Poland has become Europe's Top Place for Software Engineers
A deep dive
In the past couple of years I’ve been spending a lot of time in Central and Eastern Europe, and I’ve discovered a few things:
Great place to travel to from Zurich, as you have short direct flights to many capitals in the region.
Rich in history and culture, and in many ways still unspoiled from mass tourism.
Very affordable, compared to Western Europe.
Really good food options!
People are welcoming and friendly.
They are also serious and hardworking. It’s impressive to see how much countries in this region have developed over the past couple of decades.
Most countries here are extremely safe and have very good infrastructure and clean cities. I feel more safe going out here at night than in most big cities in Western Europe.
Partying in Eastern Europe is very good too! People definitely know how to have fun 🙂🥳
And speaking about Tech… I find the place to be extremely appealing to both engineers and founders alike. 🧑💻👩💼📈
My favourite city in Central Europe is Warsaw, Poland 🌆🇵🇱.
I see Warsaw as the capital of this part of Europe, and it’s personally the one I prefer to spend the most time in. For a few reasons:
It’s the capital of the fastest growing economy in Europe: Poland 🇵🇱.
Poland has had an incredible ride in the past 50 years, and to some extent it has experienced an “economic miracle”. Now it’s a leading country in the EU 🇪🇺 and it increases its international relevance by the day.Warsaw is one of the main Tech hubs in the continent, with a growing number of big tech companies and startups alike steadily increasing their presence here: Google, Waymo, Netflix, Bolt, Amazon, Snowflake, Oracle, NVIDIA are just some of the companies with an engineering office in the city.
The cost of living isn’t the lowest in the region but it’s still lower than most cities in Western Europe.
It offers all kind of amenities and services and it makes you feel like you’re living in a modern, bustling metropolis.
It’s safe and clean, and it has a great infrastructure.
It’s very international: people from every corner of Eastern Europe move here for opportunities, as well as people from the West (it’s among the most “western” cities in New Europe). It’s also full of Ukrainians and Belarusians who’ve brought their culture and businesses here, making the city even more interesting. I’ve met many people from India and the Middle East here too.
It makes you breathe a “can-do” and optimistic atmosphere. The city grows constantly and it’s full of opportunities and of people who want to do and build.
It has the best and most well connected airport in the region, making it easy to travel to and from here.
Why Warsaw is currently Europe’s best city for Software Engineers
Take a look at this job posting for a mid-level SWE position at Asana in Warsaw: https://t.ly/DcvPa
Base salary is 70k-100k eur.
Including bonus and stocks, total comp will probably be in the 100k-180k eur range.
Taxes will be around 30% total (because stocks are taxed at a flat 19% tax while salary for these ranges will be around 39%).
Considering that in Zurich the salary range for devs outside of big tech is 100k-150k eur, this is kind of crazy.
And Warsaw is full of companies like Asana. ALL of them EXPANDING.
Warsaw's CoL is about half of Zurich or London.
Let's checkout Warsaw's real estate:
Studio flat in center for 150k eur: https://t.ly/ki6DY
55 m2 flat in suburb for less than 200k eur: https://t.ly/yOs0f
I think with that mid-level Asana job, you should be able to buy a flat every year with a 20/80 mortgage, with rent covering for the mortgage installments.
Given Poland's economic boom, I don't think it's unlikely that the properties you buy in Warsaw today will be worth twice as much 10 years from now.
BTW... Most of these things are true for a lot of countries in Central Europe.
Poland is just the leader here, and Warsaw the capital.
I know a lot of people struggle to understand this new reality.
But don't think this is some kind of bs. This is very real.
If you want to get 4000+ jobs like this Asana one delivered to your inbox every week, in addition to a growing list of fully-remote jobs paying $100-$500 in total comp, checkout eurotoptechjobs.com
Poland is the best place in Europe to start a Tech Company right now.
Especially if you're bootstrapping.
Here’s why:
Low Taxation: 9% corporate tax if your profits are under 2M €/year.
“IP Box” Special Tax Regime: 5% corp tax if your company's product is an R&D-heavy software solution.
Low Costs: affordable accounting, company opening costs, office space, etc.
Top-tier IT workforce: if you want to hire the best devs in the world at the best price point, Poland is the place. All big companies are massively expanding their presence here.
Easy to retain and motivate talent: while you can get devs at a much better price than in the US, thanks to the LCOL, these devs will have absurd purchasing power, meaning it’s easier to make them happy and retain them.
