What has been your experience with bigger tech companies in London?

You make way less money than your peers in California and everything is still as expensive. It's a financially horrible decision if you can work in the US. If you want to work in Europe though it's pretty good.

I've worked at FAANG in US and UK and am currently going back to the US for non-financial reasons. I don't regret being here but I find London to be impossibly expensive to build a family in.

This is not directly the question you're asking, but I find that salary info on London isn't very accurate on Hacker News. London has always been a contract-heavy market, and the best money was had while contracting. Since IR35 this may have changed somewhat, but I've mostly found that rates on contracts inside IR35 have gone up to compensate.

I lead the development of a product in an investment bank, and I concentrate almost entirely on frontend web dev. I've been on a contract for 5 years, and currently pull in £900 per day outside IR35 (£200k equiv or $260k). We routinely hire devs for £700-750 per day and we STILL find it difficult to hire.

I can walk into a number of roles tomorrow paying at least £800 per day.

Google had been building a massive office in central London so I assume they have a reasonable amount of interesting work going on there.

I did go there for a mobile conference a while back and they were not sparing any expense on the conference location and catering etc so I assume they are reasonably competitive. I haven't heard anything bad from the couple of people I know who were based at Google London (although I assume they're still home based, one of them lives near Milan!)

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jul/28/google-co...

Edit, more recent article

https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/business/kings-cross-google-c...

Pay is less than half of most American companies.

London is one of the most expensive cities in the world. It makes more sense to negotiate a good amount of PTO instead and take a London vacation

There's a massive skills shortage in London, to make matters worse the government penalised the self-employed and IT contractors were particularly hit hard because alot of them choose to work this way.

Ironic because I know a few recruitment agents that have said IR35 have made things increasingly difficult in an already scarce market, alot of the clients they recruit for are in public and government sectors.

With the changes you'll be less tax efficient and paying almost the same as you're permanent counterparts.

You can avoid IR35 if you're conniving enough to work through a specially setup PSC however these are so difficult and costly, for the fat cats and not the general populous.

If you're European it's one of the few options you've got. I find it odd though that people make so much less compared to their US counterparts. Does anyone know why that is?

If you live in the US, there's no reason to move to the UK. Life is extremely expensive, especially if you are planning to start a family. The UK outside of inner London is a non-place where only the locals can live, with the GDP per capita of an Eastern European country and nothing to do (apart from going to the local pub and taking a train to inner London).

Interviews are relatively easy, salaries have increased significantly in the past 2 years. You should be able to get 90K per annum with minimal effort, but that won't be enough to live like a low middle class German, if you plan to start a family. Housing is third-worldish, unless you can spend 2500-3000£ per month, weather is infernal and food has no flavour (unless you can afford to pay 2£ for an apple).

If you can get a visa to live in the EU, I'd consider Germany. If Brexit had one effect, it was to transform Berlin in a tech hub. It is much cheaper than London, salaries in tech are roughly the same and there's a large community of foreigners, so you don't need to learn German.

A lot of non-sense in the comments about TC/ money. I have worked at FAANG for a long time, both in the Bay Area and in London. My experience is:

- TC is lower, but how much lower is highly dependent on your level as the multiplier on base is smaller than the multiplier on stock refreshers.

If you are very senior, then the total difference will be ~10-15% (TC), which is arguably not that large.

- Private schools are generally cheaper in the UK.

- The UK does not have a property tax (!).

So, all in all, at very senior levels the difference is gonna be much less about TC/money and much more where you find more desirable to live.

Keep in mind the centre of gravity for the company will be the US. Very few firms, tech or otherwise are truly global in their approach. Most are taking product built and launched in the US out to the rest of world. This is why they almost constantly trip over local market quirks or differences (privacy being only 1 in Europe). Some firms are little more than sales/marketing operations outside the US.

I don't work at a bigger tech company myself (so take this with a pinch of salt), but have had plenty of interaction with people who do/did, and I'd summarise broadly:

- Salaries are generally a bit higher base than the rest of the permanent tech market, higher still total compensation, lower than the same companies in the US market, and lower overall than the contracting rates which are popular in the London tech market. You will definitely receive a reasonably comfortable and competitive salary, decent pension contributions, shares, and decent holiday entitlement.

- The interview process is the same nonsense as anywhere else.

- Engineering culture appears to be pretty relaxed. I've heard way more complaints about colleagues who don't pull their weight than I have about companies expecting personal sacrifice.

- There are some interesting teams and challenges but the selection is more limited than other markets.

YMMV.

I see so many comments about how pay is half of what it is in the US, London is just as expensive, and there is a shortage of engineers in London.

So what dark economic magic is causing this?

I work remotely for a large US tech company and live in Hampshire. Your salary will go *much* further if you are happy to live an hour or so outside London. My team is spread across US / Canada / Spain and UK so expect some meetings in the evening. From what I have seen the culture is quite similar in the UK offices as the US offices (same perks / food etc)

To get an idea of comp for companies in London, levels.fyi is a good starting point. https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/London/ Bottom line is that comp is way under what you would get for the same job in the US, but better than most other engineering jobs in London outside of certain finance roles. The market seems to have been going up a lot in the past couple of years though.

The interview process is pretty much the same as you get in the US. Lots of leetcode and system designs.

I had the choice many years ago of working in London or somewhere in the US. I chose the first, and comparison to my friends who chose the second I know I made the right choice.

The UK is the best of both worlds: you have much higher salaries than in the rest of Europe, and a more functional state and society than in the US. If your plan is immigrating and settling somewhere or not being a workaholic then the choice is a no-brainer.

Keep in mind there is a wide range of salaries, with large FAANG companies and a few medium-sized ones in the upper part. I would check levels.fyi for real salaries instead of going for averages.

The rest of the country is beautiful. The people in thread telling you there's nothing good outside of London have never left the city.

I'm an Argentine immigrant to the UK who worked in large and medium tech companies. AMA!

Nowadays it's called MAMAA instead of FAANG.[0]

[0] https://fortune.com/2021/10/29/faang-mamaa-jim-cramer-tech-f...