DEV Community: SwissDev Jobs

Greatest possibilities thrive near the Alps — 2023 IT Job Market Report

SwissGreg — Mon, 20 Nov 2023 14:09:56 +0000

The 2023 IT Job Market Report is a helpful source for people interested in the IT field. It gives information about things like salaries, working from home, artificial intelligence, how companies hire, and what's coming up in the Swiss tech world.

1. Salary stats in 2023

Switzerland is a fantastic place for tech experts. Software Developers there usually make about 106,000 CHF per year, with the most common salary being 105,000 CHF.

The cities where Software Developers earn the most are Bern, Zug, Zurich, and Geneva, with salaries ranging from 104,900 CHF to 140,000 CHF. On the other hand, cities like Lugano, Schaffhausen, and Chur have lower average salaries, ranging from 86,800 CHF to 120,000 CHF. These are just average numbers, and your actual pay can vary based on different factors. Switzerland’s tech job market is known for being innovative, having talented professionals, and offering great pay, which makes it a sought-after destination for IT experts worldwide.

2. AI powered revolution

AI tools are becoming more popular in workplaces. About 13% of the people surveyed use them a very often, and almost half use them to some extent. However, a big group of people hasn’t started using AI tools yet, and 6% aren’t sure if they should. Many of the people who use these AI tools find them helpful, and a lot of them think they are somewhat useful. Only a small group of people don’t use these tools at all, and very few people had a bad experience with them. Overall, most people feel positive about AI tools at work.

The data also shows us how much people trust code made by AI. A significant 61% said they always double-check code made by AI, which means they are careful. On the other hand, 25% said they trust AI code but still check it carefully, showing they are getting more confident in what AI can do. Interestingly, a small group (4%) said they completely trust AI-generated code, which means they have a lot of confidence in these tools. Some people believe AI can create code without needing much checking. What’s even better is that most employees (85%) believe their jobs won’t be taken over by AI soon. So, it looks like we won’t be replaced by robots after all!

3. State of Remote Work

The survey found that a lot of people like having choices in their work, such as the option to go to the office. Not everyone has a quiet place to work at home, so 30% of them either want to be able to work from anywhere in their country or are fine with working from home. In today’s world, many think that the way we work, with a mix of office and remote work, is going to be the norm, and going back to how things were a few years ago is becoming less likely.

What’s interesting is that a big 93% of the people in the survey can work from home at least one day a week, and almost half of all respondents (49%) can work entirely from home without going to the office. This data shows that remote work options are becoming more important, giving professionals the flexibility they want in the changing world of work. Who knows, maybe in 10 years, the traditional office might be something we only see in museums.

4. Changes in the recruitment process

Nowadays, candidates often have common complaints. The main issues are: not getting feedback (33% of candidates), having too many interview rounds (39%), and not knowing the salary (26%). These issues can be frustrating and make the job search a bad experience. Companies that care for their future employees should work on these problems to make the job search better and attractive process. These things are more important than benefits like free snacks or ping-pong tables at the office.

Now, switching topics, the data also shows interesting things about developers. Surprisingly, 20% of them start learning to code before they’re 14 years old, which means there are young coding talents in Switzerland. But it’s also good to know that you can learn coding during university or even later in life. It’s never too late to pick up new skills. More than 20% of respondents started programming after the age of 25.

Lastly, when it comes to retiring from work, most people want to retire before they’re 65. Only 20% want to keep working longer. The ideal age to retire seems to be between 45 and 65, with a big 30% hoping to retire even earlier. That’s not surprising, is it?

5. Conclusions

In a nutshell, the IT job market, here in Switzerland, is an exciting place filled with opportunities and innovation. This region is a leader in technology in Europe when it comes to things like salaries, remote work, and how companies hire. Whether you’re a tech enthusiast, a professional, or just curious about the tech world, these insights show that the best opportunities are right here in the Swiss Alps.

If you want more detailed information and a thorough analysis, you can check out our 2023 IT Job Market Report. It’s like a treasure chest full of data and insights about the Swiss tech scene, helping you keep up with the latest trends. As this industry shapes the future of work, we’re excited to see how tech experts from all over the world will thrive in this dynamic environment.

If you enjoyed the article — thank you!
Originally published at swissdevjobs.ch

Autobahn to career - 2023 DACH IT Job Market Report

SwissGreg — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 20:39:20 +0000

The 2023 DACH IT Job Market Report is a comprehensive and insightful resource for anyone interested in the German and Swiss Tech Industry. This article offers insights on salaries, remote work, AI, recruitment changes and the future of the DACH tech landscape.

