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You should not make any assumptions about work in the US. There's many American software companies that are able to fulfill your requirements. In many tech com

You should not make any assumptions about work in the US. There's many American software companies that are able to fulfill your requirements. In many tech companies, you have "unlimited" vacation. You can probably take more vacation that you already get in Europe. This is true of my company, mParticle. I can work 9-to-5 as an employee. That is the culture of the company that I work for. People can choose to work remotely or in an office.

mmalachowski 5y ago
By "vacation" you mean fully paid days ? Unlimited?
- svachalek 5y ago
  "Unlimited" in quotes. Sometimes better called "unmetered". That is, you are not granted days of vacation, nor does taking a day off get deducted from any limit. But obviously if you're not showing up to work often enough, you will lose your job.
  - Gigachad 5y ago
    I'd much rather have a set amount and feel good using it than worrying if I have exceeded my limit of socially acceptable days off.
the_only_law 5y ago
> You can probably take more vacation that you already get in Europe. I’ve always heard that places like this tend to pressure you into not taking many days or taking a more “normal” amount. I just started a job with unlimited vacation, so I’ll have to see how it goes. I think best case is I can have more shorter stints through the year.
- scrumbledober 5y ago
  my company offers unlimited PTO, then also makes us take at least one day per month, then also has a $2000 travel stipend to encourage us to use PTO. on top of that it is a very 9-5 oriented culture. They do exist, and this is at a Series A startup.
- sethammons 5y ago
  my company seems to honor it pretty well. Last year, I took 7wks not counting company holidays. Half that this year (it was harder as I was spinning up in a new role).
  - jltsiren 5y ago
    That sounds pretty bad. You feel the pressure to take less vacation because things are busy at work. In European workplace culture, the demands of the work tend to be immaterial to the amount of vacation you can take. If things are busy, it's up to your boss to figure out how to handle them while you are away. If they can't do that, it's seen as their failure, not yours. However, if your employer knows in advance that things will be busy, they have a limited ability to adjust the timing of your vacation, but they usually have to do that months in advance.
randcraw 5y ago
28 business days of vacation per year? More than 5 weeks? I know of no company in America that offers that, not even informally. Few US companies offer most of the benefits Europeans expect, from free/cheap health care to child care to generous maternity/paternity leave to low tuition to job security to strictly enforced equal opportunity. Combine all of those into one employer in the US? That unicorn doesn't exist. However such beasts live all over Europe. But they just don't pay US wages, perhaps for obvious reasons. What's more, as soon as US companies hire remotely en masse in Europe, regulators there will surely demand the same benefits & protections for their people from remote employers. This will erase the economic advantages of outsourcing there unless wages paid there are substantially lower than in the US.
- distances 5y ago
  > What's more, as soon as US companies hire remotely en masse in Europe, regulators there will surely demand the same benefits & protections for their people from remote employers. If US company doesn't have a local office in that European country they can't anyway offer a normal employment contract, that has never been possible. Social security, healthcare, pension needs to be paid. So either the employee is a freelancer, or company has an office in the same country to pay the employer's dues. This applies to intra-EU work too, someone living in Germany can't accept a regular employment position in a Spanish company remotely.
  - moooo99 5y ago
    > Social security, healthcare, pension needs to be paid. So either the employee is a freelancer, or company has an office in the same country to pay the employer's dues. This is important! The labor market in most EU countries is very strictly regulated, mostly to the benefit of the employees. If the company you try to work for does not have a branch in your country (chances are, they don't) then there is a huge bureaucratic burden and sometimes even a legal grey area. Speaking from a German perspective, its barely worth it to try to apply for a remote position at Facebook (at least based on the salaries I've found). As a contractor you'd have to battle a huge administrative effort in terms of social security and healthcare, not to mention that everything is more expensive as a freelancer since there is no employer contribution to your healthcare payments. In the end you may end up with slightly more money in the bank, but with fewer employee protections and a huge administrative burden. So I'd really question if it's really worth it. However, Germany is actually a market with decently high salaries for the IT sector, unlike some other countries like Italy. So I could imagine that there is significant demand from other EU countries

mmalachowski 5y ago

By "vacation" you mean fully paid days ? Unlimited?

