Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Thinking of moving to Europe from USA

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 239 posts

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

#111

Post by netsharc »

alexhakawy wrote: post #31
lordnacho wrote: post #23

That's a big life decision. I've lived in Europe my whole life, but I have a lot of friends and relatives in the US. I've also lived in 3 different European countries, and of course I know people from just about all the Western European nations. There's a lot got you to think about. This is only a small part, off the top of my head: - If you're American, you pay tax worldwide. Most countries have higher tax than the…

if I have family there do I still need visa to live with them?

Unless you're a citizen of a EU country you need a residence permit (people call this "visa", but technically they are 2 different things) to work in a EU country. As a US citizen, you can visit for 90 days without a visa, but after that you'd need something.

AFAIK if you have a grandparent who is an Irish citizen and was born there, you can get an Irish citizenship. That is automatically an EU citizenship, and if you have that you can live and work anywhere in the EU without needing any sort of permit.

But even if you have this Irish grandparent, you can't just move into a EU country and live there BEFORE getting an official document saying you are now an Irish citizen.

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

#112

Post by Broken_Hippo »

The first thing you'll need to decide is where you'd like - and if you can go to those places. Most of the time, you'll either need to go to school, work, or marry someone to live there. Some countries have visas for job searching, but it might be difficult without a degree.

For the countries you have relatives in, you'll have to check their immigration policies. Generally only close relatives are eligible for family immigration, but there might be exceptions. You might check schooling in those countries as well.

Good luck!

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

#113

Post by kragniz »

twic wrote: post #97
hacker_9 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

ARM is pretty well known

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

#114

Post by bogomipz »

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…

>"Salaries are not what you expect coming from the US, your $200k rated job is no more than 80k€"

Is that a good rule of thumb then? $200k is fairly top end in the US. Obviously there are people at the big SV companies that make more but 200K is pretty close to top end for senior people. So you are saying that that 80K Euros is the general top end for EU tech companies? Given that there is more or less dollar to Euro parity now that is substantially less.

On the other hand you will work a lot of hours for that 200K in the US. Is that also true of the EU for similar? I think that proper work life balance should always be considered in addition to actual compensation.

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

#115

Post by taway_1212 »

tluyben2 wrote: post #60
loxs wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I only have my personal experience and that of my family and friends. And I didn't say "low". Usually it's highly bureaucratic - you have to "climb a ladder" of doctors. First your GP, then a specialist, then, maybe a hospital. You wait a lot (sometimes weeks and months, because you are not "emergency"). And sometimes you encounter outright incompetence and have to go to a private doctor/hospital to have your…

What countries? My experiences are excellent in Netherlands & Spain public healthcare. I hear people complain about NHS a lot but never used it so no idea.

It is definitely true for Poland. As for UK, I had a flatmate with intense head/chest pain wait for 4 hours for an ambulance because he was diagnosed over the phone as not being an urgent case (which was probaby right, as he did not die in the meantime) and that was the wait time for non-dying people.

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

#116

Post by bogomipz »

biztos wrote: post #88
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…

I strongly recommend learning German if living in Berlin, but I also know a bunch of Americans living there who get by fine on ten words of German for the grocery store, and the rest all happens in English.

Are you a native German speaker or did you also learn? Any recommendations? I have heard the Goethe Institute is great but its very expensive.

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

#117

Post by petre »

PaulHoule wrote: post #6

I think Europe is going just as nutty as the states, maybe more. I am betting that the national front wins in France and France drops out; after that the euro collapses and we see a monetary nightmare.

He can just pick a country outside the EMU: UK, Czech Republic, Sweeden, Denmark, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria. The last ones are in danger of entering the Eurozone, ceding control over their currencies to the EU and possibly getting in trouble like Greece did. Capital is already fleeing out of Europe to the US. I'd say it's a bad move to move to Europe right now, unless it's for college/uni and maybe job prospects afterwards. Although he's going to have a hard time as an American citizen because of silly tax agreements the US has with other countries.

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

#118

Post by petre »

alexhakawy wrote: post #37
jankotek wrote: post #18

Do remote work for US company...

I can't find even remote work inside the US lol I know HTML, CSS and basic JS

You can study for cheap and get a student visa in Germany, Austria or an ex Eastern Block country, get a job until senior developer there, then work for a US company.

Forget Italy. Italy is probably nice to live in, but it's at risk of becoming the next Greece right now. Big problems in the banking sector, 1st country for refugees to enter through along with Greece.

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

#119

Post by bosie »

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…

> I wasn't able to save nearly as much as I did in NYC

Never having lived in the US, is the savings you are talking about in terms of percentage of your cost? i.e. if the only cost you have is rent and its 2800 vs 700, i would need to save at least 4 times as much to cover the difference.

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

#120

Post by iak8god »

tomschlick wrote: post #92
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.

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

The culture in the US varies some from region to region (midwest vs northwest vs south etc), but it's absolutely false to say that the differences are "vast", especially on the state-to-state level. Standards of living vary much more between urban/rural even within states than they do across states generally.

Leaving aside the fact that EU states speak completely different languages, the cultural differences there are much, much more pronounced. Everyone in the US speaks the same language, watches the same TV shows, follows the same sports, shops at the same chain stores, etc, etc.

Your comparison of the political structures is also quite off, though not very relevant to the question of cultural homogeneity.

Post reply on HN