Most purely European companies don't do that. Actually, unfortunately, some of them do, because of American influence. But for sure they didn't use to.
I personally have interviewed for 7 enterprise dev jobs and I have had 2 coding interviews and those were simple.
Now, every job I apply for has 4-5 rounds, leetcode is more common, they do behavioural and system design rounds that you have to prepare for, etc. One job I applied to even asked me two behavioural questions via email before I even talked to someone. Something's truly off.
European companies have very little staff turnover, so new jobs are fewer. Another aspect is that salaries are very even across much of the industry, as it is often negotiated by unions and unless you are also switching roles (e.g. into management) salaries at different companies will be very similar. That is why working for the same company for a long time is much more common in Europe.
Can you specify what country you're drawing these facts from? Europe does not have standard employment law, and I definitely haven't experienced salaries being set by unions or being common across the industry.
There are also union negotiated rates for pay across much of the industry. Even if you switch employer your pay might remain exactly the same, unless you also get promoted and into a higher level or a different industry. "Flächentarifvertrag" it is called.
Obviously this drastically disincentivizes hoping employers.
OK, good to know. I definitely haven't experienced flat income after taxes post salary bump, even though I pay 52% marginal on my income (in Ireland).
> Obviously this drastically disincentivizes hoping employers.
I can totally see that. Is it really that common in tech jobs though? I'd have expected this to be much more common in larger, older companies (like the automotive industry).
What is a "tech job"? Wouldn't a job where you are designing the electrical/mechanical/software parts of a car be a "tech job"?
Of course this is much more common in older, well established industries. But that is where most of the "tech jobs" are. Germany, especially labor laws, are hostile to start-ups so it is natural that people get employed at these older companies with union negotiated salaries.
Not really, people get hired all the time that can't do a fizzbuzz.
What EU regulations hamper isn't job creation, it's employee and customer exploitation. The distinction between "job creation" and "employee exploitation" is important.
What the former means in practice is that there is a massive contractor market in the UK and EU. So if companies need temporary staff, they'll hire a contractor. If they need permanent staff then they'll hire an employee. And contractors in the UK & EU are paid significantly more than their employee peers. In fact their pay is much more equivalent to US employees. So companies will make constant tradeoffs between more expensive labor for short-lived projects vs cheaper staff and knowledge retention but stricter employment laws. It's a fair trade most of the time.
So a more accurate way of comparing US vs EU businesses in terms of employees would be US employees vs EU contractors. Things then begin to look a lot more equivalent.
My job is purely transactional. I’ve worked for 10 companies in almost 30 years. I gave them labor and they gave me money. Whenever one side decided the arrangement wasn’t working, I moved on to another job.
People in IT who take the employment route rather than contracting, do so because they want job security. eg they might have families. And much as you might be happy with your arrangement, there are plenty in the UK and Europe who do prefer longer-term job security over a few extra £££ in their pocket.
Lots of people, when evaluating the risks of contracting vs employment, find the reward far outweighs the risk. It sounds like you'd be one of them if you were presented with the same choice. And that's a fine decision for you to come to. But that's not going to be the same conclusion for everyone.
Every employee in the US is “at will”.
But you’re right that IR35 really hasn’t helped situations either.
Some of my friends have commented that the last few years has been the worst time in their 20+ years as a contractor.
It forced highly specialised professionals into employment in all but name, just without the rights, security, or support. A square peg jammed into a round PAYE hole. And the long-term effect? Exactly what you'd expect: the best talent either left the UK, shifted to servicing overseas clients (where Chapter 10 doesn't apply), or left the field altogether. The real talent pool shrank, not because of market conditions, but because there was no longer a viable way to operate independently.
To make matters worse, the government compounded this by lowering the barriers to import cheaper labour from abroad ("Boriswave"), creating a race to the bottom on wages, with zero incentives for local upskilling or long-term investment in the domestic workforce.
So yes, the job market took a hit - but IR35 didn't just "not help" - it actively accelerated the decline by removing the last flexible, self-directed model for highly skilled work. The damage wasn't cyclical. It was engineered.
For example:
> People lost the ability to operate as businesses, to manage their tax affairs fairly, to invest in their own skills, and to retain profit.
I don’t know a single IT contractor that lost that ability. Maybe in other business sectors, but we are talking about IT here.
> What they got in return was, at best, a modest day-rate bump—hardly compensation for losing all autonomy, business deductions (like training, equipment, downtime), and legal protections.
