Euro Top Tech Jobs - Week 29
Hand-picked roles + Big Tech Ladder Climb Diss
My financial goal used to be reaching $500k-$1.5M Total Compensation (TC).
Then I realized:
At those levels, taxes hit 40-50%, even in Switzerland or the US.
The fact that some of it goes to pensions didn't make it much better for me.
Responsibility, pressure, and workload also substantially grow at these levels.
So I asked myself:
-> “Is it worth grinding for $500k+ if I only keep half and need to work my *ss off for it?”
There’s more:
These high salaries are only available in high-cost-of-living locations.
$500k doesn’t feel like much when it nets $300k—and you’re living in an expensive city.
The alternative?
Freelancing with tax rates of 5%-15% (totally possible in Europe).
Location flexibility, since most IT freelancers aren’t tied to one place.
Here’s my take:
-> The full-time software engineering grind makes sense early in your career, especially if you can reach $100k-$250k TC in a high-paying market.
This allows you to get some financial safety while you build up your skill set.
But beyond that, there are better things to optimize for:
Freelance/business income (more tax-efficient and rewarding)
Time and location freedom
WLB, relationships, hobbies, and overall life satisfaction
Some hand-picked roles from this week’s EuroTopTechJobs.com update:
Disclaimer: In the above section, I “dissed” big tech ladder climbs (→ grinding for decades to reach a fancy title in a big corp only to give half of the income away to taxes and lack freedom and agency in your life), but I carefully specified that early in one’s career - or until a certain level of the ladder (which can be different for everyone) - it can very well be worth it. It can allow for things like this, for example.
Getting into big tech is very hard though!
Most people underestimate this, because a lot of content creators out there are selling a “dream” (or a data structures and algorithms course).
The truth is that it’s super competitive.
Your competition for junior roles, for example, is:
Top uni grads
Grads with big tech internships, research papers, published apps/sites etc
For mid/sr roles it’s even worse.
That’s why btw I always recommend getting in through internships.
How to “cheat”?
One way to “cheat” and get into big tech more easily, is to target roles with lower than average competition.
This can be in locations with a lot of openings and expansions, and fewer candidates.
In Europe, this usually is Central or Southern Europe.
So today I’ll be sharing some of these “less competitive” big tech roles, that you can go after if you want to increase your chances!
Intern roles
Mid/hard mode
snowflake berlin https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4055775191/
databricks berlin https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4012062801/
Location is semi-hard mode, but both companies are hiring a lot, which means they’re hiring more easily.
Easier mode
snowflake warsaw https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4064927150/
pinterest warsaw https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4026416981/
microsoft tallin https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4101154375/
Poland → easier mode
New grad roles
Hard mode
databricks amsterdam new grad https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4023888460/
twilio ireland new grad https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4101153244/
meta london new grad https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4096860758/
They’re all companies hiring significantly and that’s good, but new grad big tech is the hardest to land because of the high competition.
Easier (but not easy) mode
pinterest warsaw https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4093038064/ https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4093038064/
belgrade serbia https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4035265070/
atlassian gdansk poland https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4089542007/
amazon aachen germany new grad https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4099249001/
google cracow https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4097004113/
google warsaw https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4102502940/
oracle czechia https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4101768271/
microsoft czechia https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4099779319/
oracle spain https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4102775379/
Bonus: People usually snob “consulting” in tech (often, for good reasons), but consulting roles in big tech can be a good catch
Here’s why:
You get paid well (almost the same as in engineering)
You have less competition (because tech folks snob consulting)
You also learn some business and communication which can be useful in life
Here’s a few such roles:
grafana sweden https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4103510836/
elastic germany https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4101266315/
microsoft hamburg https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4103087998/
microsoft germany https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4099780293/
That’s all for this week!
Have a good weekend and enjoy Christmas :)
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