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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

Like most tech people I know in the UK, I've worked for North American companies my whole career. I'd love to work for a UK company and support investment in the UK more, but the pay and working conditions just aren't even remotely competitive (how crazy does that sound, saying I have to go to North American companies to get better working conditions but it's true.) Thankfully more and more let you work remotely from the UK now.

I might be misremembering and exaggerating but I think I looked at ARM internships a decade ago and they were paying about the same daily rate as the hourly rate I got from an American company. Guess where people went?

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> I'd love to work for a UK company and support investment in the UK more, but the pay and working conditions just aren't competitive (how crazy does that sound, saying I have to go to North American companies to get better working conditions but it's true.)

Why is that crazy ? From what I've seen the standard of living in the US is actually really good if you're a skilled professional in a high demand field and the labor market is more competitive - better than the EU IMO.

Which is why I'm not sure why I see so much US negative comments around here and this smug EU stance - like just recently I heard from two former coworkers that got a job at similar role/experience level one in Munich and one in Chicago - the guy that went to Chicago got 60% higher salary and his cost of living is roughly similar (didn't go in details TBH).

Also on a personal and cultural level I prefer working with Americans - with Europeans there's so much posturing and pretending to be professional and formal (with skills usually lacking).

> Why is that crazy ?

Because people think the big benefit of being at a European company that balances the worse pay is more vacation, more reasonable working hours, better work-life balance, working autonomy.

But that's not true. It's the opposite.

I get far better vacation, working hours, work-life balance, working autonomy at North American companies. And better pay. So what's the benefit of working for a European company?

Do you work in the US or UK?

I read your original post as working in the UK for an American company, but now I'm not so sure

How much vacation did you take last year?

What are your working hours?

> Which is why I'm not sure why I see so much US negative comments around here and this smug EU stance

Because not only the (relatively) rich matter.

Sure but the US has plenty of advantages over EU and EU is quite bad in some regards as well (especially with regards to equality across the EU - US is usually grouped together but people seem to be talking west Europe and Scandinavian countries when discussing EU, meanwhile I just saw a report how in eastern Europe women are doing surrogate pregnancies as a paid gig because of their living conditions ... if you travel through parts of EU like Bulgaria you'll quickly encounter some medieval living conditions)

> meanwhile I just saw a report how in eastern Europe women are doing surrogate pregnancies as a paid gig because of their living conditions

I agree that EU vs US discussions can be tedious, but surrogate pregnancies for cash happen in some US states too.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/12/paying-gestational-carri...

It's not the fact that it can happen but that there are agencies and it's a growing business in the region shows you how bad it is

Yes, and these things are also true for the US.

Romania is pretty bad too, but the whole point is joining the EU is to help IMPROVE all this, which it does. I have driven across the EU and the US and at the lower socioeconomic end, neither has much difference, except that the EU is committed to improving the lives of its citizens (as far as I have seen) through investment and legislation, and the US isn’t. Quite the opposite.

>how crazy does that sound, saying I have to go to North American companies to get better working conditions but it's true

Same for my time in Germany. I got way better working conditions(not talking about money) working for US companies who had offices there than for German ones.

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