#Am I specialising too early?

227 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

charred silo
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i mean you would theoretically have what.. like < 2 YOE? i wouldnt really consider yourself pigeonheld into any specific field/area if you do backend during that time and decide later you wanna do something else like front end

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it starts getting more tricky when u have like 5+ YOE and ur trying to switch

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dunno what age has to do with anything

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not necessarily

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everyone is different and people start careers at different ahes

west steeple
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agree with KJ I’d be not worried about getting pigeonholed this early. At any job you are inherently going to focus more on one area than another

charred silo
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if thats what YOU want to do then sure

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if thats what you want then sure

west steeple
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There’s no real harm in it. You can always just bail if you don’t end up liking it

charred silo
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nope

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1-2 years is entry level/u MIGHT be able to push for mid level

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and 1-2 years of full time experience

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not part time

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  • leveling is different at every company
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you can probably get away with mid level / senior level at a smaller / local / MAYBE midsize company but any other larger company is gonna stick u with the entry level devs

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nothing wrong with it

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its just with YOE and not title

west steeple
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1-2yoe is pretty common to be 1 promo in, “senior” being the first promo is funny, but yea places level differently

charred silo
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if ur 1 year of “regular” swe and 1 year of “senior” u would still probably be considered entry/mid level

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and mid level is generous

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right.

west steeple
charred silo
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at larger companies

charred silo
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idk a single faang company that goes from junior/newgrad -> senior developer

west steeple
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yea I’m guessing this is just a company’s funny internal descriptions

charred silo
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that in itself just doesnt really make much sense

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a tech company?

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yeah

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not really rhe same

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🤷🏽‍♀️ maybe. Again, every single company is different

west steeple
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“senior” is a arbitrary title, doesn’t matter. Responsibilities + comp matters

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why? there is no standard for what a “senior” is

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yea they’re not the same thing

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On company’s “senior” can mean a very different thing from another company’s “senior”

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Calling someone with 1 YOE “senior” ventures into the useless term territory

charred silo
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well we dont really know what “senior tickets” at YOUR company entails. If you phrase your bullet points correctly then youll be in luck

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this is just regular swe work

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also regular swe work

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u were an SWE intern?

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thats usually like pretty… like idk standard stuff to do as an intern but i also may be coming from a place of bias

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big company

west steeple
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that’s the point we’re trying to make 💀

charred silo
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no reason to bring in other interns and what theyre doing

west steeple
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“senior” has no industry wide meaning, but from our perspective it’s weird for it to be the first promo, and it’s weird for it to be after 1YOE, and we can’t possibly know what it means in the context of your company

charred silo
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banks? maybe cus theyre not really tech focused

west steeple
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Getting L5 at Google with 1YOE of full time experience is basically impossible

charred silo
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what are u talking about

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pay was never a discussion point

west steeple
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yea ok companies call out full time YOE for the most part

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you are trying to say I’m talking about this nebulous category of “senior” and not that nebulous category of “senior”. It’s not a useful discussion for anyone

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that is gonna depend a lot on what your base looks like— faang wages don’t double with first promo, tho it’s a p decent bump

charred silo
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at a big bank company, ur pay will probably be …. 80-90k… 2-3yrs i dont think many get paid anywhere near 150k+. Can probably check levels.fyi for that thoigh.

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yup

west steeple
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damn Europe wildin

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Personally not familiar with European comp, if you know that’s how it’s structured go for it ig

charred silo
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^

west steeple
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ime in the US the increase structure isn’t that sharp within a company one promo up

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makes sense on aggregate but the question for me is if it’s applicable to the company ur working at. If they’re telling u they will double ur wages in 2 years, sounds fucking good to me

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If ur assuming they’re doubling wages based on the title alone I’d be more wary

west steeple
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Varies by corp, but they give me the general expectations for promotions and their pay band expectations

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First promo/raise at companies tends to be 1-2 years. It’s not really consistent beyond that tho. I’m using Google as an example but it’s pretty similar at other companies, people are generally expected to reach L5 (senior swe/2 promos from new grad), but beyond that requires beyond standard/expected performance & growth.

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It’s considered “terminal” because people can stay there for the rest of their career

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Another company I was talking to doesn’t have any titles at all. Everyone is just a “software engineer” but pay varies substantially based on performance and responsibilities

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they have management and I’ve heard their culture is pretty good, so I’m not actually very worried about that

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I’m not trying to diss your work or company, I just don’t think it means exactly the same thing as we would assume for senior

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Lol it’s common in the US too and we are pretty well compensated. Job hopping is just generally profitable in this industry

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yea I’m pretty jealous of the public transit

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driving in the US is dumb

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lol I’m not even looking in SF I’m looking in a relatively cheaper area

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I was thinking of trying to work in Europe after getting a few years of experience. Don’t know how hard it is to get a work visa or anything tho

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I just want to experience a nice city lol. Most American cities aren’t very super walkable which kinda sucks

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nice and I can speak English so UK is interesting 😂

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London sounds more lively & there are mainland trains which sounds fun for a weekend excursion or something

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Yea I’d probably take a massive pay cut in Europe no matter where I went lol

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from what I saw it’s still worse and their COL is also insanely expensive

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oh yea taxes are better, haven’t done the math on that

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oh damn yea Zurich is pretty similar/might be better depending on taxes and COL

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I don’t think they’re looking for Americans that can’t speak German tho 😂

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oh right that sounds less fun for a young person

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Don’t know if Google does transfer for their US staff elsewhere

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So that kinda sucks

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Yea kinda lame, but I get nice American software wages so maybe that balances out

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America is pretty unique in taxing overseas citizens income lol 🇺🇸

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The rule isn’t actually exactly double taxation, because you basically only pay taxes less the taxes taken by your host country iirc.

