Don't forget that software engineers in the states tend to work more hours. For instance it's unlikely you're getting more than ~32 hours / week out of a German software engineer on average, due to caps on working hours and paid days off.
That puts the upper limit below what is likely to be the average in the states. Obviously this doesn't translate perfectly into productivity, but it is something you may want to keep in mind as an employer.
This is mostly performative presenteeism[0], sitting more hours in a chair does not mean you're producing more.
I find that being paid by the day/month, instead of the hour shifts your approach to labor.
Don't forget that software engineers in the states tend to be much less productive than their German counterparts, to continue on your example.
> except for emergencies, where you're paying them overtime
They're not paid overtime, because they're not paid by the hour.
As a German software engineer I've got to ask: are we?
> They're not paid overtime, because they're not paid by the hour.
If you're not compensating them for the overtime, then you're taking those hours away somewhere else, i.e. giving them time off.
In my contract, which is less than "full time", I get paid for overtime up to 40 hours / week. Eventually anyhow if I didn't compensate the hours somewhere else.
One thing I noticed about German office culture (I worked with a bunch of multinationals) is that there's much less chit-chat and more focus on the work to be done, relatively to Anglosphere (Irish/Uk at least) office culture.
I could certainly see how this would lead to approximately the same output even with less hours.
F to doubt. I'm not some jingoist but it seems obvious to me that if Germans were more productive then I'd be able to name at least one FAANG tier company based on Germany.
So me pointing out that there are no FAANGs is reductive but claiming 32 hours is peak productivity isn't being reductive? Hmmm.
I hate to break it to you but productivity is measured not by wishful thinking but by capital markets. If German devs were more productive then capital would move to Germany.
Capital accumulation is much more than worker productivity, it depends on historical factors, the local banking sector, time in the market, investor mentality and risk taking, local laws and regulations for both workers and investors, and most importantly taxes, both on workers and on investors. Worker efficiency is only a small part of that. As a productive worker I have no control of the other factors that attract investors to my city/country like political instability, corruption, geography, wars on my border, banking, taxes and laws.
No I think it's you who is confused about the difference between capital, which can be moved, is fungible, and property (like mcmansions). The whole point, literally the whole point, of capital markets is enabling people to move their money opportunistically in a way that's impossible with property.
> it depends on historical factors, the local banking sector, time in the market
Do you realize you're talking about Western Europe here and not like some developing nation? And Bavaria no less? Like I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of the extant banks in the area go all the way back to knights of templar.
> As a productive worker I have no control of the other factors that attract investors to my city/country like political instability, corruption, geography, wars on my border, banking, taxes and laws.
Again, Western Europe, not LA or subsaharan Africa or whatever. Germany is without a doubt top 5 in terms of both stability and lack of corruption.
For example, if your wealthy Bavarian "Knights Templar" money investor (who probably isn't as wealthy as US VCs, but we'll gloss over that), can make more money through real estate investments, why would risk it all and take a gamble on some risky tech start-up in a country that has more bureaucracy, higher taxes, more workers' protections, smaller scale than the US, conservative consumer who still use cash, etc.? It's too risky to invest in tech here, compared to the US, even if you were wealthy investor.
Germany along with any other wealth European country, and the US aren't remotely comparable in the tech markets to draw the conclusion that because Germany doesn't have FAANGs it's because its workers can't be as productive as the US ones, when there's so may other factors I enumerated above at play that impact the tech sector.
You rant is just not a valid argument for this position.
SAP?
>SAP is the largest non-American software company by revenue, the world's third-largest publicly traded software company by revenue
This is dissembling by picking the metric that measures literally the exact opposite of productivity. SAP has the same number of employees (more?) as eg FB but its net income is 1/10th.
Most software engineer position in Germany have around 30 if they're at all competitive on the market. In total you get around 220 days where they actually work, vs. 260 days you're paying them for (assuming no sick days).
As an American doing cybersecurity in a non-tech industry, I work about 45 hours a week and get 10 days of vacation, 5 sick days, 7 holidays, and 5 floating holidays (basically vacation) per year. I could take it all, but that would be culturally weird and possibly career limiting. If I were at a FAANG I would expect significantly more hours per week with more vacation time and fewer holidays, but it works out to the same expectation that I would take about 15 days per year including sick days and holidays.