Should you work in big tech as a software engineer?
Deep dive into WLB for devs, comparing different type of employers
Happy 2025 everyone! :)
As I reflected on the content I put out in 2024, I tried to spot some patterns and figure out what I am about, and what I want to represent with what I do online.
The other day someone tagged me on LinkedIn in a list of authors he recommends in tech, and described me as follows:
What The European Engineer is about
I kind of liked the above description.
The second part is a bit reductive since the whole geo-optimisation topic is only one of the topics I talk about.
But I think the first one hits home: optimising your career from a financial and lifestyle perspective.
This is quite accurate, at the end of the day.
My content can be seen in 2 ways:
Showing devs in Europe how to get serious, high-paying careers - which is somewhat “straightforward” in the US, but more nuanced and harder to do in Europe.
Showing devs in general how to avoid having their career overshadow their life. Basically pursuing a career in a way that is functional to leading a fulfilling, fun and happy life. Instead of sacrificing your personal life just to have a successful tech career (quite common in the US).
Be your personal career manager
In the end, the way to achieve the above 2 goals, is to be good at navigating the market and getting yourself good deals for your skill set.
And that’s what my content should help you with.
In a way, this is the same thing I do in my coaching program - where I try to act as an “agent” and “coach” for my clients.
As well as in the paid articles of this newsletter and Euro Top Tech Jobs.
My message is not about “chilling” as a dev
I often say that "grinding for big tech promos" ain't great.
But you know what's worse?
Getting paid peanuts for 40 hours of your time every week, with no skills or career growth.
It CAN work for some people, if:
The job is chill
You like your colleagues
Your family has money
You don't care about having a remarkable career
But a lot of you won't like such a job.
So here's some alternatives:
Big tech
High-paying remote companies
Mid-paying companies with good WLB and flexible work culture
Engineering jobs in high-frequency trading firms
A "fake job" (<10 hours/week) paid little - if you don't need much in life other than free time
I wouldn't want young devs to misunderstand my content and take it as an excuse to be complacent in life.
I want you to be happy.
Slaving away for corporations won't make you very happy.
But renting out a large part of your life to employers that barely pay your bills is not better.
At the end of the day, it's about:
Finding the right balance for you.
Having enough leverage to land a great job (difficult to achieve without putting in hard and smart work).
Therefore, ultimately, my recommendation is to:
Put in the work
Get a good deal out of it
💪 💪 🌴 🌴
Big Tech good or Big Tech bad?
I’ve worked both in and outside Big Tech.
What's better?
IMO there's no clear winner.
Big tech companies are great for:
Learnings
Career growth
Pay
They can be less good for:
WLB
Politics
Competitiveness
Companies outside of big tech can be good for:
WLB
More authentic and less political work relationships
Stability
But can also have downsides:
Less talented colleagues
Slower career growth
Older culture i.e. caring about your working hours or dress code instead of your output
This is a broad categorisation - it's not as simple as "big tech vs non big tech".
But understanding if you want a big tech job can be useful, because these jobs require a specific type of preparation.
In general, this would be my recommendation:
Study the market
Learn about your preferences, values and work style
Create a list of target companies and roles
Build strategies to land such jobs
Using systems such as this one can help you in this process.
Companies’ categories
I mentioned how big tech vs not big tech is a broad and not so accurate categorisation.
Let me expand.
By big tech companies I mean tech companies (whose core product is tech, and where engineers are first class citizens) with:
Lots of funding and/or revenue
Large market capitalisation (billion-dollar companies)
Top of the market pay for engineers
They are attractive because they usually:
Develop cutting edge tech
Employ a large number of talented engineers
Pay very well
Give your CV some valuable branding
With that said, there are many other companies that can offer a lot of the goods that big tech can offer, but without some of their downsides (such as no WFH/remote or excessive politics and “performance reviews’ scaremongering”).
The remote companies in eurotoptechjobs.com are great examples.
Yet, these younger and smaller remote-friendly companies, might fell short in some cases when compared to big tech companies. Such as:
Sometimes having worse WLB (Ex: Kalepa). In fact, a lot of big techs can have very good WLB. With regards to this, it’s essential to choose the right team and org when joining a big tech company, and usually there are tradeoffs regarding WLB and career growth (for example, Meta is great for career growth but not so good for WLB, companies such as Cisco are the opposite, many big techs offer both options based on the team - that’s the case of Amazon, Google or Oracle, for example). Blind is a great place to figure out these aspects, hearing directly from people working in these companies.
Brand recognition: having a well-funded 2 years old AI startup on your CV isn’t the same as having a FAANG. It can be as good or even better (for example if you apply to startups operating in the same space), but they tend to have less broad recognition.
Other great options in terms of employment are high-frequency trading firms, or companies that offer mid-level pay (less than big tech but still 50-100k+ depending on the location) while giving great WLB and work flexibility.
If you’re interested, in some future articles we can dive deeper into these last 2 categories, or even expand on the first 2 (big tech and high-paid remote). Let me know!
For today, this is all. :)
Have a great start of the new year!
Whenever you're ready, there are 2 ways I can help you:
Euro Top Tech Jobs: 4000+ top paying tech jobs in Europe in addition to 80+ fully-remote companies paying $100-600k per year and private guides like this one.
Coaching Program: Check it out if you want to work 1:1 with me to boost your career as a dev in Europe or remote.