EU country: and consequent easiness of doing business with other countries in the EU, which is one of the largest markets on earth.
Strategic location: close to other IT hubs such as Estonia, Romania, Serbia. You could for example expand in these close-by countries and hire there some of the best devs at a perfect price point.
Close to Western Europe: right next to Germany, close enough to Western Europe in general. Possible to access capital in the region.
Supportive environment: Poland is all about growth. Its population and its government value entrepreneurial people who want to build. Many people in Poland are building. You’ll feel in the right place at the right time.
Excellent lifestyle: much safer than Western Europe, excellent infrastructure, great schools and healthcare (especially if you go private, which is affordable), amazing restaurants, modern buildings, solid airports.
Great English skills: learning Polish could enhance your lifestyle, but it’s absolutely not required. Especially if you live in major cities.
Cosmopolitan big cities like Warsaw, full of skilled and talented Ukrainian and Belarusian people, as well as young talent from all over the world who recently moved there for better quality of life, lower costs, better job opportunities, better taxation and business friendliness.
Strong Defense: while Poland is close to Russia, it’s also investing heavily in its military and security, and in a few years it’ll probably be the strongest army in Europe. This should be a strong deterrent to any threat from the east.
Better Politics: I'm not a politics expert, but my impression is that the political class in Poland is quite skilled, especially relative to some other EU countries.
Strategic location pt.2: post-war countries, if they have the right fundamentals, can be great places to invest in. Post-war Ukraine has a great chance to become a growth hub, and Poland proximity to it can be strategical.
Rail Baltica: an under-construction rail-infra project that will tightly connect Poland to the baltics. Did you know that Riga, Latvia is one of the best property markets in the world?
Local salaries and fully-remote salaries are at the same level.
This means that, if you’re based in Poland, the pool of companies you can apply to is HUGE.
Not only Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw and Gdańsk have a large and fast growing number of top quality companies with office there...
But you can also target all the worldwide and Europe-remote dev jobs…
And be able to have great purchasing power and saving rates, thanks to the optimal cost of living and taxation in Poland.
If you are a freelancer, you can easily get a total tax burden of under 15% flat rate (including social security).
Having such a large employment market to benefit from (mix of local and remote), is a feature that very few locations in the world have.
For example, getting a remote job in Switzerland is not very attractive…
Considering that you’d have little tax advantage in being a freelancer over being a permanent employee, and considering the HCOL.
Poland is closing the gap with the US as a place to build wealth working in Tech.
By "wealth" I mean net worth in absolute terms.
Sounds crazy, I know.
But let's break down the math:
We'll be analysing the Net Worth (NW) growth in both places, for a dev working a decade in big tech: starting as an entry-level, and getting a promo every 3 years.
For the saving rates at each level, we'll use codecapitals.com
Saving rates in WWA (Warsaw):
3*20k (saving $20k/year as an entry-level big tech engineer, for 3 years)
3*35k
3*60k
Tot: $345k
Saving rates in SF (San Francisco):
3*55k
3*100k
3*160k
Tot: $945k
Investment:
For WWA, we'll invest in the local real estate market.
For SF, we'll consider both the S&P500 and the local real estate market.
I checked Perplexity.AI for economic forecasts:
S&P500 appreciation forecast over a 10-year period -> 7% annual return: 97% total appreciation
SF housing market -> Estimated increase over 10 years: 20-37% (I'll use 28%)
WWA housing market -> Estimated total increase over 10 years: 68-106% (I'll use 88%)
For the real estate investment, let's assume that the rental income will pay for all expenses including mortgage instalments, taxes etc. We'll just look at the price/appreciation.
SF engineer investing in the S&P500:
$945k capital.
97% 10-years return but let's say 60% because the money isn't deployed all at the beginning but year after year.
Net Worth after 10 years: $945k * 1.6 = $1.5M
To calculate the real estate returns:
C = Capital (945k for SF, 345k for WWA)
L = Loaned amount (30 years mortgage with 80% LTV ratio): 1.38M for wwa, 3.78M for SF
E = Equity gains while paying the mortgage: in 10 years we roughly re-pay 1/3 of the mortgage (i.e. 450k for WWA, and 1.3M for SF), but we repay it gradually over 10 years, so let's use 150k for WAW and 400k for SF, to complement the initial capital.
EC = C + E (~500k for WWA, 1.35M for SF)
CG = Capital Gains Tax: I'll use 19% for PL and 10% for Cali.
