Ask HN: Engineering Job Market in Switzerland?

32 points by catchmilk 4 years ago | 43 comments

My partner and I are thinking of moving to Switzerland to settle down and raise a family. Are there any engineers currently based in Switzerland than can shed some light on the current state of the job market there?

1. Are engineers in demand to begin with? 2. We're aware of how expensive Switzerland can be. Do the jobs pay well enough? 3. Even more interestingly - what's the current attitude in Switzerland towards 100% remote work? Is it primary office-based over there? What's the work culture like?

Any insights are much appreciated.

mikl 4 years ago |

I moved to Switzerland (from Denmark) almost a decade ago, and I’ve not regretted it.

1. If we’re talking software engineering, the demand is ultra-high. I’ve had to hire freelancers, because skilled software people are neigh-impossible to find.

2. Yeah, for engineers and other skilled workers, pay is very good, even the relatively high cost of living considered.

3. Before CV19, 100% remote was pretty rare. 1-2 days of home office was pretty common. Nowadays, things are a lot less defined, and given how desparate companies are to hire skilled ppl., you can probably negotiate something.

I’m not sure how to describe the work culture, but if you get into some tech start up in Zürich or Geneva, you probably won’t find it too foreign, and everyone speaks English well enough.

If you have a EU passport, you can generally get a work visa just by asking. If you’re from elsewhere, it’s a little more involved, but still manageable.

candiodari 4 years ago | |

Is there any site where you can find jobs and/or freelance opportunities in Switzerland?

mikl 4 years ago | | |

I’ve never really needed to look for work, but https://www.jobs.ch/en/ is one of the big ones. Lots of smaller portals too.

catchmilk 4 years ago | |

Thanks!

Are there any 'tech-specific' areas in Switzerland, or is it mostly just the big cities like Geneva & Zurich that have most of the tech jobs?

burundi_coffee 4 years ago | | |

Zug prides themselves in being the <strikethrough>scam</strikethrough> crypto capital of Switzerland.

mikl 4 years ago | | |

The two MIT-like schools in Switzerland, EPFL Lausanne and ETH Zürich are big tech hubs.

Also Google has a huge hub in Zürich, and most of the other big tech companies have offices there or in Zug. And as someone mentioned, there’s a lot of crypto-stuff going on in Zug.

eskimo87 4 years ago | |

Super interesting. Can you share what is the consulting/freelance rate going for skilled software people?

mikl 4 years ago | | |

Prices in excess of 1'000 CHF/day are not unusual if you get someone through an agency. Freelancer rates I’m less sure of, but they’re probably not far behind.

beingflo 4 years ago |

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.

iwangulenko 4 years ago |

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.)

908B64B197 4 years ago | |

> why would I pay you 130k CHF remote when I can get someone in Ukraine for $50k?

The Ukrainian dev would probably bill 130k CHF if he had the same skills...

caskstrength 4 years ago | | |

Contractor working from Ukraine could bill less because of low taxes for contract work (5%) and much lower CoL compared to Switzerland. But yeah, you are not going to hire anyone remotely competent for $50k in 2022.

sokoloff 4 years ago | | |

You would likely be surprised. There is a ton of strong software talent in the Ukraine and not quite as much demand as they’d probably like, with predictable outcomes in terms of the balance of market forces.

traspler 4 years ago |

I'm Swiss and worked at a couple of software companies, mostly smaller in size.

1. Engineers are highly sought after. The companies I worked for always had a hard time getting local people (and capable ones at that) and are pretty much continously searching. I'm hearing the same from friends at other companies.

2. Pay is very good, if you go for some of the larger companies or into the financial industry even better. (For swiss people, maybe can't compete with ridiculous silicon valley salaries.) Raising a family is pretty expensive though for everyday things, at least the schools and universities are cheap (and good) ;)

3. From my experience flexible working arragnements and remote work was hard to come by and often only allowed for maybe 20% of your work. Since COVID this has of course changed and we are currently forced to work from home. I think this also changed the attituded of many workplaces (at least I hope so) but it's not been a given for a long time. I can't compare work culture as I have never experienced it anywhere else but as others have mentioned, 42h workweeks are standard with 5 weeks of holidays (depending on the canton you move to you might also have more or less public holidays in addition to that).

The big cities are of course always the most expensive ones to live in but Switzerland has very well built out public transport that is also mostly on time so getting into the cities to work while living outside of the city is mostly a non issue if you are willing to spend the time traveling.

If you care about the FAANG titans, we have Microsoft and MS R&D in Switzerland, Google has their largest Software Engineer campus outside the US in Zurich and AWS is just moving in.

pkaye 4 years ago | |

> 42h workweeks are standard

Why is it 42 hours? That is not a typical 8x5 work week.

traspler 4 years ago | | |

I don't know how or why it has become 42, it just is. Mainly for medical professions it's even higher. We swiss have a bit of a strange relationship with work hours and holidays, when we had to vote on 6 weeks of holiday instead of 5 it was of course voted down... A lot of companies are still very old school so I don't have high hopes of getting any of the new experimental 6h workdays to try out here.

prashp 4 years ago |

If you're not white, don't move there. The Swiss culture is very unwelcoming to newcomers.

poulsbohemian 4 years ago |

Historically, getting an employer to sponsor you for a work visa has been the biggest challenge getting into Switzerland. It's generally been easier to get into Germany. Of course your nationality may be a factor here too in terms of which countries have various visa restrictions.

catchmilk 4 years ago | |

If one has an EU passport, do you even need a work visa?

0x008 4 years ago | | |

No. But you can stay only 3 months without a job, and up to 5 years with a job. After having worked for 5 consecutive years you can apply for permanent residency.

wwtrv 4 years ago |

What kind of engineering? Civil, electronics, aerospace, software, mechanical(watch)?

catchmilk 4 years ago | |

Apologies, should have mentioned - software.

polotics 4 years ago |

The 42 hours work week may come as a surprise to some. In many ways working in Zürich is more like working in Boston than in Paris, Madrid, Rome. (From experience end friends' recollections)