And yet he’s still among us. Pathetic lmao.
Who are you mate? You think you’re someone special? Hahahahh
I'd more guess it is that there is a severe income tax advantage, B2B contracts are also easier in eastern Europe.
We want opinionated engineers. But we want engineers who will respond to a slack message after 5pm during a P1 escalation.
> I'd more guess it is that there is a severe income tax advantage
Somewhat but not enough to move the needle because depending on the local government, they are matching cross-EU subsidizes.
> older people from those countries are good at keeping their head down in soviet style work configurations
Other way around. The Western European employees want a heads down and no input but high paying job.
CEE peers will push back and be opinionated but also try to think from a business outcomes perspective.
> soviet style work configurations
Which ironically is closer to German business and work culture instead of in Eastern Europe.
Edit: can't reply
> Of course if you pay someone 135k vs 70k real income
Salaries at the 75th percentile and above for SWEs are kept constant across Europe.
Heck, the companies for which I am a board member as well as companies at I have previously been management or line-level engineers all pay in the €130K-€170K TC range in Germany as well as across the CEE.
This is waaaaaay above TC for the average European in tech and we know it.
It sucks but the reality is the talent density in Western Europe is weaker than in the CEE, and it is mindset driven.
A German SWE wants a 9-5. A Czech SWE wants to build the next JetBrains.
We want to hire or fund the latter, not the former.
In western Europe you'd just have to specify the availability requirements and they'd do it there as well. You'd just have to pay for it.
Edit: If you pay someone 150k€ in Germany what they see after-tax is just not that much. They are going to compare this with the 9-5 IGM position (when it is available...). Why not just admit that you don't want to pay equivalent wages for accessing the western european market?
For Germany this in not true, I have direct experience of this. Your income is really high at 150k€, even taking in account all taxes you pay if you’re self–employed (plus insurances, social security contributions, etc). You’re way above what you would get from the German market, unless you go into management.
Is it his responsibility? If some countries have a better tax policy, why should he not take advantage of it, and ultimately end up in a situation that benefits both the employee and his company?
If you are actually talented, have a good work ethic, and the track record to show that then get a job that relocates you to London.
That is your only option if you want to stay in Western Europe as a SWE long term.
This is terrible advice. Source: been there, done that (worked my ass off to waste half my TC on taxes and the other half on cost of living). I ended up moving to a low-tax Eastern European country so I can actually feel like I'm being fairly compensated for said talent and work ethic.
I don't actually see how your advice improves the situation - the net disposable income you'll end up with is about the same you'll have from being lazy in Western Europe - except at the very least, some Western European countries are actually nice to live in. If you're gonna be poor anyway, may as well be poor in a nicer place.
Then you're going to have to pay, aren't you.
Money ain't a problem, attitude is.
The Western Europeans with the right attitude either move to America (eg. I'm sponsoring the O-1 of 2 founders who are shifting from London to SF for that reason) or end up becoming leadership for American companies in Western Europe.
And even though I could easily move to London (modulo family) I wouldn't as the wages there are much worse for my specialty.
Honestly based on talking to friends and former colleagues I think you're probably underpaying for many Western European markets, TC of 200k is where it's at now.
I'll leave your attitude comments out as I don't have enough context to reply effectively.
I do try to continually improve my skill set, refresh on design patterns, etc. I’m currently employed and have been for the last six years. I don’t really know if I fall in category 3 or not.
What, in your opinion are the “foundational” CS skills the #3 people are missing?
That said, you seem like someone who actually has the calibre to be hired at a good Security, DevTools, or Infra company.
This is my throwaway, but my two cents to you is to leave asap and try to find a way to work at a company that values OS and kernel level knowledge (probably GCP atm), but that would require relocating to the Bay or NYC.
Additionally, diaspora engineers whose parents are growing old are starting to move back to the old country to be close with them.
He's moving back close to where I stay.
Many others from the big labs are moving back to their core EE field into stuff like optical networks for data centers and so on by the way. That is a lot of the attrition.
Nope.
At his level and position I doubt that is actually the primary reason simply because at his level, a way would have been found to retain him despite family issues (eg. opening an OpenAI tech office in Bangalore, Hyderabad, or Chennai or make him GM for OpenAI in India). Something else is going on with Srinivas' departure - either pushed out by Fidji or planning on starting his own thing.
That said, in my peer group I would say around 25-35% of people left for the family reason - especially after how COVID was handled in India. At one point, Google leadership was offering to match MTV salaries for engineers and PMs who Google wanted to retain but who decided to shift back to India to care for family during and slightly after the pandemic.
> Many others from the big labs are moving back to their core EE field into stuff like optical networks for data centers and so on by the way. That is a lot of the attrition.
My hunch is he is probably leaving to work on something like this or an adjacent space, but admitting as such would leave him open to litigation. That said, given his age I'd assume family decisions are also somewhat playing a role.
Ofc, some Indian diaspora types do leave for other reasons (eg. Sridhar Vembu and his divorce).
On the EE and optical side, diaspora founders are actually serious about leaving the US for Hyderabad simply because the Indian vintages of American deeptech funds plus the RDI are giving ridiculously competitive funding terms for startups in that space.
And yeah that makes sense on the returning from the bay part. Many of those people ended up being fodder for startups here to poach. Work with a few of them.