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I've noticed weird cultural differences between the UK and US in terms of how programmers are perceived by businesses. I interviewed with a major UK software c

by ef4 14y ago

I've noticed weird cultural differences between the UK and US in terms of how programmers are perceived by businesses. I interviewed with a major UK software consulting business that was trying to open their first US office, and it was immediately apparent that their expectations were way off from the local conditions. The interview included a programming test, which I was "not expected to finish, we just want to see how far you can get". I finished in half the allotted time, and they didn't seem to know what to do with me. Then they offered half the salary that I was concurrently being offered by another company in the same location, and they weren't willing to negotiate upward when I pointed out that fact. They clearly weren't interested in hiring someone who could be trusted with serious responsibility. They wanted that mythical creature: the programmer who can operate like an assembly line worker, cranking specs into code in a repeatable and easily replaceable way. I've seen the insides of many US software companies, and I've never seen one that seemed to take such a dim view of their programmers. You might see that attitude in non-software companies that begrudgingly spend some money on internal programmers, but not in the companies that make their money directly with software.

jiggy2011 14y ago
There are more progressive software companies in the UK with better culture, although they seem to be mainly doing that by cargo-culting what google and other SV companies are doing. Salaries paid aren't that much better in these companies though. Expectations of programmer aptitude are all over the map also, companies do like administering those "programming tests" which can vary from very tricky math problems to stuff like "What is the keyword for inheritance in Java?". Thing is that salaries in both types of jobs tend to be similar. Another problem with these tests is that they are often administered by recruiters who don't even bother to bring them upto date, a friend had a test for a C# programming position which asked him mostly questions about VB6. It's quite a shame because the government likes to talk about how they want tech innovation to happen in the UK as it does with the US. However most of the top programmers seem to either end up going abroad or getting assimilated into finance or into various gigantic consulting corps.
- bowyakka 14y ago
  I can attest to the going abroad thing, I made the move and have been astonished by the jump in salary and autonomy in the US over the UK. What makes it weirder is I didn't change company only location

by ef4 14y ago

jiggy2011 14y ago

There are more progressive software companies in the UK with better culture, although they seem to be mainly doing that by cargo-culting what google and other SV companies are doing. Salaries paid aren't that much better in these companies though. Expectations of programmer aptitude are all over the map also, companies do like administering those "programming tests" which can vary from very tricky math problems to stuff like "What is the keyword for inheritance in Java?". Thing is that salaries in both types of jobs tend to be similar. Another problem with these tests is that they are often administered by recruiters who don't even bother to bring them upto date, a friend had a test for a C# programming position which asked him mostly questions about VB6. It's quite a shame because the government likes to talk about how they want tech innovation to happen in the UK as it does with the US. However most of the top programmers seem to either end up going abroad or getting assimilated into finance or into various gigantic consulting corps.

bowyakka 14y ago
I can attest to the going abroad thing, I made the move and have been astonished by the jump in salary and autonomy in the US over the UK. What makes it weirder is I didn't change company only location