Ask HN: How can a US SW engineer to get a working visa in Europe? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How can a US SW engineer to get a working visa in Europe?

20 pointsnineplay40 comments

EU or UK.

First get a job offer an interview. If you are senior enough, a recruiting agency can get you connected in no time.

Heads-up: salary for very senior software developers in Europe are between half and one-third of what they are in USA.

Why is there such a large difference in salary? Is it exclusive to software?

It’s mostly just because salaries are very high in the US due to the huge amount of money flowing into startups via VCs to accelerate growth. That growth comes from hiring a lot of devs, increasing demand. And few of those startups will accept juniors or folks fresh out of school, because they don’t have the resources to train them. That limits supply.

And on top of that, you have the American tech giants with huge sums of money competing in that same market. And many of these tech companies were founded by engineers and have a very engineering-first perspective, increasing the importance of treating developers well at some level.

So at the end of the day, you get a market with lots of opportunities, fewer experienced devs interested in those opportunities, and lots of money earmarked for attracting those devs.

It’s pretty unique, and I don’t think this scenario really exists in Europe.

Nah, productivity kind of sucks, although with weakening EUR it could become more attractive.

Heads up as we see more and more people in EU hired directly by US companies remotely.

Wages are steadily moving up in EU even if they are still lower than SV.

Though I think for US dev it would make more sense to move to lower cost state than to EU because I kind of imagine EU costs of living might still be higher than many places in US. Especially if one would move to NL/Germany/Belgium/France/Italy - if one would be moving to Romania/Poland/Hungary/Czechia could be also quite cheap but I don't think these are the countries typical US dev would have in mind :)

In Germany it's pretty straightforward. If you have a job offer as a software engineer, have a related degree and earn over a threshold which most experienced candidates will meet, you automatically get a so called "Blue Card" work visa which has some benefits over a normal work visa. If you lack a related degree or don't meet the salary threshold you have to get a normal work visa which requires evidence that no suitable EU citizen was available to take the job, but this is highly likely to be approved.

There are no quotas or waiting lists, and you do not have to be "sponsored".

Degree is the reason why Europe still lacks behind the US when it comes to startups

I'm rather surprised you would identify an obscure visa regulation as "the" reason, and not say anything with available venture capital, tax and employment regulations, and the risk taking culture.

In practice it's not really a problem. The labour market test has been relaxed since of couple of years and should not pose a barrier to granting a visa.

There is an option to get a "Job Seeker" visa for 6 months. Go to Germany and search for a job, switch to long term visa.

https://www.germany-visa.org/job-seeker-visa/

I have a European passport so after more than a decade working at FAANGs, I moved to Germany from SV and set up my own business. I've also lived for a few months in a number of different European countries.

Based on my own experiences, I'd say it makes little to no financial sense to move to Europe from the US, if you're going to work for somebody else while leaving a top-tier SV compensation package behind. Salaries are a lot lower, and taxation in rich EU countries is generally very high, you're looking at 40%+ effective tax rate.

In addition to that, a number of EU countries have painful wealth taxes. The Netherlands doesn't have a wealth tax per se, but it has a preposterous across the board tax based on an "assumed 4% return on the entirety of one's savings+investments". As someone with multi-million dollar investments in the US, this swiftly caused me to abandon Amsterdam as a potential base of operations.

As someone with multi-million dollar investments, your concerns about wealth taxes and your standards for evaluating financial sense are wildly different from most people on the planet, and even many here on HN.

I expect anyone who has worked for 10 years or more at any of the top SV companies to have at a minimum 1 million invested and much more likely at least 2, given the crazy bull market after 2008.

"I spent half my money on gambling, alcohol and wild women. The other half I wasted."

According to personal experience, not exactly a common attitude to be found among the types one usually encounters at FAANGs.

I did run into a group of super nerds at Google that, allegedly, regularly paid for sex with high class escorts, but I guess compared to the money they earned, it was a drop in the bucket.

If were to move to Europe would, you recommend Switzerland or Lichtenstein to avoid egregious taxes?

I've never lived in either of them, but visited Switzerland as a tourist. They're not in the European Union and both have wealth taxes (depending on where you live, the wealth tax varies).

If I had to pick one or the other, I'd choose Switzerland and pick the lowest tax canton I could find. Keep in mind that the cost of living in Switzerland is very high and you might need to learn German.

Countries in (or used to be) the EU I've spent significant time in and my opinion of them:

UK: Salaries are higher than the rest of the EU, especially if you work in fintech, but London is outrageously expensive, especially if you maintain a car. The alternative is the Underground (metro system) which I despised. Not as bad as NYC MTA but close. NHS is a disaster. No wealth tax.

Germany: High taxes but lots of options/accounting maneuvering can reduce the burden. Cost of living is OK, very nice infrastructure, clockwork-like services and I love Berlin. Should learn German if you plan to live there for years, but can go by with English. National health system is excellent. No wealth tax.

France: I've lived in Paris for a few months. Avoid. Housing situation is insanely bad. Has a wealth tax but high threshold before it kicks in, still if you're HNW it will catch you.

