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Comment by reedf1 | Hacker News Reader

I considered a startup after university in the UK. The talent arbitrage is absurd, physics grads with 1sts from top Russell Group unis fighting to be paid £30k/yr. For me it came down to security, life is expensive, rent is expensive. I didn't have a spare parental garage to setup five computers - I barely had room in my flat for one desk. I barely had money for that flat let alone internet, and food. I had zero capital, as in literally zero. The plan was to get an entry level job to provide some base line, but that base line never really provided enough life security that I felt comfortable leaving the system once I was inside it.

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I'm in the same boat. I've been chasing my tail for the last 6 years, just trying to keep my head above water financially. I'm a computer hardware engineer so the pickings are slim to none outside of the military-industrial complex, which pays shit outside of sales and executive management. Ended up at one of the big US semiconductor companies where I got paid 1/3rd of what my peers in the US earn, with similar expenditures. A starting salary of £26k... Barely broke £34k, plus a couple of grand in stock each year during my time there, while my US colleagues doing the same job get paid $120k+. That's with a good master's degree from Bristol, which is relatively prestigious.

I'm sure if I moved to London and focused on software engineering I could make more, but that shouldn't be the only route to wealth in this country.

I've spent so long trying to build out a minimum viable product in my spare time, so I can make my start-up dream a reality, but going through integration hell needs to take up all of your time, every day, for a long time, to get through the hurdles in any meaningful time frame. Every time I go back to it, I feel like I'm back at square one. 6 years of saving and I have zero runway to take this full-time to give it the time it needs.

What's embarrassing is that I discussed this with my colleagues, and they didn't quite fathom how fucked it is for young engineers in this country until I had the conversation with them. I was getting the same salary now as my mentor did when he was my age; in the early '90s. Wages haven't just stagnated. When adjusted for inflation, they shrank massively. That's not even considering the £60k of student loan debt I get hammered by every month.

I honestly think if you asked the average Brit on the street what an engineer was, they'd say "it's someone who MOTs your car".

That's because in most if not all anglesaxon countries, engineering is not legally protected unlike doctors or lawyers which further affects the engineering profession and mixes it with the role of technician.

People use engineer and technician interchangeably even when the gap of skill and knowledge between both is huge

When I say I'm an electrical engineer, people often think I make a shit load of cash and barely work. Then I need to clarify I'm not an electrician.

Is a ‘computer hardware engineer’ different from a ‘hardware engineer’? I think of a ‘hardware engineer’ as someone who works on the development of ICs (or things on FPGAs). I would guess that people in such a role are paid a lot less than software engineers (at comparably sized companies) in the US, and a bit less in the UK (though maybe with more variance). But the numbers you give are lower than I would expect for eg ‘hardware engineer working at Arm/Qualcomm’. There’s also hardware engineering in finance, which can pay well, but not a lot of it.

I said computer to specify on-chip design, not hardware as in PCB/electronics work. I worked initially on CPU integration for industrial computers, which was that lower figure. I pivoted to FPGA design a couple of years ago and make a bit more now, but it's still pittance compared to my colleagues in other countries.

There's a bit more money to be made up in Cambridge with Arm and Qualcomm as you mentioned, but my take home would be less when adjusted for local housing costs. As for HFT, its an end goal if only to escape the cycle of poverty, but not something I want to do out of passion for the craft.

Yeah, Cambridge certainly can feel like it’s in a weird place where salaries are high by UK standards (at least outside London) but housing is also quite expensive. They’re planning/building a lot more housing there so that may change. The situation is something that’s fine for young people who don’t need much housing (especially if they want to share with friends) but for people with families who need more housing can have a harder time. I think it can still be worth it depending on one’s circumstances, though I haven’t attempted any calculation (intuition here is roughly (a) that a smaller % of a bigger number can be bigger than a larger % of a smaller number, and (b) similar other examples). I wonder how pay and available roles compare at Arm’s office in Sheffield.

I have a question.

What if there was a place that you and a few colleagues could go where you could have your living space and office space provided, basic food served, and basic amenities.

Such a place would probably be somewhat isolated and probably not in your own county. If such a place existed that catered to founders in exchange for minimal equity, is that something that would interest you, theoretically?

