London vs. Zurich

Jun 15, 2020 5 Comments

We want to move to Europe in the next half year. London and Zurich are on our list. I've spent all my career in systems design, so I'd like to get a position in a similar area. I have some questions about opportunities in these cities.

London:
- Microsoft: which teams are there? I've only seen open positions for architects and support, but not devs. Are there any dev positions?
- Apple: which teams are there?
- any other core it companies in London that are hiring?

Zurich:
- FB only has VR?
- Google: I've only seen kernel security positions and staff engineer. The staff engineer description is not very concrete so I'm not sure what that job means.
- Microsoft: I pretty much got the picture there.
- other companies I should be considering?

Again, not really interested in financial companies, because afaik often the decisions are not made by engineers which leads to a lot of uncertainty and stress.

TC:190k
Level: 63
#engineering #software

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TOP 5 Comments
  • Google / Eng
    5kids2feed

    Go to company page Google Eng

    5kids2feed
    Google Zürich is a huge office, almost 5k FTE. Hundreds of teams, though it's definitely no HQ, and then due to corona headcounts are tight now

    Stock grants are ~ half of the US. Best to get hired by Google in US, negotiate a generous american sized grant and then transfer internally. You get to keep the grant.
    Jun 16, 2020 2
    • Do you know how fast and easy is it to transfer? I mean is there a minimum period you need to be in your initial team?
      Jun 16, 2020
    • Google / Eng
      5kids2feed

      Go to company page Google Eng

      5kids2feed
      Easy, just find a team with an available headcount and willing to take you. For immigration formalities you need a degree and 3+ yoe, or an EU passport. Google will take care of the rest.

      1 year tenure is the official guideline to transfer. But possible earlier, on a case by case basis with additional approvals from higher ups
      Jun 16, 2020
  • Facebook
    zuckdorsey

    Go to company page Facebook

    zuckdorsey
    Facebook has lots of engineering teams in London.
    Jun 15, 2020 0
  • Google also has a huge office in London. So does FB. Palantir is another top company there. Most of Microsoft's UK presence is in Cambridge. There are a lot of interesting startups in London as well. Check out Graphcore for instance or CityMapper. Amazon has a big office in London too. My friend enjoyed working for BBC in London.
    Aug 21, 2020 0