. They already have a tech scene.
4. They already have a critical mass of engineers and engineering companies (ever heard of Siemens?)

I've also heard it speculated that a lack of capital inside of Germany is holding them back (compared to the buckets of cash sloshing around in silicon valley).

I'll provide my possibly incorrect views to each point:

(1) Biting on Germany's heels is India, #5 by GDP.  But if we're talking software engineers, education and numbers matter more than GDP, right?  With 1.4 billion to Germany's 83 million, India has 16x the population of Germany.  Where India selects the top 2% for doctors and engineers, that would be 1/3rd of Germany's population.  By numbers of software engineers, I expect India beats Germany by a wide margin.

(2) A quick internet search shows immigrants from India prefer the U.S. 13x more than Germany, despite U.S. population being just 4x higher.  Isn't getting rich more important than smooth immigration procedures?  I couldn't find salary figures for comparison, but I would assume Silicon Valley salaries are a multiple of the German equivalents.

(3) I'm not following how a "tech scene" gives Germany an advantage that puts a dent in Silicon Valley.  Does Silicon Valley lack a tech scene?

(4) Siemans has departments for food, glass and commercial buildings.  I think you're rearching for "engineering" companies where we were talking about software, and Siemans isn't a pure software company.  The U.S. has industry leaders in cloud computing (Amazon), search (Google) and social media (Facebook) to name a few.  Google could afford to buy Siemans with just its cash on hand - there's a huge gap in the size of the companies I just mentioned, compared to Siemans.

[PDXTabs]

Why would Germany have any chance of catching the U.S. software industry, let alone overtaking it?

I didn't mean to imply that they could overtake it in nominal terms. But they could certainly put a huge dent in it. Because:
1. They are the fourth largest economy on the planet (the third largest in the G7).
2. They have easier immigration than the economies that are larger than them. This is because they are on the EU blue card system that makes it easier to import skilled labor that the US, Japan, or China. It is easier to import an Indian software engineer to Germany than the USA, and the immigration scheme is more attractive for the engineer.
3. They already have a tech scene.
4. They already have a critical mass of engineers and engineering companies (ever heard of Siemens?)

I've also heard it speculated that a lack of capital inside of Germany is holding them back (compared to the buckets of cash sloshing around in silicon valley).

I'll provide my possibly incorrect views to each point:

(1) Biting on Germany's heels is India, #5 by GDP.  But if we're talking software engineers, education and numbers matter more than GDP, right?  With 1.4 billion to Germany's 83 million, India has 16x the population of Germany.  Where India selects the top 2% for doctors and engineers, that would be 1/3rd of Germany's population.  By numbers of software engineers, I expect India beats Germany by a wide margin.

(2) A quick internet search shows immigrants from India prefer the U.S. 13x more than Germany, despite U.S. population being just 4x higher.  Isn't getting rich more important than smooth immigration procedures?  I couldn't find salary figures for comparison, but I would assume Silicon Valley salaries are a multiple of the German equivalents.

(3) I'm not following how a "tech scene" gives Germany an advantage that puts a dent in Silicon Valley.  Does Silicon Valley lack a tech scene?

(4) Siemans has departments for food, glass and commercial buildings.  I think you're rearching for "engineering" companies where we were talking about software, and Siemans isn't a pure software company.  The U.S. has industry leaders in cloud computing (Amazon), search (Google) and social media (Facebook) to name a few.  Google could afford to buy Siemans with just its cash on hand - there's a huge gap in the size of the companies I just mentioned, compared to Siemans.

1. Color me unimpressed by Indian bureaucracy and timezones having worked with Indian outsourcing firms. India makes German bureaucracy look like a breeze according to everyone I know who has actually tried to deal with their immigration and bureaucratic frameworks. Also, if you aren't paying attention you might not know that their civil courts have a multi-decade backlog. Also, also an executive branch that thinks its okay to turn the internet off when it pleases them. I wouldn't put my money into an Indian company in the current political and civil climate.

2. But is that a fundamental lacking of Germany or something that could be fixed by some combination of financing and a business friendly environment?

3. Certainly having some critical mass of talent matters for a growing tech scene. My only point is that IMHO they have that critical mass where some other countries do not.

4. Well, I work in embedded so I'm slightly biased. You are correct that Germany does not have a FAANG company. But no one else does either (except the USA).