1. Salary stats in 2023

German IT job market salaries

In Germany, Software Developers typically earn around 62,100 EUR a year, with a median salary of 60,000 EUR.

Let's talk about the top and bottom-paying tech fields. Security, Data, Python, Golang, and DevOps are the high earners, with average salaries ranging from 63,800 EUR to 79,500 EUR. On the flip side, fields like Mobile, JavaScript, System, .NET, PHP, UX/UI tend to pay less, with average salaries between 54,000 EUR to 60,500 EUR. Keep in mind, that these are average figures, and what you actually earn can vary depending on factors like where you work, your experience, and the size of the company. Turns out the security is doing really well, even compared to popular programming languages.

Swiss IT job market salaries

Switzerland is a dream destination for tech experts. Software Developers there typically earn around 106,000 CHF a year, with a median typical salary of 105,000 CHF.

Additionally, the cities with the highest average salaries for Software Developers in Switzerland are Bern, Zug, Zurich, and Geneva, offering salaries from 104,900 CHF to 140,000 CHF. On the other hand, cities like Lugano, Schaffhausen, and Chur have the lowest average salaries, within the scope of 86,800 CHF to 120,000 CHF. These figures represent averages, and your actual pay can also vary depending on various factors. In Switzerland's tech job market, innovation, talent, and great pay come together, making it a promised land for IT pros all around the globe.

2. AI powered revolution

The workplace is seeing an increased adoption of AI tools, with 12% of respondents reporting extensive use and almost half using them to some extent. However, a significant portion is yet to embrace AI tools, and 6% are uncertain about their usage. These AI-based tools are viewed as valuable by many respondents, with a substantial number finding them somewhat useful. Only a small percentage of those surveyed don't use any of these tools, and very few report a negative impact, indicating overall positive sentiments.

The data also sheds light on the level of trust in code generated by AI tools. A significant 62% of respondents reported that they always verify AI-generated code, showcasing a cautious approach to AI tools. In contrast, 24% indicated they generally trust AI-generated code but do so cautiously, indicating a growing confidence in AI's capabilities. Interestingly, a small minority (4%) expressed complete trust in AI-generated code, revealing a high level of confidence in these tools' capabilities. This demonstrates that a portion of users has full faith in AI tools for generating code without extensive verification. What's even more reassuring is that the majority of employees (83%) are confident that their jobs won't be replaced by AI in the near future, maybe we won't be replaced by robots after all?

3. The state of Remote Work

According to the survey, many people appreciate having choices, including the option to go to the office. Not everyone has a quiet place to work at home, so 30% of them want to be fully location independent within their country or are happy with working from home. In today's world, many believe the hybrid work model is here to stay, and going back to the way things were a few years ago is becoming less likely.

What's more, a significant 93% of survey participants can work remotely for at least one day a week, with nearly half of them being able to work entirely from home without going to the office. This data shows the growing importance of remote work options, offering professionals the flexibility they desire in today's changing work environment. Who knows, maybe in 10 years, office, as we know it, will be just another museum.

4. Changes in the recruitment process

In the job market, candidates often have common complaints. The top issues being: a lack of feedback (33% of candidates), too many interview stages (38%), and no salary information (27%). These concerns can be discouraging and lead to a negative candidate experience. The report stresses that companies should address these issues to enhance the candidate experience and attract high-quality employees. They can do this by providing timely feedback, being transparent about the number of interview stages, and sharing salary information. It's much more valuable than Sweet Mondays and the ping-pong table.

Shifting gears, the data also reveals interesting facts about developers. Surprisingly, many start their coding journey before age 14, showing there are young prodigies in Switzerland. However, it's reassuring to know that mastering coding can occur during university studies or even later in life. Learning new skills is never too late, as some developers found their passion for coding after turning 35.

Lastly, when it comes to retirement, most people prefer to retire before age 65. Only 20% want to work longer. The ideal retirement age seems to be between 45 and 65, with a significant 30% aiming to retire even earlier. Actually, it is hardly surprising, is it?

5. Conclusions

In summary, the DACH IT job market is a dynamic hub for tech professionals, full of opportunities and innovation. From earnings to remote work and hiring practices, it's clear that this region is a tech leader of Europe. Whether you're an enthusiast, an IT pro, or just tech-curious, these insights will prove that the greatest possibilities thrive near the Alps.

