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This really makes me consider moving my family to Zurich. Looking back at growing up in Germany/Europe made me really feel disadvantaged compared to people gro
by Roritharr 10y ago
This really makes me consider moving my family to Zurich.
Looking back at growing up in Germany/Europe made me really feel disadvantaged compared to people growing up in more tech friendly environments. I would want my child to grow up somewhere where technology is not overwhelmingly debated about in a negative light.
So much good stuff is coming out of ETH that it really seems to be a place where people talk more enthusiastically about tech in general.
- ovi256 10y ago>where technology is not overwhelmingly debated about in a negative light Was this really true for the place you grew up ? It sounds so luddite.
- Roritharr 10y agoMy (single)mother was looked down upon for buying us a computer when my sister was 16 and I was ten. It went as far as the local priest calling social services because he assumed neglect. It's not like I grew up around Amish, but its just generally a very acceptable stance here to be skeptical of all new technology. It's very apparent especially when you look at the discussions centering our school system. We still debate about the harm of too much technology in school, theres still no real IT classes and people just now start looking toward programmers as a favorable job, simply because we have stable jobs while so many other industries have problems...
- tluyben2 10y agoSorry where was that? I do not think you have to move to Zurich to experience something better. I have never heard about this and I grew up in a bible belt region in EU.
- linza 10y agoTIL the EU has a bible belt. Can you expand on where that is?
- vintermann 10y agoEurope has a ton of rural places. If you think the US south is conservative, you should try living on an island where everyone's last name corresponds to 200+ year old farms on the same island ;)
- tluyben2 10y agoThis was in a rural place in the middle of the Netherlands: 3 times to church on sunday, not allowed anything else on that day but reading the bible. No contraceptives allowed so most families had children until they could not anymore (8-10 children were not strange), learning and reciting bible passages and singing hymns by heart etc during the week and sundays. And yet the very strict grade school got a computer when I was 9-10 (1984) and I was to teach the kids and teachers how to use it. Although they were not even allowed TVs in their houses, the town 'elders' recognized that this was the future of sorts.
- spacecowboy_lon 10y agoThe Wee frees in Scotland can be like that one very senior Scottish politician was excommunicated for stepping inside a catholic church (for an old friends funeral) a few years ago.
- rmc 10y agoEach country will probably have their own highly religious areas. Many bible belts! For the UK just look at Northern Ireland.
- Roritharr 10y agoI grew up in the Rhine Valley, in a small town of 2000 inhabitants.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- tobltobs 10y agoMy anecdotal evidence from the Rheinknie would "prove" the opposite. And in the year 1990 we already had IT lessons in High School where we programmed in BASIC and Pascal. I think the social stigma came from the your mother being a single parent. There was a lot of discrimination against them in those times.
- Roritharr 10y agoIt was not a social stigma in general, what I've tried to describe is more the general attitude, which is reflected by the wide usage of Google Streetview Blocking ability. Sure there was a Pascal class, and its not like you are physically unable to learn CS if you want to, but the environment does not lend itself to leading kids down that path.
- tobltobs 10y agoThe blocking of Google Streetview and the general objection of tracking enabling technologies has more to do with the Stasi history then a general objection against technology. Also there isn't any requirement to lead kids especially to IT. You can get good jobs in mostly all thinkable sectors of industry or services in Germany. What is true is, that IT was more seen as a nerd hobby than a profession until around 1998. But this was true for the most parts of the world apart from a few pockets like Silicon Valley.
- countryqt30 10y agoI live in Zurich and attended ETH, thousands of bright people! :D
- igk 10y agoCan I ask you for details about your background? I grew up in central Europe and never experienced what you seemed to have experienced
- Roritharr 10y agoI've answered some in other comments. Its not extreme.
- tluyben2 10y agoAmsterdam, Rotterdam, Berlin, Munchen, Madrid, Barcelona London (for now), hell even Malaga are tech friendly and much easier (in my experience, but that is totally a matter of taste: I find Swiss too stiff) to settle. Really wondering where you are from. Edit: fixed Barcelona
- RBerenguel 10y agoBarça is only used for the football team, the city is Barcelona, Bcn (for short) or "down there" if you are not in the area but still in Catalonia
- tluyben2 10y agoDid not know that. Noted for the future!
- bitL 10y agoBarna is the short name of the city ;-)
- RBerenguel 10y agoI think only people from the city or longing to be part of the hip people actually use Barna in speaking or writing. At least this is my experience.
