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Ask HN: What has been your experience with bigger tech companies in London?
I'm interested in some of the bigger tech companies and I'm wondering about their presence in the UK.
Do you work there? What has your experience been so far?
How competitive are they relative to the rest of the market in London?
How challenging is the interview process?
Culture/work-life balance?
Is the number of teams and the problems they work on limited because they're not in one of the primary US offices?
- thorin 5y agoGoogle had been building a massive office in central London so I assume they have a reasonable amount of interesting work going on there. I did go there for a mobile conference a while back and they were not sparing any expense on the conference location and catering etc so I assume they are reasonably competitive. I haven't heard anything bad from the couple of people I know who were based at Google London (although I assume they're still home based, one of them lives near Milan!) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jul/28/google-commits-to-vast-london-office-despite-rise-of-remote-working https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jul/28/google-co... Edit, more recent article https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/business/kings-cross-google-campus-8655524 https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/business/kings-cross-google-c...
- djohnston 5y agoYou make way less money than your peers in California and everything is still as expensive. It's a financially horrible decision if you can work in the US. If you want to work in Europe though it's pretty good. I've worked at FAANG in US and UK and am currently going back to the US for non-financial reasons. I don't regret being here but I find London to be impossibly expensive to build a family in.
- atmosx 5y agoIn the UK your family will be covered by the NHS. There is a welfare state. Don’t discount the value of the EU welfare state when it comes to raising a family.
- fgh 5y agoReminds me of Martin Hairer commenting on what he is going to do with his $3m breakthrough prize-money: “We moved to London somewhat recently, three years ago, and we are still renting. So it might be time to buy a place to live." [0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/sep/10/uk-mathematician-martin-hairer-wins-richest-prize-in-academia-breakthrough https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/sep/10/uk-mathemati...
- phphphphp 5y agoA few years ago FAANG salaries in London were pretty weak, but they’re much better now and even within the startup ecosystem — traditionally much lower than FAANG salaries here — £90k is a reasonable base expectation and £100k at a minimum for FAANG (>150k TC is normal). On £100k London is pretty affordable, so I’m curious, how much were you making in London and what do you consider to be a required salary to start a family here? London is very expensive but I’ve not heard the sentiment that FAANG salaries aren’t enough — would be helpful to learn more specifics of your view!
- colinmhayes 5y ago£150k is much, much less than non entry level FAANG engineers in the US are making.
- volkk 5y ago£150k is ~$196k base. I don't really see how that's much much less? My friend is an L6 at 220k base (with a shitload of equity). Definitely within the range.
- raphaelj 5y agoWorkers in UK also work less than their US counterparts (paid holidays, parental leave, sick days ...) [1]. Would make more sense to compare these countries by hourly income, not yearly. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_annual_labor_hours https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_a...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jen20 5y agoMy (current) experience is that the London teams at my FAANG work no less than the US ones, and indeed often much later into the evenings to accommodate meetings. And everyone works fewer hours than those in finance.
- pawelwentpawel 5y agoI wonder, is moving from UK to US easy within a FAANG company? Is that something people do?
- politelemon 5y agoIt really does depend on the company. Within large companies, there is often a structure that lets you do that. There will be internal job postings, you can apply, get interviewed, accepted, and then the hiring manager begins the process to transfer you over. Visas, processing fees, moving costs, things like that.
- phphphphp 5y agoThe level you're working at matters too for visa reasons. If you can qualify for an L-1 visa, it's one of the easiest ways to get from the UK to the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-1_visa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-1_visa
- sjg007 5y agoYes but it can tie your hands promotion wise.
- pawelwentpawel 5y agoWhy would it?
- sjg007 5y agoL1's are based on functional role so IC specialized knowledge(L1A) vs manager (L1B) cross promotions are difficult.
- pooya72 5y agoIt's interesting that you have lived in both and can do a fair comparison. There was a reddit thread a while back that compared US and UK salaries.[1] The consensus seemed to be, that if you compared the cost of living, you would need a considerably higher income in the US to have the same standard of living as the UK. One person said that 130K USD salary in the Bay Area would be equivalent to 50K GBP in London.[2] Another person said that 100K USD in the Bay Area is equivalent to 50 GBP in London. [3] It would be great to get your feedback on this. [1]:https://old.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/comments/nhe8v1/what_would_be_the_equivalent_of_earning_us100k_in/ https://old.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/comments/nhe8v1/w... [2]:https://old.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/comments/nhe8v1/what_would_be_the_equivalent_of_earning_us100k_in/gyx974p/ https://old.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/comments/nhe8v1/w... [3]:https://old.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/comments/nhe8v1/what_would_be_the_equivalent_of_earning_us100k_in/gywud1h/ https://old.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/comments/nhe8v1/w...
