4 ms·

There should a be very good reason why you would want to relocate your developers from Israel to the US. Marketing guys? Sure, assuming you're in media or cons

by yuvadam 15y ago

There should a be very good reason why you would want to relocate your developers from Israel to the US. Marketing guys? Sure, assuming you're in media or consumer web. You need your salespeople as close to the customer as possible. But why move your R&D to the US? Developers wages in Israel are not even close to what a dev in the valley, or in NYC can make. Junior devs start out at 15K NIS/month ($4250) and the cream of the crop can make up to 30K NIS/month ($8500). Totaling to anything between $50K and $100K yearly. What does that get you in the valley? Not only that, I would venture to say that finding the tech talent in Israel is easier. The mentality in the startup scene here is still not a cut-throat one. If you look hard enough, you can find the right devs you need. Having said that, the startup scene in Israel still isn't as vibrant as you would think, at least when it comes to consumer web. The classic strengths of the Israeli tech scene have always been security, enterprise, IT and hardware. Consumer web? Google-scale? We're not there yet.

nitashatiku 15y ago
The ease of finding developers in Israel is the reason why a lot of the companies I talked to (Outbrain, BillGuard, Taykey), started by folks out of the IDF, take the hybrid approach: keeping their R&D arm in Israel, and biz dev sales here. They can't afford/worry about not finding developer talent in NYC. But they move here to get close to their customers, like you said.
- drivingmenuts 15y ago
  Terrific. The most paranoid country on earth after North Korea, now with direct access to all kinds of social network data. This will certainly pan out well.
mahyarm 15y ago
What is the cost of living there and the income tax rates? A 1 bedroom apartment around Palo Alto and places close to it can cost something like $1800/month. Just in rent alone you can 'make' an extra $12k-24k per year in rent savings if a 1 bedroom is $800 in Haifa.
- yuvadam 15y ago
  Funny you mention it, Israel is going through some serious protests right now about the ridiculous living costs [1]. This thread is too small to encompass the entire debate, but basically taxes, social security, mandatory health insurance and employee participation in 401k equivalents end up chewing away about 40-45% of said salaries. Living in Tel Aviv is roughly 70% the cost of living in NYC (measured by rent prices). And remember that we make much less than NYers. Living in Haifa, for example, is practically impossible if you want to commute to Tel Aviv. Public transportation is horrible in Israel. [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_housing_protests_in_Israel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_housing_protests_in_Israel
  - wyclif 15y ago
    Why would you want to commute from Haifa to Tel Aviv? Just get an apartment in Tel Aviv.
- ahalan 15y ago
  I used to rent a 1100sq ft 2br for $350 next to Ben Gurion University in Beer-Sheva a couple years back I have a friend who's currently renting a great 1br right in the middle of Tel Aviv (near Dizengof) for ~$600 Dev salaries are largely in the range mentioned by yuvadam, may be a bit on the high end, many engineers and normal (non-eng) people are making less than 10k NIS/month There are tons of HW engineering jobs in FPGA, VHDL, ASIC design, telecom, RF, optics, embedded, may be even more than pure software jobs. If you work for IBM, Intel, Cisco R&D in the Wadi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Wadi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Wadi ) you're likely to make up to ~80-90k/y as a senior (non-managing) engineer with >10y of experience. It's really a mecca for hardware startups, much more active than Silicon Valley in that domain (historically due to military contracts); if you're looking for top engineers to design a VLSI system-on-chip or some super-smart router, or a smartphone or something, I'd probably search there first.
  - maayank 15y ago
    If you have solid former programming experience (i.e. from certain units in the Army, or Basmach) you could easily (well, for different values of easy ;) find a full time job north of 25K NIS per month. edit: 600$ for a good 1BR? (an apartment, not a room) When is his lease due to end? (I'm serious, if you don't mind me asking and he's not set on renewing :)

by yuvadam 15y ago

nitashatiku 15y ago

The ease of finding developers in Israel is the reason why a lot of the companies I talked to (Outbrain, BillGuard, Taykey), started by folks out of the IDF, take the hybrid approach: keeping their R&D arm in Israel, and biz dev sales here. They can't afford/worry about not finding developer talent in NYC. But they move here to get close to their customers, like you said.

drivingmenuts 15y ago
Terrific. The most paranoid country on earth after North Korea, now with direct access to all kinds of social network data. This will certainly pan out well.

mahyarm 15y ago

What is the cost of living there and the income tax rates? A 1 bedroom apartment around Palo Alto and places close to it can cost something like $1800/month. Just in rent alone you can 'make' an extra $12k-24k per year in rent savings if a 1 bedroom is $800 in Haifa.

yuvadam 15y ago
Funny you mention it, Israel is going through some serious protests right now about the ridiculous living costs [1]. This thread is too small to encompass the entire debate, but basically taxes, social security, mandatory health insurance and employee participation in 401k equivalents end up chewing away about 40-45% of said salaries. Living in Tel Aviv is roughly 70% the cost of living in NYC (measured by rent prices). And remember that we make much less than NYers. Living in Haifa, for example, is practically impossible if you want to commute to Tel Aviv. Public transportation is horrible in Israel. [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_housing_protests_in_Israel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_housing_protests_in_Israel
- wyclif 15y ago
  Why would you want to commute from Haifa to Tel Aviv? Just get an apartment in Tel Aviv.
ahalan 15y ago
I used to rent a 1100sq ft 2br for $350 next to Ben Gurion University in Beer-Sheva a couple years back I have a friend who's currently renting a great 1br right in the middle of Tel Aviv (near Dizengof) for ~$600 Dev salaries are largely in the range mentioned by yuvadam, may be a bit on the high end, many engineers and normal (non-eng) people are making less than 10k NIS/month There are tons of HW engineering jobs in FPGA, VHDL, ASIC design, telecom, RF, optics, embedded, may be even more than pure software jobs. If you work for IBM, Intel, Cisco R&D in the Wadi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Wadi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Wadi ) you're likely to make up to ~80-90k/y as a senior (non-managing) engineer with >10y of experience. It's really a mecca for hardware startups, much more active than Silicon Valley in that domain (historically due to military contracts); if you're looking for top engineers to design a VLSI system-on-chip or some super-smart router, or a smartphone or something, I'd probably search there first.
- maayank 15y ago
  If you have solid former programming experience (i.e. from certain units in the Army, or Basmach) you could easily (well, for different values of easy ;) find a full time job north of 25K NIS per month. edit: 600$ for a good 1BR? (an apartment, not a room) When is his lease due to end? (I'm serious, if you don't mind me asking and he's not set on renewing :)