71–80 of 474 posts
It's very difficult to compare things like housing, social life and salary without knowing where you're coming from and where you're considering going. Countries in Europe have GDPs per capita ranging from under $5,000/year to over $100,000/year.
Really one of the few things you can say context-free is: you'll have more vacation in virtually any European country.
It's also very likely the healthcare, social systems (unemployment, day-care, etc.) and public transit will be saner. But again, you're comparing two very large, diverse places, and it's hard to reason about them in such generalities.
Hey! I'm back in the US but my wife and I moved from SF to Amsterdam for 3 years. We moved with our tech job there and ended up eventually quitting and doing our own company. - Where do you live? SF -> Amsterdam - What's the biggest sacrifice you had to make (i.e. pay, housing, friends, etc.) I was shocked when my HR department told me our salaries would pretty much be cut in half. I was also furious because I was go…
One thing expats definitely have to do is readjust their expectations about cost of living and relative expenses. While the payroll for your average European tech guy is nowhere near the stellar heights of the SV bro's, the buying power in Europe is at a level higher than you might expect. Whereas, for a single night out in SoCal I'd spend $100 - $150, dinner movie and drinks - here in Vienna I'd get through just as…
You won't be buying any decent apartment/house unless you move outside of city, buy a car and let go of all the benefits that comes with living in a European city.
I'm sure others will cover the shorter-term aspects. I'll add that, particularly if you're not young or have a family, it wouldn't hurt to consider the fact that you will probably have a great time for the first N years, but there might be a slump when you realize that you will probably never really integrate and will have a smaller social circle because of it, in a place where people seem to have smaller casual grou…
You do need to somehow actively engage yourself with the community though to make this work. Strongly recommend working from a coworking as much as possible. It forces you to frequently meet new people, gives you day-to-day language practice, and really helps to build a network of small connections that eventually power your social life long-term.
I'm just outside London, moved here to marry my English wife from Vegas. I work part time doing basic IT for a US law firm due to health issues after heart surgery, and Yankee dollars are worth jack shit here - I'm not making serious tech industry money, but over here it's barely enough to survive on. Housing is always smaller than you'd get in (at least the western) US for the same price, and I'd bet that's true pre…
> brink of civil war I think that might be overstated. > NHS is absolutely amazing I've read and heard that for a non-emergency appointments, the wait could sometimes be months. Is that also overstated?
I miss America's food and diversity and dynamism. It took being here to learn that those things are real. I also miss true deep wilderness, something much rarer in Western Europe.
What have I gained? A saner, simpler, more human-scale life. Pleasure. Security. Not having to hustle. Most of the misery I see in my friends and family in the US has material causes that barely exist here. Especially everything having to do with young children.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> brink of civil war I think that might be overstated. > NHS is absolutely amazing I've read and heard that for a non-emergency appointments, the wait could sometimes be months. Is that also overstated?
The wait is really months. Also the quality of the NHS is pretty bad. The NHS being great is the usual state-backed propaganda you can hear in a lot of other European countries to justify spending all that tax money on healthcare. Just from my personal experience: They skipped some safety measures they were supposed to follow during a birth delivery, they dealt terribly with one of my newborns after birth, they recom…
Not really. The NHS itself and the various NHS trusts have been continuously drained of funding over the past few decades. The NHS runs on a shoestring.
If you want things to improve, Tory cuts need to be rolled back.