What should I expect from moving tech jobs from USA to Europe? | Hacker News Reader

What should I expect from moving tech jobs from USA to Europe?

51 pointstech_lizzard110 comments

11 yoe Senior Software Developer here, I'm working at a non FAANG job, 180k. I'm looking at moving to Europe in the next few months. The salaries look about 1/3 of what I make, and yet the cost of living seems to be the same with higher taxes. While I'm willing to sacrifice that to move, I'm wondering if there's a best of both worlds approach? Perhaps get a FAANG job and relocate first day? It would be nice to just keep my job and work remote late nights, but I think I need a work visa to live over in Europe , and that needs to be sponsored by a European company. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks

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I did the research a month ago.

Basically, from a "tired of US bullshit" perspective, if you can land a job in US, your best bet is to stay here as long as possible while saving as much money as possible, and ride it out. You will be better off financially if you have to move.

Otherwise, landing a remote job here with flexible work hours is the second best thing. You just have to basically solve for the Visa issue. My old coworker that managed to get a student visa and is basically enrolled in some university for like over 4 years now, so he can legally stay in the country, while working for US company, with his parents house in US as a permanent address.

Getting into FAANG and relocating can be done, but its not really that simple. You would have to find an opening overseas and be justified in moving there, or be senior enough to have a skip level manager approve it.

Otherwise, you just simply start applying for jobs. Denmark and Germany are your best bets. If you have a job offer, you can apply for a work permit, and then depending on the place there are different requirements for permanent residency, and then eventually citizenship.

Great comment. Additionally, if your employer will sign off on you working in Spain, Spain has a 1 year digital nomad visa, renewable every year. After five years, you can apply for permanent residency. If you apply while in Spain on a tourist visa, it’s good for 3 years (one renewal gets you to permanent residency). One should consider maximizing savings and investment during this time, so you can switch to a non lucrative visa [1] based on your investments if employment situation changes.

Edit: Spain's economy is also doing pretty well as of recently [2].

[1] https://www.exteriores.gob.es/Consulados/losangeles/en/Servi...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/18/how-spains-rad...

Not sure about the other FAANs, but at G, the era of almost automatically supported relocations are over. Even intra-country relocations are subject to heavy scrutiny.

It might be different if you have some very special skillset or are ultra high level, but it will be difficult for a run of the mill senior swe to do.

I don't know about all of FAANG and about recent policies, but last I checked, Facebook and Google adjust your pay based on location. Even if you start in the USA and transfer to another office you'd take a pay cut.

As far as I know they still pay more than average for the area, but you wouldn't keep your USA salary.

>I don't know about all of FAANG and about recent policies, but last I checked, Facebook and Google adjust your pay based on location. Even if you start in the USA and transfer to another office you'd take a pay cut.

I don't think they'd rescind a stock grant though, so if you transferred after 2 years you could get two years of american RSU while in the EU.

Facebook does rescind their stock grant.

Transferring to EU isn't really that "easy" within the companies especially as a new hire.

Many EU countries have digital nomad schemes. Here's for Cyprus for example https://www.mip.gov.cy/dmmip/md.nsf/All/9207F50B0EEC8F87C225...

There are also favourable tax schemes that go along. Finding a remote US job, moving to EU, getting better tax terms than residents will be a good experience as long as working hours are flexible.

Denmark is pretty dang hard to get into, and they're not especially crazy about outsiders. Plus you're applying to essentially 2-4 companies in the DK, and by number of openings it's probably Novo Nordisk

I think it's really hard to compare. Salaries are much lower but quality of life (IMO) much higher. I worked at a few tech companies in France. Almost nobody worked outside of the standard work hours (9-6 with 1 hour for lunch). Most people at lunch together; often at a restaurant.

People didn't worry about 401Ks & IRA - it's expected the security system and standard pension from working is sufficient.

People didn't worry about saving for kids college - they are close to free; same for healthcare.

