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Lisbon’s startup scene rises as Portugal gears up
- cfup 6y agoLisbon is attractive for companies but not so much for talents. The average salary in Lisbon is much lower, comparing to tech salaries in the US, UK, or Singapore.
- brauhaus 6y agoTrue... but cost of living is considerably lower. When I lived there, my costs were basically a 900€ for a rental 120m2 apartment + 300€ for groceries and eating out. Since the start of the pandemic I moved to my own place and now pay 400€ in mortgage. The biggest challenge I see is the VC sector in continental Europe. While in the US, I see seed rounds of 0.5-1.5 Millions, the last 2 seed deals I've seen in Lisbon were of mere 50K€. A trifle.
- atlasunshrugged 6y agoI do wonder if the VC sector in Europe (or at least Western Europe and the Nordics) will heat up a lot, I keep seeing more US VCs looking at deals there because the valuations aren't insane and I'd guess they'd push up the prices. That said, not sure it'll trickle down to employees, I noticed when working in tech in Berlin that companies seemed much less generous with equity to employees (and lower salaries)
- rorykoehler 6y agoEuropean companies are run like shit. Europeans don't understand what good customer service is. This I've come to realise is what is holding Europe back. Let me illustrate. I signed my wife up with Swapfiets. You rent a bike by the month with them. Basically you fill in a form online, enter your payments card details and they deliver a bike. You then get billed on a monthly subscription until you cancel. All good. Great service until.... we missed a payment because I forgot to move money onto the card in time. No worries I'll just move it across and let them try again.... except... no they don't try again they send emails instead. They sent 4 emails however due to some factors we never paid the bill manually (working full-time at home with a baby and a toddler during a pandemic some less important stuff can slip) so they sent it to the debt collection agency. A few days prior to them sending it to the debt collectors the next months payment became due and was successfully collected. Now if I owe a company x amount of money and then the next month y amount I expect my balance to be x + y and once I pay an amount I expect it to be deducted from the balance and the overdue payment date to be reset. In this case I would expect my due balance to be y. Not with swapfiets, my due balance was x. I raised this with them and they basically told me the system doesn't work like that (no acknowledgement that it should work like that and this is a mistake on their part), they send email reminders and basically fuck you. This sums up European attitudes and companies perfectly. To recap they made the following mistakes: 1: Their UX is broken in that every other subscription I use will try to take payment again before sending a reminder. 2: Their app is not coded according to industry standard billing processes. 3: They refuse to acknowledge any accountability on their side and basically tell me to do one. This is European startups in a nutshell. We suck at customer service and it shows.
- 908B64B197 6y agoThis CoL thing is a cool HR sales tactic, but breaks down quite fast when looking at saving rates and long term equity. The thing is, by having a mortgage, you are effectively building equity in a good you can resell later (a house). Cheap house means you can sell it for cheap and retire where it's cheap. Meanwhile, a property in a hot market where the mortgage is still the same fraction of your income can be resold for much more. Gives you freedom to retire where you want.
- RobRivera 6y agoThis is the hot insight people forget to discuss, when it comes to numbers. HR hates it lul
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- peferron 6y agoEven without buying, you can spend a higher % of your income on rent and still end up saving more in absolute numbers; and the absolute number is what eventually matters unless you're dead set on picking a place and never moving again.
- refurb 6y agoYup. If your rent doubles from $1,000 to $2,000, but your salary doubled from $75,000 to $150,000, you incurred $12,000 more in expenses for $50,000 more in after tax income.
- martinald 6y agoMoving from London to Lisbon was surprising. Rental costs were cheaper, but not as much as I expected. The main problem I found was the housing stock is in pretty terrible shape. Flats have basically no insulation and often have bad problems with damp. No insulation means the flats are freezing in winter and you can hear the neighbors do everything. While eating out is definitely significantly cheaper, many things are (much) more expensive than in London. Supermarkets, home internet, cell service (brutally expensive), utilities (I was paying 10x for utilities in winter compared to London, because of the complete lack of insulation - and Portugal has some of the highest electricity rates in Europe). Overall I would not suggest moving to Lisbon if you are expecting an overall significantly lower cost of living than London. There are lots of other benefits though :).
- bogomipz 6y agoWould you say that the places are close in overall monthly expenses then? I would surprised to read how that those utilities are that much more expensive. I've been to Lisbon in December and remember it being quite mild and warm. Does the damp cold set in later then? I would love to hear what the other benefits you enjoy about living there.
- martinald 6y agoYeah. The difference is you are going to be living in central Lisbon vs zone 2-3 London for roughly the same price. Obviously you are going to save a fortune going from prime central london to Lisbon, but that's the same anywhere. The cold is really the buildings fault. It's hard to explain it you are used to northern European construction. It seems to be colder inside than out! It's quite a common and well talked about problem. What is good: weather, people, interesting places to visit 30min-1hr away, food, etc. What you'd expect really.
- stainforth 6y ago> There are lots of other benefits though :) Ok, go ahead with them?
- 6y ago
- bogomipz 6y agoI would be curious to hear what type of housing you can find in 400€ range. Do you live in Lisbon proper?