This is also an exaggeration.
And you’re overlooking the point that IR35 only affects contractors working on BAU or who have worked with the same company for more than 2 years.
Firstly 2 years is a long time in contractor terms. And secondly, most occasions for hiring contractors was to work on new developments. So most of the IT contractors were still outside of IR35.
That’s not to mention that many companies would describe the work in ways that are favourable to working inside IR35 (not to the extent of tax fraud, but to the extent where any BAU responsibilities that were required weren’t the primary responsibility in the job specification.
Ironically places hardest hit by IR35 were government departments rather than businesses. Some of who ended up just adding ~40% to the contracted salary so the government still ended up covering the tax rather than the contractors.
And the very few contractors who were inside IR35 and didn’t get a bump in the contract fee would tell me they were still better off contracting rather than being employed (even taking loss of perks into account).
Now I’m not going to say that IR35 made things easier for contractors. Clearly it didn’t. But it wouldn’t have been catastrophic for the contract market had the employment bubble not also pop shortly afterwards.
You also seem to suggest that IR35 prevented contractors from claiming expenses back in tax, and that simply isn’t true either.
Edit: I will concede that it’s been 3 years since I was last given a budget and told “go hire, you decide who” so if there’s been any legal changes to IR35 since then I might have missed it.
> I don’t know a single IT contractor that lost that ability.
I do. In fact, I knew dozens of people who ran small, legitimate limited companies - offering high-quality services across IT disciplines - who were forced to shut down or stop trading as businesses once clients tightened their risk assessments. In the early days, yes, some niche contractors were spared because they were too hard to replace. But even that dried up as corporate legal teams standardised engagement models and de-risked by banning sourcing services from small business entirely.
> You also seem to suggest that IR35 prevented contractors from claiming expenses back in tax, and that simply isn’t true either.
This is misleading. If you’re inside IR35 or forced into an umbrella, you can only claim expenses on the same terms as an employee of the client. That means you can't offset training, equipment, home office, insurance, downtime, software etc. - because your business isn't recognised as a business anymore. And if you can't make profit, you have nothing to deduct from anyway.
> you’re overlooking the point that IR35 only affects contractors working on BAU or who have worked with the same company for more than 2 years.
This is based on a fundamental misunderstanding. There is no “2-year” IR35 rule. That might relate to travel expenses. IR35 assessments depend on control, substitution, and mutuality of obligation. Even short, project-based work can be deemed inside. And under Chapter 10, only clients carry the liability - so they default to "inside" for anything remotely borderline, including repeat work.
And that’s exactly the issue: having loyal clients and repeat business — something any serious business would strive for — is now penalised. The system structurally disincentivises hiring genuine small consultancies, because clients now carry legal and tax risk for treating you as "outside." So naturally, they avoid it.
And that quote about companies “describing work in ways favourable to IR35” to avoid falling foul of the rules - you realise you’ve just described a legal minefield that only small businesses are forced to navigate? If an individual or a small consultancy tries to deliver a long-term service or repeat work, they're suddenly in danger of being labelled "too BAU" and dragged into inside IR35 or worse, accused of misrepresentation.
Meanwhile, large consultancies are completely exempt. They can supply entire teams of workers to perform exactly the same repeat, embedded, long-term services - even effectively occupying roles inside the client’s organisation - and no one blinks, because the worker isn't the owner of the delivery company. IR35 doesn't apply.
So what you're pointing out as a "grey area" for independents is actually a core business model for Accenture, Capita, Deloitte, etc. - and it's legally protected. They can pump in as many BAU bodies as they like, make profit to their heart's content, and face none of the scrutiny aimed at smaller suppliers. It's a structural bias against worker-owned businesses and it's about making sure the same work flows through corporate channels, where the big business win - and independent economic actors are locked out.
> But it wouldn’t have been catastrophic for the contract market had the employment bubble not also pop shortly afterwards.
That reverses cause and effect. IR35 was the trigger. It removed the incentive to engage skilled local contractors as businesses. Clients - especially in the public sector - stopped hiring small operators entirely to avoid compliance risk. The result wasn’t just tighter budgets - it was the structural removal of independent contracting as a viable model.
And just as IR35 pushed domestic professionals out of the market, post-Brexit immigration reforms ("Boriswave") made it easier for companies to import overseas workers on lower salaries - with sponsorship pathways explicitly designed to undercut local rates. So the market didn't just shrink—it shifted, away from experienced, independent professionals toward cheaper, controllable labour with fewer rights and no negotiation leverage.
