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By and large, Europe does not have Silicon Valley's culture of crazy overtime, living at the office, and spending your remaining free time with your colleagues.
by 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
By and large, Europe does not have Silicon Valley's culture of crazy overtime, living at the office, and spending your remaining free time with your colleagues.
- user5994461 6y agoEuropean companies don't have equally nice office, free snacks or pay as top American companies. Companies that hire young driven workers and have a good environment can get a similar amount of overtime and the work all the time attitude.
- strictfp 6y agoNot so sure about that. I know plenty offices in Stockholm with free food, drinks and entertainment for employees.
- user5994461 6y agoAnd they stay in office after 5pm to take advantage of the perks?
- rtweetr 6y agoSame in London, UK. And you need to overwork yourself to eat then.
- heyitsguay 6y agoThis is a total tangent, but I'm an American with a partner from Stockholm, and we're interested in maybe moving over there when that is possible again. Do you have any suggestions or resources for getting to understand the tech scene around Stockholm, especially AI/computer vision stuff? Thanks!
- aliswe 6y agoI'm not really sure that I would be the best person to answer but if you would like to ask anything please do. I've work with over 250 clients and agencies over the years mostly in stockholm. Why not make it an Ask HN?
- heyitsguay 6y agoGood point! I can try but it's hit or miss whether it'll get any traction. I guess a couple questions you could help with are (1) are there any good resources for scoping the job market beyond putting "[whatever] jobs stockholm" into search engines, and (2) do you have any do's or don'ts for applying as an American not currently living in Sweden? Thanks a lot for your perspective!
- zhte415 6y agoVisited the Bloomberg office in London. If you rent a Bloomberg terminal they gave free training on multiple features. Encouraged to visit the cafeteria, all free for staff and clients with visitor pass. Good stuff. Salads, fruit, cakes, sandwiches. Looked around. No chairs. This was in vast contrast to my employer at the time where lunch was a practical siesta. Ok.. "so you take this back to desk?" I asked someone. Yes. QED that. For context this was early 2000s.
- user5994461 6y agoThat was the most shocking thing for me too. Join a company in London. They have no seats. I'm not talking about free food or a company restaurant. Just having a place to sit with a table.
- Aeolun 6y agoPossibly, but the ‘young driven worker’ dynamic in Europe is just completely different, where you do not need to compete all that hard to have a comfortable life.
- stevekemp 6y agoEuropean salaries are lower, for sure. But nice offices and free snacks are everywhere in the IT-field. The place I just left had a wonderful rooftop terrace, overlooking central Helsinki, complete with an amazing sauna, a foam-pit, and gaming spaces too. That's a bit of an outlier, but there are a lot of amazing spaces across the whole of Europe.
- tonyedgecombe 6y agoFree snacks would put me off, it's a terrible idea from a health perspective.
- naavis 6y agoSnacks could mean e.g. fruit, which doesn't sound too bad.
- briandear 6y agoI work in Silicon Valley at a FAANG and that doesn’t describe the culture I experience at all.
- majormajor 6y agoOf course, a company that currently depends on crazy overtime, etc, isn't suddenly going to be looking to hire people who aren't going to do that just because they are hiring remote. Let's not imagine that widening a hiring pool is going to change top-down company cultures.