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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

#91

Post by gorbachev »

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…

Whether or not living in Europe or US is more expensive depends entirely on your life situation.

If you're single with no dependents and you're healthy (and don't get an expensive sickness), then I would mostly agree US is better financially.

If, on the other hand, you have kids, and/or some sort of health condition, it becomes pretty much a wash, or in favor of (some) European countries.

Those higher European taxes pay for things that you pay out of pocket in the US. If you're not using those type of services, then you're financially better off in the US.

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

#92

Post by tomschlick »

kowdermeister wrote: post #14

> what's it like out there comparing to America It's totally different country by country. I never been to the US, but I imagine it's much more homogeneous than the EU. For example you can go to Berlin, Barcelona, Milano, Stockholm or Budapest and you can have radically different experiences. It differs radically financially, demographically and attitude wise. I'd suggest to start with a Euro-trip and visit as many c…

> I never been to the US, but I imagine it's much more homogeneous than the EU

I'd argue they are mostly the same. IMO, The US is pretty similar in structure to the EU where the US as a whole is comprised of many states, each with their own laws. Yes there are federal laws but for the most part, each state can do whatever they want.

Each state / region has vastly different cultures and standards of living.

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

#93

Post by ma2rten »

taway_1212 wrote: post #71
jfaucett wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's merely generally harder and for less money. My experience has been the opposite in terms of difficulty. In most EU countries the market of software engineers who can also speak the native country's language is really small so its way easier to stand out from the crowd. In the US, you have to compete in a 350 million+ population pool plus global candidates who have studied English their whole lives. In any give…

You can't ignore the demand side of the equation though. US is leading economic and military (which leads to lots of tech as well) superpower and a lot of European countries are relatively backwater in comparison. For example, in the UK, there's little real tech companies and most developer roles are confined to non-tech support roles in other economy sectors (finance, retail etc.).

I did a search on the most recent How's Hiring thread to see how many jobs are offered in each city. I think it's fair to assume that most people posting there are "real tech companies":

  San Francisco: 170
  New York: 96
  London: 90
  Boston: 38
  Berlin: 34
I just did a full text search so there might be some double counting.

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

#94

Post by tr1ck5t3r »

Sounds like you want to go travelling, perhaps you can get some contract work from some of those online contract/freelance sites.

You need to decide what your work life balance is to be. If you want to do more soaking up the culture, consider the above option, if you want to do more work and learning then decide what area you want to work in and then look for companies that might present those opportunities. You'll have a mix of costs where ever you go in the world and within a country. I could say lots of jobs in and around Cambridge, and whilst the city is expensive to buy, many students manage the costs of renting shared accomodation, but move outside the city heading anywhere but south towards London and costs can fall.

I guess its a case of setting your standards accordingly. You dont say where your Aunt lives either which might also limit your options.

Here in the UK you can get on the job training as an apprentice, but I dont know if its restricted to just UK Citizens or people from overseas as well.

Perhaps a bit more detail in your Ask HN might help you get more detailed useful info.

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

#95

Post by bjelkeman-again »

vram22 wrote: post #83
mbroncano wrote: post #21

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 exp…

>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?

The 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...

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

#96

Post by kgwgk »

pg314 wrote: post #11
neximo64 wrote: post #2

Find a job in your country of choice and get your visa - then move, about as simple as that. If you're looking at a job on the continent make sure you know the local language fluently (not English). It is said that its ok to know English alone but it really isn't. You'll come to the reason that most Europeans in the tech space opt for the US - the compensation factor in Europe is relatively poor.

Lower compensation, but better social security (if you manage to get citizenship), better working hours, more holidays. I second learning the local language. That is one of the most important requirements to truly integrate.

Social security is mostly independent of citizenship.

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

#97

Post by twic »

hacker_9 wrote: post #75
taway_1212 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't ignore the demand side of the equation though. US is leading economic and military (which leads to lots of tech as well) superpower and a lot of European countries are relatively backwater in comparison. For example, in the UK, there's little real tech companies and most developer roles are confined to non-tech support roles in other economy sectors (finance, retail etc.).

No? I've worked in plenty of software developer roles in the UK, not sure where this is coming from.

What our disposable friend claimed was that there are few "real tech companies", not that there are few roles. There's some truth in that; there are lots of jobs working for banks, supermarkets, consultancies, publishers, etc, but relatively few in companies which are either pure-play tech (who is the British Microsoft or Dropbox?) or even consumer web (who is the British Facebook or Google?).

That might or might not be a bad thing. It means you're more likely to be working for a real company, with a real business model, rather than some freak kept above by advertising and VC misallocation.

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

#98

Post by ColanR »

scrollaway wrote: post #72
loxs wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you say is correct. All things have variations. The Athens flat for 100 euro (though I highly doubt the price you cite) has it's equivalence somewhere in cheap cities of the US I never said that healthcare was "bad", only that it has its problems. Please note that I didn't say that Europe is worse, just that you'll be worse financially, which I didn't see you disproving.

I can cite that price from personal experience :) You said healthcare is of "questionable quality". Everything has its problems but as far as I'm concerned, healthcare in europe is top notch. You certainly don't hear about "healthcare horror stories" in europe, unlike in the US... I'm not sure what "worse off financially" even means. It depends. For a long time I was working from home for an international company and…

And yet you still don't disprove his point. "More than needed in a year" doesn't deny a relatively inferior financial position.

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

#99

Post by [deleted] »

scrollaway wrote: post #72
loxs wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you say is correct. All things have variations. The Athens flat for 100 euro (though I highly doubt the price you cite) has it's equivalence somewhere in cheap cities of the US I never said that healthcare was "bad", only that it has its problems. Please note that I didn't say that Europe is worse, just that you'll be worse financially, which I didn't see you disproving.

I can cite that price from personal experience :) You said healthcare is of "questionable quality". Everything has its problems but as far as I'm concerned, healthcare in europe is top notch. You certainly don't hear about "healthcare horror stories" in europe, unlike in the US... I'm not sure what "worse off financially" even means. It depends. For a long time I was working from home for an international company and…

[deleted]

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

#100

Post by twic »

taway_1212 wrote: post #45
askmike wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There's a reasonable amount of graphics and compiler work in the UK - we have ARM, and Imagination Technologies, plus some other boutique local companies, and offices of international companies like Broadcom and IBM (Hursley did a lot of IBM's JVM work, not sure if that's still going).
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