Tech recruiter in Zurich here. I run https://coderfit.com and connect programmers with jobs in Zurich for a living. (I programmed for money before, so I know the market from many sites.)
Taxes are low, salaries high and things costs less than one thinks. Yet, the biggest downsite here is the lack of jobs. Zurich has only ~350.000 inhabitants and hence it can't have the same number of opportunities like London, NYC or the Bay Area. That leads to a high variance in pay. I have seen people being underpaid at 85k CHF a year as a senior developer and then going to 120k CHF just by changing companies but doing essentially the same work.
The difference to the rest of Europe became even bigger over the last 12 years.
I am a self employed tech recruiter here in Zurich and I can say that more and more people want to come here.
Taxes are low, salaries high and things costs less than one thinks. I run https://coderfit.com and connect programmers with jobs in Zurich for a living. (I programmed for money before, so I know the market from many sites.) If, you want to move here find my email in my HN handle.
Switzerland, Zurich has lots of tech jobs and great salaries.
It's not officially Europe but easy enough to work here if you have an EU passport / have 3yrs of industry experience. I'm on 200k here
I would disagree. Zurich does indeed pay very well, but it's very hard to get a job there, and salaries are only competitive with the Bay Area at lower levels. That means it's possible to find a job that pays 100k, but 300k compensation packages are far, far more rare than in the Bay Area. I don't know any company apart from Google that pays that much for senior engineers.
I tried to get a job there about 8 months ago, and I could only convince 3 startups to interview me (after I failed to get a job at Google), and I didn't get an offer at any of them. I failed one for "cultural fit", one because I didn't do well enough in the technical phone screen, and with the third one I decided to stop the process because I had another offer and was tired of interviewing. It's fine to not accept people for cultural reasons, but if there are 4 startups that are hiring in Zurich, that kinda sucks for candidates.
Also, recently Google started paying new engineers in Zurich lower than in the US (same salary, far fewer RSUs). I guess the lack of competition in the European market is a good enough reason.
Do you know any companies in Zurich hiring developers that pay Bay Area salaries (100k junior, 200k senior) and hire >100 engineers a year?
I've been a coder in Switzerland and now I run a tech recruitment agency: https://coderfit.com - I focus solely on Zurich and surrounding regions.
1. Engineers are similarly in demand as everywhere in Europe
2. I'd say the "cost of living" to "after tax salaries" ratio is unbeatably good
3. 100% remote work: not that popular; why would I pay you 130k CHF remote when I can get someone in Ukraine for $50k?
I had cases where firms wanted a Swiss (German speaking) person and they paid 140k CHF for fully remote but this was an exception.
Ping me for any further questions: iwan@coderfit.com or better just cold call me: +41 77 986 9000 (I am on any messenger app like Signal, Whatsapp etc.)
I'm swiss and work at a (not internationally known) software company in zurich.
1. Yes, you will find a lot of job offers
2. Compared to my peers not in the software industry the pay is excellent. To get a glimpse you can check https://swissdevjobs.ch/ for salary ranges. Note that this is a lesser known job board and will not have the big name companies on there.
3. Currently there is mandated remote work due to a spike in covid cases. My company has floated that they will require 50% office presence afterwards. But guessing from the sentiment in the industry, there will be plenty of companies allowing full remote.
Could you please elaborate on where to find 10-14K senior developer role opportunities in zurich? The ones I stumble upon are sensibly on a lower ballpark.
A tech job in Europe does not mean Berlin or London. Zurich has the ETH university and the biggest Google office outside the US. It is a great place to live and is the only place where net-salaries are on par with the Bay Area.
Salaries are in the range of 7000 - 10.000 CHF / month after taxes and apartments can be way cheaper than in San Francisco.
Zurich is expensive but als tiny. Almost everyone lives "in the suburbs" where the rents are half as much and which only means a 10-15 min commute[1] to town (using the superb public transport).
I am a technical recruiter with a software engineering background and I live in Zurich. You find my email address in my HN-handle.
- The biggest Google software engineering office outside California (around 2000 employees).
- Logitec, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco
- ETH university
- Many ETH-spinoff/startups: Doodle, Bitspin (bought by Google), Teralytics, Archilogic, Fashwell, Getyourguide, Numbrs and I surely forgot many others.
It is a great place to live and is the only place where net-salaries are on par with New York / SF. Salaries are in the range of 7000 - 10.000 CHF / month after taxes. However apartments can be way cheaper than in San Francisco. You find more on Zurich from me here: https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-t...
Also, if you have a EU-passport, you can find my email address in my HN-handle.
Although Zurich's software engineers are as expensive as those in the Bay area, Google employs 1500 of them and they bought a new building next to the main train station to hire hundreds of new ML / AI experts.
(Full disclosure: I am a programmer and I try to match programmers with Zurich's startups for a living.)
So, if you want to move to Zurich, you find my e-mail address in my HN-handle. Read more about Switzerland in my semi-famous blogpost "8 reasons why I moved to Switzerland to work in tech": https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-t...)
Or you could work for Google in Zurich, they apparently pay slightly more than in the bay area. Although that's nominally, after accounting for cost of living it may be less.
Swiss salaries on the German-speaking side for senior engineers are in the 120k-160k bracket (Zürich area, depending on skills and domain). Speaking German natively will also score you above a lot of the local developers (expats from many non-German speaking countries).
Taxes are much lower and quality of life is great, but also more expensive.
PM me if interested and I can hook you up with local recruiters. Remote work might be possible.
Taxes are low, salaries high and things costs less than one thinks. Yet, the biggest downsite here is the lack of jobs. Zurich has only ~350.000 inhabitants and hence it can't have the same number of opportunities like London, NYC or the Bay Area. That leads to a high variance in pay. I have seen people being underpaid at 85k CHF a year as a senior developer and then going to 120k CHF just by changing companies but doing essentially the same work.
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