The combination was catastrophic. It collapsed the domestic contractor market from both ends—removing the supply of viable independent businesses, and removing the demand for them by creating cheaper alternatives. That wasn't an unfortunate consequence — it was a predictable outcome of policies designed to centralise control and reduce labour costs at all levels whilst maximising corporate profits.
> Contracting is still better than being employed.
That may be true for a small segment of high-end day-rate earners, but it ignores how many people used contracting as a sustainable, long-term way to build independent businesses. For them, IR35 removed the very basis of that independence-profit, autonomy, and client trust.
Thanks for taking the time to share that.
I’m personally well acquainted with many people in tech, especially big tech. Many of them are doing little or nothing, certainly not justifying $300k+ salaries.
What you do has risk but is fundamentally more honest - your skills are around technology and output, not navigating corporate bureaucracy.
There is also COBRA that lets you stay on your employer’s plan. You have to pay the entire premium. I pay $600 a month now and my employer pays $1200 a month. That’s me + family.
If you would work non-contract here in Poland for an equivalent of ~$120k you would pay around $1k USD. If your wife is working she will also pay, of course this also covers all you kids.
So lets say both of you make around $120k here - so you would pay $2k monthly for "free" healthcare and its quality is atrocious. Even for serious stuff you many times need to wait 1-2 years for something, all hospitals are understaffed, the care quality is abysmal.
If you are ambitious and make good money the US is better. Europe in general is better for people that don't aim too high and want the state to enforce some minimum of QoL for them at the expense of the rest.
I don't think most folks graduate college and think, "You know what sounds amazing? Sitting at a desk doing nothing five days a week!"
I expect most of the time they have good reason to be "unproductive," and would respond positively to those reasons getting addressed, or you're not capturing their contributions accurately with whatever metrics you're using to find "slackers."
Some of it boils down to ineffective management and lack of mentoring, for sure, and could be addressed in a better way. Some of it is people getting in way over their heads.
And people are doing things, I’m not saying they’re sitting making paper airplanes — just things with no value or that drain their value. I had a high school friend who was brilliant, but his career got nerfed when he stuck with a bad tech/business unit.
If you’re the world’s premier expert in some peculiar process that only exists in one place, that’s no mas. Companies have been rolling in dough for a long time and some have way more people than they used to. One big company I deal with went from an account team of 6 to almost 50.
I worked at a company where utility companies sent us data files and we created, printed and mailed bills.
In 2008 during the financial crisis the next time I looked for a job (my third), I had two offers relatively quickly - one programming point of sales systems and the other that I accepted programming ruggedized Windows CE devices for field service workers.
Fast forward to 2020 at the height of COVID, I got my one and only BigTech job working at AWS (my 8th job).
Unlike the author of the submitted article, when I got Amazoned 3.5 years later, I shrugged, my $40K severance was deposited in my account and I reached out to my network and targeted outreach to some recruiters in my niche and had four interviews and 3 offers within 3 weeks. Why would I waste time getting emotional about a company knowing that the CEO is 6-7 positions up on the career ladder and I’m just a random number to most of the organization?
A year later in 2024 around 9:00 PM I had a “1-1” with my manager invite for the next morning. I already had my suspicions and told my wife that I am probably going to be laid off in the morning. She said let her know how it goes and we went to sleep.
I woke up the next morning, was notified about my layoff asked when I would get my severance and responded to a recruiter that reached out to me about a week prior.
I started the interview process and three weeks later I had a job making the same as I was making at AWS.
I don’t need to “justify” what I’m making. I have a skillset and experience that are in demand and companies are willing to pay me for it because by employing me they get a positive ROI.
And knowing how to “deal with ambiguity” and focus on how to add business value. If you look at the leveling guidelines of any tech company, anything above mid level is focused on “scope”, “impact” and “dealing with ambiguity”.
Knowing AWS really well is just a tool and it doesn’t hurt that I have a stint at AWS ProServe on my resume
Notice “codez real gud” is not a differentiator.
There is no hard skill you can learn that thousands of of others don’t know that will set you apart.
Well except for some vertical market stuff that will leave you pigeonholed.
Sources:
https://www.levels.fyi/blog/swe-level-framework.html
https://dropbox.tech/culture/sharing-our-engineering-career-...
did you account for rsu value too or just basepay/hours . now that i am a perm employee a big share of my comp comes from rsu.
