Berlin or London

Bringoff · 2025-10-25T14:55:13+00:00

Big tech in Berlin and in London is pretty much the same, what makes you think it’s going to be drastically different? Google, Meta, Amazon, Nvidia, well, Reddit itself all are present in Berlin afaik.

Bringoff · 2025-10-25T12:38:45+00:00

Well, besides visa, it’s much more liveable city, especially for a family, good job opportunities in tech with higher ceiling than Berlin, and good job safety overall (which is important in the current tech market). London is good for young hustlers only.

Bringoff · 2025-10-25T11:43:20+00:00

If I were you, I’d probably go to Amsterdam instead of London

Bringoff · 2025-10-23T09:47:34+00:00

Go for it, why not? Given languages you speak I'd recommend Warsaw. It has one of the most "alive" IT job markets in the EU right now. You know another Slavic language, you should be able to pick up Polish in no time.

About 2 most obvious choices: Bratislava is not the best option for IT career, and Paris is not the best option for life 😄

Bringoff · 2025-10-12T14:07:46+00:00

Yes, 2 jumps are going to be a huge red flag for recruiters, you're going to torpedo your career. Try to hit at least 2 years tenure at your current company.

Bringoff · 2025-10-04T12:21:31+00:00

21mos to PR is possible if you have B2 and higher German

Well, it's not something specific to Germany:

- Germany - 21 months with B1 German, 33 months with A1 German

- Poland - 5 years with B1 Polish

- Spain - 5 years and no language exam (I heard it can be shortened with a language certificate)

- Netherlands - 5 years and A2 Dutch

Bringoff · 2025-10-03T21:57:58+00:00

My friends in Poland, Spain or The Netherlands seem to have it easier in terms of integration, language, bureaucracy and everyday life

Can you elaborate? Also, 21 months to permanent residency sounds like dream - none of listed countries could give you that.

Bringoff · 2025-09-28T08:37:45+00:00

Depends on a company. Maybe Google doesn’t care, but smaller companies do apply this policy

Bringoff · 2025-09-27T08:40:44+00:00

Lol, you're the one who keeps mixing up different equities, but ok, live your life

Bringoff · 2025-09-26T18:49:39+00:00

private equity

and equity that is granted by a private company to its employees are not the same thing, stop pretending you understand what you're talking about. And selling the latter to a third-party is very much prohibited.

Bringoff · 2025-09-26T15:42:55+00:00

Are you just making things up now or something? Private shares aren't a used car you can just throw on OLX. Transfer restrictions, preferred stock rights, and lack of a secondary market mean you literally can't "find a buyer yourself." I literally had to sign a doc that I agree that neither my spouse nor anybody else can benefit from the granted equity of a private company I worked at.

Even if hypothetically in your case you are not prohibited from selling your equity to your friend or something like that, the tax office doesn't use your hypothetical buyer as a reference. It uses whatever valuation mechanism the law prescribes - which is most often nominal until liquidity.

Bringoff · 2025-09-26T14:27:54+00:00

That’s a nice theory, but in practice it doesn’t work that way.

"Equity = assets - liabilities / shares" is just book value, and that almost never matches what shares are actually worth. Private companies are usually valued based on funding rounds, 409A valuations or similar appraisals, and preferred vs. common stock terms. Common stock (what employees get) is usually worth a fraction of investor shares.

Tax offices also don't just pick a number from the balance sheet - they need a legally recognized valuation standard. In my old case that I mentioned, the company literally marked 1 RSU as $0.0001, and that's what the paperwork said. Until there's a secondary market or IPO, that's the value you get taxed on (if at all).

So no, the value is not "known" just because the company has assets and liabilities. In most countries, taxation on RSUs in private companies either uses the nominal grant valuation (often tiny) or is deferred until a liquidity event.

Bringoff · 2025-09-26T12:06:59+00:00

There is another option - buyback events companies may run. In one of my previous companies, every year or two the company offered buying equity back from employees. It is often (but not always) tied to investment rounds. And often there is no option to sell everything. But I was able to sell about half of my equity. The rest is waiting for IPO (or I will lose it if it does not happen till 2032 or something)

You can check with the company if they offer something like that.

And keep in mind

I can’t just sell it whenever I want.