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Mostly a problem if you go to a low tax country like Switzerland yea

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tbh from a money perspective the US is def one of the best places for SWE income because your employer covers a lot of the insurance costs

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Nah most software companies have very good coverage not just Google.

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Yea you cough up something just not very much

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Premiums are about $70/mo (subsidized by your employer) and your out of pocket max varies but it’s a few thousand $. You only hit that if you have extreme medical expenses though

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Yea but most people don’t hit that unless something very extreme happens

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afaik Google does not actually cover all your expenses either

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without giving too much away personally, I can just say that companies in high COL cities compensate very well

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maybe like two cars lol

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if you think of it as like a month's rent with high US salaries, it's not that bad. it's REALLY bad if you aren't highly compensated like SWEs are though

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trust you can get away with a lot less than that, you just don't save huge amounts of money

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but those are a v small # of people

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I'm honestly not sure how to answer that question without giving away that much personal information. There's just so much variance in performance & pay. ig I can say I a lot of the people I know happen to be high performers and make close to that much $ out of school

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I did not go to a super top school, maybe T50 in the US

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honestly one of the great things about this field, at least in the US, is that your school doesn't matter that much if your goal is FAANG/similarly paying companies. you just need to be able to pass interviews and you can get those high paying offers

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I'm also not sure how hard it is to get work visas for europeans

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FAANG companies and such will sponsor visas, but I don't know how hard the process is. unfortunately lots of smaller companies don't really have the resources to sponsor foreigners (at least not NG, probably better for senior folk)

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yea that sounds probably easier, that's also what I was thinking about getting transferred to europe lol

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none of my current offers have major european offices

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I was thinking of jumping ship in a few years to FAANG and getting transferred in a year or two

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graduated in December, took a short break before looking for work

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yea the pay is very nice, though to be fair, I probably am looking on the higher end of pay for ng

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California

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NYC wages are very similar/basically the same as SF Bay Area wages

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I wanted NYC offers because they have decent public transit lol

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but I live in the bay area already so it's fine

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SF has very nice weather actually

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SF city itself doesn't get very hot because it's surrounded by water

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I think you'd like the weather in SF lol

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yea the temperature is very well moderated by being surrounded by ocean

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Southern California gets actually unpleasantly hot for me

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so the SF Bay area is funny because it's huge sprawl

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most people don't actually live in SF they live either closer to work, in some random suburb, or in a suburb closer to work

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most people tend to drive but FAANG also runs shuttles to random suburbs to pick up their employees

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yea it's pretty boring to live in a suburb

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NYC is probably a much more interesting place to live

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that's what I was aiming for lol

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nah I'm probably gonna live pretty close to work I hate traffic

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only 1/3 of my offers are remote friendly and I value working in an office/not bringing work home anyway

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more or less yea

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SF doesn't have the same density for the most part

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tbh the only places in the US I think you can get away with not having a car is NYC and maybe Chicago. most the cities here just kinda suck as dense cities

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it's definitely possible, but I don't know you or your abilities personally

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I'm guessing you know that FAANG and similar companies like asking leetcode questions, how good are you at those?

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ic, well if your goal is to get into super high comp companies it's a good thing to work on

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tbh basically all the super high comp questions will ask leetcode type questions

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the 3 offers I got were not FAANG and all involved leetcode mediums (some on the easier side, some on the hider side)

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frankly don't know too much about the finance world besides traditional bank pay not that great, some fintech pays very well. afaik fintech doesn't really demand finance specific knowledge just swe and role specific swe stuff

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yea

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though honestly you will randomly run across LC hards with FAANG as well

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that's prob fine, but I wouldn't avoid applying to tech companies either

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eh, honestly it's still subject to a fair amount of luck in terms of what questions you get asked. and the question difficulty across FAANG is not at all uniform, impression I've gotten is that google typically does the hardest LC questions. if you are very motivated you may be able to grind enough to be able to do em

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also internal transfers is probably the easiest way to get a US work visa-- I guess there should probably be us finance companies with london offices though

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yea JS and 2s are crazy tho

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yea that's basically how it works in the US too except it's like HYPSM

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tech companies in the US don't care about uni much, trading is super elitist tho

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I got rejected from cornell lol

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yea competition is one part, I think culture is another part

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just snobby finance things

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and honestly that's not entirely true, some firms have terrible WLB, but top firms like 2s and HRT have pretty good WLB

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lol IB is weird idk how their pay structure works out, sounds like new people don't get paid super well