- yunohn 5y ago> The consensus seemed to be, that if you compared the cost of living, you would need a considerably higher income in the US to have the same standard of living as the UK While this does have a partial truth to it, the examples are delusional. How can anyone compare 50k GBP to 130K USD? I have lived across the USA, EU, and Asia; but such comparisons are heavily personal situation dependant. The calculations would differ for single vs family as well.
- jen20 5y agoI’ve also lived in the UK and US, though did not work for a FAANG in the UK. By the exchange rate right now, 50k GBP is around 65k USD. If you want to live within (say) an hour reach of an office, you’ll have a much easier time doing that in the London metro area with 50k than you will in the Bay Area with 130k. This is before you even consider taxes and healthcare. High quality groceries also substantially cheaper in the UK. A new wildcard is the price of energy, which looks to have gone up considerably in the UK since I left, though. Neither would be a comfortable position, and you wouldn’t be in danger of being able to buy a house absent other income. All in all though, if they were my fixed options, I’d take the money in London.
- mettamage 5y agoIf you're European it's one of the few options you've got. I find it odd though that people make so much less compared to their US counterparts. Does anyone know why that is?
- tasubotadas 5y agoLack of competition and venture funding
- dbetteridge 5y agoAlso different employer expenses per employee, I don't know them off the top of my head but the UK tax levels are pretty high.
- swarnie 5y agoHigh and only getting higher, along with insane housing costs in that area its not an attractive proposal unless you plan to use the experience to move somewhere else.
- dbetteridge 5y agoBasically the way I did things. 2.5 years in London to level up my skills and work in a few startups, then buggering back off to Australia for CoL that while still expensive is less than London and much better weather and similar salaries to London.
- tasubotadas 5y ago45% tax
- mattmanser 5y agoThat's not the employer tax rate. They pay like 13% national insurance. The rest of the tax is paid by the employee. And the 45% rate is only on any earnings OVER £150k. So the money eart less than that is at lower rates.
- Chirono 5y agoTo get an idea of comp for companies in London, levels.fyi is a good starting point. https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/London/ https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/London/ Bottom line is that comp is way under what you would get for the same job in the US, but better than most other engineering jobs in London outside of certain finance roles. The market seems to have been going up a lot in the past couple of years though. The interview process is pretty much the same as you get in the US. Lots of leetcode and system designs.
- mettamage 5y agoI still wonder how to adequately prep for system design. I feel leetcode is simply practice, but system design, I can't seem to get a full hang of it. And I've noticed in my day job that I am not getting enough experience with it.
- bluehatbrit 5y agoI highly recommend working through https://dataintensive.net/ https://dataintensive.net/ with a pencil to make notes. It has enough information to get you through basically any system design interview at a high level. After that you want to pick a tool for each category to learn in a bit more detail and screw around with if you think the interviewers might ask for details on your specific chosen technologies. Potentially learning the basic pros and cons would be enough. If you're going for more entry to mid level you likely won't need to get into the weeds of postgres index efficency etc in the interview. Designing Data Intenstive systems will get you about 80-90% of the way there though (in the UK), certainly enough to get through the door as a mid engineer in many bigger places, although possibly not a FAANG.
- jokethrowaway 5y agoFrom my experience, system design is not too bad if you have practice building systems. You may read some of the interview preparation books to get an idea of the concepts and keywords the interviewer want to hear - but it's not too dissimilar to what you would do in practice. System design correlates to architect level work. Leetcoding instead requires you to know the basic patterns to use to solve the problems and either A. be a incredibly quick thinker or B. have memorised tons of exercises - especially if you're not super young and age and sleepless nights are starting to catch up with you. Leetcoding doesn't correlate to work in any way. You just suck it up and spend 2 months preparing for it so you can have a nice looking CV and a truckload of money after you get the job. I would weigh carefully whether you want to go to a FAANG though. Some people lucks out and they end up in a role where they do very little, others end up overworking. You can make decent money contracting for less demanding companies (both interview and work-wise) and being tax smart (I would say almost as much as a FAANG, considering half goes in taxes).
- hutrdvnj 5y agoNowadays it's called MAMAA instead of FAANG.[0] [0] https://fortune.com/2021/10/29/faang-mamaa-jim-cramer-tech-facebook-meta/ https://fortune.com/2021/10/29/faang-mamaa-jim-cramer-tech-f...
- hnxs 5y agono one calls it that i see more and more people dropping the amazon A though
- openknot 5y agoAnecdotally, I see FAAMG (dropping Netflix for Microsoft) more often, keeping Amazon and Apple.