- est31 6y agoSeems that you can buy flats/apartments for quite cheap. It seems to start in the five digits for the less attractive things, but nicer apartments can be gotten for few hundred grand... Also depends on the duration of the mortgage of course.
- lostmsu 6y agoWhich websites are the best to search? Anything in English?
- genericstorage3 6y agoif you save 3000gbp in London, you'll save 500eur in Lisbon. Compare that, and living costs don't matter that much. In 10 years the difference is huge
- paganel 6y agoAt the end of it you also would have 10 years of having lived in London vs 10 years of having lived in Lisbon, for some the financial tradeoff may be worthwhile.
- pjmlp 6y agoSo basically all of the salary with almost nothing left, given that average companies in Portugal pay between 1000 and 1500 for the best jobs.
- raverbashing 6y agoThat's the average But you can actually get paid more than that in IT positions, no problem (after-tax salary)
- pjmlp 6y agoI left Portugal during the start of the crisis in 2003, was earning 2000 after taxes, which was a dream job back then. Nowadays the only people I am aware are still getting as much, are senior of my age and older, friends that are self employed, or those that only get half of the salary in official ways (yes undeclared payments are still daily business). So yeah, while being away for 18 years might not make me have a daily picture, it is not as I don't come regularly back home.
- raverbashing 6y agoAh interesting, I had never suspected you were more directly connected to the country. But I'm not disagreeing with you, the salary ceiling is low, I was just noting that it wasn't as low as 1k/1.5k (yeah, 2k/2.5k is more like it, the taxes don't help neither)
- brauhaus 6y agoWhich is why Lisbon is so appealing to digital nomads. Your salary will likely by much higher than that.
- pjmlp 6y agoAs Portuguese and veteran of the first .com wave, I highly doubt it. Then you will end up getting a small flat in Sintra, Vila-Franca, Seixal, Cacias, or whatever up to 30 - 60 km from Lisbon and enjoy 1 h commute every single day, both ways.
- onion2k 6y agoTrue... but cost of living is considerably lower. While companies continue to base offers they make on your current salary (if you're silly enough to disclose it), accepting a lower salary on the basis of a lower cost of living is going to lower all your future salaries. While in the US, I see seed rounds of 0.5-1.5 Millions, the last 2 seed deals I've seen in Lisbon were of mere 50K€ Seed rounds don't exist in the US any more. The first raise is effectively a Series A, because startups are expected to bootstrap to revenue now.
- kevinstubbs 6y agoI'm really interested in finding full-stack dev talent in Portugal, but not sure where to look. I've tried LinkedIn, Indeed, etc. but /shrug. Any ideas? We need to make a few hires, but sourcing talent is either more time consuming or more expensive (head hunters) than it feels like it should be.
- joaomacp 6y agoLinkedIn should work. There's also LandingJobs, a Portuguese hiring website specifically for devs.
- ttoinou 6y agosuper expensive!
- holoduke 6y agoDon't use job postings in linkedin. Just search and approach people yourself. I think for 600 a month you can promote your account to recruiter lite. You can approach as many people you like. Be aware of the fact that sourcing is almost a fulltime job. Compare that to a 15% fee most recruiters can be negotiated to.
- ben-gy 6y agoI’ve had some great success finding affordable, senior Rails developers in Portugal on Upwork
- nunodonato 6y agoitjobs.pt
- rorykoehler 6y agoNot one job has a salary on it. Why do they think people work? What a waste of everyone's time.
- nunodonato 6y ago
- blackearl 6y agoDepends on your priorities. One of the friendliest countries in the EU, great food, rich history. If you like a slower pace of living it seems like a good choice.
- zeruch 6y agoYes, but the COL is dramatically lower (and lower than other major city centers in Europe), its comparatively low crime, and the quality of life for the price is quite competitive. I'd move out there in a heartbeat...although it does help that I have some passable Portuguese comprehension :)
- wooger 6y agoAgree, if I ever become fully remote and leave the UK I'd definitely consider Portugal, the quality of food, beauty of the cities & countryside, people are all great, costs are ultimately incredibly low for living in a European capital, and the public transport is pretty good if you're not walkable to wherever you're going already.
- Jommi 6y agoOnly if your talent is purely looking at comp and nothing else.
- Rapzid 6y agoWhat does early retirement look like in Lisbon? Do they pay you to not work after you decide you are done?
- pjmlp 6y agoOnly if you meet the conditions of years working in general, or age, and it is somehow dependent on the sector. Naturally public sector has the most attractive numbers for years working/minimum age.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- wyxuan 6y agoI wonder if we'll see the same thing with other remote work hotspots like Thailand.
- Jommi 6y agoBest Weather, Timezone, and QoL for companies looking to hire EU workers fitting the CA timezone.
- brigandish 6y agoCalifornia?
- wooger 6y agoHuh? Same timezone as London, so... about the worst possible for CA.
- jkaplowitz 6y agoA lot of California companies are relatively early-shifted in their workdays, so for night-owl devs it lines up nicely. Probably less so for people who spend their evenings with family or friends. The east coast of North America is in between in this regard.
