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That's really interesting. I'm in the UK and the consensus is generally that the US doesn't give much holiday to staff and that Europe is more generous. I'd nev

by binbag 5y ago

That's really interesting. I'm in the UK and the consensus is generally that the US doesn't give much holiday to staff and that Europe is more generous. I'd never heard of unlimited vacation before. Here the standard is 28 days plus the 8 or 9 public holidays, so about 36 days off per year. In Europe it's more, and often you must take them.

giobox 5y ago
While this was much more true maybe 10 to 20 years ago, at least 28 days plus the approx 9 US public holidays is the minimum you should expect in a reasonable US SWE position. Many places offer better. Of course there isn’t the same level of legislative protection for holiday allowances as in the U.K. and there are some companies out there offering much less, but it’s increasingly rare in my experience. I think working conditions relative to the USA have gotten significantly worse in the U.K. for a lot of professional roles over the past 20 years though - the pay offered in many U.K. SWE roles is often risible and the generally anaemic economy since the credit crunch arguably hasn’t helped.
IkmoIkmo 5y ago
> the consensus is generally that the US doesn't give much holiday to staff and that Europe is more generous. That's correct, the US has 0 legal holidays, everything is contractual. That typically means around 7-8 days and builds up with seniority. It's pretty poor: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm But anything contractual for the most in-demand jobs (such as software engineers today), is way better than the minimum legal standard or the average contractual standard. From pay to insurance to holidays to things like housing, free food, sports and mental counseling. The basic rule is that you're better off in a more unequal society when you're at the top, and better off in a more equal society when you're at the bottom. There's of course a limit to this logic. Then if you take the software devs that tend to frequent HN, (the majority of devs at a FAANG firm will know of HN and visit it from some to time), you're looking at say the top quartile among software devs. It's quite clear that most software devs are better off in the US in many respects, and that their holiday perks can be way better than the average American or European. Plenty of great software companies in the US offer unlimited time off. Most people don't really use it though, it's more a cultural thing.

by binbag 5y ago

giobox 5y ago

While this was much more true maybe 10 to 20 years ago, at least 28 days plus the approx 9 US public holidays is the minimum you should expect in a reasonable US SWE position. Many places offer better. Of course there isn’t the same level of legislative protection for holiday allowances as in the U.K. and there are some companies out there offering much less, but it’s increasingly rare in my experience. I think working conditions relative to the USA have gotten significantly worse in the U.K. for a lot of professional roles over the past 20 years though - the pay offered in many U.K. SWE roles is often risible and the generally anaemic economy since the credit crunch arguably hasn’t helped.

IkmoIkmo 5y ago

> the consensus is generally that the US doesn't give much holiday to staff and that Europe is more generous. That's correct, the US has 0 legal holidays, everything is contractual. That typically means around 7-8 days and builds up with seniority. It's pretty poor: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm But anything contractual for the most in-demand jobs (such as software engineers today), is way better than the minimum legal standard or the average contractual standard. From pay to insurance to holidays to things like housing, free food, sports and mental counseling. The basic rule is that you're better off in a more unequal society when you're at the top, and better off in a more equal society when you're at the bottom. There's of course a limit to this logic. Then if you take the software devs that tend to frequent HN, (the majority of devs at a FAANG firm will know of HN and visit it from some to time), you're looking at say the top quartile among software devs. It's quite clear that most software devs are better off in the US in many respects, and that their holiday perks can be way better than the average American or European. Plenty of great software companies in the US offer unlimited time off. Most people don't really use it though, it's more a cultural thing.