6 ms·

This might be my prejudice but when someone talks about offshoring a role, moving it to Munich isn't the first thing that comes to mind. It may be slightly chea

This might be my prejudice but when someone talks about offshoring a role, moving it to Munich isn't the first thing that comes to mind. It may be slightly cheaper than California but not by so much that if expect it to be the main reason for doing so.

pjmlp 2y ago
There are tons of people in Europe working as offshore resources for American companies. Being the same Western culture helps a lot versus other areas favoured for offshoring.
throwaway345435 2y ago
It's extremely hard to lay off in Germany, so existing Google employees in Germany are, on the margin, nearly free, and so can be reassigned (with something else being done with their current project).
- allarm 2y ago
  How hard is it? As in - they have to let you work for the duration of the notice period hard? Honest question.
  - dongping 2y ago
    Aside from the mandatory negotiation with the employee co-determination (works council), the layoffs "must be determined according to the principles of social selection [...] (t)his is often perceived as a major obstacle [...] it would be disastrous to have to dismiss top performers simply because they are younger than other employees or have been recently hired." [Source] Random link from the Internet so that I don't need to translate: https://www.emplawyers-muenchen.de/wp-content/uploads/files/docs/RedundancyinGermany_Overview.pdf https://www.emplawyers-muenchen.de/wp-content/uploads/files/...
    - ghosty141 2y ago
      You are on the spot, it's almost impossible to lay somebody off who is like 50 y/o and has kids + has been with the company for quite a while. Generally, workers rights here in Germany are quite good so as an employee life tends to be quite comfortable since you don't have to fear termination the moment the company isn't doing exceptionally well.
  - socksy 2y ago
    As in, they would have to prove, potentially in court, that the layoff was absolutely necessary to actually be about to do it, plus pay an undefined fair severance amount (that people mostly seem to accept as 0.5 * monthly salary * years of tenure at the company), on top of the on-average 3 month notice period, which most companies will give as garden leave in order to not reduce morale even further. If you can't prove that you need to cut the person for "operational" reasons (e.g. because you're not really getting rid of python tooling engineers), then your best bet is to dangle large cash offers to people in order to entice them to quit. If they do manage to prove they need to do layoffs, for example when the company is literally running out of money, then they're not allowed to just lay off employees as they like (and definitely not in relation to performance). Instead they have to follow the "Sozialauswahl" which means that factors like whether the employee is supporting a family, is older, etc need to be taken into account. Then on top of all that, they won't be able to hire people even for completely unrelated roles, for some amount of time afterwards. So all in all there's a few disincentives for layoffs to be considered as a first action (it's not stopped it from happening at a bunch of companies lately though, Bosch, SoundCloud, Ableton, Native Instruments, Personio, Pitch etc).
    - fuckthemusers 2y ago
      I'm sure this comes with some drawbacks, perhaps more cautious hiring, but I like the sound of these regulations. Anything to give employees a ballast against wild swings in the share price. If layoffs had a more delayed effect on the business (and could be reversed in court) there would be less incentive for CEOs to pull that lever.
fsloth 2y ago
”Slightly cheaper”? What are the actual numbers we are talking about regarding yearly comp?
- lbruno 2y ago
  TC diffs of 230k vs 350k is what i've seen, for a mid-career SRE
  - Sleepful 2y ago
    It's still not a lot considering that you get the same benefit from hiring in LCOL in the USA
emodendroket 2y ago
You might think twice if you looked at the figures; the numbers in this article comparing US and UK wages are astounding: https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/britain-white-collar-jobs-7a59629d https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/britain-white-collar-j... (and this article goes into the rationale too. Basically the idea is you're paying more than you would in a developing economy, but you can trust the team with more autonomy and fewer cultural misunderstandings, so it's an option for offshoring higher-value work)
- wing-_-nuts 2y ago
  You know, it makes me wonder how hard it would be to use this divide to actually move to the EU and get residency. Then again, with so many countries having to beef up military spending and facing economic headwinds you really have to question whether all the social / quality of life programs that make europe more livable than the US would be sustainable long term either. Who knows maybe in 30 years Americans ultimately have a higher quality of life just due to our stronger economic position making it easier to sustainably fund M4A or whatever.
  - phendrenad2 2y ago
    Military spending is a good point. If the middle class all moves to Germany, the US tax base will suffer, and probably Germany will have to raise taxes for their military to compensate. But that would take decades.
  - emodendroket 2y ago
    If you work a white-collar job the US standard of living is substantially higher. If you're a laborer the opposite is true but you also probably have a harder time getting in to Europe in the first place.
    - wing-_-nuts 2y ago
      I really do wonder if our material standard of living really contributes to happiness though? I don't want more 'stuff' I want guaranteed access to healthcare. I want worker and consumer rights. I want a country that recognizes climate change is a real problem and is doing something about it. I want a more fair and representative government actually beholden to the will of the people. I don't need a McMansion, a luxury car, I want a better society. I feel like Europe, or at least the Nordics, have that, and if my parents were not here in the US, I think I'd happily move.
chucke1992 2y ago
In USA it is quite easy to get above 200k USD. In Europe the comparable salary would be around 180k and it almost never reaches that point. Even 100k is considered a lot.
bananapub 2y ago
> It may be slightly cheaper than California but not by so much that if expect it to be the main reason for doing so. extremely wrong. what are you basing your assumption on? the cost of a Munich employee is less than half of the cost of a California one, when you take into account salary, stock, office costs, whinging, etc.
torginus 2y ago
You might be surprised - the absolute difference in salary between Munich and a trendy US tech hub is more than $100k. The difference between getting a decent dev in Poland vs Munich is $30-50k max.