You have 6 weeks of vacation (one job I had gave 9 weeks); and it's normal to take 2-3 weeks off at a time. In the US, from my experience, people don't leave for more than a week, and most of the work they missed is waiting for them upon their return.

> Most people ate lunch together; often at a restaurant.

This was such a big letdown when I moved back to the US from Italy. Over there, at the company I worked at, there were two big groups that mostly ate lunch together - those who brought something from home, and those who walked over to the local cafe to have some pasta or a salad or something.

People in Italy are pretty good at just kind of coexisting... like we weren't best friends or anything, but everyone was pretty friendly and cordial and we talked about stuff outside of work, and it was just a pleasant experience.

I'd forgotten about US work culture by the time we moved back here and in my new job, I asked a few people if anyone went to lunch regularly and got blank looks, and then I remembered what things are like here and had kind of a sad moment.

This is extremely variable upon where you live and the culture of your workplace. For me, most of the places I've worked in SV have had a very active lunch culture where we go out for group lunches and have a nice time and shit talk about our bosses being idiots and where we're all gonna go work next.

I could see it being non-existent in some places though but be the change you want to see. Some people are just waiting for someone else to start it.

> Salaries are much lower but quality of life (IMO) much higher.

I doubt quality of life is higher for senior engineers at big tech companies, other than having more time off. How many engineers have 3,000 sq ft house? How many can retire in their 50s if they want? Can they afford private tutors or nannies or fly first class?

Equating quality of life with "stuff you can buy" is a very American way of thinking. No salary tier can get you beautiful public parks or effective public transit, for example.

I can’t live in a public park. I mean I can.

> No salary tier can get you beautiful public parks

You act as if nowhere in the US has public parks?

> or effective public transit.

You act as if having a car is a major issue? I personally work remotely and have across three jobs since 2020z.

It's the ease of the access thing. Winter was very white lately, so I swang by greenhouse on my way home, and it costed me 4 dollars and an additional hour on a subway. Met my friend, decided to have a coffee-crocheting session after work hours.

I can fit so much stuff around my work, because most places are half an hour travel distance from it. So I can visit my family, meet a friend on a crochet session and visit greenhouse all in one week, and then have my weekend totally free. It will add a few hours to my commute, yes, but I mostly read books or make plans when I'm in transition. Once a week I get home late because I go to the nearby music school to learn drums (and it doesn't add to my commute!). I also could swing by an archery or almost every other activity.

Gets better when it's summer, one summer I rode to the lake with another friend almost every day for two weeks. If our city had suburbia we would have to travel for hours.

There's a difference also between having public park as an option to go visit on a weekend, and option to visit a park on a lunch break or just because you didn't feel like staying at home. An option to run in the park every morning.

Suburbia feels like you own your home and your land. Good towns feel like you co-own them. Like you can do whatever you want, and there is a lot of options.

When I did live in the burbs of Atlanta GA- both the south side and the north side, there were also public parks, bike trails etc within 3 miles of my home.

All of the things you mentioned are right there in suburbia. We rarely went “in town” for anything and I remember having a conversation with some relatives that said it had been years since they actually been to Atlanta proper and they lived in the burbs.

Of course you can find places in most major cities that are walkable and around parks and lakes. We briefly looked at moving to this suburb of Orlando

https://www.zillow.com/orlando-fl/lake-eola-park_att/

https://www.orlando.gov/Parks-the-Environment/Directory/Lake...

If we had decided to stay in Atlanta, we were looking at places close to Piedmont Park

https://www.zillow.com/atlanta-ga/piedmont-park_att/

You don’t have to move to Europe. Right now the original poster was comparing Seattle of all places as far as affordability. That’s one of the most expensive cities in the US and the weather is always awful. I actually turned down a chance to even interview for a job there because I knew I would never want to live in Seattle and the compensation difference wouldn’t have been worth it.

