4 ms·

Life is pretty great here. The low salaries are a bit disappointing, but other aspects of life (including vacation time and work/life balance) is far superior.

by blunte 6y ago

Life is pretty great here. The low salaries are a bit disappointing, but other aspects of life (including vacation time and work/life balance) is far superior. Sometimes the money is just not a good enough reason to leave. However, if the money can increase here, and we can stay here, then yes please!

bradleyjg 6y ago
From the SV employer’s perspective that’s the rub in trying to take advantage of the “inefficiency”. They can hire talented programmers in Europe for significantly less money but those programmers are going to insist on working less than their SV counterparts. Even if the trade off is worth it considering only first order effects (i.e. $/hr) will those work/life attitudes end up influencing the US workers as well? Not making a value statement here at all, just laying out the consideration.
- hilbertseries 6y ago
  I work at a company that employs developers in the US and in Europe. The European developers are more upset that they’re paid less, than the US developers care about the European benefits.
  - blunte 6y ago
    Having lived most of my life in the US, and only the last 8 years in NL, I wouldn't move back to the US to an onsite office unless the pay were at least 3-4x higher. If I could work remotely from the mountains in Colorado again, I would consider it for a 3x increase. Less than that, and it's just not worth it. The quality of life here is that much better imo.
    - tharkun__ 6y ago
      Absolutely agreed. It's sometimes really hard to understand how 'Americans' can't fathom getting stuff done 'the European way'. Somehow it seems impossible to them that having 30 days of vacation from day one of your career is possible. They can't fathom that hours in seat don't equal output. They can't fathom that you can care about your work and still just go home at reasonable hours (and still take care of say a production issue when needed but then obviously go home early next Friday or take the day off entirely).
      - bradleyjg 6y ago
        The rest of it I can buy but not this part: > They can't fathom that hours in seat don't equal output. Or at least not the implication. Of course those things aren’t strictly equal but it seems like wishful thinking to believe that all those Americans working hard are not accomplishing any more than their European colleagues taking 30 day vacations and leaving at five o’clock. Diminishing returns, sure, but zero returns I don’t buy. On the contrary it’s pretty clear the returns are meaningful. Life is about trade-offs. It doesn’t do anyone any good to pretend there’s such a thing as a free lunch.
        tharkun__ 6y ago
        Fair enough as like you say it's all a scale anyway. For the record I never left at exactly five or started at 9 for that matter back in Germany and I don't either where I am now (Canada). I never felt bad about leaving at 3 in Germany though. I did/do in Canada. _Every_time_.
        blunte 6y ago
        "Hours in seat" provide diminishing returns, just like "lines of code produced" do. It has been a measured fact that productivity per hour curves in the negative direction after about 7 hours per day (in sum, not necessarily contiguous).
yread 6y ago
For me the main reason is that I can be fairly sure that my neighbors are not starving, surviving on 7.25$/h jobs, getting crushed by medical debt or choosing not to address their medical issues because of money, there are (almost) no homeless people (in Amsterdam),... Minimum wage is ~1/2-1/3 of my salary so I know that everyone is doing OK.
- krageon 6y ago
  > there are (almost) no homeless people (in Amsterdam) Any space that has few homeless in the Netherlands doesn't have them because the police removes them (that is to say, they dump them elsewhere or otherwise force them to leave).
  - yread 6y ago
    Yes, of course there are people without housing, but there is infrastructure to care for them (I live quite close to one of these houses) so they don't freeze on the streets, don't develop months-untreated abscesses and don't bother me on the street. My taxes pay for that but that's exactly what taxes should pay for IMO.

by blunte 6y ago

bradleyjg 6y ago

From the SV employer’s perspective that’s the rub in trying to take advantage of the “inefficiency”. They can hire talented programmers in Europe for significantly less money but those programmers are going to insist on working less than their SV counterparts. Even if the trade off is worth it considering only first order effects (i.e. $/hr) will those work/life attitudes end up influencing the US workers as well? Not making a value statement here at all, just laying out the consideration.

hilbertseries 6y ago
I work at a company that employs developers in the US and in Europe. The European developers are more upset that they’re paid less, than the US developers care about the European benefits.
- blunte 6y ago
  Having lived most of my life in the US, and only the last 8 years in NL, I wouldn't move back to the US to an onsite office unless the pay were at least 3-4x higher. If I could work remotely from the mountains in Colorado again, I would consider it for a 3x increase. Less than that, and it's just not worth it. The quality of life here is that much better imo.
  - tharkun__ 6y ago
    Absolutely agreed. It's sometimes really hard to understand how 'Americans' can't fathom getting stuff done 'the European way'. Somehow it seems impossible to them that having 30 days of vacation from day one of your career is possible. They can't fathom that hours in seat don't equal output. They can't fathom that you can care about your work and still just go home at reasonable hours (and still take care of say a production issue when needed but then obviously go home early next Friday or take the day off entirely).
    - bradleyjg 6y ago
      The rest of it I can buy but not this part: > They can't fathom that hours in seat don't equal output. Or at least not the implication. Of course those things aren’t strictly equal but it seems like wishful thinking to believe that all those Americans working hard are not accomplishing any more than their European colleagues taking 30 day vacations and leaving at five o’clock. Diminishing returns, sure, but zero returns I don’t buy. On the contrary it’s pretty clear the returns are meaningful. Life is about trade-offs. It doesn’t do anyone any good to pretend there’s such a thing as a free lunch.
      - tharkun__ 6y ago
        Fair enough as like you say it's all a scale anyway. For the record I never left at exactly five or started at 9 for that matter back in Germany and I don't either where I am now (Canada). I never felt bad about leaving at 3 in Germany though. I did/do in Canada. _Every_time_.
      - blunte 6y ago
        "Hours in seat" provide diminishing returns, just like "lines of code produced" do. It has been a measured fact that productivity per hour curves in the negative direction after about 7 hours per day (in sum, not necessarily contiguous).

yread 6y ago

For me the main reason is that I can be fairly sure that my neighbors are not starving, surviving on 7.25$/h jobs, getting crushed by medical debt or choosing not to address their medical issues because of money, there are (almost) no homeless people (in Amsterdam),... Minimum wage is ~1/2-1/3 of my salary so I know that everyone is doing OK.

krageon 6y ago
> there are (almost) no homeless people (in Amsterdam) Any space that has few homeless in the Netherlands doesn't have them because the police removes them (that is to say, they dump them elsewhere or otherwise force them to leave).
- yread 6y ago
  Yes, of course there are people without housing, but there is infrastructure to care for them (I live quite close to one of these houses) so they don't freeze on the streets, don't develop months-untreated abscesses and don't bother me on the street. My taxes pay for that but that's exactly what taxes should pay for IMO.