Netherlands: Amsterdam is getting very expensive but super fun city. The wealth tax equivalent they have is insane. Medium-high cost of living. Super high taxes. National health system is good. Not recommend if you are a high net worth individual (1 million+).

Spain: High tax rate if you're resident there, 37% from 35k and 45% on anything above 60k EUR. Bad bureaucracy. Cost of living was good in Barcelona. Bad wealth tax which also includes real estate.

Greece: Nice for short vacation, definitely avoid for work. Bureaucracy and state services will drive one nuts. Health system is a disaster. High taxes and cost of living is high in the posh areas of Athens. Need to know/learn Greek if you plan to live there.

Depending on your financial situation you can also get 'gold' visas.

- 500K worth of real estate investment in Portugal gets you EU permanent residence.

- 750k investment in Malta gets you full out EU citizenship.

After this you are fully entitled to live/work/receive healthcare anywhere in Europe with no strings attached to an employer.

Controversial I know but the option is there.

Shit, if that's accurate, better get in before they shut it down like we're doing in Canada

Well this was many years ago, I just checked online and they actually lowered the investment thresholds in both Portugal and Malta. So it is objectively cheaper than what I wrote.

Golden Visa in Portugal exists but they shut it down in popular cities and places. IIRC: Algarve, Lisbon and Porto.

Currently in Portugal, from the Netherlands myself so I am not researching this. I just hear enough about it

As far as the UK is concerned, it is possible to get skilled work visas for tech jobs in the UK. The company needs to be willing to sponsor you, and some other criteria need to be met. You can get permanent residency after 5 years. Other routes are available depending on your background (if your grandparents were British for instance this is very easy), or if you’re young and interested in studying, degrees now lead to graduate visas.

You will likely be taking a pay cut, but you might have a higher standard of living depending on how much you currently make. You will also almost certainly get better holidays (5-6 weeks is fairly normal).

See https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa for more details

In the Netherlands, you can get a job offer and the company will sponsor a highly-skilled migrant visa, which lasts for five years and can be renewed. In addition, the government offers a tax break of 30% for skilled workers from outside the country for five years.

The 30 percent cap is eyed to be removed

Just keep in mind 30% ruling is quite complex beast and if someone get accommodation from employer for example he won't be eligible to get tax break.

If you have European ancestry you may quality for citizenship (check back at least three generations).

If you were born in Ibero-America (former Spanish and Portugese colonies including Puerto Rico) you can gain citizenship of Spain with two years of residence.

But keep in mind that Spain does not allow dual citizenship, while Portugal does.

I don’t know how heavily this is enforced. I am personally aware of a number of Spanish dual (or more)-citizens.

In the Netherlands, companies can sponsor a software engineer for a work visa as a highly-skilled immigrant. In Germany, a software engineer can easily get a blue card, which gives someone the right to work and live there.

In both of these countries, the first step is to get a job offer from a company and go from there.

The Global Talent visa is the best path for the UK: https://www.gov.uk/global-talent-digital-technology

A quick seach brings this up https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/working-schengen-visa/

I would think it’s a function of the job offer, seniority and the “help” of the hiring company. That, plus the passage of time. The more senior the candidate is (and can prove), the more varied the visa possibilities are. Each country has various visa description pages on line somewhere and there might be eu level stuff as well (never looked). But it’s non trivial unless there’s a real skill match as, technically, they might have to guarantee there’s no natives who can do the work.

Check whether there are specific country-level agreements like nafta between us/Canada and Mexico. This changes the rules for the appropriate countries’s citizens. Canada/us is quite straightforward to cross if a job offer is in hand and one of a fair number of career categories is met.

> I would think

Did you actually just make all this shit up?

No, was drawing on my experiences trying to work in the uk, Canada, us and investigating the eu. It’s all on-line for each country and probably in Wikipedia as well. I’m most familiar with the us/Canada border, and you can check the nafta t23 visa in Canada and the tn visa in the states? Why would you think it’s bs?

Uk: https://www.gov.uk/browse/visas-immigration/work-visas Us: https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states Canada: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se...

Eu immigration: https://european-union.europa.eu/live-work-study/immigration...

Lots of rules to follow and some expense and time involved.

Your comment is just speculation and it works differently than immigration for tech work between US and Canada. The comments about “blue card” visas are correct.

Also, TN visas work for engineers with a four-year degree, do not automatically work for software developers, although you might be able to massage the (probably outdated) job description to include “computer systems analyst”.

Interested in this as well. Is it any different if you've got a remote job for a US company (I've got confirmation they'd let me move over to contractor status).

It’s usually somewhat worse. However depending on how close you are with that company, you might be able to be a representative of an overseas business [1], or they might be able to sponsor you using directly with a local entity or a hiring service (though idk which ones might offer things like this).

[1] https://www.gov.uk/representative-overseas-business

I don't have an answer for you at the moment, but a number of my US SW engineer friends have moved to Berlin on some sort of work visa.

A couple have been there for years, at this point.

Come to Greece, Chania, and if you are into SW engineering then lets talk :)

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