USA, Canada / What do Polish people think of the USA [287]

Gezzababy


Not sure what's so great. You have 10 days of holidays per year. You have at least 1 hour commuting time, food is bland and people are just plastic soules.

Work is indeed great, lot of opportunities still but well, i guess i already learnt that i don't want to waste my life trying to become rich. Thank God i already learned what are the valuable things on life !!

Life / Grass is always greener? Poland experience. [69]


Not my case. Since i moved to Krakow i have manage to create in less than a year what i never managed to do in Germany in 4.

It really depends how motivated you are. Moving to a different country is difficult per se. Poland has its problems but the opportunities are endless. My experiences is that polish then to be negative (understandable with their recent past) and expect way to much from the government. They want to have everything solved sitting in their couch living mediocre lives. Good thing is that I see this way of thinking evolving and you can cleary see the energy flowing on cities like Krakow and Wroclaw. (I am just familiar with those 2, might be the same on others)

To the OP, let me know if you ever come to Poland. I moved more than a year ago with exactly your same ideas and I have managed to accomplish way more than expected. I'm now a founder of a successful startup selling IT banking services to the middle east and future can be brighter at this moment for us.

To add to the discusssion here are a couple of articles just about what's going on krakow:

venturevillage.eu/why-polands-ready-to-hit-the-tech-big-time
zdnet.com/is-poland-the-best-place-to-start-your-start-up-7000007407/
zdnet.com/why-google-set-up-its-r-and-d-facility-in-krakow-7000009463/
venturevillage.eu/krakow-intro-startup-safary

This two pages will help u to keep u informed:

krakowit.pbworks.com/w/page/5507981/FrontPage
hive53.com

If somebody stills says u can only teach english here is well sadly just because they don't know how to do anything else besides teaching english.

Life / Grass is always greener? Poland experience. [69]

Weather is indeed a thing to consider. I do like it better than London or Hamburg (Where i use to live), and the OP lives in Canada so i am sure he will not have any problem with the weather. ;) but if somebody is expecting sunny californian days all year around this is not the place to be.

The only part so far that i find irritating from krakow is the pollution problem specially during winter. There is a lot of noise and media pressure on the issue so I really hope that things will improve in the next years.

Life / Grass is always greener? Poland experience. [69]

jasondmzk


Warsaw is nice, at least i really have enjoyed the times i have been there but currently krakow is blooming as an IT Center and that's where i need to be. The Quality of life here is also pretty good there is always something interesting to do. Also here you are pretty close the Tatras and I'm a mountain freak.

I guess someday when things are more stable i would give Warsaw a try.


Definition of Culture is very subjective, but after Hamburg Krakow has way more cultural events that interest me.

Life / Grass is always greener? Poland experience. [69]


Cheap programmers and cheap labor is not the only criteria to decide what's the place for an IT business. What's the startup community in Gibraltar like? RIght, non existing, How is in Budapest? What's the amount of students going out of universities in those countries compared to the Krakow - Katowice area ? How many VCs are on those places? Krakow had just 3 new ones (one from google, one from Deutsch Telekom) open in the last year. There is plenty of cash available to start new tech based companies, only requirement: A good Idea and the will to risk and work hard. This is not available just for programmers, anybody can be part of it as long as their mindset is ready for the change. Get an idea, find a team, execute, fail, repeat again !

It's not by improvisation that many respectable companies are coming to poland. Just to mention a few IBM, Google, Motorola, ABB all they have research centers in Krakow. The only problem I see is that are becoming a commodity and salaries will keep going up making it hard for small companies to compete with larger ones, this is already starting to happen.

Life / Grass is always greener? Poland experience. [69]

Monitor


I don't think is just about city size or amount of IT guys, for sure it counts but not a decisive factor. If that was the case then New York would be the tech capital of USA. I'm pretty sure there are great opportunities on Budapest as well, but my point in this thread is to tell the OP that indeed there are great opportunities if you know where to look and your are willing to work hard.

Law / Krakow IT and Outsourcing [11]

Poland and Krakow can't believe (and i doubt they do) that the outsourcing boom will last forever.

Poland advantage compared to Ireland is that polish market is 4 time larger than the irish, Money brought by Outsourcing companies is bringing the infrastructure to western levels, this will allow new companies to flourish and this is already happening. These new companies access not only the western but the "undeveloped" east. That's a huge potential, that ireland didn't have.

I can't be more excited about what's going on krakow the startup community vibes are something i haven't experienced anywhere. They are international (most meetups are in english) open and collaborative.

You can grab an idea on what's going on krakow IT's on this page:

krakowit.pbworks.com/w/page/5507981/FrontPage

Life / Is living cost in Poland lower than Germany ? [32]

It depends on so many things that is hard to say. I have lived in both countries and find poland much more affordable. Food is about the same, if not cheaper in germany but cultural housing/events/restaurants and going out in general is cheaper in Poland.

The following link could also be interesting for the discussion started by Monitor.

USA, Canada / General differences between Poland and the USA? [184]

Polish enjoy life and understand that people work to live. American seems to find that behaviour weird and consider it communist.

America is the only rich country that doesn't guarantee paid vacation or holidays.

USA, Canada / General differences between Poland and the USA? [184]

The article is quiet clear. Holidays are not guaranteed in US. It doesn't say people don't get holidays.

There are great places to work where they give many days of holidays, but that's a perk not the law as it's in Europe. The table in the article washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2013/05/vacat ion-table.jpg

shows the average days of holidays in US, compared with europe is easy to see who gets more holidays.

USA, Canada / General differences between Poland and the USA? [184]


20 working days per year during the first 10 years of employment and 26 working days thereafter. Plus 13 days of public holidays. (source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statutory_minimum_employment_leave_by_country)


Not really. You are comparing the average of what 77% of people get to what it's mandatory (the minimum) to 100% people in those countries. Companies in those countries must probably also give more holidays as their perks so the average is probably much higher than in US.


I never really got the concept of sick days. You are entitled each year to 5 sick days. ? What happens if you go over your sick days? are your holidays affected?

USA, Canada / General differences between Poland and the USA? [184]


If you are not taking one of the 33 days of holidays we have yes.

I think it's actually quiet much better than checking your sick days + holidays to decide if you can get sick or not.

News / Poland's economic future? [294]

Poland is changing, the economy is evolving and innovation is becoming a big player.

Below just a few samples (There are many more!!!)

techcrunch.com/2014/01/22/polish-3d-printer-zortrax-sells-5000-units-to-dell/

shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=188426

techcrunch.com/2013/07/16/estimote-creator-talks-about-building-an-os-for-the-physical-world/

topix.com/forum/world/poland/TSDH4JQU310Q3UNS2

I am not so optimistic as monia but i have no doubt about Poland's bright future.