- Apocryphon 6y agoThey really picked a great Golden Gate Bridge lookalike for the header image.
- pjmlp 6y ago25 Abril bridge in Lisbon.
- mig39 6y agoThe 25 de Abril Bridge was actually built by the same people who built the Bay Bridge :-)
- quincunx 6y agoLooked up the significance of that date for Portugal: Freedom Day (25 April) is a national holiday, with state-sponsored and spontaneous commemorations of the civil liberties and political freedoms achieved after the revolution. It commemorates the 25 April 1974 coup and Portugal's first free elections on that date the following year. Nice bridge.
- andresp 6y agoThe original name of the bridge was "Ponte Salazar". Salazar was the dictator that was leading the country when the bridge was built (60s). After the revolution, the government changed the name to "Ponte 25 de Abril" (date of the revolution as you mentioned).
- brauhaus 6y agoCross that bridge southwards and you'll find a great Christ the Redeemer lookalike too!
- holoduke 6y agoPortugal or I think any other southern Europe country is perfect for the 100k plus Dev nomad. Living like a king while running their own small business or working on remote projects. I did that for a couple of years. Absolutely enjoyed it. Food, people, weather, party. I do miss it sometimes. But man, some things are really f@€ed up there. Bureaucracy, badly organized government, healthcare and education. Sometimes dominant complain culture. Absolute shit quality of housing and public roads. Much larger difference in poor and rich. You ll get to notice these things after 1, 2 years while getting settled in. Then you realize to move.That's what I did.
- vmception 6y agoYeah, I find it hilarious that my biggest culture shock with Europe is how unionized industries can strike and actually cause a noticeable inconvenience. I'm always like "WHAT!? How is this possible? Why didn't the bus/train/airline just declare bankruptcy, ending the jobs of 20,000 people at once, and do an IPO without unionized workers a year later!?" and then I have to laugh it off because thats just so American of me. our unions just have people walking in a circle for up to a few months, in one city against a multinational corporation, and barely anything occurs except some inspiration for your new moon drum circle.
- aforwardslash 6y agoBecause when you cut hundreds or thousands of jobs, it will have a devastating impact in the community, not only for those directly affected, but also for those that will compete with them for available jobs. I find it hilarious that an american doesn't find it obvious, given the abundance of american examples on this.
- vmception 6y agoAmerica is a much larger more cohesive market, which means specific communities have no affect on the national company which has expanded to other countries as well. The individual nations in Europe are the size of individual American states, and can only be compared when talking about the European Single Market as a whole, which is new and filled with the vestiges of national companies that are just getting around to expanding into their neighboring countries. The American experience has been removed from communities for a very long time that corporate apathy is the expected experience.
- mothsonasloth 6y agoThe remote dev / nomad culture needs to DIE now: 1. For people in the demographic of the, "environmentally aware" middle class. They sure do love to travel around on high polluting jetliners. 2. The arbitration of salaries might seem tempting, but are they paying tax whilst in the country? Most of these nomads don't pay tax and their economic benefit is minimal (partaking in the local economy to buy their coco puffs and artisanal coffees). The hypocrisy I experienced of some dev's complaining about the dilapidated infrastructure in Italy whilst being there as a "tourist". 3. "I want to go a city with a good level of English" - Amsterdam, Munich, Berlin, Lisbon, Madrid. They don't want to go and experience a small town in Greece with no amenities or "English Expat Meetup" group. 4. Productivity (f(x) = internet connection x time difference x work equipment) I will take a remote dev in their homeland, over hiring a jet setter dev. 5. Relationships, I am not sure what some of these nomads are running away from / towards. They are extremely flaky in professional relationships, I wonder if that also is the same for personal relationships too. It makes it hard to share knowledge with these types. Pooof! They are gone now, "oh well so much for that Wiki page they promised to update before they left". ----- Conclusion - the nomad worker is the apex persona of the entitled middle class malaise. </end rant> I did consider becoming a nomad worker at one point, then I realised it's a terrible lifestyle. You have to grow roots to grow, doesn't matter if its a "boring" town. You have to grow up and realise someday that you can't keep being a rolling stone. Note: I am not against people moving to a better place for life /career / personal reasons. It's when it happens 10-20 times in the space of 10 years, that you need to start asking yourself hard questions
- rorykoehler 6y agoI can guarantee you I traveled much less as a nomad (though I wasn't intentionally doing it or calling myself a digital nomad, working remotely is what I always did) than when I worked in corporate land pre-pandemic.
- wackro 6y agoOn your second point: the upcoming wave of nomads will be spurred on by companies in _their own countries_ allowing remote work. It won't be tax-dodging freelancers. Furthermore, plenty of countries have double taxation treaties. The UK has one with Portugal, for example. My understanding is that you can work from Portugal for a UK company and pay tax only in the UK, as long as you're not a tax resident of Portugal. The 'tax resident' bit is complicated, but the point is that the UK and Portugal have agreed to it. And I don't mean to be snarky, but when other people's free choices rile you up this much, maybe it's you that needs to start asking hard questions of yourself. A couple of your points are good, but it sounds like you're projecting your own problems onto others.