Comments

• By austin-cheney 2025-06-0812:222 reply

  I have had a federal security clearance since I was a teenager and most of that time it’s been a top secret clearance. Yet, I never worked as a government contractor until my current employment. Huge mistake.

  It’s so much better than the corporate world even as a software developer and even with all the draconian security restrictions. Actually, the restrictions are nearly identical to working at a major bank. The primary reason it’s so much better is the people. The people tend to skew much older with far more experience, they tend to be better educated, and they all must have clearances and IT certifications. That eliminates so much of the entitlement, insecurity, and general stupidity I saw in my peers as a 15 year corporate software developer.

  By jcadam 2025-06-0918:42

  I worked in defense contracting for most of my ~20 year career up until a few months ago. So I'm experiencing this culture shock the other way around. Being the oldest person on a team is... strange.

  Still have my clearance for a couple years I suppose - perhaps all this anti-remote madness will be over before then.

  By glimshe 2025-06-0815:041 reply

  How do you solve the catch-22 of security clearance? It seems that a lot of jobs require it but not so many people want to pay for me to get it. Is it possible to get clearance by myself on the side (assume I'm willing to deal with the fees and paperwork)?

  By austin-cheney 2025-06-0815:41

  No. You must have a sponsor that pays for the clearance. The government officially claims that a secret clearance costs around $3000 and a top secret costs around $15000. That does not include the actual investigation of sending people into the field to perform interviews. The actual costs can be well into 6 figures. You don't want to pay for that.

  If you have critical skills then a large contractor like Raytheon or McDonnelL Douglas will gladly pay for it. The cost of the clearance is absolutely worth it to fill a position that drives a project forward.

• By mcntsh 2025-06-0811:414 reply

  I've worked for major US companies in the Bay Area/NYC and German companies here in Europe so I feel like I can weigh in here.

  In Germany I make way less, it's true, but I have a much higher quality of life and feeling of security here and I'd never willfully move back to the US. There's more to life than money, as they say...

  By nicbou 2025-06-0811:452 reply

  I run a website about migrating to Germany. I have to teol people that they should take sick days when they're sick, and that they should not even look at their emails when they're on vacation. It's not just laws, but a culture that backs them up.

  A favourite fact of mine is that if you're sick when on vacation, you get your vacation days back.

  By mcntsh 2025-06-0811:531 reply

  My favorite is the right to go to part time work after 6 months. People don't realize the 4 day work week already exists in Germany if you want it.

  By stuaxo 2025-06-0812:101 reply

  Sure, though the 4 day week is really taking the same amount of pay as you would for 5 days, so it's not the same.

  By mcntsh 2025-06-0813:05

  Sure but it’s not something you could ever expect to do in the US.

  By cardanome 2025-06-0813:011 reply

  I mean there are still toxic companies in Germany as well. There are people who are too scared to take their sick days.

  Worker's rights are vastly better in Germany than the US but that is a very low bar to set.

  If you work at at a company with strong union presence and Betriebsrat, yes, you will have a good life. That is not the reality for most people though. If you work for a smaller company in some low skilled job, your life will be vastly different.

  Social security and worker's right have constantly been attacked politically in the last decades and are chipped away piece by piece. The public health care system has be systematically and purposely weakened to the point that it is close to collapse.

  Germany is still one of the better countries to live and work in but not as great as it used to be. But that is true for most countries thanks to the rise of neoliberalism.

  By robocat 2025-06-092:271 reply

  > Social security and worker's right have constantly been attacked politically in the last decades and are chipped away piece by piece. The public health care system has be systematically and purposely weakened

  Political off-topic:

  That is happening in New Zealand too, but the question is, what is the underlying cause?

  Is it because New Zealand is slowly going broke: failure to increase export earnings due to business owners incentives, structural issues with NZ economy, whatever?

  Is it because capitalism keeps taking more and workers get less?

  Is it because NZ society is mimicking American business selfish „ethics“?

  On reflection, I don't think it is politics nor capitalism . . . I believe it is due to demographics here: it appears that New Zealand cannot afford the expectations set in the past for healthcare and superannuation and worker's rights. Smart capable young NZers emmigrate (mostly to Australia but diaspora to everywhere).

  It is natural to want to blame the political system, but I believe that demographics cause the same economic pressures, regardless of politics. There needs to be enough workers to tax to pay for the people not working (retirees, sick, unemployed). It is better to think of in terms of hours worked rather than money (same hours are required regardless of political system).

  I visited Cuba and investigated for myself the gap between truth and propoganda. NZ is doing vastly better with capitalism (capitalism causes serious problems, but authoritarian lefty countries have far worse unescapable problems for individuals).