For in-depth statistics-packed and a comprehensive analysis, dive into our 2023 DACH IT Job Market Report. It's your key to understanding the DACH tech scene and staying updated on the latest trends. As this industry shapes the future of work, we eagerly anticipate the contributions and successes of tech experts from around the globe in this dynamic environment.

If you enjoyed the article - thank you!
Originally published at germantechjobs.de

🚀SwissDevJobs.ch - a transparent job board for Software Developers

SwissGreg — Wed, 05 Feb 2020 15:23:46 +0000

Dear DEV's,

After over a year of development, testing in production😉 and adding over 290 transparent tech jobs, we are happy to officially announce SwissDev Jobs.

If you now roll your eyes, thinking 'great, yet another job board' - please hold on for a second and let us tell you the story behind it:

SwissDev Jobs started in 2018 in Switzerland ⛷️🏔️ as a side-project, because we have been frustrated with the existing job boards.

We built a job board that we would use ourselves as Software Developers.

The result?

Detailed view:

What makes it unique?

Transparency🔎 - each job posting must have salary brackets and even more important, the methodology info (do they have integration tests, are there QA people)
Usability❤️ - you should be able to filter your target jobs with just 2 clicks and can check their location on the map
Information💻 - every posting is standardized and includes the really important information about the company and the role itself.

Of course, it is your opinion that counts - head up to SwissDevJobs.ch, click around and tell us what you think!

We are very grateful for your feature requests and bug reports 😉

Help us build a more transparent IT-job market!

How to add internationalization 📙 to your React App ⚛️ in a SUPER-simple way

SwissGreg — Mon, 23 Dec 2019 09:22:01 +0000

If you want to translate your Single Page Application to other languages without much hassle - this short guide might be for you.

Internationalization (i18n for short) is not a trivial topic and it is perfectly fine to avoid it unless you need it 😎

At SwissDev Jobs we came to the point where we would like to not only have an English version of our website but also German, French and perhaps Italian (Switzerland has 4 languages to support).

I18n is a new topic for us, so we started researching how to do it in a React application with 2 criteria in mind:

Easy learning curve - we do NOT want to spend next 4 weeks learning a new framework or library but want a solution that works NOW
Minimal impact on performance - adding i18n should not blow our bundle size or make the app slower

During the research, we quickly noticed that the existing popular frameworks do not met those requirements.

For example:
react-intl (probably the most popular i18n library for React with over 11k stars on Github) has a minified bundle size of 46.6 kB and a lot of features that we don't need.

As we continued our research, we asked ourselves - what is really needed for supporting multiple languages and then it struck us:

We only need a 2 level dictionary.

How do you implement a 2 level dictionary?

How do you use it?

Of course, you can put the actual translations in separate files but you get the idea.

This way you have created your own, super-simple i18n service 🌍

I am fed up with answering the same questions in interviews! - Are you too?

SwissGreg — Mon, 09 Dec 2019 09:22:29 +0000

DevRecruitmentThoughts

One of the frustrating things with the current state if tech recruitment is the repetition in interviews with different companies.

In the couple of interviews that I went through I ended up explaining the garbage collector in Java in at least 4 companies and had to answer: what are generics in Java? at least 3 times.

This problem is not easy solvable because each company needs to check if the candidate is competent.

One solution might be having some sort of knowledge / skill proof that you do once and just show it to the company, so that the interviewers can focus on the more specific question.

One caveat: I don't mean here a certification or a state exam but more like a real skills vetting process. (perhaps a coding session)

Now, there are a few problems with such an approach:

who should organize it and how the companies could trust this organization
should one be allowed to repeat the test more times?
how do you make sure that it verifies the skills that are important?

They are not easy to solve but if they would be, the industry would benefit from it immensely.

What is your opinion?

How to improve the hiring process in tech industry?

SwissGreg — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 09:21:53 +0000

Dear developers👩‍💻, recruiters🕵 and companies🏢,

I am a software developer.

In the last few months I have been in the process of looking for a new challenge.

I was able to find a great team and interesting project😍 but this post isn't about it.

It is about the job search process itself.

What I have to admit, is that the recruitment process was quite demanding and time-consuming.

It required the coordination of several phone calls, phone interviews, and onsite meetings.

I often found myself repeating answers for the same questions:

What is my motivation?
What technologies do I know?
Why I am applying to this company?

Looking from the other side, I was probably just one of many candidates in the big sea.

Could it be done better? I bet it could!

It seems that the job search process is (not only in the IT industry) in some parts broken or bad designed.