Sounds like the house from the Silicon Valley show

Huh, I’m guessing from the downvote that the answer is no. That’s kind of what I thought.

Risk is often a stand -in for comfort.

In general, I find that teams that are willing to be uncomfortable will come through. Ones that aren’t will fall apart.

I think this is because at some point, the level of commitment that is typically required to thrust a project above the noise floor implies a significant level of discomfort and sacrifice.

A great idea and a great team are not going to make it without either a) being logistically able to do what most projects are unable to do (backing) or 2) being willing to do what most people are unwilling to do (chutzpah).

It’s very rare that an idea or product is so great that it will succeed on its own merits alone.

For better or for worse, many cultures foster a sense of risk aversion and conservative attitudes about discomfort. It’s hard to assemble a team that will go the distance in these cultures without strong funding out of the gate.

I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, but it does seem to stifle entrepreneurial adventurism.

I wasn't the one to downvote you for reference, but to be clear, moving out and abandoning my partner and country so I can put together a half-baked MVP and give away equity for that hard work isn't what I, nor anyone else on this forum I suspect, would consider a good trade. I assume others are downvoting you because your comment sounds like you're running a scam operation.

If you want to conflate running away from responsibilities and joining a frat house as something that helps entrepreneurs, then you do. I would suggest looking at actual start-up incubators' work (Entrepreneur First and the like). Paying salaries and covering start-up costs, not just providing basic living expenses. What you're describing might as well be indentured servitude.

I think i overdid the hypothetical , I’ll agree with you on that. Certainly the need to move is extreme for many people. It’s never been much of an issue for Me so I think I failed to adjust that to most peoples attitudes about travel.

It still reflects a bit though, and in my limited experience it holds true that the successes I have been either involved with or adjacent to have been accomplished by either money in the bank, credit cards, or shedding “normal” expenses by moving to somewhere that the cost of living was maybe twenty percent of normal.

Obviously you’re not going to do any of those things unless you are really sold on the value proposition of your product, and you think it can scale to bring 100x plus rewards on your time.

But if it’s a 10 percent chance of success on a 100x gain, that’s a bet I’ll take all day, every day.

But I don’t criticize anyone for not being willing to drop everything only to probably fail, and repeat that 10 times to get one solid win. That’s not for everyone, to be sure.

But I think that’s really what I mean anyway, if you’re going to try for anything but the low hanging fruit, you’ll have to be willing to do what most people will not.

That doesn’t make it the “right” thing for everyone though, and it sure doesn’t lead to a Healthy work-life balance, at least in the beginning.

Edit: Now that you've got me introspecting a bit, I think I realized my own ideas about these things are probably fundamentally unworkable for most people's dominant paradigm.

I haven't held a job in 40 years, I'm comfortable now but wasn't always. Even when I was young I refused to do anything for money I wouldn't do for free. That is a very expensive attitude to have, and unless you are willing to live in a very primitive way as I was, it is a very hard line to tow.

But I am happy with that decision, it has served me well, and made me very very comfortable and happy in life.

It honestly never occurred to me that anyone would think of starting a business that they weren't just dying to do anyway lol, but now I can see that that's an edge case, and your sincere if unenthusiastic words about your business made that click.

That said, I really don't think anyone should launch a startup or any business that they wouldn't do without compensation if they had the free time. Not that there aren't plenty of opportunities to make money for money's sake, but I just cant see that as being a wise way to spend the very finite hours we have in this life.

Thanks for being sincere, It has helped me to understand others a little better. Ive often seen a lack of total commitment as an insincere interest, but I now think maybe its more nuanced than that for many people. Still, I don't think I would fund or be involved in any project where i felt that the key people could be dissuaded from trying to complete their goal.

i kind of understand your perspective. i could never hold a job where i didn't enjoy working either. however over the years i have mellowed quite a bit, and learned to compromise because i realized there is more to life than only doing work i enjoy. also, there are more dimensions to enjoying work. in particular, there are always some aspects of work that are not fun and you have to find a balance.

from your proposal the main problem was living in an isolated area. i have lived in many places around the globe, but the key feature of every place was that it was not isolated. i just moved my whole family to get away from a place that ended up being to isolated. and for a startup i would move to a place where it is easy to find and hire new talent to grow the company. and the funding would have to be enough to pay for my whole family too.

i was part of a startup before, but i simply could not afford to stay because of the lack of funding. i totally would have continued if i could have funded myself.

in fact that's what i am doing now. using my savings to build a new business. it's a struggle though. the usual problem of a tech person failing to find customers. but i'll continue until i run out of money.

