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Since there isn’t much of a topic here to get sidetracked from… HN community, has anyone here looked into getting a second home or entirely moving to Italy? Any

Since there isn’t much of a topic here to get sidetracked from… HN community, has anyone here looked into getting a second home or entirely moving to Italy? Any experiences to be shared? I have the ability, but wonder if anyone has any success stories or high recommendations.

apignotti 5y ago
Italian here, living abroad. If you plan to move, you'll need to learn the language unfortunately. I think the average English knowledge of the population has significantly improved over the last ~10 years, but dealing with bureaucracy (with its own special/weird language) still requires some level of understanding of written Italian. In terms of quality-of-life I'd recommend Tuscany, but as an expat Milan might be the best choice. Good luck.
- R0b0t1 5y ago
  I asked parent's question to an Italian and got basically the same thing but with the rider that tech jobs in Italy are few and far between and generally not desirable. Can you comment on that? Maybe parent was hoping for a visa surfing situation, I dunno.
  - dougmwne 5y ago
    I understand that the good jobs are generally only in Milan and that the cost of living there is not good in comparison to local salaries. Not an issue for me personally, though I understand it’s a major issue in the country.
  - mmarq 5y ago
    Milan being the exception, tech jobs in Italy are generally bad and low paid. Large consultancies tend to work on government projects (often useless or extremely boring), smaller companies still make websites for the baker down the road for 500€. If you are lucky, at the end of your career you may earn more or less what a 23 year old German or Briton earn on their first job. It is totally normal to look for experienced developers and offer 20K euros per annum.
  - apignotti 5y ago
    I am not sure I fully agree, but the quality of the job really depends on the employer. Italy is characterized by _lots_ of small/medium sized businesses (not startups, actual profitable businesses often decades old). Some of them producing state-of-the-art tech in many different industries (Aerospace, Defense, Pharma, etc). The issue with this highly fragmented industrial environment is that it might be difficult to know what it is like to actually work somewhere before spending some time there. Companies tends to be unique. There are also offices from all the well known names (Google etc...), but usually these are sales oriented. I'd still call them "tech jobs" though. About Visas, as an Italian citizen I don't have direct experience. I suspect it might be difficult to get one. Of course EU citizens can do what they want. There might be (relatively) easy paths to citizenship for people with italian ancestry though.
    - mmarq 5y ago
      Small and medium sized employers are very bad places to work. The Italian definition of small company is one with less than 15 employees, these companies avoid much regulations and practically employ at-will, when they don’t use temporary contracts. A company is considered large if it employs more than 50 people. An Italian medium sized company, would be considered small everywhere else. In small and medium sized companies, salaries are extremely low, unpaid overtime is the norm and career progression is close to impossible. They are usually family-run, and the only way to progress is to marry the son/daughter of the owner. They can't hire competent people because they can’t afford to pay what abroad would be the salary of an entry level engineer and working conditions are so bad that everybody who can joins large or foreign companies or becomes a public servant, so they can’t work on anything serious, in lack of a better word, and often end up being a sort of expensive Amazon Turk for larger companies.
throwaway90090 5y ago
Italy is a very nice country that offers a high quality of life, but if you naively show up there you will quickly find out why literal millions of young educated Italians are emgirating all over Europe: there are no jobs. By all means, if you manage to land a gig there, enjoy it. As the other poster said, you also need to learn the language, and sometimes (if you really want to integrate and also depending on the region) the local dialect. (Note that the 'dialect' can be, like, French in the case of Aosta)
- dfadsadsf 5y ago
  You can work remotely - could be sweet to work for Meta or other FAANG and live in Italy. Jobs are portable now.
  - oriettaxx 5y ago
    Jobs are portable, but not taxation and social security contributions :) :) If you live there for more than 6 months (or have strong relations with the country, even if you spend less months there) you must pay taxes in Italy. As a self-employed IT worker you have to pay (https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestione_separata_INPS https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestione_separata_INPS ) 25.72% of social security which goes into the "gestione separata" (a fund that is well known to be crap, so don't expect anything back) and of course you have no benefit at all from paying this. Then add income tax, which is another around another 25% (there can be some discount here, for the first years... but it is not that clear as usual in Italy) So you 'loose' about 50% of your gross income: nothing attractive to me from this side.

apignotti 5y ago

Italian here, living abroad. If you plan to move, you'll need to learn the language unfortunately. I think the average English knowledge of the population has significantly improved over the last ~10 years, but dealing with bureaucracy (with its own special/weird language) still requires some level of understanding of written Italian. In terms of quality-of-life I'd recommend Tuscany, but as an expat Milan might be the best choice. Good luck.