- jokethrowaway 5y agonot sure if it's for convenience or because it's the least desirable FANG to work for
- m_a_g 5y agoI highly doubt that "MAMAA" will stick. Especially since it includes Microsoft.
- psyc 5y agoThere seems to have been a trend for people to really want to include Microsoft in recent years, and that’s part of it.
- azangru 5y ago> Especially since it includes Microsoft. FAANG includes Netflix, which everyone keeps repeating does not belong in this acronym.
- scottmf 5y agoLet's just go with MAAAM
- 999900000999 5y agoPay is less than half of most American companies. London is one of the most expensive cities in the world. It makes more sense to negotiate a good amount of PTO instead and take a London vacation
- nickdothutton 5y agoKeep in mind the centre of gravity for the company will be the US. Very few firms, tech or otherwise are truly global in their approach. Most are taking product built and launched in the US out to the rest of world. This is why they almost constantly trip over local market quirks or differences (privacy being only 1 in Europe). Some firms are little more than sales/marketing operations outside the US.
- matthewmacleod 5y agoI don't work at a bigger tech company myself (so take this with a pinch of salt), but have had plenty of interaction with people who do/did, and I'd summarise broadly: - Salaries are generally a bit higher base than the rest of the permanent tech market, higher still total compensation, lower than the same companies in the US market, and lower overall than the contracting rates which are popular in the London tech market. You will definitely receive a reasonably comfortable and competitive salary, decent pension contributions, shares, and decent holiday entitlement. - The interview process is the same nonsense as anywhere else. - Engineering culture appears to be pretty relaxed. I've heard way more complaints about colleagues who don't pull their weight than I have about companies expecting personal sacrifice. - There are some interesting teams and challenges but the selection is more limited than other markets. YMMV.
- ojhughes 5y agoI work remotely for a large US tech company and live in Hampshire. Your salary will go *much* further if you are happy to live an hour or so outside London. My team is spread across US / Canada / Spain and UK so expect some meetings in the evening. From what I have seen the culture is quite similar in the UK offices as the US offices (same perks / food etc)
- lloydatkinson 5y agoI'm from the UK too and was looking at how to remote work for US companies. How does the tax work? Did you register a company which gets paid your "salary" instead?
- ojhughes 5y agoMost of the bigger US companies have a UK registered office so there are no tax implications in my case
- lloydatkinson 5y agoThat's great thank you. Are there any other complications I should be aware of?
- JonChesterfield 5y agoTimezones are the big one. Beware end of day meetings in California. Also US style RSU grants seem to be taxed as income when they vest in the UK.
- 342ljlas 5y agoA lot of non-sense in the comments about TC/ money. I have worked at FAANG for a long time, both in the Bay Area and in London. My experience is: - TC is lower, but how much lower is highly dependent on your level as the multiplier on base is smaller than the multiplier on stock refreshers. If you are very senior, then the total difference will be ~10-15% (TC), which is arguably not that large. - Private schools are generally cheaper in the UK. - The UK does not have a property tax (!). So, all in all, at very senior levels the difference is gonna be much less about TC/money and much more where you find more desirable to live.
- shantnutiwari 5y ago> The UK does not have a property tax (!). It most certainly does, and is called council tax, based on the value of your property, plus other factors
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- gpderetta 5y agoAs you pay council tax as a tenant, it is a bit different from a property tax. Is more of a services tax. Also the valuation used is often very outdated and I believe regressive.
- Balero 5y agoIt is based on the value of your property in 1993, which can lead to some weird payment. Also it is generally much lower for expensive properties than Californias property tax.
- mmarq 5y agoCouncil tax is paid by tenants and it’s ridiculously low compared to property prices.
- CommanderData 5y agoThere's a massive skills shortage in London, to make matters worse the government penalised the self-employed and IT contractors were particularly hit hard because alot of them choose to work this way. Ironic because I know a few recruitment agents that have said IR35 have made things increasingly difficult in an already scarce market, alot of the clients they recruit for are in public and government sectors. With the changes you'll be less tax efficient and paying almost the same as you're permanent counterparts. You can avoid IR35 if you're conniving enough to work through a specially setup PSC however these are so difficult and costly, for the fat cats and not the general populous.
- dazc 5y ago> the government penalised the self-employed and IT contractors Penalised employees pretending to be self-employed in order to evade tax and national insurance.