A = Appreciation over 10 yrs: cumulative rate since C is deployed gradually: 28% -> 18% for SF, 88% -> 60% for WWA.
Formula for NW after 10 yrs:
EC*(1+A) [the capital we own, that appreciates] - EC*A*CG [the capital gain tax we pay on the appreciation of the capital we own) + (L-E)*A*(1-CG) [the appreciation we get on the loaned amount, after CG tax]
For SF:
1.35M*1.18 - 1.35M*0.18*0.10 + (3.78M-0.4M)*0.18*0.9 = $2.1M
For WWA:
0.5M*1.6 - 0.5M*0.6*0.19 + (1.38M-0.15M)*0.6*0.81 = $1.34M
In summary, NW after 10 yrs:
$2.1M if SF + real estate
$1.5M if SF + S&P500
$1.34M if WWA + real estate
These numbers are already much closer than one would think.
The SF real estate strategy is riskier (the gains come more from a high leverage than from high returns).
The salary gap between SF and WWA is narrowing down, so the saving rates in both places will probably change in the next few years, in a way that favours WWA.
How is Poland as a place to live in? Apart from job market, salaries, taxes etc.
We'll focus on lifestyle, weather and culture.
1. Weather
If you can't stand cold weather, you won't like Poland in winter. It gets pretty cold (between -0 °C and -20 °C). If you like "real winter", you'll like it.
It snows, they have cute Christmas markets, their cuisine is well-fitting cold weather (lots of soups, vodka, etc), they have plenty of indoor activities and especially in big cities you won't get bored.
They have seasons, so if you're someone like me who likes that, then the weather is good.
Personally, I wouldn't like living in a place where it's always summer.
Also, coming from Southern Europe, I don't really like winter there: it doesn't feel like winter, it's a bit nasty because buildings aren't made for cold weather and you'll almost end up feeling colder there than in Poland (because of humidity and poor isolation).
Poland can also get a bit too grey in winter.
But I think with a few weeks in Cyprus, Turkey, Egypt, Morocco or Canary Islands, you should get enough sunshine.
Summers are nice but personally I prefer them in Switzerland, Greece, Italy, France or Spain, because of access to water (seaside/lakes/rivers).
2. Lifestyle
I've spent most of my time in Poland in Warsaw, so I can only talk about that really.
Life in Warsaw is that of a big city, so lots of things going on, plenty of people outside, etc.
It has that "work hard party hard" culture, which I like.
If you want it a bit quieter, I think smaller cities like Krakow or Gdansk or Wroclaw might offer that.
In Warsaw you have a huge offering of great restaurants, bars, clubs and exhibitions, so you'll never get bored and you can easily meet new people.
3. Culture
Someone once commented one of my posts saying that he didn't feel very welcome in Warsaw. That people were not very friendly etc.
I'm not sure I agree here.
I really like people in Poland. I never had any issue. Everyone always seemed welcoming, trustworthy and friendly to me.
It's a Slavic country though, so don't expect people to be laughing and dancing all the time as if you were in Sicily or Puerto Rico.
They can also be quite direct and to the point when talking.
Which is a type of communication I'm accustomed to, so it was never a problem for me. Actually I like it.
If you prefer a more southerner environment, you could look into the Balkans, where people can be more expansive and inclusive.
Romanians seemed very friendly and hospitable when I visited.
Serbians were probably the friendliest and most hospitable I've ever met.
And if you like a relaxed attitude and a very social society, I think Spain will be your best shot.
I added some pics in this article, to add a bit of texture to what I'm talking about. Hope you liked it 😄
If you want you can also check some of my LinkedIn posts on Poland which contain some videos too like this or this (the text content will be roughly the same as what I’ve shared on this article). If you like this “lifestyle” type of content, you can also checkout my ig, where I have some highlights and a couple of reels on various countries in Europe.
If you’re a developer based in Europe, or interested in moving to Europe, make sure to checkout:
My Job Board with over 4500 top-paying jobs in Europe and fully-remote jobs that can be carried out from Europe (or anywhere else): eurotoptechjobs.com
My exclusive Coaching Program to help you with level up your career as a dev in Europe. New edition will probably start in October 2024. If you’re interested in joining, now might be a great time so send me an email.
But smaller companies would often allow you to be independent contractor which means 12% tax :)
The tax rate for stocks issued when Employed is same as for Salary, it takes complex schemes to to have 19% on the stock grants (it applies to gains though)