New Tech Centers Sprout in Europe
wsj.com
wsj.com
If I ever decide to leave Canada, that's probably where I'll go.
0. https://www.thisiscodebase.com/
3. https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/open-source-summit...
I work just a little north in Dundee. A great little city with a growing reputation[1]. If you're ever looking for a job in the games industry there are lots of companies based in the city. They tend to be smaller indy places although there are some larger companies too.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-01-02/where-to-...
Not very much detail on Edinburgh, just mentions Brainnwave (sic) and not Skyscanner. It's a very cultural but also fairly expensive city. Perhaps people will start moving into startup space round about the gentrification of Leith or the space vacated by RBS.
Source: I lived in Kraków for 4 years.
The situation is terrible for many reasons but major 2 are ancient coal/junk heating (people won't upgrade to eco-friendly heating because most of them are dirty poor and their main problem is to find a cheaper coal substitute for next winter) and Germans flooding us with used diesel cars with particulate filters long not working (or removed). There is a lot of talk about CO2 but this is long term danger while used diesel cars are poisoning us right now at massive scale.
It is also a lovely city to visit, which is always worth bearing in mind when it comes to where companies might open a satellite office...
My point being, teaching from an early age, while is an advantage, does not necessarily mean a good comprehension or ability to speak.
Edit: sausage fingers
At the diploma mills that are Polish universities. Google was unable to scale up in Poland for a decade. They opted for creating marketing & accounting offices in several Polish workforce hubs, while the man who organized Krakow tech office has resigned in frustration over mainship's final shelving of any plans for expansion in that space. Likewise the Warsaw tech office is mainly for the few smart people who don't want to leave for family reasons.
Students from the very few quality CS programmes emigrate in droves. Polish ministry keeps record of graduates entering national workforce and from the good programmes as much as 80% are missing.
Outside these, quality quickly falls off a cliff, even from the same school (Krakow local AGH has no less than 5 departments offering CS degrees).
Just last month a typical scandal in academic circles emerged where former president (rektor) of AGH advised a PhD thesis in CS that was plagiarized from another that itself turned out to be fishy. Moreover the reviewers from the more prestigious Jagiellonian University plagiarized verbatim their own reviews (and they were reviewers of both somehow). Things happen, but the main scandal was the body overseeing higher ed in Poland refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing. They've set up schools there to be diploma mills in the first place.
AFAIK, the problem with Krakow was not with lack of good programmers, but organizational setup - too many PAs in too small office.
The decline shown is between 2016 and 2017. Trump wasn't President. Any decisions to attend in the US would have been considered well before it was even clear he would have a serious chance of winning.
There are two likely reasons for that dip. First, the cost of university education in the US is quite high. Second and in tandem with the first issue, countries like China that formerly would have sent a lot of students to the US, increasingly have the education systems and infrastructure - along with the post education opportunities - in place to retain their own talent pools.
Trump was, in fact, President well before the 16 April — 15 November period covered for the 2017 data.
> Any decisions to attend in the US would have been considered well before it was even clear he would have a serious chance of winning.
But would have had ample time to be reconsidered after he won, and even after the initial implementation of the travel ban.
> There are two likely reasons for that dip. First, the cost of university education in the US is quite high
That was true I've the 2012–2016 period of increase, too, it didn't change between 2016 and 2017.
> Second and in tandem with the first issue, countries like China that formerly would have sent a lot of students to the US, increasingly have the education systems and infrastructure - along with the post education opportunities - in place to retain their own talent pools.
That also didn't dramatically change between 2016 and 2017.
What did dramatically change between 2016 and 2017 was the visible attitude of the U.S. public and government to foreigners.
Yes?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/08/polish-mps-pas...
In case of Krakow I would rather worry about the awful air pollution. What you hear about Polish politics is a political war resulting with plenty of nonsense media content produced.
Another problem is GDPR. It sounds like the life of European startups is going to get much harder.
One potential upside is EU funding. Having used both VC and EU funding I am not sure if it's really worth it, even if it's equity free.
Yes, the city is beautiful but don't expect high paying jobs. I know a couple of YC-backed startups in Lisbon that get away with paying their software engineers around 24-30K euros per year (post-tax).
that's better than the average in Portugal.
If you go to USA working at a job getting $100k a year you probably pay 30k or more in taxes.
You're forgetting the cost of living.
That paying much more would still be cheaper to them is irrelevant; in SF/NY/LN they have competition for developers, in Lisbon the few that made the jump are still the top dogs.
mail me if you like, we can chat a bit more.
Mine is hn@andreparames.com, if you prefer to avoid posting yours.
I multiplied 1000,0 by 12 and somehow and got 24.
It doesn't go up much, either. An average senior engineer might cost 40K euro/year and the absolute cream of the crop can be had for 100-150 K euro/year.
This for engineers from a top school that you can expect to be fluent in english and 5 time zones away from the east coast. It's a great place to have a second office.
