[ChuckNorris89]

Netflix and FAANGs in general can get away with employee unfriendly practices due to the obscene compensation they offer which provides them with an endless stream of talented candidates knocking on their door.

The problem is, I see these practices slowly creeping in European tech companies, but without the glorious compensation to make up for them: i.e. companies wanting to put you through 3-6 rounds of interviews, full-day on-site interviews, leet-coding, long un-paid take home tests, and all this for 40k/year?! How about no thanks and GTFO!

[NeverFade]

I wouldn't consider FAANG comp to be "obscene", in fact many of the lower-paying FAANGs - Amazon, and recently also Google - are not paying much above market pay.

Facebook has already committed to supporting more remote work, as has Microsoft.

[ChuckNorris89]

Ok, but you missed my point, my point wasn't that FAANG pays best in SV, my point was that employee-unfriendly practices from SV, which pays best in the world, make their way outside but without the compensation.

[NeverFade]

Then resist this trend by publicly posting about it in your location, and refusing to work for companies that follow this trend.

[ChuckNorris89]

Yeah, easy to say but unless you're in the top percentile of highly sought-after specialists in a hot area, you're not making a dent.

The problem is, due to the hype of tech careers, free education, easy immigration and lack of VC funding in (most of) Europe, there is an oversupply of entry to mid level talent and a shortage of good companies, so if you refuse to bend over to each company's bullshit then it's no problem as they have 99 more candidates waiting in the pipeline and some will.

When I was living in Munich it baffled me how some companies there could get away with paying experienced people only 50k and still run a successful business and not have everyone straight-up walk away from them.

[NeverFade]

> When I was living in Munich it baffled me how some companies there could get away with paying experienced people only 50k and still run a successful business and not have everyone straight-up walk away from them.

I heard before that the European tech scene sucks, and my only advice is: relocate.

Pay in Switzerland for example is more competitive.

Incidentally, one reason I heard for low pay in Germany, specifically, is that it's very hard to fire people.

[ChuckNorris89]

You heard wrong, it's just an internet myth. Difficulty of firing people or high taxes are not the main cause of low pay in Europe.

The main causes are: lack of VC funding, lack of innovative disruption and entrenchment of traditional businesses with old-fashioned boomer MBA mentality that consider tech as an expensive cost center and devs as replaceable factory floor cogs that should be offshored whenever possible, risk adverse investor mindsets, complex bureaucracy, fragmented market with various languages, laws and cultures that make scaling a product/service nearly impossible, a broken EU-grant funding system where the focus is producing documentation instead of successful products/services and an overabundance of low- to mid- level talent due to hype, free education and easy immigration.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the pay in Europe, I'm complaining about the shitty SV practices that some entitled employers here adopt but without the compensation because "If Google does it then it must be good so we should do it too, who cares if we pay only 40k/year vs 200k+, we deserve only the best hoop-jumpers and nothing less."