[lemanfan]

When comparing the US, and especially the silicon valley area to European tech hubs and organized attempts, some things are usually brought up by people like the a16z guys in their podcast and other similar sources. Or at least the ones I've taken to heart are:

- There must be a critical mass of both engineers and other disciplines like management and sales

- There must willing venture capital available, from early stage angel investors to later stage big money. Also it should develop a culture of successful exits where the people who got rich from an exit invest in the next round of companies.

- Laws must allow easy scaling up and down, e.g. it shouldn't be too hard to fire people weather it's an invididual bad fit or if money runs out, and laws should enable alternative compensations like stock options.

- There must be room for a culture of rapid change and going "all in" in various deals.


I don't really know how things are in Germany, but I live in one of the cities in Sweden where we try to have a tech hub like that.  In Sweden, it's often easy to scale down a company by a "reduction in force" but to fire an individual person due to a bad fit or bad performance is hard.  Our tax system is also bad for startups in several ways, including that stock options are mostly taxed like regular salary (e.g. very high) and for company owners who have sold their company it's quite easy to get into a situation where it's much cheaper tax-wise to way six years before starting a new venture.  This combined really slows down things.

Most companies that are started here are "under the radar" and tech intensive - but not really FAANG worth.  Stuff like under the hood technology for e.g. TV / Digital Video, or literally under the hood for e.g. the automotive or aerospace industries. They are also usually acquired by bigger companies before reaching a large valuation. This acquisition trend is also amplified by tax implications for the founders and it's also keeping stock option returns low.

The main exceptions we've had in Sweden the last 20 years are 1) the gaming and gambling industry (Minecraft etc), 2) Skype, 3) Spotify, and maybe 4) Klarna.   These are more or less flukes, where a few individuals broke the Swedish mold and the law of Jante and made something anyway.

Most engineers and software here do work for established mid- to large size companies. The American salary levels are unheard of.  It's really hard to get the real silicon valley feeling here.

And we're much much worse than other parts of Europe in regards to allowing foreigners to work here.  Embarrassingly bad. :(

[gooki]

They are also usually acquired by bigger companies before reaching a large valuation.

Same pattern happens in New Zealand. In the last 20 years I've only spent a single year working for locally owned tech companies. The rest have been for American firms that acquired a local startup as soon as they'd proven there was a market for their solution.

It's a very profitable, low risk model for these large companies. Pay a modest premium, get a proven product, push it out through their established international sales channels, and in 3-5 years they've typically made their money back, and expanded their product portfolio. Then rinse and repeat. Seeing half a dozen acquisitions a year wasn't uncommon.

[scottish]

Why would Germany have any chance of catching the U.S. software industry, let alone overtaking it?

I didn't mean to imply that they could overtake it in nominal terms. But they could certainly put a huge dent in it. Because:
1. They are the fourth largest economy on the planet (the third largest in the G7).
2. They have easier immigration than the economies that are larger than them. This is because they are on the EU blue card system that makes it easier to import skilled labor that the US, Japan, or China. It is easier to import an Indian software engineer to Germany than the USA, and the immigration scheme is more attractive for the engineer.
3. They already have a tech scene.
4. They already have a critical mass of engineers and engineering companies (ever heard of Siemens?)

I've also heard it speculated that a lack of capital inside of Germany is holding them back (compared to the buckets of cash sloshing around in silicon valley).

I'll provide my possibly incorrect views to each point:

(1) Biting on Germany's heels is India, #5 by GDP.  But if we're talking software engineers, education and numbers matter more than GDP, right?  With 1.4 billion to Germany's 83 million, India has 16x the population of Germany.  Where India selects the top 2% for doctors and engineers, that would be 1/3rd of Germany's population.  By numbers of software engineers, I expect India beats Germany by a wide margin.

(2) A quick internet search shows immigrants from India prefer the U.S. 13x more than Germany, despite U.S. population being just 4x higher.  Isn't getting rich more important than smooth immigration procedures?  I couldn't find salary figures for comparison, but I would assume Silicon Valley salaries are a multiple of the German equivalents.

(3) I'm not following how a "tech scene" gives Germany an advantage that puts a dent in Silicon Valley.  Does Silicon Valley lack a tech scene?

