I was waiting for that as don't want to move my ass.
I guess they want to poach some of Ukraine contractors (AFAIK lots of people work for around $50K with 5% tax there and they are quite good).
Rates in Google Poland seem to be $7K/month which is upper market but you get 32% (+ recent 7%) tax >= $40K (progressive)). But it's much better if one needs mortgage.
It also helps that Warsaw Uni is quite good [0](13th this time but they are often 1st). I was scared to go there and be forced to study too much xD but seems like Wrocław Uni is also strong (5th). TBH if I knew better back then I would probably go to MIT instead (or maybe not).
There’s also lots of talent in neighboring Belarus, where Google indirectly has a presence through their acquisition of Fitbit (or had, not sure if their office is open anymore after the recent events in there). Sort of glad though that they didn’t decide to expand their small office they have here in Bucharest (also through the Fitbit acquisition), the local real estate market was getting quite heated regardless so extra gentrification brought by behemoths like Google extending their presence wouldn’t have helped.
Google salaries in Poland are below market rate, actually. They probably think that people will come to work for them for free just because they want to have "Google" on their resume. Source: I was approached by a Google recruiter once, but did not even schedule an interview because of the lowball offer presented (total comp, including stock options, was way below what I make currently). $7k is not a market rate in Poland, unless you're talking $7k after all taxes.
Average salaries from these types of aggregate reports are misleading since they are mostly representative only of the low-end local range. The median salary for senior engineers (5-10 years of experience) in Warsaw, according to levels.fyi, is 91k USD. I find that to match my experience in a different large city in Poland.
And senior/staff people at Google don't get 7k either. This is yet again a case of myopic lense where someone can't see beyond their own special little island and does invalid comparisons.
Certainly, that's why I responded. Tech salaries are becoming bimodal (or even "trimodal" [1]), and different types of companies are targeting different segments of the talent market. This skews the perception people have on what is actually a market rate, so it's important to spread awareness...
yep. I try to gauge early whether an potential employer wants the best programmer, or cheapest. because they pay wildly different. one gives me a better personal ROI than other. The new trend of shops being coy about telling you a job's pay makes it harder. no point wasting everybody's time
Also, current exchange rate (4.5 PLN per dollar) is unusual, only caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Average rate over last couple years is probably 3.9 PLN, which would make $7k closer to 28k PLN, not 32.
Oh absolutely, but what I have noticed as well is that companies in lower wage countries have started charging more as well as there's now more demand for outsourced workers.
To be more specific: for example, (non-FAANG) senior dev salaries in Poland are pretty much in line with senior dev salaries in France.
Before the covid, typical senior dev net salary in Poland was around ~12-18k PLN per month, while in France it's about 3k EUR per month (a bit higher in Paris, but also more expensive).
One diff is that IT folks in PL typically work on b2b contracts; the upside is lower tax, and tax deductions on car leasing (hence it's easy to get new and very nice car). Downside: minimal state pension (no one in PL believes in state pensions money being managed well).
You're comparing salaries with consulting rates, there are bigger differences than pension contributions. Salaries are low in France in big part because of all the advantages that come with it - near total job security, maternity/paternity rights, sick pay etc
35 hours work week doesn't exist for engineers in France. We are "Cadre forfait jours" which mean we are paid by days, not by hours. Typically an engineer works from 9am to 6pm. A 45 hour work week.
Those RTT, 15 additional days off really put the squeeze on hourly productivity. The French workforce that I knew, seems to have fiercely changed since then.
According to levels.fyi, the median salary in Google Munich is 147k USD [1] whereas the median for Warsaw is 82k USD [2]. Central Europe salaries are still quite a bit lower, even if you can be creative with taxes. Those B2B contracts are not quite as prevalent as one might think - larger corporations typically don't use them. And, from my experience, you can get to an even better take home pay with a little bit of time and career progression.
It's good for the people who are benefitting from it. Birthright or not, it's not nice to be in the locations that will potentially see lower wages in the future.
They mean being fortunate enough to be born in the right country. (Or really, get citizenship there.) I'm not sure how much sense that makes within the EU?
The argument being made is that (contingent on you being hired by FAANG for a given role) you are entitled to US salary solely by virtue of being born in the US, whereas you get the much worse Polish salary if you happened to be born there instead. Assuming you're at the same compensation level, your work quality should be equivalent wherever you are.
Nobody in the thread suggested that anyone is entitled to a FAANG job.
Once again pundits turn an economic issue into a social one.
No one is entitled to anything. Are you "entitled" to subsidized healthcare by virtue of being born in a European country?
No, you're not, it's just a consequence of your birth. Maybe its not fair, life isn't fair. I bet every single individual on earth could identify some feature of themselves or their lives that they dislike that came about by chance as a result of their birth.
Not too mention that total income doesn't really matter as much as spending power does. I'd rather make $50k a year in Poland than $100k in SF Bay (at least, hypothetically, I don't actually want to live in any European country).
That doesn't make any sense in this context. As the article says, they have 1000 engineers there and they've been there for 15 years. It is neither new nor outsourcing.
Not sure if the people whose departments got migrated into Wipro, Sasken, TCS would agree, specially those that even had to provide competence transfer sessions.
It seems that you can't just be a US company hiring FTEs from other countries for the most part. You either need to hire contractors or setup a foreign subsidiary.
We are all already working for your companies and other multinationals.
There is no giant pool of engineers working for "domestic" companies to be poached, other than domestic outsourcing, who already are contracted by multinationals.
