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Counterpoint: Dutch people will insist that "gezellig" has a more complicated translation than "cozy".
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May 4, 2023 17:38
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daft is the most generous migration dealio in the rich world, about, if youre doing the dutch thing
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May 4, 2023 17:39
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I’m currently on around £80k GBP in a smaller UK city, and it looks like the CoL and my salary here vs someone living in SF works out around the same as me earning $210k USD based on a very quick CoL search. I reckon I’m about an L5 in FAANG terms? The pay in the UK is nothing compared to the US, except MAYBE in financial services in London, but the CoL here is low(ish) outside London too.
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May 4, 2023 17:50
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One extra thing to consider with CoL calculations that a website can’t determine is medical expenses. Almost any other country is going to have low-cost health care which can make a huge difference, depending on your situation. The best part about living in Europe is that I know there is no accident or misfortune that’s going to bankrupt me. A close second best is that in Sweden, sick days are paid by the government and don’t come out of my six weeks of PTO and if my kid gets sick, I can take a different kind of day off that the government provides which, again, is separate from my employer’s vacation plan.
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May 4, 2023 18:24
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I'm just curious... has anyone here ever considered throwing caution to the wind to go work in the Middle East somewhere for a few years, make a ton of money, and then retire? I've heard some amazing stories, both good and bad, from people that I personally know about this. I'm far too risk-adverse (and now too old) to even think about trying something like that. One guy that I know is an English citizen who works for Emirates Airlines. He makes a ridiculous amount of money (millions of dollars a year for negotiating for the content put on the inflight entertainment systems), but he also said that if he ever got in a fender-bender that he'd immediately get to an airport, leave the country, and never come back. Just... leave it all behind immediately and forever. Insurance is seen as gambling there, so if you get hit by someone with royal family ties (like some 10 year-old kid driving illegally), you're pretty much done for if you aren't likewise connected. Another guy that I went to high school with made a fortune over there as a short-term contractor in Dubai, but he was heading to the airport to fly back home for a visit and he saw a pair of handcuffs on the ground. He thought they'd make a good souvenir, so he picked them up. This ended up with him sitting in jail for 30 days after the police beat a confession out of him. Then again, another guy that I went to high school with worked for five years in the UAE as a private blacksmith and farrier for a horse stable while making over one million USD per year. He got in, got paid, and got out. Never went to college, had maybe 10 years experience as a farrier before he started, and is now retired with a horse stable of his own. It seems like the risks are just plain crazy, but somebody out there has to be making bank doing this while drawing as little attention as possible.
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May 4, 2023 18:39
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Yeah in the UK we get I think minimum 20 days PTO (I get 25) + 8 national holidays per year, lower than some scandi countries but decent still. As for medical expenses, that too. Doctor’s appointments and hospital visits are zero cost always unless you elect to go private here, and again unless you go for a private medical provider literally any medication prescribed costs £9.50, usually for a month’s supply of whatever it is. My wife looked up the cost of her Fostair brand asthma inhaler in the US recently and it’s literally like $300 per month instead.
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May 4, 2023 18:40
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hendersa posted:I'm just curious... has anyone here ever considered throwing caution to the wind to go work in the Middle East somewhere for a few years, make a ton of money, and then retire? I've heard some amazing stories, both good and bad, from people that I personally know about this. I'm far too risk-adverse (and now too old) to even think about trying something like that. I would do this for 2-5 years. Know anyone paying game devs a mil+/year?
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May 4, 2023 18:58
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Money is great and all, but it seems too easy to go wrong in certain places, and even if it doesn't you're living in an oddly closed environment for a very long time. Like, I don't feel like I could just switch back to "I can state my opinion without being arrested and tortured" No shame on folks who go that route, but even though I'm not high paid, I don't need the money nearly that badly.