(4) Siemans has departments for food, glass and commercial buildings.  I think you're rearching for "engineering" companies where we were talking about software, and Siemans isn't a pure software company.  The U.S. has industry leaders in cloud computing (Amazon), search (Google) and social media (Facebook) to name a few.  Google could afford to buy Siemans with just its cash on hand - there's a huge gap in the size of the companies I just mentioned, compared to Siemans.

1. Color me unimpressed by Indian bureaucracy and timezones having worked with Indian outsourcing firms. India makes German bureaucracy look like a breeze according to everyone I know who has actually tried to deal with their immigration and bureaucratic frameworks. Also, if you aren't paying attention you might not know that their civil courts have a multi-decade backlog. Also, also an executive branch that thinks its okay to turn the internet off when it pleases them. I wouldn't put my money into an Indian company in the current political and civil climate.

2. But is that a fundamental lacking of Germany or something that could be fixed by some combination of financing and a business friendly environment?

3. Certainly having some critical mass of talent matters for a growing tech scene. My only point is that IMHO they have that critical mass where some other countries do not.

4. Well, I work in embedded so I'm slightly biased. You are correct that Germany does not have a FAANG company. But no one else does either (except the USA).

I haven't had great experiences with India outsourcing either.   OTOH, the people heading up Google and M$ are both Indian, aren't they?    So there's obviously lots of potential.

I'm a bit surprised nobody has mentioned China.    A Chinese company dominates, even owns, the consumer drone space, for example.   And Chinese engineers are smart, hardworking people.     They have some cultural challenges to work through (not unlike India), but fewer governmental/bureaucratic challenges.

[PDXTabs]

I haven't had great experiences with India outsourcing either.   OTOH, the people heading up Google and M$ are both Indian, aren't they?    So there's obviously lots of potential.

I'm a bit surprised nobody has mentioned China.    A Chinese company dominates, even owns, the consumer drone space, for example.   And Chinese engineers are smart, hardworking people.     They have some cultural challenges to work through (not unlike India), but fewer governmental/bureaucratic challenges.

I'm not arguing that Indian software engineers are bad. I'm arguing that running a software business in India is bad.

I think that with the current political climate, great firewall of China, disappearing CEOs, and know industrial espionage people are just sick of China. But I guess that China is having some success with niche software businesses that can color in those lines.

[Gronnie]

I've had no gripes with most of the engineers I've worked with that are located in China, Taiwan, India, Belarus, etc. Most of the issues I've ran into are cultural.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

I haven't had great experiences with India outsourcing either.   OTOH, the people heading up Google and M$ are both Indian, aren't they?    So there's obviously lots of potential.

I'm a bit surprised nobody has mentioned China.    A Chinese company dominates, even owns, the consumer drone space, for example.   And Chinese engineers are smart, hardworking people.     They have some cultural challenges to work through (not unlike India), but fewer governmental/bureaucratic challenges.

I'm not arguing that Indian software engineers are bad. I'm arguing that running a software business in India is bad.

I think that with the current political climate, great firewall of China, disappearing CEOs, and know industrial espionage people are just sick of China. But I guess that China is having some success with niche software businesses that can color in those lines.

If "disappearing CEOs" is a reference to Alibaba founder Jack Ma, CNBC's David Faber called him up and got him on the phone at the time.  But if there's others, I'm not aware.  But I can do one better: someone from China was finally named head of Interpol (international police)... and vanished.  China lied about the whereabouts of the head of Interpol!  And then his wife reported his disappearance and threats against her, and was granted asylum in France.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meng_Hongwei#Secret_detention

China has a very strong tech sector with giants like Tencent, JD and Alibaba.  But China's government recently asserted who's boss, suggesting if China demands something from these companies it can get it.  That's a concern for other countries, and I assume part of the reason their products aren't adopted widely.

Actually, if you check CIA factbook, they recommend comparing China's economy using "purchasing power parity" (PPP)... and on that basis, China has the largest economy in the world.  But if you measure by exchange rate, which China can manipulate, China hides as the #2 economy in the world.  But I think they're already #1 on GDP.

Either way, many software engineers from both China and India immigrate to the U.S. to work in Silicon Valley.  I don't know software engineer salaries in Shenzhen, China - which I believe is China's Silicon Valley.  I assume they're still lower for now, but it would be really interesting to keep a running comparison.  And then compare that against the number of software engineers from China applying for H-1b visas.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

Why would Germany have any chance of catching the U.S. software industry, let alone overtaking it?

