Comment by gregdoesit | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gregdoesit | Hacker News Reader

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I can completely agree with this article. I've worked at Skype, and now I see many of my ex-colleagues having large impact at other startups and tech companies - some Estonian, some international. Transferwise. Twillio. Pipedrive. Fleep. Just a few ones where ex Estonian Skypers and their network have a huge impact. Twillio and Transferwise are two good international examples who did this and have had excellent results - the Tallin offices producing some of the best engineering outputs globally.

Almost every talented Skype engineer I know of has joined either a new startup, or a promising tech company with European offices. And many of them have not moved from Tallin - having these companies open offices here, and hire more locals, who the seniors then mentor and train.

It's incredible what effect a single company - Skype - has had to the tech community for all of Estonia.

I am curious is the lingua franca English in the office generally? I find it amusing that Estonia's weather was mentioned here, is the winter in Tallin worse than Stockholm or Berlin? Also poor connections? Is that train only? Certainly Ryan Air flies there no?

Are salaries on par with the rest of Europe?

Yes, in tech it's pretty safe to take English as the lingua franca here.

Connections - we do indeed have Ryanair and easyJet but not that many destinations. Tallinn Airport has a good list[1] of what's available directly.

Salaries - we at Teleport (with deep Skype roots as well) just launched a salary comparison tool[2] this week, hope it helps to get an overview of salaries but also costs.

[1] http://www.tallinn-airport.ee/en/flight-info/destinations/ [2] https://teleport.org/salaries/

> Yes, in tech it's pretty safe to take English as the lingua franca here.

Another thing, that was not mentioned in the article, is that the government of Estonia seems to be doing a better job of managing the country than the governments of most other European countries. Estonia seems to have relatively little bureaucracy and relatively low taxes.

For example, I currently live in Norway. If I wanted to start a new company, it seems that it would be better for me to move to Estonia and start it there, rather than do it here in Norway. I wonder how feasible that would be to do, though, without me speaking Estonian? Other than talking to tech people, can you live in Estonia and get by with only English?

Thanks for the links, what's the Visa policy?

There is website called Work in Estonia[1],

I guess there is more specific information for different backgrounds.

[1] http://www.workinestonia.com/coming-to-estonia/

Thanks

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