I am happy to share my insights about the recruitment process from a Software Developer perspective and tell what made me pick one company and say “Thank you”👎 to the others.

Let's start with the issues I found quite annoying:

The first annoyance is hearing the same questions across interviews at a company. (e.g. "What is your motivation for applying?").

Now, I understand that some information can get lost in the across multiple interviews but, dear companies and recruiters, please try to make it a consistent narrative and make sure that you are up to date with the notes from the previous meeting or call with the candidate.

It is beneficial for both you and the candidates to get to know each other better during the interviews.

If you require the candidate to have an interest in what you are doing, then you should also make sure to get a better understanding of the candidate's background.

What is your take on that?

Did you experience something similar?

How we improved website performance by 24% with 3 unusual changes

SwissGreg — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 08:55:28 +0000

Last weekend we had a chance to fine-tune the performance of a website that we started over a year ago.

It is a job board for Software Developers who are looking for work opportunities in Switzerland. Performance of SwissDevJobs.ch matters for 2 reasons::

Good user experience - which means both time to load (becoming interactive), and feeling of snappiness while using the website.
SEO - our traffic relies heavily on Google Search and, you probably know, that Google favors websites with good performance (they even introduced the speed report in Search Console).

If you search for "website performance basics" you will get many actionable points, like:

Use a CDN (Content Delivery Network) for static assets with a reasonable cache time
Optimize image size and format
Use GZIP or Brotli compression
Reduce the size of non-critical JS and CSS-code

We implemented most of those low-hanging fruits.
Additionally, as our main page is basically a filterable list (written in React) we introduced react-window to render only 10 list items at a time, instead of 250.

All of this helped us to improve the performance heavily but looking at the speed reports it felt like we can do better.

So we started digging into the more unusual ways in which we can make it faster and... we have been quite successful! Here is report from this week:

This report shows that the time of full load decreased by 24%!

What did we do to achieve it?

Use rel="preload" for the JSON data

This simple line in the index.html file indicates to the browser that it should fetch it before it's actually requested by an AJAX/fetch call from JavaScript.

When it comes to the point when the data is needed, it will be read from the browser cache instead of fetching again. It helped us to shave of ~0,5s of loading time

We wanted to implement this one earlier but there used to be some problems in the Chrome browser that caused double download. Now it seems to work.
Implement super simple cache on the server side

After implementing JSON preloading we found that downloading the job list is still the bottleneck (it takes around 0,8s to get the response from the server). Therefore, we decided to look into server-side cache. Therefore, we decided to look into server-side cache. First, we tried node-cache but, surprisingly, it did not improve the fetch time.

It is worth to mention that the /api/jobs endpoint is a simple getAll endpoint so there is little room for improvement.

However, we decided to go deeper and built our own simple cache with... a single JS variable. It looks the following:

The only thing not visible here is the POST /jobs endpoint which deletes the cache (cachedJobs = undefined)

As simple as it is! Another 0,4s of load time off!
The last thing we looked at is the size of CSS and JS bundles that we load. We noticed that the "font-awesome" bundle weights over 70kb.

At the same time, we used only about 20% of the icons.

How did we approach it? We used icomoon.io to select the icons we used and created our own self-hosted lean icon package.

50kb saved!

Those 3 unusual changes helped us to speed up the website's loading time by 24%. Or, as some other reports show, by 43% (to 1,2s).

We are quite happy with these changes. However, we belive that we can do better than that!

If you have your own, unusual techniques that could help - we would be grateful for sharing them in the comments!

8 reasons why Switzerland is better than Silicon Valley for Software Developers

SwissGreg — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 06:39:08 +0000

This article was originally posted on swissdevjobs.ch - 8 reasons why Switzerland is better than Silicon Valley for Software Developers
If you happen to have a different view on some of the points, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!

Silicon Valley is dead for Software Developers.

You can hear it from more and more people, either those who are living or considering living there.

Why is Silicon Valley dead for Developers?

Maybe it is because of the outrageous rents eating over 40% of the salary and houses you cannot afford unless you joined Facebook or Google at the right time?
Maybe it is because of the crunch work culture that squeezes out everything out of employees and only gives a payout to founders and VCs?
Or maybe it is because of the toxic culture, once welcoming and tolerant but now consisting of outrages on both political sides?

I can tell you one thing:

If you are a Software Developer living in Europe then there is a better place for you - and this place is Switzerland.

