Silicon Milkroundabout: Forget the banks, come and join a London startup

by lucraft • 15 years ago

169 146 15 years ago

ladon86• 15 years ago

Yes, this is what's needed. I like the line about the banks. My biggest peeve with the UK scene is that we lose so much talent to banks and consultancies, especially among graduates; anything to turn that around is a step in the right direction.

drtse4• 15 years ago

Is this the first event of this kind in the UK? If it is kudos to the organizers, would really love to see something similar where i live (Italy, startup environment not mature enough yet, maybe in a few years).

c3m3• 15 years ago

Hard figures - more than half of the graduates from one of the top technical universities in the UK (Imperial) go to work for banks (computer scientists that is).

The reason is that they pay quite a bit more than most software houses do. Notable exceptions include Google which usually can match the starting salaries but otherwise, you're pretty much guaranteed to earn less.

The bottom line is that after several years of student life, a relatively high salary looks compelling and coupled with student loans to pay off, the choice is quite clear at this particular moment for the majority of people.

ThomPete14• 15 years ago

Thanks for the info (didn't know this)

Isn't there something inherently wrong with society when an industry that provides little value to society make so much money that they can afford to pay better than anyone else?

vixen993• 15 years ago

That's great for the graduates who get these jobs but can I add that it seems to me that there's precious little evidence (actually none at all) that their skills result in any kind of improvement in the service offered to the millions of ordinary customers of the monopolized banking industry in Britain.As far as I can see there's been a marked decline.

tomh-• 15 years ago

I'm curious, whats the avarage starting salary at a financial company in london? Sometimes I see salaries of 23k-25k pound per year (for other software companies) from which you can barely afford an appartment for yourself in London.

singular• 15 years ago

I went to Imperial (did CivEng) and I can confirm this, lecturers even joked about it.

At one point the people in the class who were actually going to go into engineering were asked to raise their hands - around 1/3 did.

To digress briefly, part of the reason the City likes Imperial so much is that they work you into the ground. If you can survive Imperial then you're likely to do well under city-levels of pressure.

gaius6• 15 years ago

The truth is in the UK the only industry paying a decent wage for technical work (not just CS grads, but engineering, physics, maths, etc) is banking.

I am a Mech Eng graduate and my CV has been floating around in various databases for years, and I still get recruiters calling me and offering less than half of my current salary (and I'm no rockstar, just an ordinary worker) to go and work on something mechanical for a big engineering company. It really is a joke.

This is all tied up in the vestiges of the class system, technical people are still thought of as "blue collar" (despite being better educated than most white collar workers) and the management class will never pay us fairly - except in banking where they are quite clear about what is worth what. I gather in the US it's different, they don't have all that baggage holding them back.

lucraft3• 15 years ago

Not sure about class, perhaps developers just are more valuable to banks than startups. Otherwise it sounds right.

However I'm sure I would have gone stir crazy with boredom by now if I worked in a bank :) (I have low boredom tolerance)

rbanffy3• 15 years ago

> This is all tied up in the vestiges of the class system, technical people are still thought of as "blue collar" (despite being better educated than most white collar workers) and the management class will never pay us fairly

That got me thinking. I am quite sure this kind of mindset is present in a lot of countries, including where I live (Brazil) :-/

That can't be good.

evandijk70• 15 years ago

The higher salary is just the price they have to pay for your soul

pnathan• 15 years ago

I don't believe that's true in the US. Software works seems to be white collar.

But I still make a point of referring to my fellow software people as 'software engineers', since (1) it's how my company styles the titles[1], and (2), it reinforces the idea that we're not "code monkeys", grunting and beating on keyboards for bananas per day (not that I'd turn down fruit if offered :-) ).

[1] I work at a hardware/software company, we have an array of mechanical and electrical engineers as well.

TechnicalBonobo• 15 years ago

Wages are a price just like any other price.

What is closer to the truth is that nowadays "average" technical people are way more abundant than ever, mainly because there are ever more and better learning sources (books, ebooks, conferences, video tutorials, chats, forums, certification courses, crappy 2-year colleges and good universities, fancy IDEs, super high level programming languages, frameworks and libraries for everything, etc.) The learning curve is not as hard as it used to be, if you want to be an "average" technical guy.

And it's just basic economics that people (and entities composed of people, such as companies) don't like to pay a lot for something which is extremely abundant and available in their area (logically). This is because when humans are in the process of valuing things they're affected by a mixture of need, personal preference, the scarcity of the things in question, and the moment in time when this process is taking place.

