Awareness of this is the kind of attention-to-detail we expect in the very best developers.
There's a difference between proof and evidence which supports your case .
Did you read the last two paragraphs?
The person mentions that "salary" as you are probably thinking of it is about half of that number. Given that "he" started in the US and that the US "signing bonus" and share "golden handcuffs" approaches that are tied into the market situation there, the shares that vest over time must be added to compensation to come up with a total package number.
I don't necessarily think that you need to call the poster's comments "bullshit". If you do not agree or do not understand, feel free to ask more more detail.
It's not BS unless my CPAs filed bullshit with the Swiss Tax authorities and my 1040. I'm actually trying to provide a concrete perspective for the OP's question since I see a lot of speculative answers.
The Glassdoor link has far too small of a self-reported sample size, and as I said, tech compensation has risen dramatically due to the tech boom in the last 5-10 years. Glassdoor also doesn't tell us how old the data points are that is used to compile the averages. As far as I know, it does not weigh recent data points more heavily. So if total compensation figures change over time the figures shown will be misleading.
Also, there are different ways of calculating total compensation and the self reported mechanisms on Glassdoor are too crude to account for them. Notice the huge range under the "Stock Bonus" line item on that link you provided. It goes from 1 CHF all the way up to 250k CHF. The figures I was providing for myself was based on the standard way the Swiss/US government calculates income for that year.
For tech companies, there are usually several components: a base salary, a bonus which is usually a percentage of salary (most often in the 15% range based on my experience), and then RSUs (restricted stock units that vest over time). The marginal income that is counted from vesting RSUs is the market value of those shares at the moment that they vest. So for example if you are granted 100 shares that vest uniformly over 5 years, do you calculate equity income based on how much those shares are worth at the moment they are granted, or the moment the individual shares vest? I used the latter approach, since that is the method used when calculating income for official tax purposes. With the kind of grants engineers are getting these days and the rapid appreciation in tech stocks, new grads have no issue clearing $180k+ and those with 5-7 years of experience reliably pull in $300k+.
I would caution against relying on Glassdoor for compensation figures -- the data just isn't broken down sufficiently. For example, we know the average compensation across the entire finance industry in NYC in 2016 was ~$380k in 2016, and the average bonus paid to all employees in the sector was $185k. This is all according to official government figures: https://www.osc.state.ny.us/press/re...r18/032618.htm
But as of right now, Glassdoor reports that the average VP Goldman Sachs, one of the highest paying large investment banks, gets paid a grand total of $185k. And that's based on 190 data points. Do we have to go up to MD level at Goldman just to finally see numbers more in line with the "average" across the entire industry? That's a massive discrepancy.
I'm not sure if I'm allowed to link to other forums here. Unless there are tech career focused discussion forums for CH, I would recommend the OP to take a look at recent discussion forums/topics focused on areas like the SF Bay Area on reddit as a proxy to get an idea on what kind of compensation numbers can be expected these days. The data points there are numerous and the numbers there are often broken down very well.
https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Goo...9_D_KO7,31.htm
According to Glassdoor, for all Senior Google Software Engineers, the stock bonus range goes up to $1 Million a year.
https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Fac...2_D_KO9,26.htm
For Facebook, the stock bonus range goes all the way up to $3.2 million. The only thing we know is average of all data points. Glassdoor does not allow slicing and dicing the data beyond years of experience, which itself seems to yield contradictory figures based on my experiments.
Based on what I hear from others in the tech community Zurich pays similarly to the US for big FANG-like companies. Here are some threads to check out for the OP:
@relaydiver dunno what are your intentions, but your statements are plain misleading. I work in tech consulting and the figures that you are giving are plausible in best case for some very specific exec-level people in particular named companies, maybe. All the bonus/shares statements are irrelevant for the OP either. Your personal case might be that unique, though I personally doubt that anyone earning that much would bother writing such lengthy but vague argumentation on a public forum
I've been on EF as a lurker for a while and haven't seen a lot of accurate discussions on tech jobs. I didn't have any intentions beyond providing what I feel is a useful perspective for the OP. But I'll butt out if the community feels such contributions are not helpful.
Shares/bonus are not irrelevant to the OP because they account for a significant and in many cases majority of compensation for engineers at FANG and FANG-equivalent companies, regardless of level and location.
Aside from possibly being limited to the the top companies, which anyway employ thousands of engineers each, I can assure you the figures I've given are very far and away from exec-level people and NOT exceptional cases in any way. Higher level (NOT exec) engineers such as Staff or Senior Staff at Facebook/Google/Apple/Amazon/Microsoft are pulling in over half a million a year. People have a hard time believing this because it's a relatively recent phenomenon and may not (probably won't) last forever.
There is no limit of how much one can earn, people work for as much as they agree to.
The market works however the way that any employer is always probing your believes to pay as little as possible - ok, definitely above the necessary money for a living to make sure you are out of troubles so you can work efficiently.
Indeed there's some recent phenomenon in skyrocketing compensations in IT. The software is eating the world and generating tremendous money. Not long ago I also though perhaps Switzerland is the place giving the highest salaries in Europe. However if you start networking currently everyday may bring you another surprise. There's a skills shortage around the world. I got enquiries from Netherlands, Spain, Sweden matching and exceeding the EF Swiss salary tops.