There are 8 reasons why I personally find Switzerland much better for the fellow Software Engineer:

Accommodation:

While Swiss cities regularly take the first ranks in "The 10 most expensive places to live" lists, the rent prices are still more affordable (even for people working outside of Software Development).

In Zurich, you can rent a whole flat (60+ square meters) for something between 2500-4000 CHF (4000 CHF would be in city center) and if you are single and open to living with other people you can find a room in something called Wohngemeinde for as little as 800-1000 CHF.

Alternatively, you can rent a flat outside of Zurich for 2000 CHF and have only a 30 min drive to the work with a Swiss train.

What you will get for these prices in Silicon Valley?

A 1200 USD living pod in San Francisco
Working hours:

Swiss standard work week is 42.5 hours (a little bit more than in other European countries) which might seem similar to SV but there is one big caveat - you are not expected to do overtime, even if you work at a startup.

There is no weekend grinding culture like in SV. In Switzerland, you give your best form 9 to 6 but after work you have your own life - you can go hiking or swimming in the lake.

What's the benefit of living in the sunny California if you cannot actually enjoy it?

How about spending the weekend here, instead of at work?
Transport and distances:

Switzerland is relatively small - with the area of 41,285 km2 it is less than 1/10th the size of California. It also has probably the best public transport system in the world. Swiss railways, while being a little expensive, are super punctual and very convenient to use - you can live in the countryside and still have a 30 min commute to your workplace.

Switzerland has only 8.4 million residents (only Los Angeles itself has 4 million residents) and is far from being crowded.

Compare it to living outside of San Francisco and having a 2h drive to work EVERY DAY.

How about not spending your entire life in a car?
Money:

In Switzerland a Software Developer can easily earn over 100,000 CHF (1 CHF is around 1 USD) which is far higher than in any other European country (except maybe for UK/London).

The ranges based on work experience are the following (base salary):
- 60,000 up to 90,000 CHF - Junior Software Engineer with 0 up to 2 years of experience
- 90,000 up to 120,000 CHF - Regular Software Developer with 2 up to 5 years of experience
- 120,000 CHF and more - Senior Developers with more than 5 years of experience (depends on the company)
What is important to point out?

The fact, that in Switzerland the compensation structure is generally 85-95% base salary and 5-15% annual bonus. Companies that offer stock options are generally rare which means less upside potential but you receive more money upfront.

One could say that this is nothing impressive compared to earning 200-300,000 USD in Silicon Valley but if you account for the cost of living and the fact that only the top developers earn more than 200,000 USD in SV (source: PayScale) then it's starting to look much better for Switzerland.
Taxes:

If you are outraged by the 35% tax on your income + the California state tax, you will find Switzerland a tax heaven. On average, you will pay less than 25% of your income in taxes (and that includes the 401k social contribution equivalent).

An important note here: taxes vary much between cantons and even cities and municipalities. You can find places where your total taxes will be around 10% (some cities in the German part of Switzerland, like Zug) but there are some, where it will be around 40% - mostly in the French part (Geneva)

I like my taxes low
Healthcare:

Switzerland has a quite unique and effective healthcare system which is both very high quality and affordable.

It is based on an obligatory private insurance where the insurance companies are quite regulated and works as following:
- You pick your insurance company and decide how much franchise you are willing to pay, between 300 and 2500 CHF
- Franchise is the maximal healthcare cost that you are going to pay full in a given year
- After you reach the threshold, the insurance company comes in and you only pay 10% of the remaining costs
If you want to save on the premium and keep yourself healthy then you pick the 2500 franchise and pay as little as 300 CHF per month for healthcare insurance.

Sorry U.S. - it's only you with the crazy healthcare costs
Inclusiveness and less inequality:

Swiss society is built on the principle of local communities and public engagement. Swiss people have a high sense of ownership and like to decide on how the things are shaped around them.

This might seem too restrictive for some people because of some seemingly silly rules, like: no laundry on Sunday but it leads to a generally happy society which is able to solve its problems.

Swiss direct democracy gives the people the power to directly decide on the issues and initiatives. It is also worth to mention that the income inequality is far less common in Switzerland than in the United States. You will see rich bankers in Ferraris and Lamborghinis but it's very rare to meet a homeless person.
Tolerance and diversity:

Finally, Switzerland seems far more welcoming and relaxed when it comes to society and culture. There is no public outrage or political correctness that creeps around you and, at the same time, the society enjoys the benefits of diversity - over 25% of Swiss residents are immigrants.