Three miles is quite a long way though. From central Amsterdam, for example, it’s basically as far as the ring road and contains all the main parks

So everyone lives in these idyllic places close to parks in all of the Netherlands or the EU or is that a choice people make just like in the US?

After my youngest graduated high school and we became empty nesters, we were in fact looking for that smaller place, walkable area, where we could easily get to gyms, restaurants, a park, etc.

We decided to change our entire city to a place in Florida with better weather and no state income taxes. Those places do exist in the US just like I am sure that most people who live in the EU don’t live in the idyllic places you describe.

I’d say that it’s pretty normal in the Netherlands to be very close to a park. It’s a very densely populated country. In Amsterdam specifically I think they consciously decided a few hundred years ago the parks should be everywhere. It’s hard to generalise about the EU as it’s pretty large and diverse, but most of the places I’ve been, 3 miles would be a long way to go in a city. I would expect to come across several parks of varying sizes, shops, schools, etc. In the countryside there are fewer facilities generally, but less need for parks.

I'm not sure if you're European? If you are, do you not understand that we have more green space and public parks in America? I'm literally a two minute walk from a huge park with open lawns, walking trails, and multiple playgrounds for kids. A five minute drive and I can be at a trail head leading into the foothills.

I'm a twenty minute drive (or less) to multiple FAANG companies satellite offices. The coastal American suburbs are quite different than what many might be picturing.

Good reminder of why I picked EU over the US to move to.

I really can't stand the US way of thinking. This awful hyper-individualism is so dismaying.

Because I said I couldn’t live in a park or because having a car is to “individualistic”?

Just a quick Google search shows that 88% of households have a car in the EU compared to 95% in the US. The EU is not some great Utopia where no one needs a car.

It's not about needing or not needing a car.

I perceive in the US this general distaste for "things that benefit society as a whole" versus "things that benefit me, all else be damned".

Many things here in Europe don't benefit me directly, and I pay taxes for that. And I think that is a good thing. I can still live a fairly comfortable life, could buy a house, raise a family, have nice things, etc.

A nice public park may not benefit you directly, but it doesn't mean it is not something desirable to have around. "I can't live in a public park" is indicative of a pervasive attitude that irks me to no end.

May all public parks near you become concrete parking locations. Then you can park your car there.

But they still couldn't live there, whether grass or concrete. Nobody in this thread expressed any interest in a place to park a car, it was "a 3,000 sq ft house".

The attitude is the same.

Yeah, but they can't live in the park, you see, even with a good attitude.

I mean, there are parks close to where I live.

Oddly enough, there are also houses.

It doesn’t take BigTech salaries to do most of those things. We had a 3100 square foot house built in the Northern suburbs of Atlanta in the “good school system” for $335K. Going by the 28% rule, I would have only had to make around $100k.

We just sold the house last year for $670K. It would be around $5000 a month all in - principal + interest + insurance + property taxes + PMI. I did my calculations based on putting 5% down.

The median senior software engineer salary in Atlanta is $170K. Married with two incomes would easily make that affordable and accomplish other short and long term goals. Admittedly, I would probably move further out in the burbs or buy a smaller place in 2025.

i don't need any of that though.

i live in tokyo as a senior engineer with a ~75-80k usd salary. it's comfortable.

it's safe and practical. i can walk to the park with my daughter in less than 5 minutes. and her school is 15mn by bike.

supermarket and restaurants etc. are all at walking distance.

flying is indeed expensive but i don't fly much nor do i want to, so i don't care

i don't need nannies and tutors, i can teach her most of the stuff by myself (i mean i was good at that when i was a kid, + i was a tutor in univ...)

I almost relocated to Copenhagen for an SWE job a few years ago. I found it incredibly difficult to do the kinds of calculations you're doing, partly because there were non-financial factors that affected my financial calculations, and I had no way to project or predict what the outcome would be:

Would I receive citizenship, if I wanted it? If not, how much would I set myself back in the USA for retirement by paying into the Danish system? Currently the US and Denmark have some tax arrangements that slightly ameliorate this problem, but would I really want to stake my future on the durability and reliability of these agreements?

