Switzerland vs Poland for Software Engineers
Story of a European dev who moved to Poland, then to Zurich, then back to Poland
Among the countries I talk the most about - praising them - are Poland and Switzerland.
If you’re new here, you might want to check out my:
Hypothesis of tech hubs moving from Western Europe to Central/Eastern Europe
Reasons for Poland having become a/the top place for devs in Europe
In the last of the above articles, you can see how I gave both Switzerland and Poland a 9/10 ranking, placing them both at the top of the ranking.
They’re both excellent countries to be based in as a dev nowadays, offering great pay, job opportunities, in addition to safety and quality of life.
Which one might be the best one for you, will depend on what are your priorities and what you value more.
In today’s article, we try to go deeper into the matter.
Intro
I actually know several people who have lived in both places, and me myself have lived in Zurich for years as well as having spent a good amount of time in Poland.
So, it’s a comparison I have a lot of familiarity with.
Unfortunately, it’s not easy to come up with a straightforward “yes or no” answer, regarding which of the two is the “best”.
Also, always keep in mind that everyone’s situation is different, and it could very well be the case that for your specific profile, some other location entirely will be a better fit.
(in my coaching program, among other things, I also help people find their ideal location to bet on, based on my experience researching, visiting and living in many of them)
Story of a EU dev who lived in both Zurich and Poland
That said, today we focus on the story of a top dev, who has experience with both countries, and wanted to share with me his journey and opinion about them.
His profile:
20+ years of experience
EU passport
In addition to his mother tongue, he speaks English, and some German and Polish
Most of his career spent in big tech companies (= high-paying top companies like Google, Meta etc - type of companies you can find at EuroTopTechJobs.com)
He worked in Western Europe at the beginning of his career, then got an offer for Google Warsaw about 10 years ago.
That’s when he relocated to Poland for the first time.
After a few years, he got an offer from a big tech company in Zurich, and consequently moved there.
To give an idea, this is a dev whose value/compensation in the Polish market is of about $100-300k, and about $200-500k in the Swiss market (with the lower part of the range being his pay some years ago, and the upper part being his current/future value on the market).
Basically, a top dev, who started out as a regular engineer, then entered big tech, then climbed the big tech ladder.
Comparing Zurich and Poland
This will be the bulk of today’s article.
I’m gonna share his perspective on how several aspects - that are important for most people’s lives - differ in Zurich and Poland.
I will also add some considerations of mine.
Cost of Living
Despite the high salary, he felt barely middle class in Zurich.
The city's high costs meant that even with a top-tier tech salary, catching up to locals who had inherited property etc seemed almost impossible.
In Poland, he feels at least middle/upper-middle class.
Affordable Luxuries and Services
Regarding cost of living, the biggest difference is the affordability of services, housing and luxuries: with them being much cheaper in Poland than in Switzerland.
Moving to Poland, enabled him and his wife to hire a full-time babysitter and a cleaning lady.
You can afford such things in Zurich too, especially at 400k+ household income levels, but they’re way more expensive than in Poland (3 to 4 times more).
If you’re making 200k in Zurich, you basically can’t afford to hire a full-time baby sitter.
Cost vs quality
«in CH you enjoy better affordability of gadgets (iphone, miele washing machine), travel abroad, etc. Housing is expensive, but you also get very good quality if you can afford to buy stuff.
Poland always had better affordability of services, baby sitter, hair cut. But sometimes the quality was a bit worse than in CH.» cit. him
«Regarding better quality of services - of course during a Swiss haircut for women (400+ CHF) you can expect that all tools & chemicals used are from top of the top of the shelf. So you will feel the difference in quality in many details. However, the question is if this is relevant. From my perspective, quality grows log-scale with money, meaning you get much better stuff for 10 Euro than for 5 Euro, but then to make the same improvement in quality you need to double again and again.» cit. him
I tend to agree with this.
Personally, I have quite high standards, and I like fancy stuff, and I think Warsaw gives you enough quality and luxury for a good price.
