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Ask HN: Thinking of moving to Europe from USA

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Re: Ask HN: Thinking of moving to Europe from USA

#41

Post by welder »

johnomarkid wrote: post #17

If you are a programmer/designer you can get a 3 year freelance visa in Berlin, Germany. I currently live in Berlin with that visa. Your standard of living in Europe will vary. Sure, some places offer free healthcare (not exactly free - see taxes), better public transportation, and decent quality food at lower tier supermarkets. That's all great. On the other hand, you'll likely take a huge hit in salary and pay high…

Good advice, but not having a degree or showing work experience might make it hard to get the freelancer visa. I would also recommend the "preparation for study visa" which gives you two years for taking German language courses and you can always change to the freelancer or work visa before the two years is up. [1] for the OP, without a degree you can still get the work visa if you're hired by a German company.

> what's it like out there comparing to America?

Main daily difference is you don't need a car. Find a job and go there. You need to experience it yourself to really know what it's like.

1. https://service.berlin.de/dienstleistung/305156/en/

Re: Ask HN: Thinking of moving to Europe from USA

#42

Post by alexhakawy »

alkonaut wrote: post #32

Go find out. What are your career plans? Do you want to do websites or work in a bar? How do you value short commutes/cheap living costs vs. high incomes? How do you value high income versus rain or snow? if you haven't visited many places in europe, perhaps you have traveled the US can say e.g. "I'd do anything to get Californian climate, I couldn't stand Minnesota"... With some more info we can give you a hint.

Cold weather or hot doesn't matter to me. I enjoy everything. I do want to become a web developer eventually doing remote work but until I learn everything to know about freelance web developing I will work at a bar or warehouse whatever it takes to survive out there. Not sure how the whole Visa thing works or if they'll let me stay there past 90 days I got aunt out there

Re: Ask HN: Thinking of moving to Europe from USA

#44

Post by alexhakawy »

jf271 wrote: post #39
patrickbuahgiar wrote: post #35

I think the cheapest European citizenship you can buy is Maltese citizenship for just €650k + 25-50k each for spouse and children. Maltese citizens have visa-free access to 168 countries and territories, thus ranking the Maltese passport 9th in the world (the highest ranking of all the recent new member states of the EU) according to the Visa Restrictions Index. check out http://www.maltaimmigration.com/

If you have relatives from Europe look into citizenship via decent. My grandmother was born in Ireland and I was able to acquire Irish citizenship because of that. Now I have dual US/Irish citizenship

wow that's cool I'll have to look into it. Thanks

Re: Ask HN: Thinking of moving to Europe from USA

#45

Post by taway_1212 »

askmike wrote: post #15
taway_1212 wrote: post #4

Man, you have a very vauable asset for a tech career - a US Citizenship. I am very envious of folks who have it. The tech career opportunities outside of US are really not that diverse and are heavily scattered across the world - i.e. maybe the rest of the world combined is as interesting tech-wide as US is - but with lower salary and language/immigration barriers (i.e. try job-hopping, over a span of say 5 years, fr…

> a US Citizenship. I am very envious of folks who have it. Not everyone wants to move to/stay in the US, the world has a lot of beauty. ---- I for one am very happy to live in Europe. But Europe is a very diverse continent so it's an extremely broad question. I've lived in a few places within Europe, traveled through others. But there is still so much hidden for me. If I were to move outside I would probably go to A…

A lot depends on the kind of career you want to have. If you're happy with staying within the mainstream business/web programming, then Europe does not constrain you that much (except lower salaries, which means less savings, which means retiring later). On the other hand, if you want to go into something niche (compilers, graphics, anything math-based), then US is really the place to be.

Re: Ask HN: Thinking of moving to Europe from USA

#46

Post by GavinMcG »

loxs wrote: post #34

Prepare to be much worse financially. You will earn less, pay higher taxes (as percentage) and will feel much poorer. Cars, especially nice ones, are much more expensive (in absolute numbers, not only as percentage of income) to buy and own. Petrol is several times the US price. Rents are higher in most cities (at least compared to income). Maybe only SV is worse compared to Europe. All tech gadgets are more expensiv…

Do you have more info to support the "usually of very questionable quality" claim?

Edit: corrected "low" to "questionable".

Re: Ask HN: Thinking of moving to Europe from USA

#48

Post by [deleted] »

loxs wrote: post #34

Prepare to be much worse financially. You will earn less, pay higher taxes (as percentage) and will feel much poorer. Cars, especially nice ones, are much more expensive (in absolute numbers, not only as percentage of income) to buy and own. Petrol is several times the US price. Rents are higher in most cities (at least compared to income). Maybe only SV is worse compared to Europe. All tech gadgets are more expensiv…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Thinking of moving to Europe from USA

#49

Post by dClauzel »

taway_1212 wrote: post #4

Man, you have a very vauable asset for a tech career - a US Citizenship. I am very envious of folks who have it. The tech career opportunities outside of US are really not that diverse and are heavily scattered across the world - i.e. maybe the rest of the world combined is as interesting tech-wide as US is - but with lower salary and language/immigration barriers (i.e. try job-hopping, over a span of say 5 years, fr…

> you have a very vauable asset for a tech career - a US Citizenship

DAFUQ ? I am a French research in computer science, now working for a company producing and streaming contents on the web.

I can assure you that my carrer opportunities — as sysadmin, researcher, or developper — are pretty good in France and in Europe :)

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