  Note that the NZ "right" government is still very "left" compared with say the US. Also note that apparently the current US policy is "PROTECT SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE WITH NO CUTS, INCLUDING NO CHANGES TO THE RETIREMENT AGE" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44210019

  Disclosure: I'm a white welloff software WEIRDo dude, but I give careful attention to the problems of others (working-class peers, poorly retirees). I predict future struggles for myself even though I'm well off - and the median person will have it much harder than I.

  * aside:: tried to do 66 99 „quotes” but can't get the closing to to look like 99s on iPhone

  By cardanome 2025-06-0913:421 reply

  Demography would make sense as an explanation if productivity stayed the same. As productivity is rising and you need less and less working hours to create the same value, this makes no sense.

  https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

  As I said, the main driver is the ideology is neoliberalism. Main cause is the fall of the Soviet Union which removed the only serious competitor to the capitalist model and with this following the general disorganization of the left globally, weakening of unions and so on. Basically capital has no one to be scared off anymore so they can suck you dry without opposition.

  By robocat 2025-06-0921:11

  > productivity

  A hand-waving argument because there's no way to create a baseline. Technology today is too different from the past. It isn't easy to even look at just energy, housing or food. I can't think of an unbiased way to model housing costs. Looking at food prices (let's ignore nutrition and environmental costs):

     Historically, incomes have risen faster than food prices as countries have industrialized, enabling a simultaneous increase in the supply and affordability of many nutritious foods.
  

  As a personal example in New Zealand, virtually nobody is eating mutton, tripe or liver any more. Milk prices against median wage over time might be a good estimate for food affordability?

  I prefer to try and find good analytical examples that I can understand. Clever people make arguments about everything, but their assumptions are well hidden.

  Demographics is an understandable force, because you can find reliable figures from which you can calculate working hours, and you can calculate the number of people not working (retirees being the most significant). HOURS are a great measure for many things, because we are all given the same number equally (to a gross approximation). Nursing and education are good to model as hours in any decade.

  Health costs get contentious. Everyone wants more and more money spent, and technology provides more and more expensive medical solutions. But resources are not infinite so an economy needs to have a way to limit healthcare costs.

  There's no easy way to model healthcare costs versus income. People want free cancer treatment but they won't exercise and don't have healthy food habits. We could drastically improve quality of life by daily exercise - not sure how capitalism could get blamed here. Healthy eating is accessible but many people don't eat good foods. Who's responsible?

  > neoliberalism

  An almost meaningless word. Politics is about tribalism.

  I believe that we can individually understand some economics by simplifying down to concepts that are unarguably basic like hours. You need the same skill when working with large software systems. There's metaskills to understanding radically different systems.

  By wenc 2025-06-0823:311 reply

  I've never worked in Germany, but I worked for the U.S. branch of a German multinational company, reported to a German manager and visited Germany a couple of times.

  Living in Germany felt like it wasn't for me. There is very little diversity in ethnic foods (doner kebaps and Italian was about as ethnic as it got, outside of a sprinkling of Chinese restaurants), and everything felt really old (in a conservative way -- not in an artistic way like in Paris). Foodies would struggle with Germany (great breads, sausages, pork, and beer but nothing else stands out).

  German management was also not for me -- it felt really old-fashioned compared to American management, and it was hard to do anything new -- there were a lot of gatekeepers where it was their way or the highway. Ideas would get discussed and blocked at every turn, and there were lots of rigid egos.

  The U-Bahn/S-Bahn/ICE train systems there were good (undoubtedly, better than anything in America), but compared to Asia or other parts of Europe, they felt a bit old and not really that punctual. The whole place just lacked dynamism.

  It's ironic because I've admired Germany all my life. This is, after all, the land of Gauss, Bach, Goethe, Beethoven, etc. It's the land of great physicists and chemists.

  Yet there is a sense that what was once great about Germany (all the great thinkers, high tech, etc.) is not really at the forefront anymore. Instead, I saw a nation resting on its laurels, and accepting too much bureaucracy in many aspects of life.

  If I was into doing lifestyle optimization, I feel I'll find a decent, if unexciting, life in Germany where my basic needs are taken care of.

  But I feel if you really want to work on something new and exciting, that's not the place to be. (I was in Munich where the money is but people are conservative when it comes to new things. I heard Berlin is much more innovative but generally have no money to scale).

  By BrandoElFollito 2025-06-0910:17

  It of course depends on the company, area and vertical but yes, there is a lot of stiffness. German humour is not mainstream:)

  But every European country has its specificities - in France for instance you have an ungodly controlled chaos and draining bureaucracy (I am French).

