Google Zurich exit opportunities (and London vs Zurich)
Looking at job specs in Zurich. Few impressions: >90% (maybe >95% jobs) don't seem to care about CS knowledge/Leetcode. If you have some JavaEE/Hibernate/JBoss expreience or C#.NET you're fine. Presumably not interesting job and CRUD. And cobol, so much cobol. There seem to be few interesting roles in banks but now even front office and quant devs/researchers are outsourced to Poland (at least according to ATS of Credit Suisse/UBS) FAANG market size: virtually 0 outside of Google. Mostly FAANG buying small startups in computer vision, so 1-2 teams tops + sales office. However, for single frugal person it's doable to save ~4k CHF/USD (on 110-120k base, nothing else) working for some random no name company or decent startup. London has way more interesting roles (actual FAANG, proper finance, etc.) But insane tax so I would end up saving less. With 90k base (which isn't even trivial to get in London). Not even thinking about bonus as that's already taxed at progressive 50%. What's your take on this if you aren't eligible for US visa?
Have you considered Singapore ? You would be saving a lot more in Singapore because of low tax rates.
It crossed my mind! But is it easy to get $110-120k+ offer from SG? I only checked briefly 3 years ago and it didn't seem so (but haven't done proper research) Also, SG has free trade and uncapped H1B1 (huge plus in my eyes), but I guess SG citizenship is not trivial at all
Dude I would stay away from Zurich if I were you. London is very lax and easy going compared to Zurich. Culture shock is real if you’re not used to Swiss punctuality, Swiss dress codes, curfews etc Don’t get me wrong, Switzerland is beautiful and the taxes are low but adapting to Swiss life is a challenge unless you’re planning to live in a house. Make a sound past 10pm and your neighbors will start to bang on the walls.
There is Snapchat in Switzerland though :). IIRC Yverdon-les-Bains (never heard of that city before lol). I guess it's cow farms, more cow farms, tractors and then App Hardening team of Snapchat
Cows are considered a national treasure in Switzerland 😂 I prefer the French side to the German as people tend to be a bit more chill over there. Regardless, if you can handle all the rules and restrictions of Switzerland you’ll thrive. Pay is better than most of Europe, taxes are lower and quality of life is very good as long as you are okay with places shutting early and towns being dead on Sundays. This is especially true for places outside of Zurich.
Apple is increasing its presence in Zurich but most (if not all) roles that I know of are for CV and ML focused positions. Same applies for FB; actually I know multiple folks moving between Apple and FB in Zurich.
No exit opportunities. US is the next step up and maybe HFT in London. Yes technically there are a few tiny remote offices of other FAANGs in Zurich: Facebook (Oculus), Apple (self driving & some others), Microsoft (AR/VR and enterprise), even Citadel, and I'm sure they pay well, but they're all really tiny. Like a few dozen people each tiny and hiring very selectively. Whereas Google's nearing 5k people. The normal attrition rate alone can't get absorbed by these tiny other offices. Banks and startups pay shit, 150k is their idea of a very good TC and 200k is a hard ceiling for any sort of IC work. Contractors can break through it but yeah you need to specialize in these boring banking tech. Generic Java development pays generically bad or gets nearshored to Poland for even worse rates. No interesting roles like quants, that kind of stuff is mostly in London and US, only sell side sits here.
Not having PIP + paying wayy above market, people (statistically some are mediocre) aren't leaving Zurich office. Also, isn't there L3 hiring freeze in ZRH? Zurich office is no longer (even pre-COVID) advertising non-staff level SWE. Same for SRE/TSE (are there still TSEs in Zurich?) and only taking referrals.
There's little headcount all around google, practically hiring freeze thanks to covid. But before yes we were hiring L3's even if not specifivally advertised. An explanation I once heard is they don't consider official job site a good channel for these, too much noise
London is a shit hole... its dirty, full of homeless people, murder rate is the same as NYC (even though they don't have guns in London), taxes are insane (>50% on RSUs). British people all act like passive aggressive teenage girls with constant snide / passive aggressive remarks if they are "giving you feedback". I would take a job at the bank in Zurich over FAANG in London. But then again I took booking.com over FAANG in London so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ London might be good if your ultimate goal is to transfer to the US. But I've already lived there during my college years / internships and didn't like the fake / plastic culture. I also value easy going life over TC. And my life in the Netherlands is pretty comfy, I own my own apartment - and manage to save and invest 2k each month. Sadly the media induced hysteria by the name of corona virus hit, so I might be laid off from my job @ booking so will have to move to London tl;dr Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, even Germany > UK
Zürich tax + soc sec approaches 45% for RSUs. It's not such a low tax country for high earners
RSU taxes in UK approach 55% That said 100k CHF base salary in Zurich is about 80k after taxes. 100k CHF base salary in the uk (83k GBP) is 67k chf after taxes (56.7k GBP) So yeah it's not even a contest. And not everything is about money, having high quality of life where you don't work 10 hours per day and have to evade gang stabbings on your way to work is also important.
Very few exit opportunities in Zurich. I worked at the Google office there for 4+ years, married a Swiss citizen, and still decided to head back to the US. Don't expect FANG level comp outside of Google there. There's a very small FB office working on Oculus that might pay in the same range, but CH in general is a wasteland for high TC SWE comp. I didn't care for the city either, crappy weather, small living quarters, limited consumer choice, and unfriendly locals. The nature and outdoors is world class though (even California can't compare). Also consider that getting a C permit and even B permit is getting increasingly hard these days (see language requirements).
As a Parisian, i do not understand the term "friendly locals", but other than that, is it not possible to translate your current driving license (B permit) into Zurich ? And do you have any insight about the situation of Microsoft at Zurich ?
For OP, did you manage to find exit opportunities other than mentioned here?
Isn’t it better now with remote?
A
IMO, Zürich cost of living is brutal if you’re not making a FAANG salary. I feel like there’s a wider net of liveable areas around London vs. Zürich. That said, I think Z is far far prettier and if i had to pick between the two, it would be Z.