I think the higher standards that you have in Switzerland but not in Poland are mostly relevant if you’re either poor - as low-income people in Switzerland can still afford a good life - or mega rich - like 8 or 9 figures, not even simple millionaire (where you can afford things that Poland doesn’t provide).
If you’re a dev in Switzerland, you’ll likely live a similar life to someone working a low-income job there: shop at supermarket, rarely dining out, leisure time in nature (that it’s mostly free), some travels where your CHF will go a long way, etc.
It’s not a bad life, because a lot of the things that are high-quality there are free or accessible: low pollution, good roads and infrastructure, good healthcare, good schools etc.
But, IMO, if you’ve worked hard to become a top dev, you also want to be able to never cook if you don’t want to, hire a maid or baby sitter, cleaning lady, get stuff delivered to you, massages, personal trainer, private dental and healthcare treatments, etc etc.
For these things, Poland is better.
Switzerland, on the other hand, is likely to give you peace of mind, as the quality of things is usually high - not without exceptions though (for instance, my experience with the Swiss healthcare is mixed and can’t say that it’s all 10/10 across the board).
Social Life
For our dev and spouse, building a social circle proved challenging in Zurich - especially for the spouse (stuck at home with a newborn).
This is common and I’ve heard it from 90%+ of the expats I personally know who are living in Zurich.
Integrating with the Swiss society is very hard, and not very compelling, as locals prefer to stay in their bubble.
Moreover, given the high cost of childcare, and given the way tax deductions are set up for families, for many couples it’s better to have one partner to stay at home - which can consequently make it even harder for them to integrate.
Warsaw is bustling, dynamic and growing city, and opportunities to socialise there are way more than in Zurich.
Smaller cities in Poland are also good for this. Especially Krakow, Gdansk etc.
In my opinion, this is due to a few factors:
City size: Zurich is 400k people, Warsaw is 2M, Krakow about 800k.
Costs: going out in Zurich costs so much that people aren’t incentivised to go out a lot; in Poland going out is cheaper so people do it more often and ultimately end up socialising more. In Zurich the most common ways to socialise are sports and mountain activities.
Culture: Swiss people are traditionally closed-off, mountain-type people. They are somewhat open to foreigners and you can find many nice Swiss people, but a lot of them think Switzerland is the best country in the world and prefer to hangout among them than to “mix up with the foreigners”. Polish people aren’t as expansive as the Spanish or Latin ones, but still definitely more sociable than the Swiss.
What else my friend says about integrating in Poland:
«Easiness of integration - was really good 10-15 years ago since locals were keen on getting to know people from outside of Poland. Now you have to work a bit harder to get into the circles, but IMHO it is still much easier than in CH»
Language Barriers
Both countries provide challenges when it comes to languages.
While German will get you far enough in Zurich, the local dialect (the language that locals speak) is basically another version of German, and not easy to learn.
Polish can be easier to learn than German for Slavic people, and harder than German for Westerners.
With that said, in both places - if you live in cities like Zurich, Warsaw or Krakow - you can get by with English without problems.
Lifestyle
«One thing, food culture exploded in PL and now you can get a lot of exclusive food & dishes at mostly okay price level. While in CH you can get superb food, but usually at an insane price level (when going out to dinner eg.)
Outdoor activities are much better in CH (lakes, mountains, bicycle, ski, paragliding, etc). In Poland you have to drive longer or look much harder to find similar options.»
Growth Trajectory
The trajectory in Poland is steep upward.
In Switzerland, mostly stable: hard to grow a lot financially when you’re the richest country in the world, and more of a stable place.
«I realized the difference between Warsaw and Krakow within Poland. Warsaw is on a strong upward trajectory - as a center of business and politics
The war in Ukraine even gave that a strong boost. I am spending now more time in Warsaw, and I am deeply impressed by the dynamics and progressiveness. I now think Warsaw is way more dynamic and progressive than Zurich, also more cosmopolitan.