[1] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...
edit: do you mean net salary?
45k/year is enough for a single person or even a couple living more frugal.
If single, you will have a blast in Berlin with 45k. If you're moving with a dependent, that's a bit tight (as a newcomer, you will never find the best deals regarding accommodation, there's a fair supply of newly built apartments in Berlin, but they aren't cheap).
For information in Paris, currently I'm at ~50K a year "Brut", which means ~35K a year "Net" ("go home" salary).
I'm costing ~75K per year to my employer in term of salary (there are taxes on his side to).
My rent, for a small flat (22 square meters) in Paris is around 10K per year.
My taxes are around 6K per year.
I'm an SRE/software engineer with ~8 years experience.
Ladies and gentlemen of the world, this is what is costs to have our (indeed very nice) social security/health insurance !
What about language barrier? Do people speak English?
I'm surprised the article doesn't mention either of them by name, but I suppose if, as the article states, "Every company is a tech company now”, then any city with a half-decent economy is a tech city now.
Bratislava on the other hand looks like it's being rebuilt almost from the ground up, has a reasonable tech scene (even hosts demoscene parties!) and also has some of the friendliest people I've ever met anywhere. Eset seems to be the anchor company.
The very low cost of living and high salaries for engineers make it quite attractive, even though rent prices keep going up it is still a very good place to live, decent quality of living, centrally located within Europe with lots of options to travel and all, I'd definitely recommend, and hope it becomes an even bigger tech hub in the future.
Where 'tech' is probably to be understood as 'relying heavily on software'.
> me and my fellow students had to find jobs in the London area
This is arguably still true of most any career path you care to choose in the UK - the UK economy in geographic terms is so heavily slanted to the South East/London, especially for "professional" type careers.
What's their product exactly? In terms of flight search ITA's Matrix beats them IMO.
I mean, it may not be very interesting in the beginning when the earnings are not very far from zero, but as the startup grows, and the stock incentives become more tangible, it's becoming relevant. I was personally looking at Barcelona once but the moment I looked at how much taxes they pay, I dropped the idea.
Options received under an EMI scheme are tax-free, although you may eventually have to pay capital gains tax at time of exercise.
I do not think taxation should get singled out as a deciding factor where to setup a business, but could be considered in the round with all the other operational costs.
Low taxes might seem good, but if the key services are non-existent or corrupt, then your costs of operation will be significantly higher than in a place that has high(er) taxes, but civil society is run efficiently.
Simple math. Say, if your venture succeeds, you net a lump sum of, say, $300K - $500K? Plus, in the advanced stages, you'll be paying yourself around $80K - $100K p.a., which falls in the high tax bracket everywhere. The difference between high taxes and low taxes may make a difference between you being able to buy a new home for cash or not.
If you're planning to spend a few years to have fun and immerse in a different culture and believe your venture is likely to fail, sure. If you are there to make money, think again.
Of course, it's not the primary consideration. The primary consideration should be whether there is a market for your products and services.
> Low taxes might seem good, but if the key services are non-existent or corrupt, then your costs of operation will be significantly higher than in a place that has high(er) taxes, but civil society is run efficiently.
That's not necessarily how things work. I live in Singapore now, where the income tax is in single digits and the foreign sources of income are not even taxed, so if you're not an American, you can have your passive income tax-free. The key services are anything but non-existent or corrupt.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/may/27/tax-britons-pa...
I can tell from experience that the Australian taxation authorities make the US taxation authorities look like a gift-giving Santa. I also dealt extensively with Europe, and Europe is by far worse than Australia in that respect. (A note to the dear Americans, I am not an American who went to Australia, it's the other way around.)
And then they mix in mandatory pension contributions for some, which makes the comparison even weirder.
Also note that this comparison is for long-term residents, not for expats or entrepreneurs that are there for a few years and may not be as interested in the social programs.
We don't have these in EU. More like centers where the profits are sucked out from the cheap and desperate labor.
Also, they seem to mean 'software' not 'tech'. But sure.
I see the positive side of keeping people there instead of having to try their luck abroad.
Actually I would like to see all district capitals enjoy startup fever, specially the inner country ones.
If it's a small, European centric scene, by Europeans and for Europeans which grows organically outward then it stands a chance to enrich the city.
Personally I'm not much of an advocate for Europe welcoming SV folks and their VC masters in.
Krakow? If you fancy working at the complete bottom of the corporate hierarchy at IBM/Capgemini/Accenture/etc, or for some Scandinavian/German cheapskates. Rents went through the roof as well.
This used to be the case up until a few years ago but having spoken with many young Portuguese there's a serious resurgence of tech and arts scenes.
I do hope rent goes down, it's fugly to see working class people being driven out of the city...
Since when Poland is a city?
Yeah, no, not quite. Only one city got that treatment, so it's not an invalid interpretation. The alternative to the journalist who cannot read a map is that the journalist should learn how to write, but either way it's an error of WSJ.