It's one part cheaper labor, it's one part taking over market, it's one part gaining political influence. Just like defense companies have parts made in all 50 states to gain political influence, google does it internationally. The more offices you open up in EU countries, the more political influence you have within the EU. Also, by opening more offices in EU companies, you make sure no EU headquartered google competitor can arise.
For the love of god, why doesn't the EU simply ban/limit google and grow a homegrown google. The EU's incompetence is so astounding. Their population is much larger than our population and they certainly have the talent to create tech giants. China is doing it. Russia is doing it. Why can't the EU do it? At least try. Why are they giving away their market to amazon, apple, google, facebook, etc? They did it with Airbus, why can't they do it with tech? It's much more difficult to create an Airbus than it is to create an amazon, google, apple, facebook, etc. It's insane that after 20+ years after the beginning of the internet/tech boom, the EU is so tech poor. The few that they create have been bought up by american companies.
One wonders with these big companies if the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. Seven years ago, Google closed the Krakow office (>100 engineers) mere weeks after finishing a refurbishment [1].
It's not clear to me how large this Warsaw office is or is going to be but it seems to be getting a lot of Cloud investment.
As noted in your link, that wasn’t a divestment. The Warsaw office already existed at that point (and was bigger than Krakow, I believe) and that is essentially where the positions from Krakow were moved to. In this context, the news is an actually a continuation — more investment in Warsaw.
A third take is that this decision has probably taken six months to make, negotiate and finalize and is probably unrelated to the news of the last 2-4 weeks.
I work for a large tech company based in Warsaw and they’ve found it incredibly difficult to hire as they scale up. The talent pool for niche industries is quite small, so once you’ve hired a decent sized core group there are not a ton of good candidates left.
But to be fair, they are also really struggling to hire in the US. So perhaps it’s not a Warsaw problem after all.
Sorry but I interview regularly for positions based in Warsaw. First Codility/Hackerrank filtering and/or take home assignment, then rounds of algorithm smartass questions alternatively about nuances from every generation of Angular framework. All these for a job with a total compensation of equivalent of max 60k USD but more likely 50-55k USD. I have no idea what they are doing but certainly they are not hiring. There will be no hiring happening there, or rather I'm your "not good enough" candidate. These cutthroat processes are for positions with total compensation well above 100k USD, your poor miserable zealots.
While Google may beat that salary, Google interviewing and hiring practices are infamous for being over the top filtering, choosing many false negatives rather than having false positives. I'm not sure I'd bank on Google hiring any quicker...
I agree with you entirely :) my company is in love with tests! To get a promotion I need to pass something like 8 tests that are brutally graded. My interviews for a non-developer but technical position required 2 tests and a ton of bs brain teasers.
81 comments
[ 244 ms ] story [ 3370 ms ] threadIt also helps that Warsaw Uni is quite good [0](13th this time but they are often 1st). I was scared to go there and be forced to study too much xD but seems like Wrocław Uni is also strong (5th). TBH if I knew better back then I would probably go to MIT instead (or maybe not).
[0] - https://icpc.global/worldfinals/results
According to this article majority of people don't earn 15k PLN as a mid. I hope you are not confused with the range on job offers on the bulletins.
[1] - https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-sala...
Open positions offering more than $7k at the current exchange rates in Warsaw:
https://justjoin.it/warszawa/all/all/32k
Some are in USD.
Before the covid, typical senior dev net salary in Poland was around ~12-18k PLN per month, while in France it's about 3k EUR per month (a bit higher in Paris, but also more expensive).
One diff is that IT folks in PL typically work on b2b contracts; the upside is lower tax, and tax deductions on car leasing (hence it's easy to get new and very nice car). Downside: minimal state pension (no one in PL believes in state pensions money being managed well).
[1] - https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html?track=Software%20Engineer&s...
[2] - https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html?track=Software%20Engineer&s...
Can you share your internal source for this claim?
Setting up a remote location to do work at a cheaper wage is outsourcing.
Nobody in the thread suggested that anyone is entitled to a FAANG job.
No one is entitled to anything. Are you "entitled" to subsidized healthcare by virtue of being born in a European country?
No, you're not, it's just a consequence of your birth. Maybe its not fair, life isn't fair. I bet every single individual on earth could identify some feature of themselves or their lives that they dislike that came about by chance as a result of their birth.
Not too mention that total income doesn't really matter as much as spending power does. I'd rather make $50k a year in Poland than $100k in SF Bay (at least, hypothetically, I don't actually want to live in any European country).
Of course. And the US is finally catching up in that regard.
There is no giant pool of engineers working for "domestic" companies to be poached, other than domestic outsourcing, who already are contracted by multinationals.
For the love of god, why doesn't the EU simply ban/limit google and grow a homegrown google. The EU's incompetence is so astounding. Their population is much larger than our population and they certainly have the talent to create tech giants. China is doing it. Russia is doing it. Why can't the EU do it? At least try. Why are they giving away their market to amazon, apple, google, facebook, etc? They did it with Airbus, why can't they do it with tech? It's much more difficult to create an Airbus than it is to create an amazon, google, apple, facebook, etc. It's insane that after 20+ years after the beginning of the internet/tech boom, the EU is so tech poor. The few that they create have been bought up by american companies.
It's not clear to me how large this Warsaw office is or is going to be but it seems to be getting a lot of Cloud investment.
[1]: http://archiwum.thenews.pl/1/12/Artykul/198936,IT-giant-Goog...
But to be fair, they are also really struggling to hire in the US. So perhaps it’s not a Warsaw problem after all.
“How many gas stations are there in Poland?”
The reason I left Google in the first place was the insistence on working from the office.