I've been a "pawn" "low life" "technical monkey" developer for a while, and I actually began working as a developer from the start with a secondary hidden purpose of studying the ways companies act (because I was already an economics nerd before becoming a developer), and this is the usual result of my observations (plus studying the history of other companies):

- Technical Monkeys with NO additional nontechnical skills: They're like the average rock drummer who can keep a beat but other than that is not very useful. They will always earn a lower wage, because there's just too many of them out there: they're not especial. Wage is just another price, remember.

- REALLY GOOD Technical Monkeys with NO additional nontechnical skills: They are exceptionally awesome and productive, and will get paid accordingly, unless they work for a really stupid boss. They're like the really good session drummer that records albums for all kinds of artists, and as a hobby breaks world records for faster drum fills, longest drum solo, etc. He has no other skills but he's a absolute beast at what he does.

- And then there are those Technical Monkeys who are good (though maybe not the best) at the technical stuff AND have really good business ideas i.e. better management ideas than their bosses do. So they can manage teams AND they can speak technical monkey. They're the Phil Collins. They will either earn a good wage or start their own company.

stuartd2• 15 years ago

Websense has categorised your site as 'Potentially Damaging Content' - you might want to get that changed.

deathwarmedover2• 15 years ago

Thanks for the report btw, we got it recategorised to "Job Search". :)

stuartd2• 15 years ago

Really? It's now categorized under 'Malicious Web Sites'..

adaml_6236• 15 years ago

That's an awesome list of companies. There are a few missing from that front page who I hope are still around on the day.

fsipie• 15 years ago

I'd like to present a different perspective. I've worked at 3 startups in the past, including one of my own. None of which had much financial success and 1 of which cheated me out of several thousand pounds.

Though it's been interesting, in the sense of the chinese proverb, I sometimes wish that I'd just worked at a bank for the past 15 years.

adaml_6236• 15 years ago

Tell us more!

swombat6• 15 years ago

Though it's been interesting, in the sense of the chinese provert, I sometimes wish that I'd just worked at a bank for the past 15 years.

I can understand that. I worked at a big consulting company, at a global bank client, for 4 years. From personal experience, however, I'd like to correct your perception a little.

1) Yes, the money is better and more regular, but you end up spending a lot more as well. So you won't make as much as you think you will.

2) While you constantly hear about people making astounding sums of money in banking, the reality is that unless you work your socks off and are lucky to be in the right place at the right time (hey, that sounds like startups!) you will stagnate at a decent but not particularly amazing salary. And if you work your socks off, you won't have that much time to enjoy the money anyway.

3) This extra money comes with a cost: your soul. I'm not kidding. If you're the kind of person who derives great satisfaction from loving your work and making a difference, working at a large corporation for a long period will slowly but surely strangle and kill something very precious inside of you.

Money is a commodity. Enjoying your life, doing something you love, feeling like you make a difference - you can't buy those things, no matter your salary.

eroded2• 15 years ago

>> you end up spending a lot more as well

How come? Is it a case of "Keeping up with the Joneses"?

rapind• 15 years ago

I'm going to take issue with #3. There's this falsely accepted wisdom that large companies are evil and small companies are good.

There are plenty of startups out there run by sharks (or sometimes idiots) looking to drain your talent dry for little or no reward. Working at a few of those can be just as soul sucking.

Also I'd like to add that if changing the world and leaving a legacy is your main desire, then yes working at a startup is probably your thing.

If you really just want to enjoy your family or extracurricular lifestyle without worrying about your paycheck then maybe something with a little more security is ok. I have friends who work blue collar non-technical jobs and enjoy the casual atmosphere and complete lack of stress.

joeconway2• 15 years ago

I've just registered. I'm on one of the better CS courses I get the impression from my peers that most of them want to go work for big organisations and consider the idea of working for a startup as unthinkable. I think thats such a shame

wyclif3• 15 years ago

What's also a shame is that these UK companies don't allow remote work. I think lots of US devs would be interested, and since visas are capped anyway remote seems rather obvious.

tomstuart• 15 years ago

Is there any indication of what kind of event this will be? Is it a conventional recruitment fair? A party?

robfitz• 15 years ago

It's at a nice big pub with fancy beer and a stage for live music, so I'd guess it's a social event plus the companies introducing themselves from the stage so you know who to focus your mingling on.

calpaterson• 15 years ago

Hmmm...as a graduate I really don't know how to equip myself at these kind of events. I wonder how I should go about fixing that

upthedale• 15 years ago

Great idea. Will there be later events? I ask because the exam season is currently in full swing for some students who may be otherwise interested.

beck5• 15 years ago

This is true, I live in Sheffield so attending means at minimum 1 valuable day lost in crunch time at uni so not sure if it is worth the risk.......

booking train ticket tonight then.

adaml_6236• 15 years ago

Since there is no contact info on the website. Can I just ask why you want a URL for me?? :-) You say you won't share my email address but what are you doing with my other private info?