The UK is a giant version of the Cayman Islands. It's a big bank providing financial services to rich people while keeping them anonymous. Everything else is secondary. And Brexit only made it worse.

On the other hand, the UK is one of the safest countries in the world, is full of kind people, has a general abundance of food, gives workers a relatively large number of days off in a year, has a functioning police force and takes care of sick people and those who can't work for whatever reason.

Of course it is not perfect.

The people of Britain may not have huge bank accounts, but this is partly because they collectively spend their earnings on the worthwhile things mentioned above.

If you compare it to the rest of Europe for those criteria I think it would be pretty far down the list.

I'm from the UK but have been living in Europe (EU) for half a decade, and I'd say where I live now is much better than the UK for almost all of those things.

The only thing we don't give such high benefits (relative to cost of living) for those who can't work. But in the UK a lot of people abuse that, so maybe it's a good thing.

I don’t know about the UK as a whole, but London is not safe at all. I wouldn’t call it inherently dangerous for the average person either, like some places in the world. But it was strange to go home last year and talk to the teenagers on my estate, who were now selling hard drugs, had stab/bullet wounds, easy access to guns and considered this the norm. All 16 years old or under. It was never this bad previously. I hear from friends petty crime is rife, people riding scooters and bikes snatching phones with impunity.

Right now whether you get taken care of when sick depends heavily on where you live.

> takes care of sick people

I've read horror stories about the healthcare system in UK.

Please define safe? The stabbings and acid attacks suggest otherwise

Please define functioning police force? The fact the police had to remember that turning up to burglaries is a good thing suggests otherwise

Please define takes care of sick people? The fact that ambulance response times were so slow they couldn't save cardiac arrests suggests otherwise

No offence but all those assertions sound like the UK 20+ years ago, not the one of today...

I am curious what the UK was like 20 years ago, can't say I was very aware around that time. Would love to hear your thoughts on how and why its gotten worse.

I think its easy to shit on the UK at the moment because we're in this period of relative decline. The point I was trying to make was that in absolute terms, it's still a great place with a lot of upsides, it just takes more work to realise it and even more work to be grateful despite of it all.

Going from 5 to 4 hurts, going from 3 to 4 feels good. Either way, you're still at 4. It's on the people of Britain to recognise that 4 is still OK, better than the 2 that many countries experience, and better than the 1 of fighting lions and being murdered by your fellow tribesman because he's bigger than you.

That sounds depressing af.

Do you see a way out? If so what is it?

The low salaries are a double edged sword - the talent is cheap, but the kind of people who might start a company are unable to build up enough savings to take the leap. It's partly due to low salaries, and partly high housing costs.

It's crazy that politicians on all sides talk about growth, but then consistently do almost nothing to address the single largest thing that's sucking the life out of 20-30 year olds.

Saying that, it's clearly not the only cause as housing in SF and NY is also really expensive.

Just making housing cheaper would do so much for peoples ability to take the leap.

> then consistently do almost nothing to address the single largest thing that's sucking the life out of 20-30 year olds.

They & their friends are literally profiting off it. Why would they kill their cash cow?

High housing costs is great for them - not only do their real-estate (& adjacent) investments go up, but a middle class perpetually in debt or barely able to make ends meet means there’s an infinite supply of cheap labor that won’t complain about terrible working conditions.

> The talent arbitrage is absurd, physics grads with 1sts from top Russell Group unis fighting to be paid £30k/yr.

That much?!?

I'm joking, but I've always wondered with FAANG never set up large R&D centers in Southern Europe. They have good universities and salaries are extremely low, even lower than in the UK.

Plus good weather & co. The actual Mediterranean climate :-)

Presumably because an ambitious young person in southern Europe would rather move somewhere like Zurich for higher pay rather than getting paid less in southern Europe? Who are those R&D centres going to end up hiring?

