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Comment by jagermo | Hacker News Reader

In addition to the comment:

You need a "blue card" to work to work in the EU, its comparable to the US Green Card, but (i think) easier to get. From the Wikipedia-Article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Card_(European_Union)) :

Acquisition of Blue Card has several requirements. The applicant must have a work contract or binding job offer with a salary of at least 1.5 times the average gross annual salary paid in the Member State. A Blue Card acquirer must present a valid travel document (and in specific cases a valid residence permit or a national long-term visa) and documents proving the relevant higher professional qualification.

Here is more information regarding Germany (but it is from 2008): http://www.wohin-auswandern.de/blue-card-en

To be honest, the salary probably won't be a problem, with your expertise you should be able to land a pretty decent job.

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Blue Card isn't only option. For example, in Sweden there are two work visas for software developers: Blue Card and Work Permit.

I didn't get Blue Card since I didn't get job offer with really high salary, but instead I got Work Permit which don't require salary 1.5 times higher than the average.

Also in Netherlands there are two options: Blue Card and High Skilled Migrant.

Requirements for High Skilled Migrant are much lower than for Blue Card.

In Sweden and Netherlands you can work without university degree.

In Germany, you can not get Blue Card without university degree. And if you want to get Work Permit as alternative, you should know German language (Sweden and Netherlands don't require you to know their language).

So Germany isn't good option. I recommend Sweden and Netherlands if you don't have university degree.

Netherlands is only probable if he is under 30.

AFAIK, no-one has ever received a Blue Card in the NL. The salary requirement is higher than for knowledge migrants, so it doesn't even make sense to try.

Knowledge migrant law discriminates on age. If he's over 30, the salary requirement is prohibitevely high - high enough that it is highly improbable he'll find a company willing to pay him that much with his profile.

If he's under 30, than the salary requirement is around €3k per month, and that might be doable if he does his interview exceptionally well and convince them he has a "thinking level" of somebody with a university degree.

Income requirement for Highly Skilled Migrant for someone older than 30 isn't that high. According to:

https://ind.nl/en/individuals/employee/costs-income-requirem...

You should earn €4189 per month. It's not a lot of money if you are good software developer.

Booking in Amsterdam pay more than this!

From my personal experience (I don't have degree), I can say that companies like Booking, Amazon, Facebook, Google etc don't care about your degree.

If someone is handsome with algorithms and scalable architecture, then he/she can easily get more than €4K in Amsterdam.

>>From my personal experience (I don't have degree), I can say that companies like Booking, Amazon, Facebook, Google etc don't care about your degree.

Seriously, if only I can get a job at one of them.

> €4189 per month [is] not a lot of money if you are good software developer.

That's difficult to believe. I barely make half of that in Canada.

Yes, for software developers in Germany with a permanent contract and higher education it is really quite easy.

I recently acquired a blue card kind of accidentally, after landing a permanent contract with a company as an iOS dev. The HR person took me into the foreigners office to apply for a sponsored work visa (where I would be tied to a specific company) and we walked out with a blue card tied to my profession instead, on the spot. Blue cards are really amazing - you have free movement inside the entire Schengen region, can work for anyone, you get unemployment benefits and it's a relatively short period before you can get permanent residency (with a language requirement - B1 in 21 months).

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