One is JS/Angular man, another is Python, yet another Java. The trick is to crack the interview. That’s usually hard.
My friend used to work for Glencore as sysadmin. He said it was the worst job ever.
My JS friend lately was complaining that he can’t find any new Angular projects because everyone is following the React hype now.
i could well imagine to educate myself with python, i have only best memories from using it. it was my first not-so tiny coding project… 
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Dive into Django if you’re interested in backend. It’s pretty much standard in Python web development. Otherwise, if you interested in data science there’s Jupyter and hounders of libraries regarding ML and stuff.
Guys, honestly I appreciate your IT focus and passion. But in this forum there is a huge misconception of other fields and maybe some overestimation of your own one.
If we talk about big money in Switzerland and only programming as an option is advised while noone has mentioned b2b sales in whatever industry but especially IT, banking… you’re simply out of the loop here. Not to mention top tier consulting at the big four and the big three and generally other business jobs which are paying in similar ranges.
Interestingly, things like that tend to happen when you’re not connecting with people from other disciplines and keep repeating things to yourself, as I’ve already read a couple of times here around. Stay open
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I can imagine IT is not the only place to make money, but would you be so kind to provide some numbers? Like, from what you’ve heard, what is the daily/hourly rate in sales on non-IT consulting?
My 2c:
- go to indeed.ch and search some keywords to get an idea on what you could do.
- remember you are a phd. Do not look for stuff like web coding, not even backend web. Your strength right now are on the math/phys world, so more on algo. (machine learning?)
- don’t go on SAP. It’s probably soul draining. It’s like working for the devil. You might also get surrounded by people interested only in money. I’d say your IQ will slowly descent as well. (I’m sorry if someone reading this is working with SAP. This is based on my smallish experience).
outside IT I have no idea. Check indeed.ch
Fully agreed with that. In my company (which is kind of a bank), the best paid employees are clearly the sales (i.e the guys actually selling our products to other companies). Heck, the head of sales got more than 800k last year as cash compensation…
That led me to think: is there any official formation to learn B2B sales? The field is so far away from software development that i am kind of oblivious about it…
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I’d say that would be the first impression people have about mustachians, soo… I guess you would be among people like you 
I guess this is true for all enterprise software. Its really hard to get excited about this stuff 
Heck, the head of sales got more than 800k last year as cash compensation…
That’s a high up executive position, no? If you can make it to be an exec in any moderately sized company you can expect that kind of comp from profit sharing, but most likely you won’t, especially without a good MBA and no connections
That led me to think: is there any official formation to learn B2B sales? The field is so far away from software development that i am kind of oblivious about it…
Well, you’re already at a huge disadvantage here by not speaking swiss german natively. Stick to your core competences, highly paid positions in any field need deep specialization, and sales and business need a very orthogonal set of skills to software. Also consider the stress levels, sales are generally regarded as stressful and high churn positions.
800k is possible in software too, btw, principal engineers at FANG for example, especially the N from what i hear. You’d have to move to Bay Area though. Or NYC for hedge funds.
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Sorry to be straight forward: If I understand you correctly, it quite impossible to make more than 120-140k in Switzerland in IT if you have less than 40. (don’t know a lot of exec less than 40 with MBA).
Thus, if I don’t want to move to this US, should I launch my own company? Should I go into finance? Should I simply wait?
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I would also be grateful if you can share which ranges we are speaking about…
For the ranges please refer to the above and have a look at glassdoor guys.
Also I forgot to mention Private Equity, which obviously is very lucrative and typically goes well beyond what you can make in IT…
IT as in helpdesk, system administration and support and other low level functions like that? Yeah well industry’s best practices today is to get such stuff done cost effectively in Eastern Europe and India. For the price of one overpaid swiss guy you can buy a whole team there and supply is high enough. I suppose mostly small firms and some hands-on stuff that can’t be outsourced remains here.
Programming? 150k+ is reasonable for a senior. Then there’s Google, Oculus(FB) and Apple which I’m sure start even juniors on more than that, so long as the stock is up. Microsoft probably pays less, it’s mostly a big sales office here *wink*, but some cool eng teams too (vs code). I don’t think you can grow to 800k+ in any of them here, competition climate here is just not right for that.
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Just to add some more info :
The tendency is actually the opposite.
The big banks are currently trying to internalize people rather than hiring people from Outsourcing companies. And as long as Switzerland cares about the data not leaving the country, most of the mentioned functions must be Onsite.
+140k is quite difficult in these 3 (helpdesk, system administration and support) unless you get into management.
But as @hedgehog mentions it is not so hard if you go for Programming.
And of course not so boring and soul-consuming.
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People, do not forget you also need to be smart to get those jobs.
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Isn’t that stating the obvious? You need to be smart/skilled/talented (which is, arguably, being “smart” in some domain) to earn a lot of money.
If you’re looking for a career where you can bullshit your way into getting rich without acquiring any valuable skills, then I don’t know… I guess I often find managers without technical background pretty annoying. 
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As an IT fellow let me share my experience. Working in IT can be thrilling but also quite boring, and from what I’ve experienced so far the more you are paid the less likely your daily work is going to be exciting.
If you’re after the money, SAP and other crapware are probably a good bet, just make sure you don’t kill yourself one morning waking up and wondering what the hell you are doing with your life.
As for IT consulting, in Switzerland it usually means bodyshopping, you are just going to end up in a bank trying to integrate this shiny new application (written using Angular-Vue-React-WTF-are-we-still-using-npm) with their outdated core banking system.
Remember that if you’re billed 1’500.-/day and you earn a monthly 10’000.- salary you are making someone else quite rich, so you better enjoy what you are doing.
All this might seem bitter, but after more than 10 years spent in IT in Switzerland (Software vendor, startup and consulting) I am still looking for the ideal job. In the mean time don’t forget that working accounts for at least 1/4 of your time (1/3 if you don’t count week-ends) so don’t neglect it.
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