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May 4, 2023 20:44
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Artemis J Brassnuts posted:Question for the FAANG peeps - how is the work/life balance in general? My wife and I sometimes talk about moving back to the US to be close to family again but they all live in the expensive parts of California, so the only way it makes sense is if I’m pulling in like 200k+. She’s concerned that if I’m getting paid that much then they’re basically going to own me - crunch, overtime, etc. Any anecdotes to confirm / deny this? deny, work life balance (on my team, in my org) at google is way better than pretty much anything that isn't similarly huge
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May 4, 2023 21:01
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I worked at Amazon for three years in the 2000's, and while I wouldn't call it a toxic environment, I went through four managers in my first year due to constant re-orgs. And project planning wasn't in touch with reality, leading to a lot of aggressive goal-setting and deathmarches. From what I've heard from others who have worked there, this is a) not limited to the org I was in, and b) still an ongoing problem in much of the company. My time in an Alphabet company wasn't entirely rosy either, but it was a lot more reasonable than the Amazon job. I guess all I'm saying re: FAANG is that not all FAANG jobs are created equal, and some companies are better than others to work for. As for Dubai, I have zero interest in going there. I've seen too many articles about literal debtor's prisons and other abuses. The potential upside just can't compare to the risk.
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May 4, 2023 21:12
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If you want an unlivably hot fascist shithole with tech jobs, you could also do the Phoenix area
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May 4, 2023 21:14
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I haven't heard of anywhere in the Middle East paying absurd amounts for software developers. When compared to what SF companies pay I'm pretty skeptical that it would be even remotely worth it.
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May 5, 2023 00:11
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StumblyWumbly posted:Money is great and all, but
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May 5, 2023 01:13
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Artemis J Brassnuts posted:Question for the FAANG peeps - how is the work/life balance in general? My wife and I sometimes talk about moving back to the US to be close to family again but they all live in the expensive parts of California, so the only way it makes sense is if I’m pulling in like 200k+. She’s concerned that if I’m getting paid that much then they’re basically going to own me - crunch, overtime, etc. Any anecdotes to confirm / deny this? ime at Meta it's pretty good. If you want to get promos quickly you'd need to work a lot. Comparing all tech jobs I've had, as pay has improved so have the conditions.
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May 5, 2023 23:07
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awesomeolion posted:as pay has improved so have the conditions. agree. for some reason people seem to think to make big figgies you got to bust rear end working 80 hours a week or some poo poo, but my experience has been the total opposite. the most demanding and abusive jobs are almost always some startup or low end body shop grinding people on doomed projects for half of market rate pay. faang and friends are country clubs in comparison.
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May 5, 2023 23:43
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my worst working conditions were in jobs that paid 70k and had no levels aside from software developer and senior software developer
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May 5, 2023 23:46
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biceps crimes posted:my worst working conditions were in jobs that paid 70k and had no levels aside from software developer and senior software developer Yeah, while it's not a perfect rule I think you could probably chart of line of QoL and compensation and as one increased the other would with it. The kind of company that pays 50% of market rate is the kind of company that will have 2 weeks PTO, observe 5 holidays but demand you have your phone on and answer emails for those, or has endless death marches for products and features that never release.
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May 6, 2023 00:29
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wilderthanmild posted:Yeah, while it's not a perfect rule I think you could probably chart of line of QoL and compensation and as one increased the other would with it. The kind of company that pays 50% of market rate is the kind of company that will have 2 weeks PTO, observe 5 holidays but demand you have your phone on and answer emails for those, or has endless death marches for products and features that never release.  these types of jobs would get me 10 or 15 days pto at most and expected me to make the job my identity
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May 6, 2023 00:35
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biceps crimes posted:
Crazy thing is it works on some people.
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May 6, 2023 00:54
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leper khan posted:I would do this for 2-5 years. Know anyone paying game devs a mil+/year? I know the Saudi crown prince was trying to get a game studio started up as one of the keystone businesses for his Neom project, especially after Riot pulled out of their e-sports partnership. It's risky, you know?
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May 7, 2023 16:23
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I imagine that a game studio fully owned by a Saudi prince is at heavy risk for some creative interference.
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May 7, 2023 17:06
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I wouldn't want to get into crunch time and have to attend a hack session, either
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May 7, 2023 17:36
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StumblyWumbly posted:I imagine that a game studio fully owned by a Saudi prince is at heavy risk for some creative interference.
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May 7, 2023 17:44
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The average rating on Glassdoor is 9/11, though?
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May 9, 2023 07:36
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nice
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May 9, 2023 13:06
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Since we're talking about moving around, anyone done the move to Latin America while working remote thing? I've vacationed in Mexico City a couple times and I would love to spend a year or two there. It meets my conditions of good weather + good food + not USA.
