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Comment by shanked | Hacker News Reader

Somewhat related...

As opposed to Berlin specifically, how should an American software engineer get a job in a different country? I'd like to experience different cultures and I'd like to move to another country (after finding a job) but I'm not sure how I should go about doing it.

Initially, I think western Europe is the most ideal place since I do not know any other languages, some place where many people spoke English would be ideal.

If anyone has any tips for how an American (with no foreign contacts, or fluency in other languages) can land a job in a western European country, I'd be very interested in hearing them.

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Scandinavia and the Netherlands are easy destinations for Americans. Ordinary people speak good English for the most part, and even those who claim not to speak English actually understand the language quite well (mostly thanks to decades of exposure to subtitled American TV shows).

At least here in Finland, English has become the de facto working language at many companies and university departments. Nowadays there is almost always at least one non-Finn in any team, and nobody assumes that foreigners would ever learn Finnish. In large European countries like Germany and France, it's still often assumed that you'll adapt to their language and way of thinking (the French in particular will take it for granted that you're there to absorb the radiant glow of their superior cultural heritage ;)).

Northern Europe is also pretty good for finding IT jobs. Finland has Nokia, Sweden has Ericsson, Netherlands has Philips, Norway has... lots of oil money, I guess. And Denmark is simply a fun place. Take your pick ;)

Norway has Opera ;)

Singapore. English speaking. Modern clean safe beautiful city. Mostly banking and finance here. Something like 2% unemployment, 15% economic growth this year. Lots of Westerners (and Indians, Chinese, Malay, Phillipinos, Indonesians, etc hugely diverse). Little India, Chinatown. Very easy to get a work visa. Low taxes. Tropical island. Can be as cheap as $50 to fly to Bali and a weekend of surfing. All of Southeast Asia a few hours flight away.

On the bad side:

* Freaking hot. You will get used to it after about 8 months.

* Expensive apartments. Not as bad as SF or NYC, but getting up there.

* Despite being a decent size city, it often has a conservative, small town atmosphere.

* Asia loves status and brand names and leans towards Java and .Net and industrial programming and tends to look down on scripting languages

Hong kong is probably good to look at too. Bigger more interesting city but like everywhere, has its drawbacks too of course.

Singapore is also a police state, if you care about such things. Some choice quotes from the US Department of State:

Singapore has a mandatory death penalty for many narcotics offenses.

Singapore police have the authority to compel both residents and non-residents to submit to random drug analysis.

There are no jury trials in Singapore. Judges hear cases and decide sentencing.

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1017.html#c...

I think their preferred term is "managed democracy".

Its true there is not as much political freedom in Singapore as there is in the West. Its also true there is not as much economic freedom in the West as there is in Singapore.

Singapore's judicial system is consistently ranked in the top 2 in Asia and usually in the top 10 globally, often ahead of places like the US and Germany. http://app.subcourts.gov.sg/Data/Files/File/Research/issue29...

I'm an American who has lived in Singapore almost 2 years. The Singapore government delivers good, fair, cost efficient government, a high standard of living, and is responsive to citizens. This is incomprehensible to Westerners who have been taught to believe that democracy is the only system that works. Western democracy is great and does a decent job. I believe Singapore's government is better in many or most cases. Here is a list of ways that Singapore's government is better than most or all Western governments:

- easier to start a business

- lower unemployment

- higher economic growth

- less corruption (private and government)

- lower, simpler taxes

- less paperwork (everything is online)

- less crime

The People's Action Party has a long history of suing political opponents for defamation and bankrupting them with judgements handed down by the courts. This contradicts your claims that (1) Singapore has a good judicial system and (2) Singapore's government has less corruption. To be frank I don't think you have the correct picture of Singapore's government at all and you've been taken in like so many others. Order and peace in Singapore is bought by corruption and intimidation behind the scenes.

The following essay on the subject is worth your time: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_democracy/v006/6.3br....

I accept Singapore is not a democracy and has less political free speech than the West. That doesn't make it corrupt. Singapore is ranked the 5th least corrupt country in the world. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/gov_cor-government-corrupt....

The PAP sues its opponents for defamation. Has your government ever done anything worse?

You mention one small piece of the pie of justice: political free speech. What about property rights, banking law, business law, immigration law, tax law, criminal law, etc? I think you need to show a much broader pattern of abuse to say the judicial system isn't fair.

I'm actually a libertarian. Its taken some time for me to reconcile that with my support of Singapore. Basically, I believe Singapore is more free than most Western countries although sometimes in different ways.

You can quibble about minor issues, but in my experience the government delivers good service, safe streets, a growing economy, and opportunity to the vast majority of Singaporeans.

I'm not sure how you think anyone could take you seriously when you call the systemic suppression of political opponents a "minor issue".

I assume you feel the suppression of political opponents is a major issue because it causes a government to become corrupt, abusive, and make bad decisions without the accountability that comes from criticism and competition. I agree.

But Singapore has made good decisions and hasn't been abusive or corrupt. (No government is without sin or without mistakes, so I mean Singapore isn't abusive or corrupt compared to the US and Europe.) Their economy has boomed, their standard of living has risen dramatically in a short period of time. Aren't you curious about how they did it?