R0b0t1 5y ago
I asked parent's question to an Italian and got basically the same thing but with the rider that tech jobs in Italy are few and far between and generally not desirable. Can you comment on that? Maybe parent was hoping for a visa surfing situation, I dunno.
- dougmwne 5y ago
  I understand that the good jobs are generally only in Milan and that the cost of living there is not good in comparison to local salaries. Not an issue for me personally, though I understand it’s a major issue in the country.
- mmarq 5y ago
  Milan being the exception, tech jobs in Italy are generally bad and low paid. Large consultancies tend to work on government projects (often useless or extremely boring), smaller companies still make websites for the baker down the road for 500€. If you are lucky, at the end of your career you may earn more or less what a 23 year old German or Briton earn on their first job. It is totally normal to look for experienced developers and offer 20K euros per annum.
- apignotti 5y ago
  I am not sure I fully agree, but the quality of the job really depends on the employer. Italy is characterized by _lots_ of small/medium sized businesses (not startups, actual profitable businesses often decades old). Some of them producing state-of-the-art tech in many different industries (Aerospace, Defense, Pharma, etc). The issue with this highly fragmented industrial environment is that it might be difficult to know what it is like to actually work somewhere before spending some time there. Companies tends to be unique. There are also offices from all the well known names (Google etc...), but usually these are sales oriented. I'd still call them "tech jobs" though. About Visas, as an Italian citizen I don't have direct experience. I suspect it might be difficult to get one. Of course EU citizens can do what they want. There might be (relatively) easy paths to citizenship for people with italian ancestry though.
  - mmarq 5y ago
    Small and medium sized employers are very bad places to work. The Italian definition of small company is one with less than 15 employees, these companies avoid much regulations and practically employ at-will, when they don’t use temporary contracts. A company is considered large if it employs more than 50 people. An Italian medium sized company, would be considered small everywhere else. In small and medium sized companies, salaries are extremely low, unpaid overtime is the norm and career progression is close to impossible. They are usually family-run, and the only way to progress is to marry the son/daughter of the owner. They can't hire competent people because they can’t afford to pay what abroad would be the salary of an entry level engineer and working conditions are so bad that everybody who can joins large or foreign companies or becomes a public servant, so they can’t work on anything serious, in lack of a better word, and often end up being a sort of expensive Amazon Turk for larger companies.

throwaway90090 5y ago

Italy is a very nice country that offers a high quality of life, but if you naively show up there you will quickly find out why literal millions of young educated Italians are emgirating all over Europe: there are no jobs. By all means, if you manage to land a gig there, enjoy it. As the other poster said, you also need to learn the language, and sometimes (if you really want to integrate and also depending on the region) the local dialect. (Note that the 'dialect' can be, like, French in the case of Aosta)

dfadsadsf 5y ago
You can work remotely - could be sweet to work for Meta or other FAANG and live in Italy. Jobs are portable now.
- oriettaxx 5y ago
  Jobs are portable, but not taxation and social security contributions :) :) If you live there for more than 6 months (or have strong relations with the country, even if you spend less months there) you must pay taxes in Italy. As a self-employed IT worker you have to pay (https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestione_separata_INPS https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestione_separata_INPS ) 25.72% of social security which goes into the "gestione separata" (a fund that is well known to be crap, so don't expect anything back) and of course you have no benefit at all from paying this. Then add income tax, which is another around another 25% (there can be some discount here, for the first years... but it is not that clear as usual in Italy) So you 'loose' about 50% of your gross income: nothing attractive to me from this side.