I didn't mean to imply that they could overtake it in nominal terms. But they could certainly put a huge dent in it. Because:
1. They are the fourth largest economy on the planet (the third largest in the G7).
2. They have easier immigration than the economies that are larger than them. This is because they are on the EU blue card system that makes it easier to import skilled labor that the US, Japan, or China. It is easier to import an Indian software engineer to Germany than the USA, and the immigration scheme is more attractive for the engineer.
3. They already have a tech scene.
4. They already have a critical mass of engineers and engineering companies (ever heard of Siemens?)

I've also heard it speculated that a lack of capital inside of Germany is holding them back (compared to the buckets of cash sloshing around in silicon valley).

I'll provide my possibly incorrect views to each point:

(1) Biting on Germany's heels is India, #5 by GDP.  But if we're talking software engineers, education and numbers matter more than GDP, right?  With 1.4 billion to Germany's 83 million, India has 16x the population of Germany.  Where India selects the top 2% for doctors and engineers, that would be 1/3rd of Germany's population.  By numbers of software engineers, I expect India beats Germany by a wide margin.

(2) A quick internet search shows immigrants from India prefer the U.S. 13x more than Germany, despite U.S. population being just 4x higher.  Isn't getting rich more important than smooth immigration procedures?  I couldn't find salary figures for comparison, but I would assume Silicon Valley salaries are a multiple of the German equivalents.

(3) I'm not following how a "tech scene" gives Germany an advantage that puts a dent in Silicon Valley.  Does Silicon Valley lack a tech scene?

(4) Siemans has departments for food, glass and commercial buildings.  I think you're rearching for "engineering" companies where we were talking about software, and Siemans isn't a pure software company.  The U.S. has industry leaders in cloud computing (Amazon), search (Google) and social media (Facebook) to name a few.  Google could afford to buy Siemans with just its cash on hand - there's a huge gap in the size of the companies I just mentioned, compared to Siemans.

1. Color me unimpressed by Indian bureaucracy and timezones having worked with Indian outsourcing firms. India makes German bureaucracy look like a breeze according to everyone I know who has actually tried to deal with their immigration and bureaucratic frameworks. Also, if you aren't paying attention you might not know that their civil courts have a multi-decade backlog. Also, also an executive branch that thinks its okay to turn the internet off when it pleases them. I wouldn't put my money into an Indian company in the current political and civil climate.

2. But is that a fundamental lacking of Germany or something that could be fixed by some combination of financing and a business friendly environment?

3. Certainly having some critical mass of talent matters for a growing tech scene. My only point is that IMHO they have that critical mass where some other countries do not.

4. Well, I work in embedded so I'm slightly biased. You are correct that Germany does not have a FAANG company. But no one else does either (except the USA).

This time I found software engineer salary "Berlin" vs "Google San Jose".  In Berlin, $67k/year vs $238k/year at Google... about a 3x to 4x gap.  A mistake I saw in my prior search was that Germans rambled on about health care, unaware it is irrelevant for software engineers.  In the U.S., software engineer compensation includes a health plan, life insurance, vision and dental.  And that salary certainly includes some form of stock option, restricted stock unit, or employee stock purchase plan (depending on company), which pushes up compensation even higher.  That could probably explain why people from India prefer to immigrate to the U.S. isntead of Germany (13x immigration / 4x population = 3x).
https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/berlin-software-engineer-salary-SRCH_IL.0,6_IM1020_KO7,24.htm
https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-Software-Engineer-San-Jose-Salaries-EJI_IE9079.0,6_KO7,24_IL.25,33_IM761.htm


India does have a bigger problem with corruption than the other countries I've seen mentioned in this thread.  Here's the transparency rankings, out of 180 countries:
#4 Sweden / #10 Germany / #27 U.S. / #66 China / #85 India
https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021

Germany has less corruption than India, which helps the business environment.  Despite that, above I mentioned triple the per capita immigration from India.  I thin compensation makes up for all the flaws, favoring the U.S. over Germany.  But when we flip this around and compare Germany to India directly, this could hurt India.  India has a "brain drain" driven by much higher salaries in the U.S.  In Germany, they see things like Jan 6th and may feel their life is fine without the higher salaries in the U.S. - there might be relatively less brain drain.  So that might help Germany, on a relative basis.

