This is not a complaint by any means. It is what it is and obviously Switzerland's economy is doing quite well for itself as it is. It's just an observation on my part but also wondering if I am missing something or do people also have the same impression?
Also, if a role description says German is required, is that usually a hard requirement or should I also try applying for these anyway?
Also, many of those IT jobs won't actually require much German but as many companies here have recently downsized their (Swiss-based) IT departments there are people kicking around looking for work, so employers can make what was a "nice to have" into a "must have" knowing that they'll probably still find people.
There's really no harm in you applying to these jobs, just write a simple email, attach your CV, and put at the bottom something like "currently don't speak German but willing to learn".
Hello tambor
I like your enquiry, trying to understand. And also your attitude as in:
So this, put gently (I hope) is my attempt at explaining how I think it works. I sense a degree of resentment amongst Swiss people, towards that certain sub-set of the English-speaking immigrants which assumes that just because English is an internationally used language (and the language of the technical or trading sectors, etc.) the Swiss locals are obliged to speak English to them, too.
This has levels, of course, since many of the people living here are not Swiss, but have also immigrated. They can function, in everyday contexts, mainly because they have learnt German (or French, or Italian, depending on the region). My friends and neighbours from Turkey, Sri Lanka and the former Yugoslavia can communicate with one another, with the Swiss landlady and with the Swiss government clerks, because they speak German. The Chinese doctor and the US American dental hygienist deal with their patients in German.
Anyone who does not learn the local language stays in the expat-English-speaking-only-bubble, some even for years and years, and thereby remains forever an outsider from Swiss life. (To be sure, there are many who do just that, and some of those are IT specialists, so perhaps one of them will reply to tell you how he/she found a post.)
Some employers would rather not risk offending their Swiss employees by requiring of them to speak English to the IT guy (or anyone else). Many large companies are moving away from the formal form of address ("Sie") to the informal ("Du"), so as to promote interaction and facilitate conversations amongst people of different ranks and departments, e.g. in the lunch-queue in the canteen.
Finally, it could be (though this is conjecture on my part) that the sense of separateness you describe, between the IT staff working away in a back-office with no contact to the clients or the finance department, may be less marked in Switzerland than in your home country. Several scenes come to mind where the developer or analyst was called right into meetings with the senior decision-makers, and it was not an absolute requirement, but definitely much appreciated if everyone present (no matter their mother tongue) could participate in German.
Therefore, I think Adrianlondon's advice is very good, to state on your applications that you are willing to learn German, as long as, in fact, that is the truth... which I'd hope. And get started learning right away, so that if you get an interview, you can already greet any potential employer... who will then accommodate you by switching to English.
In one of the Five Eyes countries!
Wouldn't those roles be rather located in a region of the world where the unit cost of service is lower?
Provocatively speaking - why should I pay someone to enjoy the scenery of the Alps from an office next to Lake Zurich if I can dump that English language requirements document onto some warm body's desk in India, Romania, Poland, Ireland, ...
Isn't (agile) IT software development all about being close to the value chain, all about communication, about translation from one (business) domain into another (IT) domain?
FWIW, for a software development role - any of them -, I would simply assume that any suitable candidate has sufficient command of written and oral English, out of the box. It just goes without saying. So much for "English speaking IT jobs"
PS: Google is an interesting case. They recently announced a major expansion of their engineering center in Zurich. Without insider knowledge about their thinking, I can only surmise that the deciding factors were the local university, excellent infrastructure, and a very stable political environment to attract Top Talent, to act in a large swarm. For Google, the high wages paid in Switzerland in general are probably not decisive - they most likely pay a lot, anyway, so that the Zurich add-on is a drop in the bucket.
In Switzerland, if there is a Swiss person available they should employ them first, then EU, extended EU then the rest of the world.
HR rings agents or submits job through portal, with German required.
Agent tells HR we have a few CV with that spec. First round of interviews.
Or
Agents tell HR we don't have anyone with that spec, we will have to look further, HR says ok German is a nice to have.
So it depends on the skill set required for the role.
The Swiss like to import experts. So if you are an expert in a new area, and would like to come to Switzerland for a few years on a high paid job, ok. But if you have a standard skill set and don't speak German it will be difficult.
Remember you will need 5K cash to cover set-up costs, and they can fire you at any time. There is no un-employment pay until you have been working for more than a year.