Swiss people enjoying being Swiss :)

If this article got you interested in finding a job in Switzerland you are on the right site! SwissDev Jobs is a job board dedicated for Software Developers - you can check out the job offers here.

We also wrote a Guide how to find a job in Switzerland - check it out!

The complete list of 30 Dev.to badges 🏅 and how to catch them all (almost)

SwissGreg — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 07:37:56 +0000

As a new Dev.to user and collectible fan, the first moment I found out about the badges, I knew I want to collect them ALL!

I found a list of them on https://dev.to/badges but decided to make it more friendly to new users (and added a few words on how to get each of them)

Unfortunately not every badge is attainable anymore 😔

Complete list of existing 30 Dev.to badges:

Top 7 Badge - "Awarded for having at least one post featured in the weekly "must-reads" list at any point. 🙌" - you need a great post that gets cherry-picked (🍒) by the Dev.to's 'must-read' list curators.
Beloved Comment Badge - "Awarded for making a comment which the community loved, as voted on with heart(❤️) reactions."
Fab 5 Badge - "Awarded for having at least one comment featured in the weekly "top 5 posts" list." - if you make a great comment (and have some luck)
One Year Club Badge - "This badge celebrates the longevity of those who have been a registered member of the DEV Community for at least one year." - you will receive it when your account turns 1 year old.
Two Year Club Badge - "This badge celebrates the longevity of those who have been a registered member of the DEV Community for at least two years." - you will receive it when your account turns 2 years old.
Three Year Club Badge - "This badge celebrates the longevity of those who have been a registered member of the DEV Community for at least three years." - you will receive it when your account turns 3 years old.
Pusher Contest Winner Badge - "Awarded for building a fabulous real-time app and winning the first ever DEV contest!" - the Pusher Contest took place in May 2018 (this badge is exclusive and not possible to get anymore)
Pusher Contest Runner-up Badge - "Awarded for submitting an awesome real-time app to the Pusher DEV Contest and winning the runner-up prize." - the Pusher Contest took place in May 2018 (this badge is exclusive and not possible to get anymore)
Pusher Contest Completion Badge - "Awarded for successfully completing and submitting a qualifying entry to the DEV Pusher Contest." - the Pusher Contest took place in May 2018 (this badge is exclusive and not possible to get anymore)
DEV Contributor Badge - "For members who have contributed code or technical docs/guidelines to the dev.to open source project." - You can earn it by creating a pull request (and having it merged) to the dev.to repository:

forem / forem

For empowering community 🌱

(⬆contains the code that runs this website)
4 Week Streak Badge - "Awarded for consistency of writing." - you will get it if you write posts regularly for 4 weeks.
8 Week Streak Badge - "For publishing at least one post per week for eight consecutive weeks. The streak continues!" - you will get it if you write posts regularly for 8 weeks.
16 Week Streak Badge - "Awarded for outstanding consistency and commitment to the community" - you will get it if you write posts regularly for 16 weeks. - woah, that's impressive!
She Coded Badge - "Rewarded to participants in our annual International Women's Day event, either via #shecoded, #theycoded or #shecodedally" - check out dev.to on 8th of March
Big Thread Badge - "Awarded to the member who creates the biggest thread of the week, in terms of most love across all comments."
JavaScript Badge - "Awarded to the top JavaScript author each week" - Write about JS and use the #javascript tag
Ruby Badge - "Awarded to the top Ruby author each week" - Write about Ruby and use the #ruby tag
CSS Badge - "Awarded to the top CSS author each week" - Write about CSS and use the #css tag
Java Badge - "Awarded to the top Java author each week" - Write about Java and use the #java tag
Python Badge - "Awarded to the top Python author each week" - Write about Python and use the #python tag
PHP Badge - "Awarded to the top PHP author each week" - Write about PHP and use the #php tag
Git Badge - "Awarded to the top Git author each week" - Write about Git and use the #git tag
Node Badge - "Awarded to the top Node author each week" - Write about Node and use the #node tag
Bash Badge - "Awarded to the top Bash author each week" - Write about Bash and use the #bash tag
C Badge - "Awarded to the top C author each week" - Write about C and use the #c tag
React Badge - "Awarded to the top React author each week" - Write about React and use the #react tag
Vue Badge - "Awarded to the top Vue author each week" - Write about Vue and use the #vue tag
Angular Badge - "Awarded to the top Angular author each week" - Write about Angular and use the #angular tag
GraphQL Badge - "Awarded to the top GraphQL author each week" - Write about GraphQL and use the #graphql tag
Ember Badge - "Awarded to the top Ember author each week" - Write about Ember and use the #ember tag
Hactoberfest Badge - "Awarded for successful completion of the 2019 Hacktoberfest challenge."