I now think Poland is the place you can grow faster resp gain a more relevant and diversified experience. There is more dynamics, but also a broader diversity of mind sets you can encounter there than in Zurich
In Warsaw business people from "east" and from "west" mingle. Ukraine, Russia, Kasachstan, but also France, UK, US mingle there.
A new melting pot.
I was on in the google office in Warsaw last week, and it was way more multicultural than Krakow google office was 10 years ago»
Offshoring
I talk about this all the time (check my old articles if you’re curious).
Regarding this, Poland is winning against Switzerland: tech hiring is clearly moving from one place to the other.
Pre-Pandemic Zurich was the best city in Europe to work as a tech worker.
Highest salaries in Europe, on par with the US
Companies expanding their presence, including Google, Meta, Apple etc
Little competition from other European cities
In the post-pandemic world things have changed.
Salaries in Zurich have effectively stagnated
One might argue that they have actually went down. For example, if you worked as a contractor, you could land gigs at 100-250 CHF/hour. Today you can forget about that and consider yourself lucky if you get 100-125 CHF/hour.Companies aren't expanding in Zurich anymore
Of course some companies might be growing in Zurich, but as a whole, the opportunities are reducing: more and more companies prefer to hire talent abroad in places like Portugal, Poland, Romania, Serbia, or Asia. This includes companies like Google as well as smaller companies.Remote work and offshoring have led to the growth of other tech hubs in Europe
Zurich is still a very appealing place to be based as a tech worker in 2024.
In 2015-2020, for most devs it would have been a no brainer.
Today, it's still a top destination, but it's not alone at the top.
I think Zurich has a lot of potential regarding deep-tech businesses or research, given that Switzerland is home to the best 2 technical universities in Europe (EPFL and ETH) and it has a somewhat high availability of capital compared to other European cities.
I think big tech will keep having a good presence there, and will keep paying the highest salaries you’ll see in Europe in absolute numbers.
Eliteness
People in Switzerland want to go to Poland and people in Poland want to go to Switzerland xD
«I also found that Polish people love the "exclusivity" feeling in CH. Based on a hate-love relationship with their home country.
CH gives you the feeling to belong to an elite circle. I can see this with my Ukrainian and Polish friends & colleagues.»
Networking
«Regarding networking - it is what you make it. Linkedin , zoom, discord etc give you a lot of leverage from home. Now I think of it about face2face, I think Warsaw gets the place to be.
To be honest, I think Warsaw closes up to Zurich, but both are dethroned by far from San Francisco etc»
In my opinion, both places are great for networking in Europe.
Which one you’d like more, will depend on your vibe.
I find Zurich to be more nerdy than Warsaw - even among people in tech.
Usually, people who like to go out and are more extroverted, prefer other cities to Zurich.
If you prefer to network in bars, clubs or restaurants, I’d say Warsaw has an edge.
If your ideal way of networking is to go on a hike or on a research/university event, then Zurich is better.
If you want to network outside of tech, for finance Zurich wins.
For the rest, it depends.
Warsaw is way more diverse than Zurich (being also much bigger), but I think you can still find many things and people in Zurich too.
Schools
«Schools/English schools - I have no good data points here. All my kids were on regular Polish schools and universities. Which are decent if you look at Pisa results. Most important to find a higher ranked school around your location
Meaning e.g. being in Silicon Valley does not automatically guarantee best education for kids, in the sense best school in Krakow or Warsaw might easily beat a lower ranking school in the silicon valley.
But schools is a very very deep topic, ranging from stem focus to making your child grow up emotionally strong etc. Waldorff, Montessori etc
And putting your kids into an super expensive elite school can turn them into badly spoiled brats.
Folks at Google or Facebook or Nvidia do mostly NOT come from the elite private (high) schools (yet from the better universitites).
It is politicians, CEOs, laywers that spent their childhood in expensive private schools.»
«There are factors that are the same important as the school itself. How much does the environment stimulate to learn. In Poland people saw STEM as ticket out of poverty. Once all your friends study hard to a competitive level, you follow suit and do the same (human behaviour is viral in many ways).
