The UK but outside London. Beats germany in openness and pretty much all other eu countries in tech and pay. Housing is an issue in london but england rural and the other countries in the uk are quite within reach. The tech scene is an absolute leader in europe, startup funding is quite easy to get and career options are plenty. The government is a joke but if you ignore those goons youll be fine.
Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?
151–160 of 269 posts
Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?
#152I am also leaving Germany. Today I chatted with a Berliner who pointed out how loud and unsafe Berlin has become. Months ago I talked with a lady with kids that moved out cos too much drugs in parks. Not surprised to read your story! I am going to the land of tolerance and innovation: the Netherlands!
If i was moving away from Germany because of too many drugs, the Netherlands wouldn't be my first choice.
Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?
#153Sounds like you should/want just move out of Berlin, not necessarily Germany. Sure, the tax situation and climate is basically the same everywhere, but if you want quality of live I'd recommend somewhere near or between Oldenburg and Emden in Lower Saxony. Once you settled in basically everything east of Bremen and south of Osnabrück will feel like a different country. I basically had the same situation for decades a…
We still consider a place outside Berlin / Brandenburg. Still that does not change the fact, that the current state of affairs here is hard to digest. We also and especially look for a "warmer" and "brighter" region. German winters tend to be hard, not because of the temperatures, but because of the hours of sunlight. However, thank you for the suggestion, we'll definitely check them.
I grew up in the north of Sweden but studied in Mannheim, Germany. Winters in Germany are miserable. If you get snow in winter you will perceive a 2.5-hour day as a lot brighter than it is. Mannheim was like a dystopian crime novel from a 1970s Britain in comparison to my home town, despite almost 4x the actual sunlight in January.
I am not saying "move to north Sweden". Just that amount of daylight is not everything.
Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?
#154I am also leaving Germany. Today I chatted with a Berliner who pointed out how loud and unsafe Berlin has become. Months ago I talked with a lady with kids that moved out cos too much drugs in parks. Not surprised to read your story! I am going to the land of tolerance and innovation: the Netherlands!
If i was moving away from Germany because of too many drugs, the Netherlands wouldn't be my first choice.
Certainly the lady had a point, as you do. Berlin is not representative of Germany in almost any respect, or?
Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
> to canada (Vancouver BC) I mean Vancouver is not exactly a paragon of affordable housing either.
Toronto, Edmonton, Vancouver...probably couldn't be more different. Would not want to lump all of Canada into one of those cities.
Montreal is the most affordable city in canada that doesn't suck. It's a bit hard to believe how cheap it still is (relatively!), yet imo it's a much better place to live in than Toronto/Ottawa/Edmonton.
Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?
#156I am also leaving Germany. Today I chatted with a Berliner who pointed out how loud and unsafe Berlin has become. Months ago I talked with a lady with kids that moved out cos too much drugs in parks. Not surprised to read your story! I am going to the land of tolerance and innovation: the Netherlands!
It's interesting: Why is everyone moving to Berlin in the first place? It is not a great city and yet it's compared to Germany as a whole.
Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?
#157Come to Bulgaria - in the south there are mild winters, in the summer - there's a great beachside. You get some of the fastest internet in Europe for cheap, taxes stand at 10% flat rate, 20% VAT. Houses in the vicinity of major cities are dirt cheap, compared to your standards (you can probably start off renting for something like 400-500 euro/month). There're a lot of IT companies, but of course you can't expect the…
Interesting suggestion. I've been to Sofia once in 2006. The city did not make a very good impression back then, but I am sure, the situation changed a lot. Hopefully to the better. I will definitely look into it, since we do not exclude eastern Europe from our list. Thanks for the suggestion.
Bulgaria is overall best in Europe, but the language is difficult (Cyrillic) and international English schools are very expensive.
Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
If i was moving away from Germany because of too many drugs, the Netherlands wouldn't be my first choice.
Certainly the lady had a point, as you do. Berlin is not representative of Germany in almost any respect, or?
Sure, there is a open drug scene in parks in Berlin, but there is no such thing in Stuttgart or Munich.
Historically the germans travelled to Holland to buy their drugs and it's still the main drug distribution hub in europe.
Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?
#159what are your top 3 issues with berlin? germany and berlin always seemed to offer great quality of life. i’m from europe too. how can you not afford a house in germany with a 200k/year salary? for less than 500k you should be able to find something nice? even if you pay 50% tax. and you have 2 incomes. in the US real estate on the east and west coast is insanely expensive and 1.5MM plus for a very basic house. nothin…
Portland metro still has very nice houses for much less that 1.5MM
I've thought about washington state, but that is more expensive. no state tax ... so maybe that is why real estate costs more.
Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?
#160I am also leaving Germany. Today I chatted with a Berliner who pointed out how loud and unsafe Berlin has become. Months ago I talked with a lady with kids that moved out cos too much drugs in parks. Not surprised to read your story! I am going to the land of tolerance and innovation: the Netherlands!
It's interesting: Why is everyone moving to Berlin in the first place? It is not a great city and yet it's compared to Germany as a whole.
This startled me 10y ago when I arrived to Hamburg: why was I only aware of Berlin? I think due to the (failed) international projection of the great diversity of cities and towns in Germany. Hamburg is a very nice place, and greatly unknown outside Germany.