Political systems have evolved and improved throughout history and will continue to do so. Western democracy is not the best government that will ever exist on Earth.

The 2005 Quality of Life Index from The Economist

1. Ireland

2. Switzerland

3. Norway

...

11. Singapore

...

13. US

...

17. Japan

...

26. Germany

...

29. UK

...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-of-Life_Index

I'm an american, only speaking english, I've worked in Germany and work in the UK right now. Basically stick to the following areas:

1. Scandinavia/Nordic areas - Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland

2. UK - Obvious english speaking choice ;)

3. "Germanic" - Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland

Countries like France, Spain, Italy, etc are very difficult for a non-native speaker.

Getting a visa in the UK is quite difficult (especially because recent administration). Not sure about the other areas but I imagine its quite easy. My german stay was through a large corporation (40K+ employees) and my current work I had the difficulty of getting a tier 1 uk visa on my own.

What programming languages and business areas are you interested in?

Thanks for the initial responses.

Most of my experience is web development related, and my language of choice is Python (although I've used Ruby, C#, Java, PHP, C++, C). Though being a web developer isn't necessarily what I'd look for (I wouldn't mind it), I hope to find a job that offers more challenging computer science problems than merely cutting-pasting libraries to create a simple CRUD interface. However, I know that it'll be difficult to find a job in a new country and a job that really pushes my CS knowledge and forces me to learn, so I don't plan on being overly picky.

From the responses thus far, I realize that for someone hoping to go to a new country, I'll need to learn about VISAs and work-permits.

Beyond information about where I should look to find a job (which is very helpful), do you have any additional insight into how I should find one?

Are there specific European-focused tech job-boards/search engines I should browse? Are there any things I should avoid when contacting European companies, that might be common in job-hunting within the USA?

For the UK you can get a Tier-1 visa which operates on a points based system (if you google you can figure out for yourself if you get enough points to qualify), unfortunately they've introduced a quota system this year which makes it slightly trickier. Still you have a decent chance of getting one.

The advantage of the tier-1 visa is that it doesn't tie you to a particular employer, your free to work for whoever you want as long as your salary meets a minimum level. It also means you can apply to any tech company without having to worry about if they'd be willing to sponsor you, etc.

The financial sector in London is a huge employer of developers and if your looking for hardcore CS stuff might be a good place to look, and most banks are happy to sort out visa stuff on your behalf because they have whole teams dedicated to that stuff.

Most of the UK tech job boards are dominated by recruiters, so your best bet might just be finding some tech company you're interested in and looking at their homepage for job opportunities.

I'm currently in the process of launching a developer job board for the UK (http://www.coderstack.co.uk), but it's still very early days so I don't have very many job listings at the moment.

Yes, learning about visa/work permits is a lengthy process. If you want me to explain to you the UK one feel free to drop me a line at mbesto AT gmail.

My company (IT consulting company, mainly in ERP tech) may have something...I don't know specifically but they have their hands in everything from online MMO to betting website development to big ERP tech. We also have a partner recruiting company, could put you in contact there as well.

Glad to hear you want to get intl experience. I can't recommend it enough. There are some restrictions I have to deal with as foreigner but otherwise it's a great way to see the world.

sidenote - literally just started learning Python myself and love it so far.

It is definitely possible to find work in Europe as an American.

I'm an American who was originally sent to the UK to help open an office there. I later was hired by another company to come work in Oslo, where I am now. Scandinavia in general is very easy to find work (they have a strong need for educated people in IT areas - development, support, etc). Getting a job in the UK is certainly possible, but the paperwork is much more of a hassle (30-60 pages depending on the type of visa compared to 4 pages for Norway).

Pretty much everyone here speaks English, although depending on the company you may be strongly encouraged to learn the local language. The plus side of that, though, is that they will often pay for the classes.

Finding the job itself is going to be more difficult just because the job postings may be in the local language and on local sites, but you can use Google to translate them decently. For Norway, the best place to start is finn.no.

In the UK, English is (unsurprisingly) widely spoken, but it's a little different to the English you're used to.

Expect endless confusion over faggots (meatballs), football (soccer) and the myriad of ways to describe the weather.

They also speak English in Ireland, you can get by fine almost on English alone in most of Holland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and bits of Germany.

You'll probably find England the easiest to deal with and it makes a good base. Ireland is lovely but at the moment the job market isn't so great. The economy's very shaky here in England too, but people are hiring for tech jobs.

Your best bet is to try and get transferred through an international company, find a UK-based company that will sponsor a visa (hard, as there's plenty of tech workers here), or come over to study on a visa that will allow you to find work here after you graduate.

I can speak about Denmark from an expat point of view. I moved here 6 months ago. I dont speak Danish at all and I am not very good in English, so far, the language has not been a problem, even many tv shows are in English with Danish subs.

There are many .Net jobs here, and not so many doing Ruby or Python. You can take a look at the job offers in http://it-jobbank.dk or http://stepstone.dk.

The living expensives are really high here.

I cant tell about work visa because I am a EU citezen, so the rules are different.

If you have any question about Denmark or Spain, just drop me a line.

In Scandinavia, language is a non-issue. Everyone speaks English, and many tech shops use English for all written communication.

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