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EU citizen currently living in the US here. Hugely recommended, if only for comparison purposes. From my own experience, English speaking countries are a must.
by mbroncano 10y ago
EU citizen currently living in the US here.
Hugely recommended, if only for comparison purposes. From my own experience, English speaking countries are a must. If that's not an option, cities like Barcelona or Berlin should cover your bases for at least a year, but you won't survive for long without speaking Spanish or German. There are more things than work in life, and you'll soon get tired of only dealing with expats or your own nationals.
Please do not fool yourself too early into thinking 'yeah, I'll just learn the thing', unless you have a knack for languages, or you already speak one or two foreign tongues. YMMV though, it is certainly doable if you apply.
Scandinavian countries, Ireland or The Netherlands are your best bet these days, and there is a relatively big IT sector in all of them.
Salaries are not what you expect coming from the US, your $200k rated job is no more than 80k€, but you will certainly require much less. Saving is possible and encouraged.
Edit: grammar
- welder 10y agoSecond this, besides Berlin I would recommend the northern countries. They speak English natively so it's less of a culture shock. You will pay more for rent and necessities than Berlin but salaries are higher too.
- vram22 10y ago>Scandinavian countries All or some of them? e.g. I've read on HN that there is a lot of software work in Sweden, but how about Norway, Finland and Denmark?
- bjelkeman-again 10y agoThe tech investments in Sweden are nearly as big as the other three countries together [1]. Most of which goes to Stockholm. [1] As an example, this is for November. http://www.nordictechlist.com/content/reports/The%20November%202016%20NordicTech%20Summary%20Report.pdf http://www.nordictechlist.com/content/reports/The%20November...
- vram22 10y agoThanks.
- stevekemp 10y agoFinland used to host Nokia, and as a result of that there are a lot of local talent that are available easily and cheaply. Unless you have great talent, as a non-Finnish-speaker you'll struggle to compete with them. That said there are startups here, and there are some niches that are thriving (e.g. gaming).
- vram22 10y agoGood to know, thanks.
- biztos 10y agoI strongly recommend learning German if living in Berlin, but I also know a bunch of Americans living there who get by fine on ten words of German for the grocery store, and the rest all happens in English.
- bogomipz 10y agoAre you a native German speaker or did you also learn? Any recommendations? I have heard the Goethe Institute is great but its very expensive.
- ianhowson 10y agoI studied with the Goethe Institute in Sydney and highly recommend it.
- biztos 10y agoI learned but I learned quite early, being an exchange student twice (high school and university, one year each). So I've been pretty much fluent since I was 17, which I realize is much easier than moving there in your 20's/30's. But if you're in Germany I recommend immersion -- try hard to make friends who don't speak English or at least won't automatically switch into English all the time. That and the Volkshochschule. Out of country yeah, I think Goethe Institute is the way to go if it's available where you are. Just based on reputation, but it's also a path into the German university system if you're interested in that.
- stevekemp 10y agoI think that goes for _any_ country you move to. Yes, in many places you can get by just learning "please", "thank-you", and basic numbers. But learning a language will let you fit in much more easily, and will make people more willing to help you. (Recently moved from Scotland to Finland. Great country. Horrible language!)
- bogomipz 10y ago>"Salaries are not what you expect coming from the US, your $200k rated job is no more than 80k€" Is that a good rule of thumb then? $200k is fairly top end in the US. Obviously there are people at the big SV companies that make more but 200K is pretty close to top end for senior people. So you are saying that that 80K Euros is the general top end for EU tech companies? Given that there is more or less dollar to Euro parity now that is substantially less. On the other hand you will work a lot of hours for that 200K in the US. Is that also true of the EU for similar? I think that proper work life balance should always be considered in addition to actual compensation.
- mbroncano 10y agoI was indeed comparing a senior developer salary in SV with an equivalent position in a country like The Netherlands or Sweden. The bottom side of the bracket is more difficult to quantify in my view, and there are other aspects involved such as minimum salary etc.
- Bombthecat 10y agoIn Germany the rule of thumb in tech is: no bachelor means some companies cap you at 50k.no way to earn more. 60k is mid level and 80 is senior high level bachelor level.