3 ms·

I am a technical recruiter in Zurich. We have a tiny Rackspace dev team here and from what I've heard from the guys here Rackspace has a very reasonable recruit

by s3nnyy 10y ago

I am a technical recruiter in Zurich. We have a tiny Rackspace dev team here and from what I've heard from the guys here Rackspace has a very reasonable recruiting strategy. The take-home assignment is a set of tasks that the candidate can choose from, which I believe is a smarter way to gauge tech-talent than giving an arbitrary algorithmic coding task and forcing the candidate to solve it on the spot like Google / Facebook does.

chrisper 10y ago
I might be moving to Zurich in a year or two. How is the tech scene there?
- im_down_w_otp 10y ago
  I am extremely jealous. I would love to be able to move there.
  - chrisper 10y ago
    I used to be jealous about Americans and such for being able to not to have to worry about US visas and get paid a lot. Then it occurred to me that I can just go to Switzerland or any other European country as I have a Euro passport. Then the jealousy went away! ;) Currently in the US on a student visa. Idea was to go the H1B route, but that way seems annoying.
- s3nnyy 10y ago
  Some Swiss IT-highlights include: - The biggest Google software engineering office outside California (around 2000 employees). - Logitec, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco - ETH university - Many ETH-spinoff/startups: Doodle, Bitspin (bought by Google), Teralytics, Archilogic, Fashwell, Getyourguide, Numbrs and I surely forgot many others. It is a great place to live and is the only place where net-salaries are on par with New York / SF. Salaries are in the range of 7000 - 10.000 CHF / month after taxes. However apartments can be way cheaper than in San Francisco. You find more on Zurich from me here: https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-to-switzerland-to-work-in-it-c7ac18af4f90 https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-t... Also, if you have a EU-passport, you can find my email address in my HN-handle.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    ETH has cranked out all kinds of good, practical research. They were also the birthplace, via Wirth et al, of safe and efficient languages for systems programming.
  - chrisper 10y ago
    I do have an EU-passport, but I do not know what an HN-handle is.
    - branchan 10y ago
      If you click on his name 's3nnyy', you will see his profile. He has his email listed there.
  - gaius 10y ago
    The biggest Google software engineering office outside California (around 2000 employees). Makes sense, Switzerland is a major tax haven.
    - s3nnyy 10y ago
      When they decided to make Zurich the Google tech-hub in Europe I can assure you that taxes were not the main driver. One of the big guys at Google at that time studied at ETH and therefore knew the place is full of talent. Also, the Zurich is more or less in the geographic center of Europe. So is Munich, Germany, but would a French or Italian programming prodigy move to Germany? Maybe, but maybe not. The probability of different people to move to (neutral) Switzerland is higher so it is a natural place to attract talent from all over Europe.
      - chrisper 10y ago
        Hey, I sent you an e-mail, but haven't gotten a response. Not sure if I sent it at the correct one? iwang -at - fastmail dot net

by s3nnyy 10y ago

chrisper 10y ago

I might be moving to Zurich in a year or two. How is the tech scene there?

im_down_w_otp 10y ago
I am extremely jealous. I would love to be able to move there.
- chrisper 10y ago
  I used to be jealous about Americans and such for being able to not to have to worry about US visas and get paid a lot. Then it occurred to me that I can just go to Switzerland or any other European country as I have a Euro passport. Then the jealousy went away! ;) Currently in the US on a student visa. Idea was to go the H1B route, but that way seems annoying.
s3nnyy 10y ago
Some Swiss IT-highlights include: - The biggest Google software engineering office outside California (around 2000 employees). - Logitec, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco - ETH university - Many ETH-spinoff/startups: Doodle, Bitspin (bought by Google), Teralytics, Archilogic, Fashwell, Getyourguide, Numbrs and I surely forgot many others. It is a great place to live and is the only place where net-salaries are on par with New York / SF. Salaries are in the range of 7000 - 10.000 CHF / month after taxes. However apartments can be way cheaper than in San Francisco. You find more on Zurich from me here: https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-to-switzerland-to-work-in-it-c7ac18af4f90 https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-t... Also, if you have a EU-passport, you can find my email address in my HN-handle.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  ETH has cranked out all kinds of good, practical research. They were also the birthplace, via Wirth et al, of safe and efficient languages for systems programming.
- chrisper 10y ago
  I do have an EU-passport, but I do not know what an HN-handle is.
  - branchan 10y ago
    If you click on his name 's3nnyy', you will see his profile. He has his email listed there.
- gaius 10y ago
  The biggest Google software engineering office outside California (around 2000 employees). Makes sense, Switzerland is a major tax haven.
  - s3nnyy 10y ago
    When they decided to make Zurich the Google tech-hub in Europe I can assure you that taxes were not the main driver. One of the big guys at Google at that time studied at ETH and therefore knew the place is full of talent. Also, the Zurich is more or less in the geographic center of Europe. So is Munich, Germany, but would a French or Italian programming prodigy move to Germany? Maybe, but maybe not. The probability of different people to move to (neutral) Switzerland is higher so it is a natural place to attract talent from all over Europe.
    - chrisper 10y ago
      Hey, I sent you an e-mail, but haven't gotten a response. Not sure if I sent it at the correct one? iwang -at - fastmail dot net