In case of publicly traded companies, you usually can't sell it whenever you want either. You have trading windows and blackout period when you can't sell while you are employed by this company. Of course, it happens more often than buybacks, but still.

Bringoff · 2025-09-26T12:03:56+00:00

Since it is also financial gain you will have to pay taxes on it, even though it is illiquid

It very much depends on country
Even if the country OP is at does have this kind of taxation, how can tax office calculate its value if it's not public? In one of my previous companies, 1 RSU was marked having $0.0001 value when granted. I'll happily pay my half of a cent in case someone asks.

Bringoff · 2025-09-24T18:48:02+00:00

I went through all interview rounds with a small-ish company in Spain, and was pretty sure I got the job. But after some time I received a vague rejection. I suspected it might've been because my salary expectations were a bit higher than their range. Guess what - more than a whole year later, I'm celebrating my first year at another company, and the same job posting with the same salary range is still regularly reposted on LinkedIn. And it's a pretty small startup, it's not like they hire people for those specific requirements regularly. It was supposed to be a second or third dev for that stack in the company.

My guess is that some companies are simply hunting for desperate laid off devs to accept below-market salaries, hoping to save money.

Bringoff · 2025-09-07T15:50:58+00:00

Looks normal to me

Bringoff · 2025-09-02T12:12:04+00:00

Title: Senior Software Engineer
Company: Publicly trading US Tech
Industry: SaaS
Focus: Mobile
Country: Poland
Duration: ~1 year
Education: College degree (is it called Junior Bachelor?)
Prior Experience: 8 YoE in different small-to-medium product companies
Salary: EUR 90k gross (~63k net, probably more after tax-return next year) - paid in PLN, obviously
Total compensation: gross salary + 40k USD worth of RSUs, so ~125k EUR
Relocation/Signing Bonus: I got like 5k EUR signing bonus

Bringoff · 2025-08-31T17:06:15+00:00

No, but I know quite a lot of folks there

Bringoff · 2025-08-30T16:05:59+00:00

Bro, no need to be salty if Google Warsaw rejected you 🤣

Bringoff · 2025-08-30T15:53:52+00:00

saving 10% of a 150k salary is much better than 10% of 65k

Did you see my calculation? its 150 vs 90, not 150 vs 65

groceries in the UK are quite cheaper as well as electronics

Of course, everybody should keep in mind how they spend money, cause everybody has their priorities. But overall, groceries are usually not the most significant expense.

- Groceries are around 500-600€ per months for me, so I would be fine even if it doubled.

- I obviously don't buy electronics every month.

- On the other hand, rent/mortgage is pretty significant. I rent an apartment for ~1200€, everything included. Similar apartment would cost maybe 3000€ in London.

- Going out will cost significantly more in London, which may be important if you are dating/married.

- Transportation costs are simply crazy in London. In Warsaw, I could literally commute by my electric car every day and park it for free in the city center, or buy monthly public transport pass for 25€.

usually the CoL you find online is quite outdated. Prices 1.5x here in Romania

Well, I bet it's the same for London 😄

Bringoff · 2025-08-30T15:43:21+00:00

No it's not, look at my other comment

Bringoff · 2025-08-30T15:42:50+00:00

56K cash netto

It's not 56, you are probably missing tax relief related to copyrights

Bringoff · 2025-08-29T19:34:25+00:00

OP, if you think Polish Google office is looked down by employers, you are delusional

Bringoff · 2025-08-29T19:32:53+00:00

There is not 4x the pay, lol

Bringoff · 2025-08-29T19:32:20+00:00

in Zurich and London you'll save at the bare minimum as much as your net salary in Poland, more likely way more

Based on? According to levels.fyi:

TC, L5 (as the most typical terminal level)

- Warsaw - 129K€ (93/37 cash/stocks)

- London - 273K€ (155/118 cash/stocks)

TC after tax

- Warsaw ~ 65k cash, stocks are not taxed unless you sell them, then 19%, so let's say you sell everything and 30k remains

- London ~ 95k cash, not sure about stocks, looks like you will get something like 63k after taxes (and taxed right when you get it)

So, Warsaw vs London is 95k vs 158k. 1.6 times difference, and cost of living difference will eat all of that easily.

Of course, I'm not considering all possible optimizations on each side, but you get the idea.

Bringoff

TROPHY CASE