I mean this only because I'm actually curious and I'm trying to work out which URL to give... Hackernews profile page??

wyclif3• 15 years ago

I'm in the US and would love to go to this, because if I had an offer and help with visa issues I'd move to the UK in a heartbeat. Unfortunately I can't afford the airfare.

hcho3• 15 years ago

I doubt any startup will be able to arrange you a work visa at the moment. Non EU worker visas are severly capped these days and the available is taken up by bigger companies.

pyrhho• 15 years ago

I'm curious how the Non-EU Worker Visas impact things like telecommuting...

earnubs• 15 years ago

Hi, I've worked in a couple of startups & agencies around the British Isles and one investment bank in London. My experience would convince me to advise that you should work were you want to work, but in general my experience is:

1) if money is the prime motivator, work for investment banks, preferably as a contractor; 2) if you want a breadth of experience, work in a good web design agency; 3) if deep domain knowledge is what you want, work in a startup.

(Of course, you can't do the contracting without a few years experience in any of the above.)

The points are all a generalisation but this final one is not, it's not what you are doing, how much you are getting paid or where you are doing it, it's who you are doing it with. The human factor is, in the long run, the most important thing. Are they smart? Good, you'll get smart too. Are the decent human beings? Good, you'll live a long life.

Humans: the cause of, and solution to, all life's problems :)

raarky• 15 years ago

Just wanted to back this comment up.

I'm in the same boat - I've contracted at various companies(financial, media, etc etc) and currently working at a startup.

Contract at large companies if you want money. Join a startup if you want lifestyle & scene.

Remember tho, if you work at bank you can still go to some of the many events the scene puts on :)

flondon• 15 years ago

The interesting discourse here is why graduates find the big IBs/Consultancies so appealing, more so that joining a startup. In my opinion, this is due to the perception that a high flying blue-chip career gives - 99.9% of graduates would prefer to say ‘I work for Goldmans’ rather than ‘I’m going to work for an unknown technology startup around Shoreditch’ - this impresses grandma and the parents who have subbed the £30-40 university costs for their kids.

I think the counter to this is that within the UK, there is a dearth of success stories involving young tech entrepreneurs - the big one that sticks in my mind is the million-dollar-pixel guy, who as the name suggests made a million! (There are of course others, but I've not seen them as widely covered in the media)

Looking at the example of silicon valley, there are so many examples of tech entrepreneurs making it big at a young age - maybe once the London scene has a healthier number of well known (i.e. the Daily Mail writes about it) exits, the perception will improve and we will see a higher number of bright graduates preferring to join a startup.

IsaacL• 15 years ago

I think impressing the other students is a big factor as well. It's alternately humorous and depressing to hear the way people talk about their mate who got an internship at Goldman/Deutschbank/wherever. I guess if you've been pushed all the way through 6th form to get into the most prestigious university you can, once you arrive at said uni you'll soon go looking for the next big shiny famous institution.

(That said, it seems the one employer that's even more impressive than an I-Bank is Google - but Google isn't a startup anymore. I wonder how many UK grads would happily join a company that might become the next Google?)

Anyway, I've long been a do-what-makes-you-happy-not-what-other-people-think-is-high-status kind of guy, but I think I'd still find it difficult working for a startup in London while encountering people who are my age, half as smart but earning twice as much. For that reason, my post-graduation plans involve me leaving the small, charming and damp island of my birth altogether... And taking an even bigger salary cut for the chance to live in the most exciting country on the planet, China.

timthorn2• 15 years ago

Don't know about IBs, but consultancies offer the chance to work across a real range of clients and industries, and in a variety of roles. The ability to do something fresh on a fairly regular basis but without changing employers is appealing to certain minds.

mattmanser• 15 years ago

Haha, yeah, they'll be photocopying at a wide range of different companies. Reality check, ask people who have actually done this stuff, all the ones I knew the work was dull but partying continued like it was uni because they're with a bunch of other graduates.

Most large companies don't let the noobs anywhere near the clients. They're pyramids, the longer you stay the more interesting work you get to do. This competes with the better the job you can get elsewhere, which causes gradual attrition in the ranks. It's all about who can stick it out the longest.

Ground zero is very, very dull work. Like photocopying while being charged out at hundreds of pounds an hour.

