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List of 30 European Tech Visas and Work Permits

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Re: List of 30 European Tech Visas and Work Permits

#91

American in Paris for 1 year working as a Senior DevSecOps Engineer (or whatever they want to call us). Went from 225kUSD/yr in usa to 95kEUR in Europe (most senior devs are lucky to get 75k, paris tech salaries are lagging behind London, AMS and Berlin. I felt like I was getting underpaid until I figured out (awkwardly at a dinner) that i make more than a lot of doctors and government ministers. Plus the healthcare,…

I get paid 250K EUR in Geneva for writing deadbeat Scala code for Banks. I doubt anyone can match that in Europe I am straight out of ETH Zurich so my experience is negligible.

Switzerland is an outlier in many aspects for Western Europe :)

And not only in terms of earning - look for example at benefits you get for having kids (amount of parental leave, cost of kindergarten, etc).

It’s like a weird capitalist Enklave in the middle of Europe. I’ll bet a lot of people thought of having kids in Germany or Austria and moving to Switzerland after a few years of taking advantage of generous benefits for having young kids in the former.

Re: List of 30 European Tech Visas and Work Permits

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that you're moving to Berlin for a higher salary. I thought Berlin was infamous for very low salaries, but perhaps that's only among junior developers.

From personal friends, I know you can get paid >120k EUR if you have 5-10+ years of experience.

I cannot confirm this at all. I have some friends who work in Germany (I left several years ago to the US), and even those in senior tech jobs with years of experience only get up to ~80k EUR and the sky-high taxes push that down to <50k.

Re: List of 30 European Tech Visas and Work Permits

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At $225,000 what was your total compensation and did that include healthcare (which is basically universal at that salary)? If you're earning that much, essentially all of your healthcare costs should be getting covered by your employer, as would be typical (it's typical at half that salary). I can easily understand a preference regarding culture and ease of transit, however it's hard to believe that 20 subsidized lu…

That was total comp. I was a Solutions Architect at Dell EMC. But I worked 60 hour weeks, did the usual client facing bs, used my own time to fill out reimbursement forms yaddayadda. Id rather make 80k in France any day of the week.

At the end of the day time is one thing you can’t easily buy - even if you’re making out like a bandit you can’t pay to work fewer hour or get more vacation days (it’s possible sometimes but I always had a much harder time negotiating for those than for higher pay).

Re: List of 30 European Tech Visas and Work Permits

#95
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be interested to know what these friends do. From my personal experience in game-dev in Berlin, the highest earning coding individual-contributor (so not a manager) salary I ever saw was 70-something €k per year (and it is quite rare to go above €65k even as a very senior programmer). You will literally have to be C-level at a large and succesful company to earn €120k+ as far as I can tell (in this sector).

> salary I ever saw was 70-something €k per year (and it is quite rare to go above €65k even as a very senior programmer). That's my impression as well, of the job market in Berlin as dev contributor in many industries. There exists just rock solid ceiling at 70k EUR and that's it. No idea about stricte managerial roles but these are oftentimes reserved to native Germans and the competition is beyond fierce so forget…

I’ve not experienced managerial roles being reserved for native Germans in the Berlin tech industry at least - had plenty of non-German managers.

Re: List of 30 European Tech Visas and Work Permits

#96
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was total comp. I was a Solutions Architect at Dell EMC. But I worked 60 hour weeks, did the usual client facing bs, used my own time to fill out reimbursement forms yaddayadda. Id rather make 80k in France any day of the week.

At the end of the day time is one thing you can’t easily buy - even if you’re making out like a bandit you can’t pay to work fewer hour or get more vacation days (it’s possible sometimes but I always had a much harder time negotiating for those than for higher pay).

You realise that peace of mind, a social safety net, paid maternity/paternity leave, walking home while the sun is still out, etc. all are infinitely more important than overworking just to get the next Porsche SUV or whatever.

Peace is it's own reward.

Re: List of 30 European Tech Visas and Work Permits

#97

Left the states a few years ago. After a 2 years stint in Toronto at a startup I now work for a Swedish development agency in Gothenburg. 6 weeks of paid vacation, great public transit, and affordable housing all mean I'm never going back to the states. If your considering moving to Europe, I'd highly recommend it. Salary isn't everything in life. Happy to answer any questions

What's so bad about Toronto? Ontario looks like a nice region to live.

Re: List of 30 European Tech Visas and Work Permits

#98
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From personal friends, I know you can get paid >120k EUR if you have 5-10+ years of experience.

I cannot confirm this at all. I have some friends who work in Germany (I left several years ago to the US), and even those in senior tech jobs with years of experience only get up to ~80k EUR and the sky-high taxes push that down to <50k.

I'm working in Munich in a reasonably senior role (but <10 years, of which <3 years at that company), total compensation is ~120k Euros before taxes. It's not super common, but it's definitely possible.

Re: List of 30 European Tech Visas and Work Permits

#99
post #62

American in Paris for 1 year working as a Senior DevSecOps Engineer (or whatever they want to call us). Went from 225kUSD/yr in usa to 95kEUR in Europe (most senior devs are lucky to get 75k, paris tech salaries are lagging behind London, AMS and Berlin. I felt like I was getting underpaid until I figured out (awkwardly at a dinner) that i make more than a lot of doctors and government ministers. Plus the healthcare,…

I moved to Paris from San Francisco. The startup I joined uses English as its working language, so the language barrier hasn't been a problem at all. Also I found French to be relatively similar to English and quite easy to learn. It's been a huge joy being able to speak to people in a second language. I've wanted to learn a second language for a long time and I finally have a good reason to do it. Also there are int…

Don't forget Doctolib

Re: List of 30 European Tech Visas and Work Permits

#100

American in Paris for 1 year working as a Senior DevSecOps Engineer (or whatever they want to call us). Went from 225kUSD/yr in usa to 95kEUR in Europe (most senior devs are lucky to get 75k, paris tech salaries are lagging behind London, AMS and Berlin. I felt like I was getting underpaid until I figured out (awkwardly at a dinner) that i make more than a lot of doctors and government ministers. Plus the healthcare,…

Are you single? I know the blue card extends to spouses so just curious if you had a partner with you and if they also wanted to work in Europe
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