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Comment by kello | Hacker News Reader

I did the reverse. American who moved to EU for work. I would say go for it! Unless you land a gig in Silicon Valley or working for FAANG tho, I would tamper your expectations of the salary in the States being that much better than (Western) Europe. I would never say not to do it though, I think it will be "worth" it 100% regardless of potential monetary compensation increases.

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Thank you very much for the reverse perspective! Do you mind sharing which EU country you moved to? Are you planning to stay longer term or just for a few years and then go back? I recently relocated from UK to Stockholm, Sweden and boy has it been tough going so I was wondering if maybe change of continent would be better. I feel kind of stuck here - mostly socially, but also a bit career-wise.

Germany! Yeah, I feel you on the socially "stuck" part. I've been over here almost 6 years and it took at least 3 to get a social life going. Perhaps I'm just not outgoing enough, perhaps there are a lot of other factors at play. I would say that making friendships in US is a lot easier on the whole, but this is based on anecdotal experience and not any sort of hard evidence. There are many US immigrants here who echo similar experiences. I found my first good friends were also immigrants and then later made a few close German friends.

Someone explained it to me with two circles of how close the different cultures let someone in: in the U.S. it's pretty easy to get through that first layer and make some acquaintances, but deep friendships may take longer. Germans are not big into casual acquaintances, but once you're in that first circle, it's easier to get through to the second one as well.

There's also a difference in push/pull: Germans will often expect you as the new guy to make the first steps, whereas that will be the opposite in other cultures that are more inviting.

Joining some Verein or taking a class at the Volkshochschule can help crossing that first circle.

> Germans are not big into casual acquaintances, but once you're in that first circle, it's easier to get through to the second one as well.

Someone explained to me that this is the case in Sweden as well, but during covid (even though we had lighter restrictions), meeting people on any circle has been near neigh impossible.

I'm an American who did the same, and I echo this. The compensation tradeoff was much more pronounced when I moved to Berlin 4 years ago. Covid and remote work changed this: you can now make more-or-less median comp for a second tier US city after adjusting for cost of living (and before accounting for quality of life).

Everywhere's still low compared to the Bay Area, don't get me wrong. But it means you either need to be a salary maximalist, determined to nationalize, to have a strong pull toward a certain US city/company for the move to make as much sense these days.

Still, I'd encourage everyone regardless of home/destination to live and work at least some of their life in another country. The merits of doing so are vast, and extend well beyond renumeration.

I'm thinking about doing a short stint there, but I'm afraid the cultural differences may be too for me (sexism, pessimism, poor perception of those who are highly invested in their work, social isolation by ethnicity...)

Can you say more about why?

sure! I moved over here with a girl I met in college who is an EU citizen. So it wasn't directly for work per se.

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