You made it! That's the whole list (for now).

Share your thoughts! Which ones do you like the most? Maybe you would like to suggest another one?

If you liked this post, you may want to check my previous one:

How to find a job as a Software Engineer in Switzerland - Step by step guide.🇨🇭

SwissGreg for SwissDev Jobs ・ Oct 7 '19

#career #hiring #advice #tutorial

How to find a job as a Software Engineer in Switzerland - Step by step guide.🇨🇭

SwissGreg — Mon, 07 Oct 2019 05:26:52 +0000

This guide is based on my personal experience of working as a Software Developer in Switzerland since 2017.
It was first published on swissdevjobs.ch, a dedicated IT job board that I am building as an indie project.

Content of the guide:

How difficult is to find a job as a Software Developer in Switzerland?
1. Work experience and technologies
2. Being from Switzerland or EU
3. Language skills
Step by step process for finding a job as an EU citizen
1. Apply to companies while staying in your country
2. Job interviews
3. Moving to Switzerland
Things to do after moving to Switzerland
1. Formalities after arriving
2. How much does living in Swizerland cost

1. How difficult is to find a job as a Software Developer in Switzerland?

This is a commonly asked question.

Switzerland is one of the best countries to work in as a Software Engineer.

In terms of salary, you can easily earn above 100,000 CHF (note: 1 CHF is around 1 USD), add to that the European work-life balance and beautiful nature - lakes and mountains.

Because of that, and the fact that Switzerland is a rather small country with a population of just below 8.5 million, finding a job here isn’t particularly easy. The IT market in Switzerland is much smaller compared to Germany or France.

There are a few factors that you need to consider and might work either in your favor or against you:

1. Work experience and technologies - while finding a job in Switzerland is not easy, good luck finding a job as a Junior Software Engineer, especially when you are a foreigner. Most of the companies are looking for Developers with 2+ years of experience (since they are going to pay them 100,000 per year, anyway).

Having said that, it is possible to find a job even as a Junior but you would be rather looking at internship/trainee offers.

The 2nd part is the technology that you specialize in. In the job data on
SwissDev Jobs you can see that there are many offers with Java, JavaScript, or Python jobs but not as much for Mobile, Ruby or C++.

2. Being from Switzerland or EU - if you are a citizen of one of the EU countries it will be pretty easy for you to obtain a work permit in Switzerland - it is a matter of filling the papers after you get the job.

However, if you are from a different region, say the United States or India, the process becomes more difficult. In such a case, the employer needs to offer you a visa sponsorship and prove to the government that it was not possible to find a qualified person in Switzerland for that position.

Again, if you are a great developer, you might get this chance, but in most of the cases, companies will restrict their potential candidates to just the EU + Switzerland region.

3. Language skills - Switzerland has 4 official languages: German, French, Italian, and Romansh.

Speaking the main language of the part you would be in is definitely an advantage and many companies require it. However, you can still pretty easily find a job with English only.

2. Step by step process for finding a job as an EU citizen:

Step 1. Apply to companies while staying in your country:
It has 2 big advantages: first, you don’t have to bear the high costs of living in Switzerland and second, you can focus on the important things - interviews.

In this step, you need to find the job offers. For that, you can use SwissDev Jobs or any other job board. Alternatively, you might want to get in touch with a headhunter to help you.

From our experiences, it’s worth to work with headhunters if you are on Junior level (0-2 years of experience) because Swiss companies tend to be quite reluctant to hire graduate developers from abroad.

A headhunter might get you a couple of interviews which is really nice. You have to be cautious though - headhunters often work with a subset of firms and sometimes will not present you the big picture (or clearly show the downsides of the company). If you are working with a proven one you will be fine.

Step 2. Job interviews:
Normally the interview process has 2 or 3 steps.

It starts with an introduction call or/and a coding task - pretty standard.

Then, if you are not located in Switzerland, there might be a video call with live coding.

The last round will be an onsite interview where you come to Switzerland and visit the company office.

The practice of reimbursing travel and accommodation costs is not widely spread, though some companies may offer it. Therefore, it’s best to try to schedule a couple of onsite interviews on subsequent days to not have to fly back and forth

After the last interview, you should get a yes or no answer in the following days, max. 2 weeks.

