I work with what you could describe as „SAP for banks” and indees it’s good money. I don’t know where does your negativity come from. From my experience, the assignments I get require at least basic business understanding and then implementation, which consists of basic programming. Your expertise is thus not about coding a super efficient algorithm, but about knowing the features and limitations of the system and being able to deliver the solution. I’m not saving the World with my work, but it’s not boring and it very well paid.
That’s why I switched to being a freelancer. The numbers you quote are pretty close. I now got the skills that companies will pay me this much per day and what’s not to like about it? Whenever things get a little mundane I remind myself that 3/4 of my earnings go into my savings and just in a couple of years I will be able to retire if I want.
I have little knowledge of ABAP and all the SAP stack but I have yet to see proper coding practices in that area. No TDD or even just proper testing is a no go to me, as would be elastic-free bungee jumping.
As for freelancing that is indeed a good option, I’m tempted to look into that, but my past years within a great team made me learn so much that I fear being alone would have me ended up parked in the comfort zone or doing average work. My brain is still (rather) functioning, so no way Jose.
So after a while of making up my mind, my (intermediate) result would be to look into the direction of data scientist. I think I am really fascinated by the field, and very briefly scratched it already before. any data scientists here that i could talk to about their field?
I work as a junior data scientist. The first thing that I would say is that while there are a lot of jobs for data science, a lot of the companies look for seniors. So from that aspect, it’s a bit difficult to get the first job. Another thing I have noticed is that there are a lot more data science jobs in the Zurich area compared to the Geneve - Lausanne area, so it’s definitely a plus to look for a data science job around Lausanne.
As for my current job I am a bit underpaid since I had 0 experience (only internships) when I got it, so I might look for something else soon
don’t. at least as a job title it’s mostly fad. in big companies it’s usually just rebranded analysts/statisticians, in smaller shops it’s often vague and misunderstood and could mean anything from an excel monkey to building self driving cars, make sure you understand what you’re getting into
This can be true, but it depends on the team you are going to work in. I work for a pretty big Swiss company as part of our internal chatbot team. So my work involves a lot of NLP. If there is a defined team purpose than you can be more sure about your day to day obligations.
I have also seen that some companies create generic data science teams that have to help with internal processes i.e. save money. If it’s this kind of team you might get both interesting and boring/dumb/unrealistic projects.
That’s exactly what i meant by small shop. I’d suggest rebrandnig yourself an “ML engineer” or something to avoid negative associations with the kind of work data science teams at FB/GOOG/… do
Can you use economy terms? If by “competition for talent” you mean “demand for labor” and “competition for positions” you mean “supply of labor”, then what you’re saying doesn’t explain higher price of labor. Higher demand and supply do not raise the price.
I would say:
Demand is high. Tech companies are headquartered in USA and that’s where they develop their core products. That’s where you have the direct contact between bosses and workers.
Supply is limited. Places like silicon valley are very expensive to live, which does not attract people to move in without a high salary. Also, the immigration to USA is not trivial.
So you have highly qualified people who took high student loans and are supposed to move in to areas with high living costs. But maybe I’m still missing some important piece of the puzzle.
In my dealings with my American colleagues I think there is a mentality factor as well. In Europe you are basically told to be grateful to have a job and you grow up with multiple people telling you how you can be lucky to have a job. In the US they can always uproot and move far away, they are not simply grateful, they expect compensation, they are commanding better salary in job interview etc
I think there’s also the aspect that in Europe you tend to expect to stay for a long time with your employer (because of labour laws), whereas in America you know you can be out of a job the same day, so people tend to have the mentality of fending for themselves and marketing themselves better.
Very true. Since the employer can fire you anytime, he can risk giving you more pay. He can always fire you. In Switzerland is very similar, that’s maybe why salary are generally high as well. In country where somebody with an undetermined length contract is basically impossible to fire (Italy) then you will never give high salary. Or give out only time limited contracts
Don’t forget that what you guys describe can only be applied to high level jobs in the USA. The income distribution there is far more stretched than in Switzerland. So the lowest earners in Switzerland and many West European countries will have better salaries than in USA, even including price levels.
Labours laws in Switzerland aren’t so strict. You can fire people at any time without a specific reason, then the notice period will depend on the contract and how long the employee was with the company.
The minimum notice period in the first year is one month. It’s not so much.
The difference in the Gini coefficient is mostly is due to taxes and transfer.
If you take Gini before taxes, most developed countries will be the same (around 0.45-0.51). Switzerland is lower (don’t know why)
that’s a very cool chart! Didn’t think about the impact of taxes and transfers on income distribution. It indeed looks like Switzerland has the lowest income inequality before taxes and the lowest amount of transfers (which bring inequality down), alongside Korea.
I guess what raises the wages on the lower end in Switzerland is the fact that it’s very expensive to live here, so if you’re gonna do any kind of work, you need to earn a lot just to survive.
Not sure that works in the silicon valley where a cashier would still be paid ridiculously low wages even though life there is super expensive.
Couldn’t that be the opposite in Switzerland? Prices are high because lower end wages are also on the high end?
But the labor market in the USA is big and you have neighbouring counties where the cost of living is not that high. In Switzerland there is the language barrier and you need a permission to work here. I don’t know, it’s been a puzzle to me as to why the people agree to work there for so little money and then live in some camper vans of the streets. The proposed solution has been raising minimum wage, which to me is always a bad idea. I’m generally allergic to central planning.
For some reason people are willing to take a very low paid job in an expensive place in San Francisco, but not in Switzerland. Because, I’m pretty convinced, if the bosses here could pay less, they would.
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