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Ask HN: What's the tech scene in London like?

12 points by rishabhkaul1 ↗ HN
I relocated to London a few months back, in the middle of the lockdown. I've spent the last decade or so in India, mainly Bangalore, which ofcourse has an incredible tech scene. Was hoping to learn from the UK community here what to expect in London.

From the little that I saw, there's not a lot of big tech as such (as far as engg / product) is concerned, did see quite a bit of SaaS/consumer and fintech.

Would love to learn more about the tech scene/community here. Places to go to, forums to check out, stuff like that.

5 comments

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decafninja
From what I've heard, the vast majority of London SWE jobs are in finance (big banks and hedge funds).

NY is the other big finance hub, but I think it has a bigger representation from non-finance companies too.

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thorin
It's definitely not the "vast majority", but it probably is often the most highly paid and visible. I worked in software eng as a graduate in London and it was pretty good. At that time EBay and other ecommerce businesses were just starting up and I had friends who worked there. Most businesses operating in the UK have head offices in London, so they will all have opportunities there. I know Google has a massive office there now by Kings Cross, not sure about other FANG.

I don't know much about the startup scene in London, but it's not going to compete with California. My knowledge of Indian software companies is mainly outsourcing, which I'm sure is massive in Bangalore, but I don't know what the start up scene is like there.

Living / working in London is really a lifestyle thing. Many people from the UK would be happy to work outside the capital either remotely or in a smaller city. Good wages in London (for Europe), but expensive living costs.

rishabhkaul1
So from what I've seen around here, there's some more FANG activity (FB/Whatsapp & Amazon are massive here, lots of PMs and engineers/data scientists).

India used to be a outsourcing hub, but now over the last decade a lot of home grown companies have done well (about 50 unicorns) and the large global dev companies have set up R&D centres (WalmartLabs, Linkedin, Cisco, Adobe and 1000+ more).