[gurkanoluc]

I worked for companies at various sizes FAANG and non-FAANG in London and I would say what FAANG pays is much better than what most of the startups or other companies such as banks pay.

Base salaries are usually similar but RSU and other benefits make the real difference. For example, most of the tech companies in London don't even provide health insurance, since they rely on NHS.

Startups try to use options to convince people but what you're given mostly wouldn't make you a millionaire in the event of exit or IPO.

I guess the other group of companies who could match what FAANG offers as a whole package would be hedge funds. I would say it's harder to enter them tho, since they still can throw your CV to the bin just because you don't have a degree from oxbridge.

[alexgmcm]

Maybe it's a cultural thing - but as a British person I'd be fine with the NHS.

I'd be happy if they stopped the salaries being like 2-3x smaller than the USA though - I get it, the CoL is lower, but it's not that much lower.

[gurkanoluc]

I agree with CoL being not much different and companies just using that as a reason are misleading. It’s quite unfortunate that, if you’re a SR SWE in a normal company max you can make is 100k and that would translate into ~5500 net. If you have 2 kids and wanna rent big enough house near an outstanding school in zone 2, ok crime rate, with council tax and bills it’s quite possible to spend at 3500 of that just for housing. Not leaving much money for non-essential fun things.

Another reason for crazy salaries in the valley is limited talent pool, which might change soon with companies moving to remote or at least being remote friendly. It’s quite hard to get someone into the US with H1B. As far as I know even Facebook and Google stopped sponsoring.

[talmr]

I’m an American so I always thought it’s cool you have NHS because we have to either pay for our own health insurance or we get it from our employer. What do you mean by health insurance there - are those additional offerings that NHS doesn’t provide?

[mattmanser]

Yeah, usually allows you to jump the queue for ops and to get a private room. Access specialists you may not have got referred to by NHS. See [1] for full list.

For example a friend of mine had a gallbladder removed on private last month but would have had to wait till middle of next year in NHS.

Not usually that bad, but covid means a lot of NHS hospitals are having to push back non-essential surgery.

[1] https://uk.virginmoney.com/virgin/living/article/is-private-...

[talmr]

Thanks for the reply, appreciate the insight.