I still think India probably overcomes all the drawbacks with sheer numbers.  Yes there's corruption and a brain drain... but India's far greater population (16x) can compensate for many such problems.  But I guess we're coming at the following question from different perspectives:  How exactly would we rate the success of India or Germany, in terms of software industry?

We can have a debate of U.S. versus the other two, but I think the U.S. easily wins... my point being, why?  How do we know U.S. has done so well in tech?  Is it the smart phones invented there, the internet, or search & social media?  If we could quantify all that, it could become the basis for comparing India and Germany.

Maybe a rough comparison would be software salary divided by median salary.  In other words, how much does the country value software engineers, in terms of salary?

[ender]

Glassdoor is utterly unreliable these days, especially for big tech.

[seattlecyclone]

A relevant article about European tech compensation: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-salaries-in-the-netherlands-and-europe/

[MustacheAndaHalf]

Glassdoor is utterly unreliable these days, especially for big tech.

Yet you don't have data showing the salaries, nor data showing glassdoor's problem.

I assume "software engineer" means the non-senior position.  I divided the Google San Jose salary by the Berlin salary, and listed the range of 3x to 4x, giving roughly +/- 15% error bars.  If glassdoor underestimates both salaries equally, my point holds.  If glassdoor isn't keeping up with Google San Jose "software engineer" salaries, the multiple would be higher but my point would also still hold.

For software engineers, Google San Jose salaries are much higher than Berlin salaries.

A relevant article about European tech compensation: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-salaries-in-the-netherlands-and-europe/

The Amsterdam $61,000 USD/year salary is probably for non-senion engineers, and comes close to the Berlin $67,000 USD/year salary I found on glassdoor.  It reinforces my belief the Berlin salaries are close to accurate.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/berlin-software-engineer-salary-SRCH_IL.0,6_IM1020_KO7,24.htm

[Paul der Krake]

Trying to determine why salaries are better in locale X or Y is pointless, IMHO. Labor markets are complex, inertia and network effects count for a lot. Things move slowly.

There's also no good reason that all the best soccer clubs in the world are within Western Europe, while South American clubs looks like a regional semi-amateur league, and African clubs a couple pegs below that. There is no shortage of world-class talent in either location, but the best all leave to go to England, Spain, Italy, France or Germany.

The US is still the Champions League for tech work and it's not changing any time soon.

[FIPurpose]

SW job search update.

I applied to a senior position at a 4-5B value company. I listed my required salary as 200-220k.

Recruiter called me the very next day so I thought this was going to happen quick. First thing he says "oh, I just saw your salary requirements."

He said they topped out at 150k, maybe they could be pushed a little higher, but not that much. Thanked him for his time and moved on.

Google is scheduled in 2 weeks. I'm managing a move right now so additional apps will have to wait.

[BlueMR2]

Google is scheduled in 2 weeks. I'm managing a move right now so additional apps will have to wait.

Google and Amazon internal recruiters both hit me up in the last couple of days.  It'd likely be a big salary bump, but I don't like what I've heard about those companies from people that have worked there.  I'd give it a try if I wasn't working, but I'm not going to think about making the jump from a known good place.

[FIPurpose]

Google is scheduled in 2 weeks. I'm managing a move right now so additional apps will have to wait.

Google and Amazon internal recruiters both hit me up in the last couple of days.  It'd likely be a big salary bump, but I don't like what I've heard about those companies from people that have worked there.  I'd give it a try if I wasn't working, but I'm not going to think about making the jump from a known good place.

I've known a couple of Amazon guys that say they really like their job. They said it really depends on the group you work in. Their such large behemoths, it's difficult to tell from the outside whether you're getting a good group or not. Definitely makes it a gamble.

[Gronnie]

Both of those places are going to require a lot of study and preparation. The things you do in interviews aren't anything like what you likely do day to day.

[AlanStache]

Google is scheduled in 2 weeks. I'm managing a move right now so additional apps will have to wait.

Google and Amazon internal recruiters both hit me up in the last couple of days.  It'd likely be a big salary bump, but I don't like what I've heard about those companies from people that have worked there.  I'd give it a try if I wasn't working, but I'm not going to think about making the jump from a known good place.