svachalek 5y ago
"Unlimited" in quotes. Sometimes better called "unmetered". That is, you are not granted days of vacation, nor does taking a day off get deducted from any limit. But obviously if you're not showing up to work often enough, you will lose your job.
- Gigachad 5y ago
  I'd much rather have a set amount and feel good using it than worrying if I have exceeded my limit of socially acceptable days off.

the_only_law 5y ago

> You can probably take more vacation that you already get in Europe. I’ve always heard that places like this tend to pressure you into not taking many days or taking a more “normal” amount. I just started a job with unlimited vacation, so I’ll have to see how it goes. I think best case is I can have more shorter stints through the year.

scrumbledober 5y ago
my company offers unlimited PTO, then also makes us take at least one day per month, then also has a $2000 travel stipend to encourage us to use PTO. on top of that it is a very 9-5 oriented culture. They do exist, and this is at a Series A startup.
sethammons 5y ago
my company seems to honor it pretty well. Last year, I took 7wks not counting company holidays. Half that this year (it was harder as I was spinning up in a new role).
- jltsiren 5y ago
  That sounds pretty bad. You feel the pressure to take less vacation because things are busy at work. In European workplace culture, the demands of the work tend to be immaterial to the amount of vacation you can take. If things are busy, it's up to your boss to figure out how to handle them while you are away. If they can't do that, it's seen as their failure, not yours. However, if your employer knows in advance that things will be busy, they have a limited ability to adjust the timing of your vacation, but they usually have to do that months in advance.

randcraw 5y ago

28 business days of vacation per year? More than 5 weeks? I know of no company in America that offers that, not even informally. Few US companies offer most of the benefits Europeans expect, from free/cheap health care to child care to generous maternity/paternity leave to low tuition to job security to strictly enforced equal opportunity. Combine all of those into one employer in the US? That unicorn doesn't exist. However such beasts live all over Europe. But they just don't pay US wages, perhaps for obvious reasons. What's more, as soon as US companies hire remotely en masse in Europe, regulators there will surely demand the same benefits & protections for their people from remote employers. This will erase the economic advantages of outsourcing there unless wages paid there are substantially lower than in the US.

distances 5y ago
> What's more, as soon as US companies hire remotely en masse in Europe, regulators there will surely demand the same benefits & protections for their people from remote employers. If US company doesn't have a local office in that European country they can't anyway offer a normal employment contract, that has never been possible. Social security, healthcare, pension needs to be paid. So either the employee is a freelancer, or company has an office in the same country to pay the employer's dues. This applies to intra-EU work too, someone living in Germany can't accept a regular employment position in a Spanish company remotely.
- moooo99 5y ago
  > Social security, healthcare, pension needs to be paid. So either the employee is a freelancer, or company has an office in the same country to pay the employer's dues. This is important! The labor market in most EU countries is very strictly regulated, mostly to the benefit of the employees. If the company you try to work for does not have a branch in your country (chances are, they don't) then there is a huge bureaucratic burden and sometimes even a legal grey area. Speaking from a German perspective, its barely worth it to try to apply for a remote position at Facebook (at least based on the salaries I've found). As a contractor you'd have to battle a huge administrative effort in terms of social security and healthcare, not to mention that everything is more expensive as a freelancer since there is no employer contribution to your healthcare payments. In the end you may end up with slightly more money in the bank, but with fewer employee protections and a huge administrative burden. So I'd really question if it's really worth it. However, Germany is actually a market with decently high salaries for the IT sector, unlike some other countries like Italy. So I could imagine that there is significant demand from other EU countries