The culture of hustling
I moved to Amsterdam about a year ago, and one notable cultural difference I’ve quickly noticed is how the streets are empty early in the morning – nothing is open. The pastry shop opens at 9AM, the cafe opens at 8AM as does the grocery store next door – though none of the shelves are stocked at that time.
People here basically wake up late and don’t start their day at 6AM. This is a stark contrast with life in the US where people wake up early, go to the gym at 6AM and where every shop opens early.
Something similar is also true for software engineers. The culture of hustling isn’t really a thing here – you can work hard, learn and grow a lot if you want but there’s less peer pressure to do so. This is one the interesting factor if you’re considering moving across the Atlantic ocean – check out Nicola Amadio’s posts if you want to learn more about comp (and cost!) in Europe
My 2 cents is that working for a US big tech company in Europe is the sweet spot: you get to work on interesting/challenging problems, get to learn a lot from amazing peers and get to work hard if you want without feeling pressure – you basically have a lot of benefits as in the US but a much better work life balance.
Side note that if you’re a staff engineer interested in infrastructure and privacy, I’m hiring for my team in Amsterdam :)