Remember, these are graduates, they're totally useless in the real world at the start.

cfelde• 15 years ago

If you want to go into "banking" (and have the skills needed), but would prefer a startup then maybe opengamma would be interesting: http://www.opengamma.com/

will_critchlow• 15 years ago

Is there any way for other companies hiring devs in London to throw our weight behind this?

djhworld• 15 years ago

This sounds like a good afternoon. I'm going to a gig in the evening too.

I've been looking for something like this for a while, I've always wondered how people get recruited into startups without 'being in the know' as it were. When you look at job aggregators 99% of the jobs are for huge corporates, usually through the proxy of a recruitment agency.

My only concern about this event, for me personally anwyay, is I graduated 3 years ago and I've been working professionally as a developer as soon as I left University. I'm not sure if this event is aimed at people like me or fresh out of uni grads or not.

adaml_6236• 15 years ago

"Fresh out of uni, or looking for your next move?"

lucraft3• 15 years ago

Yep, definitely come along.

intranation• 15 years ago

At a senior employee at one of the companies hosting (Smarkets), I can say that we would welcome any and all interested developers to the event. Being fresh out of uni is certainly not a requirement!

joeconway2• 15 years ago

I'm thinking of going even though I'm not graduating until next year. Would you be interested in meeting people who aren't immediately available but are looking to get familiar with the scene?

samengland• 15 years ago

For an event appealing to those "fresh out of uni" it's very badly timed. Most of us are still in exams, but only until the end of May. It should have been scheduled at least a couple of weeks later.

rbanffy3• 15 years ago

Did banks book up all good venues in that period? ;-)

softbuilder• 15 years ago

What's with the milk?

thomson• 15 years ago

Milk used to be home-delivered in Britain--the act of companies touring universities to attract recent grads to apply is known informally as a milkround.

dogonwheels• 15 years ago

Used to be? Don't tell that to my milkman! :)

I still get milk and eggs (and sometimes some pretty bad knock-off Irn Bru) from ours. We're in the semi-countryside just outside of Leeds, and it's not at all unusual around here. Wonderful service!

dunk0102• 15 years ago

I think that it's some combination of a milk round being a boring and repetitive job (for those who have to go between all the universities) and some sort of youth/milk imagery. I think it's anachronistic as the only person I have ever heard refer to it in that way is my Dad.

lucraft3• 15 years ago

The Milkround is a jobs fair for big corporations that goes round all the universities in the UK every year. http://www.milkround.com/

deathwarmedover2• 15 years ago

I was going to pass this discussion onto my friend who is doing dev contract work at a bank, but then I remembered he's not allowed onto anything on the internet while he's at work, LOL.

kierank2• 15 years ago

This event shouldn't just be about joining a startup in my opinion. It should also be about how graduates should start a startup.

Also the location in Shoreditch may put off some of the hardcore tech people. It would have also been nice to see some more hardware startups but you're probably going to have to go to Cambridge or Berkshire for those.

njs123452• 15 years ago

What's in Berkshire of relevance to hardware companies?

kierank2• 15 years ago

Along the M4 corridor there are quite a lot of hardware companies.

ropiku2• 15 years ago

I think payment is still an issue with startups. Hopefully that changed but last year I interviewed with a couple of startups (some of them on this list) for summer internships and possibly remote work and was offered £1k/month in London.

ig12• 15 years ago

The problem is that it's too late, most of the banks and consultancies finish hiring in Jan-Feb, many of the big tech firms will have finished by now as well. Most of the good undergraduates will have already accepted offers, so this is actually coming too late for them.

ayers• 15 years ago

Just a quick question on attire, am I correct in presuming this is a casual event and therefore we should not dress up like we would for an interview?

andytwigg• 15 years ago

Hi all, Acunu (http://www.acunu.com/jobs) will be here - if you're interested in algorithms and file systems or just a great hacker, come and find us! Say hello at jobs@acunu.com

rorohello• 15 years ago

Hi All,

I hope the Milkroundabout Folks don't mind me piggybacking on this post (I applied to come to their event, but didn't get in :(

I'd like to let everyone interested in mobile apps know about another networking event OPEN TO ALL on May 31st (Tuesday Night, 7-10pm) at El Paso EC1V 9NQ, just across the street from Bar Music Hall. The event is an official PechaKucha http://www.pecha-kucha.org/events/pknapp and we have some great presenters lined up so far from INQ Mobile, TurnedOnDigital (makers of The Situationist), Quipper and more.

You can register to attend here: http://www.amiando.com/WZJZCJU.html

Ryan Sommer Director, MaintainPR ryan@maintainpr.com

Silicon Milkroundabout: Forget the banks, come and join a London startup

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