Comment by fy20 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fy20 | Hacker News Reader

I think a better question is "why would you want to?", and for EU based developers I don't really see the point.

I'm from the UK, but now live in post-Soviet EU country. Ten years or even five years ago it was seen as a "right of passage" to go work in the UK, then come home and buy a used BMW with your earnings, but Brexit and COVID really changed that (well, except car preferences). In my previous position I was working remotely for a UK company and working in a co-working space, and many people were there who had the same stories. They'd been working in the UK for a while, but wanted to come home, and the company let them continue to work remotely for the same salary.

COVID and IR35 threw another spanner into the cogs, so you started to see many more UK companies willing to hire people remotely, and at that point, why limit yourself to the talent pool in the UK? Late last year I talked to a recruiter who had placed a number of contractors with a London based food delivery company, and he said almost all new people he places are now based outside the UK, somewhere in Europe.

This has had a knock-on effect on salaries of local companies here. Sure you could get more working remotely for a US or Western European company, but the rates that are being offered now are on par with what 3 years ago would be a really good salary for a second rate city in the UK (Manchester, Bristol, Reading, etc). So why go to the UK, when you can get good salaries working from your home country, where the cost of living is much lower than the UK?

Salaries are still considerably higher in the UK and cost of life relatively low.

For seniors: 100k are not unheard of in tons of companies, especially after inflation. Contractor rates are even better and you can get more than 1k per day.

That said, nowadays remote working with UK company (or even US) is a viable alternative.

I personally left the UK after 7 years, moved to a sunny EU country and had enough money for a house.

> I think a better question is "why would you want to?", and for EU based developers I don't really see the point.

With the previous administration starting to crackdown on fraudulent H1Bs it's also much easier for Europeans engineers to come to the US (or just get an O-1 and bypass the H1 system).

It makes the UK less attractive (often it's seen, like Canada, as a backup plan).

"Much easier" is kind of an overstatement. The odds in the H1B lottery still suck. The FY2023 season saw a record number of applicants https://redbus2us.com/uscis-received-484k-h1b-registrations-...

Also O visas are strictly non-immigrant intent, which is a big restriction.

> Also O visas are strictly non-immigrant intent, which is a big restriction.

It's fairly common to go from O-1 to a Green Card.

Yes. But it still has strict non-immigrant intent. So you can't travel on O or renew your O-associated work authorization while your I-485 is pending. H-1B doesn't have those restrictions because it's dual-intent.

unless you don't think living in the US can be any better than living in London

Interestingly, I see the complete opposite. High rates for remote contracts (700, even 800 pounds per day) in London companies, but almost all of them they want to hire remotely from the UK only. I'm not sure if there's some practical reason behind it or it's just pure classism/nationalism at play.

> Manchester, Bristol, Reading, etc

I don’t think that is true to be honest

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