E.g. the entire I-9 thing and other IRS paperwork, who (if anyone) is responsible for various insurances (unemployment insurance, workers comp, liability insurance, etc), minimum wage and overtime for hourly employees, etc. Many things depend on this distinction.
I can't speak to differences from Europe as I am not familiar with that side of the Atlantic.
Does it? Sounds more like an opinion than a fact to me.
There is demand for tech workers, but the output of EU tech companies can't afford huge salaries. Lower margins.
In my current position I'm hired for an expected 37 hours per week. This can be more if I'm asked to work overtime, but my weekly hours cannot exceed 45 hours per week on average in a 3 month window without additional compensation
Additionally I have six weeks of paid time off every year plus public holidays
If I calculate my hourly salary it's better than what I was paid by US companies
That's not to mention the security of having a legally mandated termination period of minimum 3 months (in which you're, in most cases, not expected to work)
It’s a bunch of copium thinking that American tech workers are working 60-80 hour weeks.
And I know it’s not the norm, but right now I have “unlimited PTO” and most people take at least 5 weeks a year.
If the average American tech worker is making 2x - 4x the average EU worker, they should be able to save more than enough to have a three month cushion.
And we are talking about Google. They have a very generous severance package. Even Amazon where I use to work gave me three months severance.
Though what would also help if you had an explanation for why we tend to hear these stories mostly from the US and not from other countries.
because internet is dominated by 'stories mostly from US'
The only time I've ever been expected to put in those kinds of long hours was in case of an emergency. Stuff like, a natural disaster hit the company's primary data center so they needed to be all hands on deck to get services restored. But it's definitely not common day to day, and even in case of emergencies the company generally gives you a little something (extra time off, a bonus, whatever) to compensate you for the long hard hours you had to work.
I don’t care what the “average” is. I plan on taking 30 days this year.
First link -16 days for unlimited PTO vs 14 days without
https://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/ive-been-an-hr-professiona...
Now if you look at where those numbers come from, this article quotes another article from WSJ (https://archive.is/MVRur) which is also titled "Why You Should Be Wary of the Unlimited Vacation Perk". Hmm...
And the WSJ article, in turn, takes its number from this report: https://www.empower.com/the-currency/work/pursuit-of-pto-res...
Now when you look at the survey, the problem with comparing those numbers is that they are averages for all workers. That is, 14 days without PTO is the average across all companies, not just those that had adopted UPTO. And the 16 days with UPTO is, of course, only for those companies. So the numbers don't actually tell you anything about the effect of "unlimited" PTO adoption in a given company. Those companies where 14 days is the norm are generally not the ones that decide to switch to UPTO because, well, there's no actual benefit in it for them. Companies that do adopt it, like many Big Tech firms in the past few years, are also the ones that had much more generous paid PTO to begin with - at Microsoft, for example, as a senior engineer, I had four weeks of PTO before the switch.
So, you need to look at comparisons before and after UPTO adoption for the same company to see the trend. Conveniently, that very article you linked to has some sources for that, e.g.: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220520-the-smoke-and-...
There are other negative aspects to it, too. For example, when you have guaranteed vacation PTO, it is wholly separate from other things like paid medical leave. But with UPTO, it's that much harder to argue for it to your manager if you have already taken medical leave that year.
I’m not going to look up the PTO for other BigTech companies. But the one I worked for (Amazon) had 15 days PTO and 5 personal days.
And most people who have defined PTO, also don’t take all of their allocated days off.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/10/more-than...
That’s not evidence of defined vs unlimited PTO as a limiting factor of UPTO.
And because of laws in different states, companies with unlimited PTO also often have a separate bucket for sick time.
> If I calculate my hourly salary it's better than what I was paid by US companies
prbly not.
sorry i forgot to add "typically" which apparently is a license to spout any BS .
The ability to hire and fire easily is critical if you want to build successful companies.
There’s a reason ambitious founders move from Europe to the US and why most billion dollar tech companies are American. Europe has made really bad policy decisions around this for decades and their economy reflects it. Europe is poor and to an extent I don’t think Europeans really understand.
Yes, and it's because of larger, more liquid capital markets make it much easier to obtain VC funding.
> Europe is poor and to an extent I don’t think Europeans really understand.
Europe is definitely not poor in terms of either wealth or income (particularly Western Europe, which is the appropriate comparator for the US).