pjmlp 2y ago

There are tons of people in Europe working as offshore resources for American companies. Being the same Western culture helps a lot versus other areas favoured for offshoring.

throwaway345435 2y ago

It's extremely hard to lay off in Germany, so existing Google employees in Germany are, on the margin, nearly free, and so can be reassigned (with something else being done with their current project).

allarm 2y ago
How hard is it? As in - they have to let you work for the duration of the notice period hard? Honest question.
- dongping 2y ago
  Aside from the mandatory negotiation with the employee co-determination (works council), the layoffs "must be determined according to the principles of social selection [...] (t)his is often perceived as a major obstacle [...] it would be disastrous to have to dismiss top performers simply because they are younger than other employees or have been recently hired." [Source] Random link from the Internet so that I don't need to translate: https://www.emplawyers-muenchen.de/wp-content/uploads/files/docs/RedundancyinGermany_Overview.pdf https://www.emplawyers-muenchen.de/wp-content/uploads/files/...
  - ghosty141 2y ago
    You are on the spot, it's almost impossible to lay somebody off who is like 50 y/o and has kids + has been with the company for quite a while. Generally, workers rights here in Germany are quite good so as an employee life tends to be quite comfortable since you don't have to fear termination the moment the company isn't doing exceptionally well.
- socksy 2y ago
  As in, they would have to prove, potentially in court, that the layoff was absolutely necessary to actually be about to do it, plus pay an undefined fair severance amount (that people mostly seem to accept as 0.5 * monthly salary * years of tenure at the company), on top of the on-average 3 month notice period, which most companies will give as garden leave in order to not reduce morale even further. If you can't prove that you need to cut the person for "operational" reasons (e.g. because you're not really getting rid of python tooling engineers), then your best bet is to dangle large cash offers to people in order to entice them to quit. If they do manage to prove they need to do layoffs, for example when the company is literally running out of money, then they're not allowed to just lay off employees as they like (and definitely not in relation to performance). Instead they have to follow the "Sozialauswahl" which means that factors like whether the employee is supporting a family, is older, etc need to be taken into account. Then on top of all that, they won't be able to hire people even for completely unrelated roles, for some amount of time afterwards. So all in all there's a few disincentives for layoffs to be considered as a first action (it's not stopped it from happening at a bunch of companies lately though, Bosch, SoundCloud, Ableton, Native Instruments, Personio, Pitch etc).
  - fuckthemusers 2y ago
    I'm sure this comes with some drawbacks, perhaps more cautious hiring, but I like the sound of these regulations. Anything to give employees a ballast against wild swings in the share price. If layoffs had a more delayed effect on the business (and could be reversed in court) there would be less incentive for CEOs to pull that lever.

fsloth 2y ago

”Slightly cheaper”? What are the actual numbers we are talking about regarding yearly comp?

lbruno 2y ago
TC diffs of 230k vs 350k is what i've seen, for a mid-career SRE
- Sleepful 2y ago
  It's still not a lot considering that you get the same benefit from hiring in LCOL in the USA

emodendroket 2y ago

You might think twice if you looked at the figures; the numbers in this article comparing US and UK wages are astounding: https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/britain-white-collar-jobs-7a59629d https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/britain-white-collar-j... (and this article goes into the rationale too. Basically the idea is you're paying more than you would in a developing economy, but you can trust the team with more autonomy and fewer cultural misunderstandings, so it's an option for offshoring higher-value work)

wing-_-nuts 2y ago
You know, it makes me wonder how hard it would be to use this divide to actually move to the EU and get residency. Then again, with so many countries having to beef up military spending and facing economic headwinds you really have to question whether all the social / quality of life programs that make europe more livable than the US would be sustainable long term either. Who knows maybe in 30 years Americans ultimately have a higher quality of life just due to our stronger economic position making it easier to sustainably fund M4A or whatever.
- phendrenad2 2y ago
  Military spending is a good point. If the middle class all moves to Germany, the US tax base will suffer, and probably Germany will have to raise taxes for their military to compensate. But that would take decades.
- emodendroket 2y ago
  If you work a white-collar job the US standard of living is substantially higher. If you're a laborer the opposite is true but you also probably have a harder time getting in to Europe in the first place.
  - wing-_-nuts 2y ago
    I really do wonder if our material standard of living really contributes to happiness though? I don't want more 'stuff' I want guaranteed access to healthcare. I want worker and consumer rights. I want a country that recognizes climate change is a real problem and is doing something about it. I want a more fair and representative government actually beholden to the will of the people. I don't need a McMansion, a luxury car, I want a better society. I feel like Europe, or at least the Nordics, have that, and if my parents were not here in the US, I think I'd happily move.

chucke1992 2y ago

In USA it is quite easy to get above 200k USD. In Europe the comparable salary would be around 180k and it almost never reaches that point. Even 100k is considered a lot.

bananapub 2y ago

> It may be slightly cheaper than California but not by so much that if expect it to be the main reason for doing so. extremely wrong. what are you basing your assumption on? the cost of a Munich employee is less than half of the cost of a California one, when you take into account salary, stock, office costs, whinging, etc.

torginus 2y ago

You might be surprised - the absolute difference in salary between Munich and a trendy US tech hub is more than $100k. The difference between getting a decent dev in Poland vs Munich is $30-50k max.