I have offers from Zalando (Base Compensation: €87K) at Berlin and another offer from Spotify (750K SEK) at Stockholm. Spotify also has 126K USD stock options vested in 4 years. I am confused about them particularly about salary and levels. At Spotify, they are giving me Engineer III whereas Zalando is a Senior role. I am okay with the location. I just want a community view on which one is good and how much should I negotiate? YOE: 5 years, Senior Mobile Developer Current Base: 110K SGD ~ 750K SEK #offer #career #tech #stockholm #berlin
And whats total.comp from zalando
Zalando doesn’t offer stock options. They have bonus ranging from 5-15% and better employee perks.
Better perks like?
Why are you leaving Grab?
The main reason is: It has not grown itself as a tech company and still is a feature factory. Every three months the business priority changes and so the engineering work. There are huge challenges like build times, CI but they get little attention with not so capable engineers.
Which location you were in Grab?
Living in Sweden is not for everyone, 750k is not the top salary but above average + stocks - not so common in sweden. Min 30% tax plus you’ll be amazed what the housing situation look like. Renting - 11000+ sek month for apt, rooms for less( NOT EASY to find unless your company would be willing to help). Food is ... some people like it. In Sweden it’s hard to negotiate sometimes, however Spotify may be different. Stockholm vs Berlin, after 9 pm central Stockholm is dead, Berlin the opposite. Spotify’s office is the center and commuting can be up to 30 mins assuming you are living ‘inom tullarna’ or close to them.
Thank you for your insight. Would you recommend Stockholm or Berlin? I am also scared of the housing situation. Is it really that bad?
I think housing situation is also not great in Berlin. I heard it's difficult to get an apartment even for germans.
I went from Zalando to Spotify. When I left Zalando was a feature factory too, although I heard from friends the situation has improved. The good thing is engineers are first class citizen in Zalando. Spotify is a more mature company but the managers here downplay the importance of product engineers a lot. Good side is the engineering infra of Spotify is probably 5 years ahead of Zalando, and in some area such as ML infra, Zalando will never catch up to Spotify. So go to Spotify if you want to learn how to develop product, and go to Zalando if you want to learn about engineering practice.
i personally know a few MLengineers at spotify, and their level is questionable to say the least. So dunno what the product could be be if they worked on it. Surprised how they even passed the interview.
Sorry for ambiguity. I’m speaking of ML Infra.
@wigglewine, what did you finally choose? I am expecting an offer from Zalando soon for berlin and wanted to check with you if you had your visa processed? was there any difficultly with visa due to the covid situation?
Is it possible to negotiate with Spotify? I have similar situation.
Create poll
Thank you, I have added the poll.