The myth about employers in Switzerland looking only for experts needs debunking. It's true but it's just absurd in 90% of cases regarding IT jobs. It is mind blowing when company A looking for an exceptional developer, expert in math, security, etc. reject a candidate because for example they are working on Linux OS but the candidate used Mac, or they require Java and python but the candidate knows well Swift, C++, Python, etc but no Java. It's so stupid, really, because they are willing to hire even a "monkey" which has on it's job report all the keywords but not educated professional who can grasp whatever else is needed as inteligent people always do. There are experts and 'experts', sadly most Swiss companies are not looking for the real experts and they struggle developing the IT business no matter how much they dream to do innovation in IT.
Sometimes they come down from the sky...
Early in my life I had a choice to study Cybernetics or Chemistry... Seems like I made a wrong choice
The numbers he threw around aren't so far from what I'd expect for somebody who's been doing rather well (but not executive level well - that'd be larger) at a large tech company for more than about 4 years. And while I try to regularly remind myself that this is a very fortunate position to be in, and I'm aware that not all of my friends and coworkers do this well, it is hardly unique either.
Also, remember that we are talking total compensation in an environment where stocks have been generally rising. (e.g. Google and FB both up ~3x over the past 5 years.) This makes stock grants worth more than they would be in a downmarket environment.
As for why somebody in such a position would take the time to argue in a forum, just remember that we are, after all, discussing techies: https://xkcd.com/386/
Your best bet is to work as a contractor. Sign up with any of the agencies here in Zurich i.e. Manpower, Experis, RMIT, Swisslinx, Darwin Recruit, K2, Harvey Nash, etc.
Rates will be anywhere from CHF 800.00 per day to CHF 1'300.00 per day (this is to the agency, who will take 10% - 20% cut). This is for the banking and insurance industry.
Annual salary for Software Engineers working full time as employees at the banks/insurance will be from CHF 100K to CHF 200K in Zurich.
hahahahahhahahahahahha
hahahahahahahhahahahahaha just WTF???? I've been in IT nearly 30 years, been in switzerland 13 years, and you know how many IT people i've met in that time that are taking home 400k + salaries? ZERO how many people in IT having 1m+ stock options? ZERO Plenty of upper management taking home those kind of deals, but lowly little IT bods LOL LOL LOL For anyone looking to come to switzerland for IT work, PLEASE ignore these crazy posts, sure we have google, facebook, ebay etc here and I know people who earn this plus more but they most certainly aren't software engineers, they also aren't 12 months out of uni in their first job either. seriously, it just doesn't happen, whoever posted that crap is having some kind of bizarre joke.
I think the point is that the US has a different view of IT compared to the Swiss. In the US, they are respected and are given stock options. Here, you are either temporary to get something working, keeping the ship on course or cheap. The moment you get too expensive, the role will be outsourced as you are not considered as developing the business itself. Maybe I've been in the wrong places but that's what I seen in Zurich..
which could be true, IT is undervalued throughout the EU. But is does seem like a few people decided to hijack the thread into a look at me, me me me thread, as the op has no real experience, and is from the uk, the relevance of being hired out of a US uni into one of the top tech companies in the US with signing on bonus etc is ZERO.
Out of the hundreds of thousands of people who work in IT the percentage of people on those kind of deals in miniscule, its not a standard thing, unless perhaps you went to an ivy league college or MIT.
I'm afraid you're out of date then. Please have a look at the most active discussion forum for folks in the tech industry. There are thousands of posts discussing "TC" which stands for total compensation (among many other subjects).
https://www.teamblind.com/articles/All
E.g., it took 5 seconds to find this one discussing Zurich vs. London specifically:
https://www.teamblind.com/article/Go...on-L4-EYVjcTGd
L3 at Google is the level for an entry level software engineer (e.g. fresh grad), the level the OP would be hired in as.
By the way, your statement about not being hired into the FANGs from the UK is simply not true. A computer science degree from any reasonable college is enough for a recruiter call. As soon as the first technical phone screen is scheduled, university affiliation has absolutely zero relevance from that point forward. If you can pass the technical interviews, the job is yours.
I must be missing something, no where in those posts is anywhere near what you quoted offered?????
oh and yes, I'm out of date
I have to chip in here. relaydiver's experience is definitely nothing out of reality. Software Engineers who work at places like Google, Facebook etc do have a total compensation (salary + benefits + bonus + stock units) which is easily over 200K a year. For Staff or Senior staff this can easily mean 400K depending on their performance and it is not dependent on the age of the employee. Some in their early 30s, if they perform well can reach this level.
I do agree, this is not the case for other companies though. 120K is considered a good salary for most others.
in other words, 120K is a typical salary for migrants and locals working in the IT sector. 200K+ is a typical salary for expats.
Many expats coming here who are on the same level as the average local when it comes to IT.
Hi!
As far as I know, Switzerland has no many giant IT companies, but there you can receive a really great salary. Average developer salary is higher than in the USA and this is a very good remuneration for the european country (even as expensive as Switzerland).
Source: https://www.n-ix.com/front-end-devel...astern-europe/
Those numbers seem to be quite low, especially for Poland. Under 20K for a frontend developer? 10 years ago, maybe...