Ask HN: Do US engineering skills translate well to European companies? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do US engineering skills translate well to European companies?

10 pointsdandrew520 comments

I currently reside in the US and am looking to move to Europe (most likely Germany) some time in the next three years. Has anybody made this journey and have some insights to share?

I'm particularly wondering if there are any technical skills I should hone to give me leverage in the job market when the time comes. Or opposite, any "bad habits" I may have picked up from US companies that simply don't exist in European engineering culture or decision making. Are the interview processes similar to the US?

View on HN

Skills will more or less be the same. Communication skills may be slightly more important depending on people's understanding of whatever language is used.

The biggest issue will be cultural. Don't be a workaholic. Don't live to work. Don't bring that culture here. It is fine if you like to work, but don't project that as expectations on others.

Source: I'm US person who moved to Europe. I've worked for US companies as well as global and European companies.

Any tips for this European here that will be working in the US in a year or so from now?

Bring your work-life balance to the US. Tell you colleagues to take at least 30 days off annually.

Be prepared to work your ass off; live the mentality that you must work and be available as much as possible. It's going to get worse in the next few years as Trump starts gutting more and more worker protections.

What are normal hours in that sense, 60? That sounds more like: working my ass off. I'm currently working 40.

Will compensation be geared towards it? Or am I expecting to make like $70000 while working 60 hours per week?

So in the the US you will be salaried and expected to be available for 40 hours a week. This does not mean you will be actively working 40 hours a week any given week. Especially if you are experienced. Work is mostly delivery based with very little regard to how long work actually takes to complete. This means that depending on your skill for advocating for reasonable delivery timelines and the culture of the company, you might be actively working anywhere from 20 hours to 60 hours in a given week. As long as you deliver your work on time and as expected, managers generally do not care how many hours you work whether below or above 40, but again they do expect you to be available for 40 hours a week. There is some expectation that you will check work communication channels outside of work hours, but there is no expectation for you act on the information you receive unless it is actually and truly important (this should be extremely rare.)

The reason you see people talking about terrible work hours is that when you are inexperienced you will definitely be working far more than 40 hours because you will not be able to hit your deadlines otherwise. Getting promoted within a company often requires worked extra hours, however working extra hours is not necessary for good reviews in a healthy company.

If you are a SWE and work for a tech company, you will find that taking European amounts of vacation is okay, again as long as you hit your deadlines. No one has ever cared that I take 6 weeks a year in vacation. But I also make sure to give plenty of notice on my vacations so the company can plan around my absence and I am generally considered to be a productive employee. I have never been laid off from a company. In fact I have survived 2 lay offs.

While US work culture is bad (I will self admit that I do like to work and sometimes work because I want to.), it is not as horrific as people like to claim as long as you advocate for yourself and ask the right questions in interviews to make sure that the team you will be placed on doesn't have ridiculous standards for performance.

I think you're looking at this from a very privileged lens.

I have experience in the IT sector as a manager and while many openly say that the expectations are 40 hours a week wink wink but be expected to answer the phone 24/7 whenever we need you. Oh, 60 hours already this week? Too bad.

Taking time off? Oh, if you even have time. In the companies I have worked, taking 10 days off a year was considered a perk.

I will not deny that. I'm not say that all companies are like this, but I am saying that it is not mandatory to live like this. I never have worked a crazy amount of hours even working for a WITCH and it was not an issue. The US does not give you balance by default, but I am saying that it is perfectly viable to avoid those kinds of companies. No one has to work 60 hours all the time. It won't cost you your career. It might cost you money. I will be the first to admit that I'm not a super high earner, but I have never struggled to pay my bills.

60 hours a week, probably. Compensation will be geared towards 40h a week, but you might be on the hook for more. Add in the commute, if you don't live next to the office.

The issue won't be your technical skills. The german engineering quality only applies to hardware and physical goods.

It's a different culture. That you'll need to spend a lot of energy to understand.

Also german is a hard language to learn. Typically US people got it easy and don't understand such complexities, but this can be a time consuming endeavor.

Typically Americans have a very naive understanding of how the world works because American imperialism made it easy for them. So you'll need to get over this obstacle when you move here.

I believe it's worth it, it will open your eyes for many things and will make you a more complete human being.

BUT beware, all Americans I know moved back to US to make more money. Often they move here because they believe they are more left-leaning and like the idea about social democracy...

But then go back to the US because everything is easier there, salaries are higher (as long as you are a white-collar worker).

Feel free to mail me, I've been living here for 10 years and can help you understand what you are getting into :-)

> Typically Americans have a very naive understanding of how the world works because American imperialism made it easy for them.

Do you have specifics on how Americans adults could be naive on the world?

Living and working in Germany for the last 13 years. Critical thinking. Be always honest even if your coworkers don’t like the output, they value a lot when someone standout and say why things aren’t working. Being punctual is the default.

https://reddit.com/r/AmerExit/ will be helpful for your inquiry.

Learn (some) German. Admittedly not an engineering skill - but it will be greatly appreciated by your German colleagues. Background: Dutch engineer who lived in Germany for 3 years, and worked for one of their largest engineering orgs.

Thanks for the tip. I've enrolled in an A1 class with Goethe Institute starting in April. In your opinion, how difficult would it be to rent or potentially own a home on a single engineering salary? Looking at prices on https://www.immobilienscout24.de/, it does not seem possible after accounting for taxes. A salary of 60k ends up being about 3.2k net per month. If renting a home takes 2k of that, I may need to reconsider my country of choice.

It’s 20+ years since I lived in Germany (Berlin). At the time it was pretty easy to rent a high quality property for a reasonable price. I know a lot has changed since then, and the “global housing crisis” is also affecting Germany. Sorry can’t give you more details than that.

I am confident my language skills advice still applies.

I am an Asian living in Taiwan and I want to apply for a job in Europe or the United States. But my application was always rejected. why is that?

Judging by past experience, culture gap is more of a problem.

Could you expand a little? Are you referring to the workaholism some Americans have? Personally, I've always sought out companies that value a healthy work/life balance and am relieved to hear Europeans companies value it so highly.

Aside from being too enthusiastic about work, what other gaps in engineering/work culture exist?

I used to work for a company that has both US and EU offices. The EU ones have considerably better WLB (but of course less pay) and people take a t least a month of vacation during the summer. Aside from the workaholism issue you talked about, there is a more subtle difference that I felt -- US has a stronger marketing culture while the EU has a stronger engineering culture. However, this is just an isolated case.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com