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yea very bad reputation in terms of wlb

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yea ig I have a very american centric tech wage perspective -- and I don't think IB scales in the same way as tech wages in the US

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yea that's what I've heard

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if you can work through the terrible hours at the start, wlb and pay both get a lot better

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haha yea not worth it

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in a few years I'll probably give trading a shot just to see if I can pass the interviews, but I doubt it 😂

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the money in tech is good enough for me

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good luck

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I'd also get to relocate to NYC which is nice

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I sincerely doubt it lol

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yea the money is absurd

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lol depends on how much you want saved up, I don't think that would sustain you in NYC

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if you wanted to pack up and go back to the UK I'm sure it would be fine

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sounds like the dream lol

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oh yea definitely, but smaller places in the US are even more depressing than our already kinda sad non-NYC cities

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I'd probably want to stay in relatively high COL areas or I'd just be bored to death

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getting into trading firms is a long shot, but I think getting into a finance/tech firm in the US isn't too bad, I just don't about visas and stuff

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highways everywhere, no mixed use zoning, cars everywhere

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shit public transit

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yea america's a funny place

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yea I'm sure you could find something chill to do if you had your major expenses taken care of

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are Google FB Europe hiring?

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they've frozen hiring in the states lol

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bad macro condition or whatever

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I was supposed to do my final rounds @ Google and then they got frozen

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whoops

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huh interesting

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oh Amazon is definitely not frozen anywhere lol

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they're constantly hiring

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yup that's amazon

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yea amazon wages are actually pretty competitive in the US, same tier as G/FB

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microsoft pays a bit less in the US~~, and Oracle a fair amount less~~ huh apparently oracle wages better than I thought

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yea that's really odd

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none of the big tech companies are in the wrong ball park, they're probably in like a 25% or so band

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banks/non tech/small companies ofc pay somewhere between a bit and a lot less

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yea interesting differences in expectations

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best of luck, though honestly macro economic conditions make me pretty worried

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I was stressing a lot before I got offers recently

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lol that's pretty funny from a tech perspective, GPA requirements in tech aren't really a thing

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they do exist in finance tho

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culture diff is wild lol

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I don't think it's that different in the US tbh

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it was a really weird hiring environment, the labor market in tech was very tight 8 months ago, but suddenly all the big companies got spooked by inflation and macro factors and started slowing/freezing hiring

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lol good luck with that, UK politics seem almost as crazy as american politics from across the pond

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damn it is really interesting to see how different things are lol

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I mean the market is still doing decent enough if I could get a few very well comp'd offers, but it was definitely harder than it was earlier. most faang companies didn't consider me bc they stopped hiring (minus amazon basically)

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NYC is def the most interesting place to be from my POV, but the SF Bay Area isn't too bad from my perspective at least lol

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ah fair enough

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yea that limits you to NYC basically

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SF has some tech companies and some startups, but it's often just used as a catch all term for the SF Bay Area

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also people in the US are crazy and willing to accept stupid commutes

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my parents drove 1hr each way to work

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they made US tech money but had to live an hour driving away from work. and that's pretty normal

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almost everyone in the community I live in has a similar commute

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it doesn't make any sense to me, but somehow people put up with it

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see I'd accept an hour commute if I didn't have to drive and could read a book or something on public transit

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sitting an hour in a car 2hr a day sounds like torture

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lol I had an hour commute on public transit to some uni summer classes and it wasn't too bad. I wouldn't want to do it daily, but I'd consider if it I could save a bunch of $ on rent lol

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I don't plan on living more than 15 away from work tho cuz you don't really save that much rent living far away

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at least not for a 1bd

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for big houses and families it a bit different

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tbh don't know too much about european cities, probably would want to stick around major cities tho. Amsterdam/Berlin/Stockholm all sound nice, but my distinctive lack of dutch/german/swedish language skills may pose an issue

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I say Amsterdam mostly just because I've heard they have a neat biking culture

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was just looking on a map and it astounds me when a country has competent public transit 😂

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there's no equivalent express line from SF to well anywhere

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the US has one sorta high speed line on the east coast, nothing else

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I realize london - brighton isn't high speed by the rail sense, but it's pretty fast/direct/no traffic which is a lot more than what I can say about passenger rail in the US

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rail is almost always slower than driving here

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nice-- given I know next to nothing about european cities, I'll probably go where ever looks interesting and I can get work authorization at. if I wanted money I'd just stay in the states lol

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yea main thing is culture, public transit, and interesting cities

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just want to see something different while I'm young

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haha yea US gets a pretty shit rep for crime, which I suppose it deserves, but eh, people get by

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oh huh, is that just completely dead now?

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what happened to people working on the continent before they left the EU?

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oh alright good to hear they didn't get completely screwed

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yea people are silly

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oh man, actually that sounds rough, I'd guess a fair number of people retired somewhere cheaper in the EU

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ic

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technically yes but I guess I've grown accustomed to living in California

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I want to work in NYC for some time, but honestly doesn't seem like a great place to settle down

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the US has a lot of cheaper places tbh, doesn't make too much sense to retire in a high COL area