- yunque 10y agoMalaga? I visit every year, and last time I checked there was only Ericsson, Siemens and a group at the university doing human centred robotics... A quick online search leads me to the MalagaMakers meetup (which unfortunately has been quiet since January) and a few small tech companies. Do you know of any hubs or interesting companies there? I certainly noticed the city becoming a bit more modern in recent years, with the whole SoHo thing and the Pompidou, but it generally always seems to be aimed towards boosting tourism. I'm really happy to hear that there's something else going on [:
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- s3nnyy 10y agoI am well-connected in the tech-scene in Zurich and if you're thinking of moving here and getting an IT job, feel free to contact me - you find my email address in my HN profile. Also you can read my blogpost "8 reasons why I moved to Switzerland to work in IT": 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...
- igk 10y agoDoes this offer stand for Europeans as well?
- s3nnyy 10y agoEveryone who has an EU passport (including Romania and Bulgaria since 1.6.) can / will get a work permit.
- paganel 10y agoAs a Romanian, that sounds great! Does the Swiss tech scene have any life in it? I mean, apart from Google's offices and the like (I would personally like to avoid big corporations, mostly). I'm asking because as seen from Eastern Europe industrial powerhouses like Germany and Northern Italy look like they're at least 10-15 years back when it comes to IT (Berlin excluded).
- s3nnyy 10y agoSome 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.
- kriro 10y agoInteresting. I never had the feeling of not growing up in a tech friendly environment in Germany. It's traditionally geared a bit more towards machines than software but overall I think fairly tech friendly/open. Maybe it depends on the specific region. Entrepreneurship is another issue, I feel like "failing" had and still has an overly negative connotation here.
- XCSme 10y agoI have actually applied to Google Zurich (but after 10 interviews they didn't hire me) and studied a bit how the life is there. There are many advantages or living there, but the cost of life and the fact that most people in Zurich are immigrants makes it a pretty cold city where it is hard to make friends or stay for a very long period of time. I think that now your point about "tech friendly environments" is not relevant anymore, because many countries support tech companies and offer a lot of grants for programmers and tech-related activities.
- make3 10y ago10 interviews? is that normal for a research job? that feels like a lot
- Maro 10y agoI work at Facebook, I think I had ~10 interviews in total. I think 5-10 is pretty normal for large companies: 3-4 on the phone, 3-5 on site, plus followup. It's very exhausting. In my case it took 4 months from first contact to offer accepted.
- wmkn 10y agoI had a total of 21 interviews at Apple (oh which 4 were phone interviews). Was not hired in the end. I would not recommend it...
- maxerickson 10y agoThese sorts of stories point to it still being an excellent job market for employers. In a market that was more favorable to employees, there'd likely be less interviewing and more provisional hiring.
- revelation 10y agoOr a terrible market for housing, you know..
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- 1010310201 10y agoIt is really a stretch to claim that Germany isn't tech friendly. It isn't pseudo-tech friendly, i.e. Germans have the obnoxious habit of separating hype from tech. The only area where I'd agree is nuclear power, which regrettably doesn't have wide acceptance.
- f_allwein 10y agoBut that's only because nuclear power uses non-renewable raw materials, creates waste products that are dangerous for tens of thousands of years and occasionally leads to catastrophic accidents.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- zerr 10y agoNot at all. Germany is one of the most tech/dev friendly country, especially if you are outside web dev. I see a lot of C++ engineering opportunities there. If only it was an English speaking country, and they had a sun... (It's a shame that we don't have a good English speaking country in whole Europe...) ;)
- dav-id 10y agoI hear the English can speak English quite well
- dmoo 10y agoUs Irish also have some ability.
- T-A 10y agoYes, but then there is the "sun" part...
- Natanael_L 10y agoWe Swedes too, for that matter.
- astrange 10y agoI had the strangest problem with Swedes where they'd seem to speak perfect English, but repeatedly mishear me as saying something offensive and never stop to make sure. Actually I think I mentioned "cutting myself shaving" to someone and they apparently to this day believe I'm suicidal.
- Natanael_L 10y agoHaven't seen it myself, but I'm guessing it's a bit Dunning-Kruger effect + unwillingness to ask outright (the average Swede don't want to look silly, etc). While we have a significant exposure to English, few of us regularly have casual conversations with native English speakers, so our vocabularies aren't as good as we tend to think.
- chrisper 10y agoWhere are you living now?