In India, China, Korea, massive competition among students for the many country wide exams and rankings. That seems to help in some sense to propel people forward.
That's why I want to avoid that my kids start to develop an entitlement attitude & thinking - this will hinder learning & success more than the exact school quality.»
«Schools make a lot of fuzz about how good they are. What superior approach they have (eg Waldorff). And then I try to see any kind of data that shows that their absolvents are disproportionally more hired at places with a high entry bar.
And usually that is actually not the case. Most people in good jobs come from very very diverse set of schools.»
I think his view here it’s interesting.
He’s optimising for his kids to grow up “strong” and able to compete internationally, and in this sense he’s not optimising to send them to elite institutions.
From my research on this topic:
If you want your kids to have an international background, quality English-speaking private schools are much more affordable in Poland than in Switzerland (15k vs 40k+).
Public schools are more reliably “good” in Switzerland than in Poland (they’re also good in Poland but you need to do more work in filtering good and bad ones).
Maybe Switzerland has an edge when it comes to “western things” like emotional safety etc.
Public services / bureaucracy
«Dealing with the "urzad" (i.e Polish public or government) - it got much better in PL. But all depends on your luck, whom you meet etc
CH are surely a tad more international. You can negotiate with them, at least occasionally. But beware if you upset them. Then you see you woke up the dragon.
Again, experiences are very very diverse.»
Zurich as a geo-arbitrage, early-career play
«If you are single, with no family or partner, living in a shared flat in Zürich and eating five days a week in the Google canteen (breakfast, lunch, and dinner), you can live on 2,600–3,000 CHF per month - if you live frugally -, and earn 10k CHF per month, possibly more with stocks. Do that for 5–8 years and return to Poland with enough money to semi-retire.»
This is actually similar to what I mentioned in my article about how to FIRE in Europe as a dev.
Upsides of Zurich (in his opinion)
Ultra-beautiful landscape, outdoor activities, and sports
Super well-connected airport
Trains to Germany, Italy, and France
Ticino in 2–3 hours—spending weekends at Lago Maggiore
Downsides of Zurich/Switzerland (in his opinion)
Hard to build up a social circle, especially with Swiss natives
You mostly stay within the expat community
Partially rigid rules governing your lifestyle (e.g., when to put the waste bin out, no washing machine on Sunday, etc.)
Prices
Geopolitics
Maybe it’s just me, but I think we’re living in pretty tense times right now.
War in Ukraine, Palestine, now even in Lebanon.
Growing tensions between Russia and the West.
Growing tensions within single countries, like UK, Germany, Netherlands, USA, etc.
Maybe Taiwan.
In this sense, Switzerland offers more stability than Poland.
But it’s also worth noting that Switzerland nowadays is less neutral than it was in the past, and it’s taken NATO’s side.
Probably, being based in Poland, with the option to relocate somewhere out of the radars (Portugal, Latin America, Iceland, Oceania) in case things start to go crazy, is as good or better than just being based in Switzerland.
Conclusion
This was a BIG rant-type article xD
It’s an interesting topic though.
I will try to create a more polished comparison among the two countries sometime in the future.
If you’re curious about other countries, or topics in general that you’d like me to touch, let me know!
Also, if you’re a dev in Europe and have an interesting story regarding your life and career here, maybe as a big tech dev, high-paid remote worker or anything that could be interesting to the audience of The European Engineer, let me know! And we can create a guest article for you too :)
Whenever you're ready, here are 2 ways I can help you:
EuroTopTechJobs.com: My job board with 4000+ top-paying dev jobs in Europe and a growing list of high-paying fully-remote tech companies. Includes total compensation and saving rates data. The companies provide relocation.
My Coaching Program: Hire me to help you land a well-paid tech job in Europe, move to Switzerland, get a big tech job, go remote and optimise your taxes and lifestyle, plan the next few years of your tech careers, etc.