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May 10, 2023 05:58
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prom candy posted:Since we're talking about moving around, anyone done the move to Latin America while working remote thing? I've vacationed in Mexico City a couple times and I would love to spend a year or two there. It meets my conditions of good weather + good food + not USA. I did a short one month stint working remotely in Argentina in November last year. The exchange rate is awesome, weather is great. Food is cheap but can get tiring eating out all the time. It's very European in Buenos Aires.
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May 10, 2023 06:43
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if you wanna be out of the usa to avoid politics i got bad news about argentina
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May 10, 2023 06:46
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bob dobbs is dead posted:if you wanna be out of the usa to avoid politics i got bad news about argentina Someone in these very forums said that if you are rich enough you become apolitical. It's very easy to be rich in Argentina as a puter toucher earning US wages.
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May 10, 2023 08:55
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Mantle posted:Someone in these very forums said that if you are rich enough you become apolitical. It's very easy to be rich in Argentina as a puter toucher earning US wages. Some people actually care about human rights.
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May 10, 2023 14:12
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Mantle posted:Someone in these very forums said that if you are rich enough you become apolitical. It's very easy to be rich in Argentina as a puter toucher earning US wages. Sorry to break it to you, bud, but that makes you still very political, if not more so. e: leper khan posted:Some people actually care about human rights.
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May 10, 2023 16:49
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There's no such thing as apolitical, there's just tacitly supporting the status quo.
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May 10, 2023 16:54
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bob dobbs is dead posted:if you wanna be out of the usa to avoid politics i got bad news about argentina USA just has hosed vibes, I don't want to live there
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May 10, 2023 20:36
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leper khan posted:Some people actually care about human rights. Also, ITT people muse about making $1M USD a year to develop a fart app for MBS
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May 10, 2023 20:57
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prom candy posted:Since we're talking about moving around, anyone done the move to Latin America while working remote thing? I've vacationed in Mexico City a couple times and I would love to spend a year or two there. It meets my conditions of good weather + good food + not USA. You should probably start by looking at what work visa you need to stay at country x (try narrowing it down to less than 1 continent), then check if your employer allows for remote work from target country, or look into contracting if they don't.
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May 10, 2023 22:26
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On the topic of moving around: I've been in big tech for a while now (10+ years, although I just recently switched over to dev from engineering / ops a couple years ago) and I'm trying to plan my next couple years out, so not actively looking right now but more thinking about what I'll do next. I'd like to try working somewhere less...constantly on fire and incredibly massive and complicated. I've heard good things about midsize tech companies from posts online, but my assumption is that these places are probably less well known than the big tech places. I'm not against taking a pay cut to have a better job, but if you were planning a similar move, what sort of company would you look for, and how would you try and sniff out lovely places? I'm not looking to just find somewhere to coast; I've just constantly been on teams in big tech that have so much technical debt and deprioritized work you could double their size and never make headway and sometime's it's hard to feel like it's fulfilling, even if I do appreciate working with smart people and all that. Falcon2001 fucked around with this message at 14:56 on May 11, 2023 |
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May 11, 2023 14:50
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I don't know that you're going to find less tech debt and better management practices by changing the size of the org you work for. I don't think that's something that is externally measurable. Just some companies/orgs/teams are better at it than others, and you need to have some insider info to know if a move would improve your day-to-day.
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May 11, 2023 16:37
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have lots of buddies, use the buddies as backchannels. backchannel is only reliable way
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May 11, 2023 16:38
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I don’t think you can get a feel for company culture from just the size. I’ve been in smaller/mid sized companies with 10+ hours of meetings a week. One good signal you can find out beforehand is if the company is a technology company, or a company that has technology as a cost center. It’s a bit blurry sometimes, but a simple question like “does this company have a CTO” is start.
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May 11, 2023 16:48
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lifg posted:I don’t think you can get a feel for company culture from just the size. I’ve been in smaller/mid sized companies with 10+ hours of meetings a week. There's definitely some stuff that gets significantly more complex with size, from a dev/operations perspective. Like working with infra at BigTech is often a nightmare of hundreds of competing permission models and stuff to where a simple 'I want to do X' turns into a fifteen step nightmare process. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8OnoxKotPQ&t=1s It's just this video, all the time.
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May 11, 2023 17:00
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