I've known a couple of Amazon guys that say they really like their job. They said it really depends on the group you work in. Their such large behemoths, it's difficult to tell from the outside whether you're getting a good group or not. Definitely makes it a gamble.

Similar, have known a few at Google and the internal environment can be variable there.  Same with microsoft.  My employer has ~30 people (total - founded in the '70s) and our internal environment can be variable too.  Would be highly skeptical of anyone who says "company X is <blank> to work for".  That said I have seen companies who make a point of filling out the ranks with lots of fresh outs at low wages and expect lots of turn over as a business model - quality is not there recipe. 

[Paul der Krake]

Lots of hiring slow downs and soft and not so soft freezes lately. Google just sent a slow down email.

My company announced a "slow down" in hiring a while ago, then just a few weeks later it turned into "backfills and critical roles only".

Are the days of 200k new grad offers over? Will rest and vesters have to find a new home? I expect the doom & gloom on Blind to ratchet up a few notches this month. Really funny how quickly the mood changed.

[LennStar]

Lots of hiring slow downs and soft and not so soft freezes lately. Google just sent a slow down email.

My company announced a "slow down" in hiring a while ago, then just a few weeks later it turned into "backfills and critical roles only".

Are the days of 200k new grad offers over? Will rest and vesters have to find a new home? I expect the doom & gloom on Blind to ratchet up a few notches this month. Really funny how quickly the mood changed.

Hearing that I am getting more and more exited! Have to try to find some more cash to invest in 3 month after the quartly results it seems.

[BlueMR2]

Lots of hiring slow downs and soft and not so soft freezes lately. Google just sent a slow down email.

That's actually pretty funny to hear they are slowing down.  I got hit up by internal recruiters for Google and Amazon just in the last couple of days!  :D

[Paul der Krake]

Lots of hiring slow downs and soft and not so soft freezes lately. Google just sent a slow down email.

That's actually pretty funny to hear they are slowing down.  I got hit up by internal recruiters for Google and Amazon just in the last couple of days!  :D

I'd be shocked if recruiting got any advance notice at all. In all likelihood, they heard it from Sundar at the same time as everyone else.

[Gronnie]

Slowdown != freeze, and even during "freezes" there are usually exceptions. They will probably still recruit almost as hard they just might be even more selective in who they extend offers to.

[seattlecyclone]

In my experience with Facebook and Google recruiters, it seems you might get an email from one recruiter who identifies you as a good lead, they might send you a follow-up or two just in case you missed the first one, but if you ignore them you probably won't hear back from the company for maybe a year or so. This is an artifact of their more centralized recruiting process where they claim to be hiring generalists who are generally good fits for the company, and the team matching process happens later.

Amazon on the other hand recruits for specific roles, and they seem to have individual recruiters assigned to recruit for particular teams, and no particular prohibition on multiple recruiters going after the same contacts. Seems to be much more of a free-for-all. The result is I get Amazon recruiting emails all the time. I was curious if I could notice any slowdown in Amazon hiring from my email history, the theory being that if there are fewer open roles you'll see fewer recruiters reaching out.

Number of unique Amazon recruiters emailing me by month (second and subsequent emails from the same recruiter ignored):

• January - 6
• February - 3
• March - 7
• April - 4
• May - 7
• June - 3
• July (so far) - 1

June was on the low side, and just one email for the first ~half of July is also trending low, but it's still too early to notice a definite pattern.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

Google is scheduled in 2 weeks. I'm managing a move right now so additional apps will have to wait.

Google and Amazon internal recruiters both hit me up in the last couple of days.  It'd likely be a big salary bump, but I don't like what I've heard about those companies from people that have worked there.  I'd give it a try if I wasn't working, but I'm not going to think about making the jump from a known good place.

I've known a couple of Amazon guys that say they really like their job. They said it really depends on the group you work in. Their such large behemoths, it's difficult to tell from the outside whether you're getting a good group or not. Definitely makes it a gamble.

At Amazon I've heard they have a certain way of doing things - like core principles they want to follow.  Is that your impression talking to people who work there?

It might be a factor in interviewing at Amazon, but I've never applied there.
https://www.amazon.com/Answering-Behavioral-Questions-Amazon-Interviews-ebook/dp/B09WM1K2V3/

[JLee]

Google is scheduled in 2 weeks. I'm managing a move right now so additional apps will have to wait.