People don't move if their lives are decent enough.

If FAANG sets up shop in Milan and pays 80k compared to the local average of 40k, few people would rather move to Zurich for 150k and have to learn Swiss German and have worse weather and few local friends.

For comparison, Eastern Europe has FAANG offices and people working there generally don't move as much, and the few that do leave, generally go to Switzerland (ok) or the US.

But those are the ultra ambitious, maybe 10-20%, and they generally leave because Eastern Europe has a lot of other structural problems that aren't really there in say, Spain, for example Eastern Europe has pretty bad healthcare in general, infrastructure is much worse than in Spain, general quality of life is also worse than in Spain.

The people who are ambitious and driven enough to move for better opportunities are probably the ones they want to hire.

    > If FAANG sets up shop in Milan and pays 80k compared to the local average of 40k

I see this types of claims on HN frequently. This looks "too easy". Why isn't Big Tech setting up offices in large southern European cities to do exactly this?

I don't know, that's why I'm asking. My guess would be that they didn't get tax incentives or other behind the scenes things that we rarely find out about.

Yeah, I'd say it's mostly tax reasons.

Generally, if you have a substantial presence somewhere, you become liable for a bunch of taxation stuff.

That being said, it's probably also non-English as a first language.

Note that the vast majority of tech in Europe is either in Ireland (tax reasons) or London (city known to Americans), both of which are English speaking.

Switzerland is interesting, in that it's not English speaking. I know that FB generally just set up Eng offices wherever Google did, so the real question is why Google set up there.

Europeans hate moving. They're not like the European diaspora, they will live within a days drive of Switzerland, all their life, and never even consider the concept of trying to make a life there to earn 2-5x as much.

Everyone hates moving if their lives are good enough. They generally only move because they think their environment has structural problems that can't be solved within, say, 5 years. For example: bad healthcare, generalized low level corruption, bad infrastructure, bad air quality, no opportunities, etc.

Americans are probably the only developed people that will move en masse just to make a bit more money, and even that's because there's no language barrier and hardly any cultural barrier. Plus it comes with downsides, no support network in the new place, if you're out of a job... things can become extremely sketchy.

Americans don't move en masse. They move as individuals. Lots of people in the UK move to London to make money. Move to the capital, make your pile, leave at 50 and buy a big house.

> Americans don't move en masse. They move as individuals.

LOL, literal much? :-)

Also, as always, being too much of a pedant comes back against you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Trail

I know it's not applicable to the modern day, but there you go, mass migration in the US :-)

Hah yeah you're spot on - it's definitely not applicable to the modern day!

Moving in Europe is not like moving in the US. Language is the big one ofc, but the cultures are vastly different compared to US states. That doesn't mean it not worth it, but it adds a layer of friction.

This is it exactly, it's the cost of capital and living that is the problem.

If our countries had control over their own capital and provided utility at cost the economic development would be easy. Instead we're charged monopoly rents for everything from water to electricity, taxed to oblivion and charged horrendous usary on all capital.

As an immigrant to the UK I'm continually surprised on how poor life here actually is. The main culprit in my mind is the atrocious cost of real estate. Not so much in how much money it takes to buy a house - those costs can be comparable to other countries, but on the ratio of post-tax salary pound per square meter. Most of the real estate in the UK is very small, both in outdoor space as well as in indoor proportions.

In the US middle class housing often provides fairly large indoor spaces where multiple people can collaborate, as well as things like garages and large-ish lawns, these things are much rarer and more expensive in the UK.

This makes it much more difficult to have a space for multiple people to effectively collaborate on idea "for free". Sure, you can hire a co-working space, but that requires already some form of financial commitment.

    > As an immigrant to the UK I'm continually surprised on how poor life here actually is.

Why do you stay?

I didn't move here for the economy and I don't stay because of it either. In my case it's mostly family circumstances.

Sunk cost fallacy most likely.

Why comment when you have no way of knowing, when the OP is themselves available to answer?

Exactly my personal experience. The talent arbitrage for £30k physics grads is real. But it's hard to take advantage of when you are that physics graduate, and can't build up any serious savings.

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