Cons: no Sun and the salaries seem to be capped at CHF 120-140K. Has that old school European mindset that managers and MBAs should be paid more than individual contributors, engineers.
Historically compensation tends to be tied to age/seniority and hierarchical status, not contribution per se.
> In Zurich, you can rent a whole flat (50+ square meters) for something between 2500-4000 CHF and if you are single and open to living with other people you can find a room in something called Wohngemeinde for as little as 800-1000 CHF.
Good luck if you have a family, it's ~4k for 4.5 rooms (100sqm).
Check the listings on the website, most of them cap out at 10k/month. That is gross, pre-tax. So net is about 8k max.
> Maybe it is because of the crunch work culture that squeezes out everything out of employees and only gives a payout to founders and VCs?
This is no different in Switzerland.
This was an error in the original article, by the way. The correct word is "Wohngemeinschaft". "Wohngemeinde" means "city/town/village you're residing in".
> Good luck if you have a family, it's ~4k for 4.5 rooms (100sqm).
Well, yes and no. Rents can be quite high for new arrivals. But about 20% of rental apartments in Zürich are owned by non-profit Wohnbaugenossenschaften, where rents are a lot cheaper, rise very modestly, and as long as you're on good standing, you pretty much never get kicked out, but you need to get onto a waiting list for a number of months/years.
San Francisco is famously non-sunny (all that cloud).
Salaries are certainly not capped at 140k CHF, I've seen a number of job ads for 180K CHF and that doesn't count stock options which is usually the bulk of compensation at the high end.
Not sure about the MBA vs IC thing though.
Used to be true, but less and less given climate change
San Francisco is on a peninsula, so it gets lots of fog. Its weather pattern does not represent the area in general.
San Jose is further inland and very sunny most of the year.
Today SF high will be 66F and San Jose 75F; big difference but in either case its mid-October and still t-shirt weather.
I grew up in a place in France that gets slightly more sun than Zurich. I now live in the Bay Area Peninsula with 3,000+ hours of sunshine a year and the difference is incredible, especially in winter.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_sunshine_dur...
I don't care what managers and MBA-s make until I can make an awesome living. I'm not more special.
That being said, everything is 2 to 3 times more expensive there. That might well be worth it given the quality of life you get there.
That's a pro to me. I'm happiest when it's cool and cloudy, and everything to do with the sun is just brutally oppressive and makes it hard to get anything done.
Not sure in what kind of bubble you live but it's like that everywhere except if you're a tech engineer in a SV tech company.
Only in the winter. :)
The other points hold as far as my experience goes.