Google and Amazon internal recruiters both hit me up in the last couple of days.  It'd likely be a big salary bump, but I don't like what I've heard about those companies from people that have worked there.  I'd give it a try if I wasn't working, but I'm not going to think about making the jump from a known good place.

I've known a couple of Amazon guys that say they really like their job. They said it really depends on the group you work in. Their such large behemoths, it's difficult to tell from the outside whether you're getting a good group or not. Definitely makes it a gamble.

At Amazon I've heard they have a certain way of doing things - like core principles they want to follow.  Is that your impression talking to people who work there?

It might be a factor in interviewing at Amazon, but I've never applied there.
https://www.amazon.com/Answering-Behavioral-Questions-Amazon-Interviews-ebook/dp/B09WM1K2V3/

From what I hear it is a significant factor in the interview process.

[Paul der Krake]

Google is scheduled in 2 weeks. I'm managing a move right now so additional apps will have to wait.

Google and Amazon internal recruiters both hit me up in the last couple of days.  It'd likely be a big salary bump, but I don't like what I've heard about those companies from people that have worked there.  I'd give it a try if I wasn't working, but I'm not going to think about making the jump from a known good place.

I've known a couple of Amazon guys that say they really like their job. They said it really depends on the group you work in. Their such large behemoths, it's difficult to tell from the outside whether you're getting a good group or not. Definitely makes it a gamble.

At Amazon I've heard they have a certain way of doing things - like core principles they want to follow.  Is that your impression talking to people who work there?

It might be a factor in interviewing at Amazon, but I've never applied there.
https://www.amazon.com/Answering-Behavioral-Questions-Amazon-Interviews-ebook/dp/B09WM1K2V3/

Ex-Amazon eng here. Leadership principles (LPs) are treated very seriously and interviewers not only look for examples, they are assigned specific ones to probe for. Your typical eng onsite loop will have 4 interviews, interviewer #1 will be looking for "bias for action", interviewer #2 for "ownership", etc. If other data points show up for any LP, whether good or bad, you bet they will be brought up during debrief.

It's communicated very clearly to candidates that these will be evaluated, yet in my tenure I saw so many candidates completely unprepared to talk about any of their work. I would be practically begging them "look, I'm trying to help you out here, is there anything you can tell me I can put in this column, this isn't a trick".

LPs alone will not save you if you can't solve the algo problem but you better be prepared to talk about them with very concrete examples.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

Google is scheduled in 2 weeks. I'm managing a move right now so additional apps will have to wait.

Google and Amazon internal recruiters both hit me up in the last couple of days.  It'd likely be a big salary bump, but I don't like what I've heard about those companies from people that have worked there.  I'd give it a try if I wasn't working, but I'm not going to think about making the jump from a known good place.

I've known a couple of Amazon guys that say they really like their job. They said it really depends on the group you work in. Their such large behemoths, it's difficult to tell from the outside whether you're getting a good group or not. Definitely makes it a gamble.

At Amazon I've heard they have a certain way of doing things - like core principles they want to follow.  Is that your impression talking to people who work there?

It might be a factor in interviewing at Amazon, but I've never applied there.
https://www.amazon.com/Answering-Behavioral-Questions-Amazon-Interviews-ebook/dp/B09WM1K2V3/

Ex-Amazon eng here. Leadership principles (LPs) are treated very seriously and interviewers not only look for examples, they are assigned specific ones to probe for. Your typical eng onsite loop will have 4 interviews, interviewer #1 will be looking for "bias for action", interviewer #2 for "ownership", etc. If other data points show up for any LP, whether good or bad, you bet they will be brought up during debrief.

It's communicated very clearly to candidates that these will be evaluated, yet in my tenure I saw so many candidates completely unprepared to talk about any of their work. I would be practically begging them "look, I'm trying to help you out here, is there anything you can tell me I can put in this column, this isn't a trick".

LPs alone will not save you if you can't solve the algo problem but you better be prepared to talk about them with very concrete examples.

