Tech Job Scotland
tech-jobs-scotland.co.uk
tech-jobs-scotland.co.uk
[English; lived in Scotland for 3 or 4 years]
[Edit: Interesting reading the comments. Maybe things have changed (though I would have thought the debate over devolution - which seems like a good idea to me - would have exacerbated feelings). This was ~15 years ago and many Scots explained it to me as resentment over Thatcher, poll tax etc (in fact, one reason we went to Scotland was in search of a more left-wing environment). It wasn't good natured ribbing and it was pretty widely acknowledged as being "a thing" (had many conversations with Scottish friends about it - one memorably said that it was considered normal in middle class conversation over dinner to trash the English in a way no one would dream of doing to any "racial" goup). And I could certainly understand the motivation (the "historical context"), even if it was occasionally unpleasant.
It also got considerably worse when I moved from academia to "real" work.
It wasn't trivial (any once incident, sure, but the steady drip over time...), it certainly wasn't isolated pockets, and it's something I would take into consideration in future. In short: I was glad to leave.]
"Brothers and sisters are natural enemies. Like Englishmen and Scots! Or Welshmen and Scots! Or Japanese and Scots! Or Scots and other Scots! Damn Scots! They ruined Scotland!"
From a business opportunity perspective, I can say quite confidently that the Scottish startup scene is growing very nicely, and there are a lot of really cool companies coming out of Edinburgh in particular.
"Mr. Davies mentioned my name, and respectfully introduced me to him. I was much agitated; and recollecting his prejudice against the Scotch, of which I had heard much, I said to Davies, 'Don't tell where I come from.'--'From Scotland,' cried Davies roguishly. 'Mr. Johnson, (said I) I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.' I am willing to flatter myself that I meant this as light pleasantry to sooth and conciliate him, and not as an humiliating abasement at the expence of my country. But however that might be, this speech was somewhat unlucky; for with that quickness of wit for which he was so remarkable, he [...] retorted, 'That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.'"
Had Boswell been more thin-skinned or less stubborn, we might have had no Life of Johnson, and so no Johnson either.
Watched a six nations game on the tele in the pub one Saturday and I was heard cheering loudly and somewhat drunkenly for the Welsh rugby tram.
Barman said to me 'so ure not English then?'.
I replied 'no, Welsh'.
From that day on until the end of my stay I was treated like a completely different person.
I imagine this doesn't always happen, but in some places your place of birth does matter in the UK.
To be fair, we Welsh aren't exactly that friendly to the English either, but we have the following viewpoint:
We don't hate the English. We just pity them for not being Welsh. :-)"Yer fae England, ye'll ken Jim Smith aye?"
[Going by the downvotes, clearly not a comment for a humble teuchter to be making! Even worse, someone living in Edinburgh!]
But that attitude did change and I put it down to the creation of the Scottish parliament. From about 2000 it started to become the focus of the most of the real political arguments, or at least that's how it seemed to me, and the anti-English thing became much less specific. More of a "we don't like the English except for the ones we've met" kind of thing.
As an aside, it's also the reason why I believe that the Scottish parliament may have killed the chance of independence. It seems to have taken some of the sting out of the, very real, ruled from London mentality. At least for issues that actually affected people day to day.
But in the cities and as an adult, I really don't see it as an issue anymore. I work for one of the companies sponsoring the event and I see probably about as many foreign employees (English and other European and world nationalities) as there are Scots.
I think most countries will always have some pockets of racism because some people will always be ignorant. So I'm not absolving my country entirely, nor saying the anti-English sentiment no longer exists, but I don't see it as the big problem it used to be.
I've lived in Scotland for 9 years now and have a southern English accent. I spent 4.5 years as a volunteer police officer and only once ever received any racial problems. Ironically from a very posh, and drunk, German.
The company I work for makes a huge thing of recruiting mid 30s professionals from London. If you're starting a family then moving to Edinburgh is a very easy sell, especially if you've benefited from the London property boom.
I speak as someone working in Glasgow who's heard of only a few of those sponsors.
Hell, it's a rare occasion when neither Skyscanner or Amazon aren't hiring more developers.
(Disclaimer: Toshiba kindly sponsor my site http://opentechcalendar.co.uk/ :-)
I'd like to know who's actually organising it. The only contact information is for someone who works for Edinburgh city council?
My 2p worth is that Scotland (Glasgow at least) is a nice place to live. The weather isn't too bad and not having London's relentless rent's and property market hanging over your head is a nice change.
Seriously though, Scotland has a lot to offer in terms of reasonable property prices, shorter commutes (vs London), quieter roads (main Edinburgh/Glasgow route, the M8, aside) and the developer job market is buoyant.
Also it seems to me most of the jobs coming up in Scotland are in Edinburgh rather than Glasgow but that might just be me
Edinburgh seems to be doing really well for startups this past few years, beyond the retail banks and life/pensions players, which is great to see. Glasgow has some big financials that seem to disproportionately dominate the job market - not a bad thing, lots of interesting and (in places) deep technical work to be had, but obviously it's not to everyone's taste culturally.
I found it's a city with good worklife balance. I have made the most of the techie meet ups and I have really enjoyed my time here with the Hip bars and restaurants and affordable accomodation! I have not had an issue with being English in this cosmopolitan city.
I'm moving to work in Scotland myself very soon. I've got a weird range of reactions from people here in the south of England; people are sort of suprised to learn that Scotland has electricity let alone a tech industry.
The most effective recruiting strategy would be to ask people what they're currently paying to live in London and how tiny a flat it is, then show them the corresponding 3 bedroom house / Georgian townhouse they could get for the same money.
To quantify: Betfair's current probability is ~17.5% of a "Yes" vote, although that's not based on enormous volumes: http://uk.sportsiteexweb.betfair.com/betting/LoadRunnerInfoC...
Also, take the "Scottish" out of "Scottish Nationalism" and you're left with "Nationalism". There's no way I'm moving to a country that thinks "Nationalism" is a good thing.
Scotland's "Nationalism" is about gaining independence and actually becoming a nation, not about violent and misguided idealism.
In fact, Alex Salmond (leader of the Scottish National Party, the majority party in Scottish Parliament) has come out for more liberal immigration policies, to encourage positive economic immigration[0]. Compared to the UK government's increasingly tough stance on immigration[1], and the rise of right-wing parties such as UKIP and the BNP, I'd much rather live in a small, liberal nation like Scotland.
[0]: http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-i... [1]: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence...
One arse in charge of 6 million is 10x more democratic than one arse in charge of 60 million.
You could say that your vote's power is inversely-proportional to the size of the democracy, but if you look at how the complexity of communication scales, then surely smaller democracies are able to function much more effectively than larger ones (cf. small vs. large [software] teams).
I'm voting yes because, although I plan to travel after I get my degree from Edinburgh, independence would give me more (and potentially better) options for living in the EU in future.
"Civic nationalism is a kind of nationalism identified by political philosophers who believe in a non-xenophobic form of nationalism compatible with values of freedom, tolerance, equality, and individual rights."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civic_nationalism
It is notable that UKIP, which really does have the xenophobic kind of nationalism, has almost no support in Scotland.
No one in the history of the world has ever conceded that their version of a bad thing is the same as another version of the bad thing.
They asked for a referendum to be held on the anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn. To what end?
Perhaps Jingoism is a better term than Nationalism.