- mmarq 5y agoIf you live in the US, there's no reason to move to the UK. Life is extremely expensive, especially if you are planning to start a family. The UK outside of inner London is a non-place where only the locals can live, with the GDP per capita of an Eastern European country and nothing to do (apart from going to the local pub and taking a train to inner London). Interviews are relatively easy, salaries have increased significantly in the past 2 years. You should be able to get 90K per annum with minimal effort, but that won't be enough to live like a low middle class German, if you plan to start a family. Housing is third-worldish, unless you can spend 2500-3000£ per month, weather is infernal and food has no flavour (unless you can afford to pay 2£ for an apple). If you can get a visa to live in the EU, I'd consider Germany. If Brexit had one effect, it was to transform Berlin in a tech hub. It is much cheaper than London, salaries in tech are roughly the same and there's a large community of foreigners, so you don't need to learn German.
- bluehatbrit 5y ago> Life is extremely expensive, especially if you are planning to start a family. The UK outside of inner London is a non-place where only the locals can live, with the GDP per capita of an Eastern European country and nothing to do (apart from going to the local pub and taking a train to inner London). This isn't even remotely true. Have you ever lived outside of London in the UK? I live a few hours away from London by the fastest train and life is great. Free health care, great neighbours, the software engineer salary compared to many is very good, and there's loads to do. Cinemas, live gigs, local festivals, beautiful landscapes if you like the outdoors. There's just as much in the UK outside of London as there is in London. There are many people who enjoy living in London, and that's great more power to them but non-London UK is definetely not "a non-place where only locals can live". I've moved around the UK loads and always been welcomed into new areas with friendly neighbours and such.
- mmarq 5y agoI’m not saying that a Briton will be unhappy in Manchester or in Coventry, I’m saying that for me, a European that lived in Rome and Berlin and Dublin, these are non-places where nothing happens and where there’s nothing to do. When I say that only locals can live there I’m not referring to xenophobia (even if that’s a thing), but to the fact that in places like Harrow or Newcastle there is literally nothing to do, apart from going to the mall or to a pub that closes at 9PM. You’ll barely find a pub still open at 11PM in Westminster (where I live), let alone Mortlake or Brentford. And don’t make me start on the beer selection. It’s hard to get a decent espresso in London and there are at best 10 places where you can get a edible pizza, I’d be surprised if there were any in the rest of the country. In Westminster I don’t have a single cinema at walking distance (it’s a 20 minute walk to Leicester Square), and I live in the area with more cinemas and theatres in the entire country. I want to reiterate that I live in what is probably the most expensive and most active area of the country, and compared to Rome or Berlin sometimes it feels like living in the middle of nowhere. Outside of inner London, the UK is a gigantic periphery, with square kilometres of houses and not even a church or a café in a 10km radius. At best you get a shopping mall and a pub that closes at 9PM.
- throwaway234399 5y agoThis is not directly the question you're asking, but I find that salary info on London isn't very accurate on Hacker News. London has always been a contract-heavy market, and the best money was had while contracting. Since IR35 this may have changed somewhat, but I've mostly found that rates on contracts inside IR35 have gone up to compensate. I lead the development of a product in an investment bank, and I concentrate almost entirely on frontend web dev. I've been on a contract for 5 years, and currently pull in £900 per day outside IR35 (£200k equiv or $260k). We routinely hire devs for £700-750 per day and we STILL find it difficult to hire. I can walk into a number of roles tomorrow paying at least £800 per day.
- cutthegrass2 5y agoThis rings true with my experience as a contractor in London.
- fy20 5y agoThe combination of Brexit, IR35 and COVID seems to have made London based companies a lot more willing to have a remote team across Europe. 5 years ago your only choice was to be in an office in London if you wanted these rates, but now there is a lot more flexibility. I spoke to a recruiter about a role at a food delivery app, and he said almost all of their new contractors (rates advertised were £650/day) are working remotely in Europe to avoid IR35.
- mFixman 5y agoI had the choice many years ago of working in London or somewhere in the US. I chose the first, and comparison to my friends who chose the second I know I made the right choice. The UK is the best of both worlds: you have much higher salaries than in the rest of Europe, and a more functional state and society than in the US. If your plan is immigrating and settling somewhere or not being a workaholic then the choice is a no-brainer. Keep in mind there is a wide range of salaries, with large FAANG companies and a few medium-sized ones in the upper part. I would check levels.fyi for real salaries instead of going for averages. The rest of the country is beautiful. The people in thread telling you there's nothing good outside of London have never left the city. I'm an Argentine immigrant to the UK who worked in large and medium tech companies. AMA!
- qgin 5y agoI see so many comments about how pay is half of what it is in the US, London is just as expensive, and there is a shortage of engineers in London. So what dark economic magic is causing this?