Before this thread, I had the vague idea those leadership principles might be a bit of group think (to protect the innocent I won't name names).  What I didn't realize until now is how much my views overlapped with theirs.  One of the principles is "frugality", which I think is more common on our MMM forums.
https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles

Most books on "Amazon Leadership Principles" are about interviewing, but "The Amazon Way" pre-dates those and might capture the essence better:
https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Way-Amazons-Leadership-Principles-ebook/dp/B0933S8DW8/

[FIPurpose]

Just got a note from my Google interview that they were postponing (read canceling) my interview due to the hiring freeze that they were starting. The recruiter said that it was a surprise to them too. Not sure what all these recruiters will do then...

Still finishing up my Masters in the next 2 weeks, moving to a new state. I guess this is a sign to just pump the brakes a little bit.

I'm also waiting to hear back from the DoS on a job with them, but I know that can take a long time (ask me how I know!)

[ixtap]

Just got a note from my Google interview that they were postponing (read canceling) my interview due to the hiring freeze that they were starting. The recruiter said that it was a surprise to them too. Not sure what all these recruiters will do then...

Still finishing up my Masters in the next 2 weeks, moving to a new state. I guess this is a sign to just pump the brakes a little bit.

I'm also waiting to hear back from the DoS on a job with them, but I know that can take a long time (ask me how I know!)

Hmmm, one of my nieces is a recruiter for a logistics company. The great resignation has kept recruiters extra busy, but it doesn't seem like the most recession proof job.

[seattlecyclone]

True. Recruiters are the first to go.

[Paul der Krake]

1,000 people let go at Shopify today. Mostly recruiting and support staff.

I do wonder if this means recruiting comps will drop. From what I could tell those jobs were in the 150k range.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

As a throwback to earlier, I've even seen an easy outsourcing attempt go wrong.  My manager and the local contractor were both from India.  The contractor treated the assignment like class homework that only had to run once - global variables to initialize everything.  I spent some time trying to integrate it into our software, then gave up and scrapped it.  I wound up rewriting it from scratch.  I have various other experiences with outsourcing, but that one seems to eliminate most of the usual concerns (time differences, cultural differences, racism) yet the quality of work was still a problem.

I suspect even if you took identical twins, the contractor of the pair would deliver worse work.  When people come up to speed at a company, they learn the software and many assumptions along with it.  Someone who never trained at the company will lack that background.  Their code is also "fire and forget" - they won't have to maintain it.

[neo von retorch]

I suspect even if you took identical twins, the contractor of the pair would deliver worse work.  When people come up to speed at a company, they learn the software and many assumptions along with it.  Someone who never trained at the company will lack that background.  Their code is also "fire and forget" - they won't have to maintain it.

I know you mean "on average" or something like that, but I seem to keep seeing the opposite. Not as a general rule. I've seen good and bad contractors, good and bad full-timers. A lot of times, though, I see very comfortable full-timers who just don't care. They are fine with crappy work that keeps their job secure because they'll be tasked with fixing it later. Meanwhile, contractors don't want the easily ended contract to end as long as it's a good gig, so they'll focus on doing good work.

(Not to say outsourcing and contracting is equal, as your post started on that thread.)

[FIPurpose]

I suspect even if you took identical twins, the contractor of the pair would deliver worse work.  When people come up to speed at a company, they learn the software and many assumptions along with it.  Someone who never trained at the company will lack that background.  Their code is also "fire and forget" - they won't have to maintain it.

I know you mean "on average" or something like that, but I seem to keep seeing the opposite. Not as a general rule. I've seen good and bad contractors, good and bad full-timers. A lot of times, though, I see very comfortable full-timers who just don't care. They are fine with crappy work that keeps their job secure because they'll be tasked with fixing it later. Meanwhile, contractors don't want the easily ended contract to end as long as it's a good gig, so they'll focus on doing good work.

(Not to say outsourcing and contracting is equal, as your post started on that thread.)

In places where I've worked, contracting is simply an accounting trick. Full-timers over the long run are cheaper than contractors. But accounting really likes seeing employees as liabilities and therefor it's easier to track the profitability of particular projects if you can use contractors and label all the employee costs against a particular project.

Contractors and full-time employees I've seen have about the same tenure expectancy, it was really just a way of moving buckets of money around in different ways to justify certain things to managers.

For some reason having 'x' employees really bothers management if they arbitrarily decide that's too many. But it's a lot easier to maintain the work force you have when it's suddenly very obvious project 'y' costs so much to make and that includes all of the contractors to work it. So then managers have to cut projects rather than employees.