In some companies today - especially large MNCs - IT jobs that are not critically tied to Switzerland have been moved to a lower cost location. This has been going on for years now, many expats who were recruited to Switzerland because of their IT skills are now jobless or soon to be. Bottom line - much of IT is simply too expensive these days, a Swiss salary cannot be justified.
(IT salaries are also falling in Switzerland - while still better than in other countries, the numbers bandied about in posts more than 6 months to a year old should be taken with a grain of salt.)
Much of this happened well before the removal of the peg - the Euro/CHF crisis is a handy excuse for the 2015 firings that were already planned, though.
There are jobs, but they're few and far between. And if by "software engineer", you mean code monkey, then they're even harder to come by onshore. If you're something a bit specialised, especially if you're working with people (which is where the communication comes in), then your chances are higher. If you are working in isolation, then the corporate view is that there's no need to pay you a Swiss salary when you can work in isolation somewhere else at a fraction of the price.
Leading onto Google's point: as well as tax planning, I would expect one of the reasons they invest in Switzerland for their IT staff is when you have the best brightest boffins on your target list, where will they want to live ? Zurich lake, or Delhi Downtown ?
There are fewer jobs around, for certain, but premium skills are always in demand. The issue is that the mid and lower skill end of the market is now flooded and all those people will also apply for the higher tier work.
Plus as has been pointed out one month searching is a pretty short time in the market here
There is no problem, from my point of view, technically speaking. Move accounting to Egypt. Human resource administration to Hungary. Investment management analysis to Peru. Whatever.
Why not add value from one of those locations? Why not, say, have the center of excellence for widgets in Greenland and the competence center for wombats in Windhoek?
Why is it, then, that we do not see much more near-shoring (similar timezone, culturally close) or off-shoring (dissimilar timezone, culturally disconnected)? In my opinion transaction costs are a critical factor[*]. These days, much of the transaction cost is not about the actual cost of sending things, or bits and bytes, back and forth. It is about friction in communication for lack of local presence. It seems as if even today most people (have to, want to) rely on location to help reduce these costs.
Again, I am operating from the initial assumption that there is very little top talent around - different rules apply here (see Google). These days, it would seem, there is little shortage of worker bees which can be trained (not educated!) on some highly specialized job.
[*] Costs are one side of the medal - synergies are the other, more positive side. I see lost synergies from lack of locality (e.g. lack of great team spirit) as a transaction cost, though.
Switzerland is seen as a desirable destination, so there is a higher concentration of highly skilled people (including Romanians, Indians, etc.) in a diminishing job market.
Companies that rely on constantly evolving, complex, custom software to provide services and remain competitive (eg banks and insurance) always do badly when they outsource software development.
That's not because the people to whom they outsource lack skills (although that may be part of it). It's because the company often has the attitude "I don't understand software development. I don't want to understand it. It's not our core business anyway."
With that attitude, their in-house software development will be pretty bad. Relocating the activity to some far-away place only makes it worse.
No wonder tech-led businesses (google, facebook, netflix, uber, kickstarter, etc) are so easily able to shake-up the established incumbents. And tech-led firms are already starting to move into the finance and insurance industry.
To the OP... just be patient. Keep checking the job boards. Something will come up.
If you are country/city shopping, I would suggest looking at Amsterdam. There are sooooo many permie development jobs there that they cannot fill. Fun place to live, English speaking jobs, interesting companies.
Totally agree.. over the past few years I've managed to move my role 'away' from IT into 'the business'... I'm still doing stuff that would have been considered 'IT' but large firms are evolving their staff who 'manage' an IT system into those who understand how the system fits into a business process (who increasingly sit 'in the business') and those who don't (who increasingly sit in India). This has some advantages.. but still leaves a 'translation' gap between those who want to modify an IT system and those who have to implement the changes.
As per above.. I'd give up on 'coding'... look for Analyst/Governance/Metrics/Process Improvement/Vendor Management... type roles.
I am looking at the "needs to tick some boxes", "drop some buttons" scenario. No brain drain here, and no shortage of trainable hands.
I also fully subscribe to software or rather IT in general being an enabler for business, for cost cutting and value generation alike. Yet, that only works well where IT and business are integrated (and aligned) and communicate, where there is no such thing as a traditional software coding role, but a "lets support the business using IT" alliance.
I perceive the original poster to come across as a coder who wants to stare at his screen implementing a specifications document, without having to "communicate". My perception may be wrong, but it is my perception which shape(d) my responses.