Ask HN: Is it worth it to move to London as a SWE?
I'm contemplating leaving my current location (Western Europe) to expatriate.
I have lived and worked jobs in London when I was a student and I'm looking to move back as I like the country and its culture (compared to where I am now).
I'm just worried that the living expenses aren't worth the move and that I would be better off looking into other destinations like Germany, the Netherlands or perhaps even Sweden ?
What's your take on this ?
Cheers
68 comments
[ 0.17 ms ] story [ 132 ms ] threadEven in the best case scenario it will be years before you can consider Brexit settled in any way.
London has lots of downsides, but you can expect a reasonable career.
Also if you have aspirations to move to the USA, you can work for a FAANG company and then get a transfer to a US office in a few years on an L1 visa.
This is now the only practical way to get into the US to work since the H1B visa system is completely broken.
what are you comparing ? the number on your payslip or quality of life with the same salary ?
My Background: a javascript (node/react) dev with 2 yrs of exp, a EU(portugal) passport holder living in Hong Kong
As someone who's living and working in HK as a SWE, you can definitely get a much better salary here in HK if you're fairly experienced. Carreer opportunities are limited tho, because none of the FAANG companies have engineering offices here.
London looks a good option to me because its english-speaking, I have relatives living there, I can work there visa-free (now its complicated due to brexit), and I love english football haha.
Disclaimer here: I don’t know anything about London. And I won’t talk about Brexit, that’s a separate and important consideration.
The higher salary will almost certainly make up for the cost of living.
You just need to do the math. The information is readily available. Find salary information for your role and experience level, and then jump on real estate websites and find out how much rentals costs near some of those employees.
I thought San Francisco was crazy until I did the math. Sure, the rent is $5000 a month or higher, but that’s only $48k a year more than a $1000 a month apartment in the Midwest United States. But you’re looking at a salary difference of over $100k, maybe even $200k, and all that extra money means extra savings that could be taken to a cheaper city when you retire, or help you retire faster.
Not only that, but everything that comes from a factory, and things like plane tickets all stay the same price while your salary is way higher.
I personally think going from a mid-size city to a larger one is appealing. Larger cities have more things to do, more ways to explore niche interests, and better transit.
There are downsides but I think some adjustment is all you need. For one, you have to take your personal belongings seriously. If you have a suburban habit of storing a bunch of stuff you don’t need, you will need to change that. If you can learn to live in a smaller space and enjoy it that’ll go really far in allowing you to benefit from the extra salary without throwing it all away on housing.
There just is not that kind of money in circulation for SWE.
I even doubt one can get $130k in London.SWEs in London are not competing with other SWEs. They are competing with bankers and similar.
It's certainly harder than in, say, SF, but by no means impossible. Google and Facebook between them have thousands of engineers in London and are growing fast. They're not paying as much as the US, but are by no means stingy. £100k ($130k) is not unrealistic.
If you want some anecdotal data, I transferred from the Bay Area to London and my base salary decreased about 25%. But then again, a nice one-bed apartment in London can easily be easily found for $2k...try finding that in SF.
Yet I work in a a medium-to-low COL area of the US and make more than that. My area is in the high 80's while NYC is 162 and SF is 206.
It's hard to argue in favor of being a SWE in London if being a SWE in the US is a possibility in any locale.
Overall your total comp can get well beyond 150-160K GBP these days, that's including the 15-20% cash bonus, and the circa 20% pension large companies award today + other benefits.
IR35 may change the incentives for employers enough that that kind of money is more likely to be paid in salary form. We're now seeing senior developer salaries being advertised as high as £90k - £100k ($130k). Again, for in demand but non-niche skills (Ruby, React, full-stack JS etc).
I'm sure London won't be seeing SF or NYC level salaries, but you can definitely live comfortably in London on a software engineer's salary.
What do you mean? The exit date is the end of Jan 2020
Initial compensation was a bit more than before but expenses were much higher (back than I was in doubt where I made the right decision).
Now I'm making much(!!!) more than when I moved here, and life is great. Other countries (except Switzerland) won't be able to pay salaries as high as you'll get in London.
On a side note, I'd suggest to look for something else than money unless you have a very specific project or reason in mind. I made the mistake of taking a job because of the high compensation and benefits on a different country and made me miserable because everything else wasn't worth it - not even the job. Choose wisely, as you'll be the one living it and not us.
That’s not been my experience. Which place(s) are you comparing London’s transport to?
Compared to where exactly?
Particularly food, it very much depends what you mean by "food culture" and whether you're thinking of "english food" but London has a lot of fantastic restaurants of all types.
Once I met my spouse and started having kids, Silicon Valley became way too expensive.
If you're young, and have no spouse or kids, the experience alone might be "worth it," even if you have to live in a tiny apartment and only stay in London for a short time.
You seem to have miscalculated the introduction of IR35 by two decades. It came into force in April 2000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IR35
In the interest of providing impartial advice to the author of this thread; it would be extremely wise to seek professional advice before embarking on this route, as the conditions of employment under IR35 are complex and subjective.
https://www.contractoruk.com/private_sector_ir35_reform/empl...
Arguably the latter will be felt worse in the coming months, as Brexit has already been accounted for by many companies.