  Having worked in many, many countries in the world, Europeans cities/companies are on the top for me, all taken into account.

  By xnx 2025-06-0811:441 reply

  > I'd never willfully move back to the US

  Do you think there's benefit to working for an EU company from the US?

  By mcntsh 2025-06-0811:59

  Culture. You probably don't have to take PTO for sick days, you probably get a lot of vacation days and won't get pressure not to take them, you probably won't get called past 5 o'clock or on weekends, etc.

  By jonmil 2025-06-0816:351 reply

  Any advice for an American in BigTech looking to move to Europe? I've been applying for EU jobs for awhile but that seems like a lottery

  By BrandoElFollito 2025-06-0910:211 reply

  First choose your country. It will be much more difficult to get a job in France than in, say, Poland for an American (because of how the US is perceived)

  Then you need to look at the company and see if they already have some US staff. Some do, some don't.

  Finally you must have a very unique set of skills to be taken into consideration. We have plenty of excellent people in high tech.

  Finally, but you know that already, you raw pay will take a huge cut.

  By jonmil 2025-06-0917:271 reply

  Yeah that's what I was afraid of; the perception of the US (and US managers) is not great, which puts me at a disadvantage. There are a ton of very well-qualified people already in Europe, which really makes it very difficult to immigrate.

  I was initially thinking that a startup might be the best bet, but it seems like very few of them provide sponsorships. The best bet is looking more like trying an internal transfer at my big-tech firm instead. Thanks for your insight!

  By BrandoElFollito 2025-06-0917:381 reply

  > the perception of the US (and US managers) is not great, which puts me at a disadvantage

  Yes, this is one thing. Then you have the concern of communication and this depends on the country. Nordic countries and Estonia (and to some extent - Portugal) have a good handling of English because movies in their TV are in English (among other factors). In the other countries it is general average communication English (which is objectively not bad).

  But independently of this you need to speak the language to blend in. It is fundamentally important in some countries (France, Germany) where you will lose half or more of the important information because they are done in the local language informally. But maybe you already speak a language from here (at any level)?

  > The best bet is looking more like trying an internal transfer at my big-tech firm instead

  This is by far, far the best option. You get in as an "insider" and you will be much more included. You may even be an attraction of sorts. I do not even mention the logistics.

  If you want to taste life in Europe (it is truly worth it), I would even go for something a bit lower in terms of hierarchy or prestige than you have in the US. It won't matter that much anyway because the perspective on this is so much different between the US and Europe (we have other markers than you)

  I would obviously pick France because I am biased (probably Paris because everyone goes there but I hate the city, Bordeaux, Annecy, ...), but Portugal, Poland (especially Krakow), Tallinn would be wonderful choices as well.

  By jonmil 2025-06-0920:57

  I spent about 3 weeks in Portugal and loved everything about it; that would be my first choice. I also would love France, due to having extended relatives living there, but is significantly harder to immigrate to from what I've read.

  I took some French classes a long time ago but recognize that I'll need to learn a new language anywhere I go (which is fine, since it is part of integrating into the new culture).

  Either way, shaking the stereotype of an American will be a difficult part.

  I'll keep looking to see what I can find and what options exist. Thanks again! I appreciate your insights!

• By newswasboring 2025-06-0811:251 reply

  I have worked for a european tech giant for over six years now. And when talking to my US friends, this is the biggest difference I have seen.

  > In the US, it can often feel that your work is your identity. My European colleagues take pride in their work and are extremely hard workers, but their job is one facet of their identity.

  In a non-office setting, I would sooner introduce myself as an improviser and bouldering enthusiast than an engineer. Although, I am the kind of person who codes to relax, not letting my job take over my identity is my last resistance in this boring dystopia.

  edit: forgot a negation which totally changed the meaning of last sentence.

  By NalNezumi 2025-06-0813:311 reply

  This difference is probably also why my brother who moved to US, and Now back to Europe (with his American wife) struggle with European colleagues.

  They're both passionate about their work (game devs usually are) but feel like no one at their office share that sentiment. When it's 5Pm, even before deadline, people just leave. During breaks, they rather talk about local football teams than most recent news about their profession.

  So that's the other side of the coin

  By spacemadness 2025-06-0815:41

  Leaving at 5pm seems entirely reasonable to a non workaholic. When is a reasonable time that you think people should leave to prove their worth I wonder. At some point it’s a performative race to the bottom. And yes I know the game industry loves to abuse peoples passion by demanding crunch and burning out young engineers for crap pay.