If you have multiple offers, you might want to negotiate your package, though be careful to not give the impression that money is your main motivation - in Switzerland it’s rather a taboo topic.

Step 3. Moving to Switzerland:
Congratulations - you have found a job in Switzerland. That was the hard part, now the formalities.

After signing the contract you need to prepare to move. If the company doesn’t offer any relocation package or help you need to have between 2 and 4k CHF for the relocation.

What we recommend is to find a hostel or Airbnb room (Couchsurfing might also be a good option). For this, you will need around 1.5k CHF for the first month.

When you arrive you might start looking for long term accommodation.

There are 2 options:

Rent a flat - this is your choice if you bring your family
Rent only a room - it might be a good option if you come without family (in Switzerland it’s called living in a Wohngemeinschaft).

Please be aware that the deposit you need to make when renting a flat is 3x the monthly rent which means 3x 2,000 CHF or even more. Therefore if you are tight on budget you might want to wait for your first salary.

3. Things to do after moving to Switzerland:

With regards to the formalities, you need to take care of the following:

Get work permit - most important. For that, you need to go with your work contract to the local public office (Gemeinde). Check the details on the official government website.
Open a bank account - you will finally have an account in one of those famous Swiss Banks™. They charge for pretty much everything, therefore make sure to compare the offers and pick the best for you. Revolut seems to be the best multi-currency card out there.
Choose health insurance (Krankenkasse) - in Switzerland you have to pay your health insurance separately (it’s not deducted from your salary). You can use the Comparis website to compare the options. You have 3 months to choose both the company and your franchise. Franchise is the amount of money you maximally pay per year for medical services. After reaching this limit the insurance company comes in and takes 90% of your costs. The higher the franchise, the lower your monthly premium.
Other important things - if you plan to use public transport, we recommend you to buy the Half Fare card. It gives you a 50% discount on most public transport in Switzerland (it costs 185 CHF per year). For the phone, you can either use a prepaid option or a subscription.
Integrate and have fun - find local groups related to your hobbies and interests. There are also some general expat groups like Zurich Together

Bonus question:

How much does living in Swizerland cost? 💰

Switzerland is one of the most expensive countries in the world, the top most expensive cities in the world are all in Switzerland, therefore prepare for a price shock.

Although the first month or two might be tough, after getting your 1st and 2nd salary you will quickly realize that the things are not that expensive when living here.

To be more detailed below is a breakdown income and costs for someone earning 120k CHF and living in Zurich:

120,000 CHF annually according to this calculator gets you 7,746.20 CHF net per month. It assumes that you are single and have no children. (Switzerland offers some generous tax reduction when having children)

To simplify, let’s assume 7,700 CHF monthly to spend.

Now let’s move to the costs:

Apartment: 2,000–3,000 CHF (with 3k you can get a pretty but not the biggest one in the center) or if you share a flat in a Wohngemeinschaft: 700-1,200 CHF
Insurance: 280–500 CHF (280 for the 2500 CHF franchise)
Food: 150 - 1,000 CHF (150 if you are always cooking for yourself, 1,000 if you are a foodie and eat out every 2nd day)
Entertainment: 200–1,500 CHF (a drink in a club costs ~20 CHF, monthly gym subscription 100 CHF, again, all depends on you, traveling to other countries is pretty cheap)
Other: 200–1,000 CHF (phone, clothes, public transport or a car, etc) To sum up, if you go the “live cool and don’t care about expenses” option you will spend monthly around 7,000 CHF and still save some money.

If you, on the other hand, want to go the student-like route (living in Wohngemeinschaft, not eating out too much) and try to save, you can easily live on 1,500-2,000 CHF per month and save the majority of your salary.

Wrap up 🎉🎉🎉

I hope you liked the guide and that it answered your potential questions about finding a job in Switzerland as a Software Developer.
I can personally recommend living here :)

If you still have questions or would like to check the jobs from Swiss companies, feel free to visit: swissdevjobs.ch

DEV Community: SwissDev Jobs

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How to find a job as a Software Engineer in Switzerland - Step by step guide.🇨🇭

SwissGreg for SwissDev Jobs ・ Oct 7 '19

How to find a job as a Software Engineer in Switzerland - Step by step guide.🇨🇭

Content of the guide:

1. How difficult is to find a job as a Software Developer in Switzerland?

2. Step by step process for finding a job as an EU citizen:

3. Things to do after moving to Switzerland:

How much does living in Swizerland cost? 💰

Wrap up 🎉🎉🎉