Would I have access to the prescription drugs I need? Fun fact: I wouldn't. Denmark's medical system generally will not prescribe Adderall for ADHD. They prescribe Ritalin, which doesn't work for me and causes me awful bouts of rage.

Just FYI, as far as I'm aware, you will not be able to get a FAANG job and then just pick up and move to another country. I know for a fact it wouldn't be permitted at my FAANG-ish company, for reasons having to do with tax law, employment law, and company policies regarding benefits and pay scale. And I'm not saying that my company would dock your pay but permit it. I'm saying they'd wish you luck and terminate your job. The only time it's a possibility, I think, is when you've been at the company for a while and your manager is willing to go to bat for you. But even then there's no guarantee that the company will accept the arrangement.

> Denmark's medical system generally will not prescribe Adderall for ADHD.

Not sure about Denmark, but at least in Germany immediate release stims for adults are not covered/approved. Neither methylphenidate, nor amphetamine. However, both are covered as extended release formulations (e.g. Medikinet/Ritalin adult, Elvanse adult). And both can be prescribed as IR, or XR privately, which means you have to pay for it yourself (e.g. ~20€ per for 50 pills Ritalin).

That would make much more sense, though if I got this wrong at the time, then I suppose my mistake further illustrates how difficult it was for me to plan for the move (I even reached out to the Danish health service). Alternatively, maybe I'm incompetent or have a terrible memory.

I think the general sentiment is correct, as the US is, for better or worse, much more laissez faire about prescribing and approving certain medications, like opiates and psychotropics. Which means, if something less common works best for you, there is a chance you won't get it in Europe, or at least it's not accepted as first-line medication.

Generally, if a medication is available on the market (can be purchased by pharmacies), a doctor can usually prescribe it to you privately ("off-label" etc). However, this implies they are accepting legal liability, if things go wrong. E.g. an ADHD psychiatrist may prescribe immediate release methylphenidate to an adult, but probably wouldn't take the risk of abuse with IR amphetamine, or "experiment" with "newer" drugs like guanfacine, which is not approved for ADHD in Europe. It's mostly a mentality difference tho, I think.

Another thing is, finding a psychiatrist knowledgeable in ADHD in adults may be a painful process to begin with. Depending on where you are your options may be very limited and if the doc is an idiot you may be stuck with them for the moment (depends heavily on the country). Smaller medical issues can be a bit bothersome with socialized healthcare processes, but it's really paying off when you become seriously sick, or unemployed. And of course, in Europe you got more leisure time, so you have more opportunities to break your legs hiking ;)

Move to The Netherlands, you'll earn anywhere between 50-100k depending on your exact skillset. Importantly we have a special ruling (the 30% rule) which means that you get 5 years paying basically no tax.

Housing is expensive - I watched Louis Rossman's videos a couple of years ago when he was looking for property around NYC and was shocked at the relatively low prices ($500k for large detached houses within 30-45mins commute of a major city at a time when it'd cost $700k for something similar here).

It took me a year to get to C1 level in Dutch when I came over 20 years ago but many people don't bother. You need that to get citizenship (after 5 years of residency) so I would recommend it. Cost me $3k at a Uni fast track (3 x 2 hour a week for a year) to do, most employers will be flexible to enable you to do it.

Where can you find large detached houses for 500k in the Netherlands?

Also, 30% ruling doesn't mean paying 0 tax (https://thetax.nl) and it's not guaranteed. The government decided that 8 years was too much and decided to lower it for people already in the country. I know it well, it happened to me.

This was right in the COVID house price dip (we sold our house then, cost us about 50k). Those houses are now worth 700-800k.

The ruling applies for 5 years so of course you can't expect it for 8 years in a row.

I know a few people who have used it. If you own a house and have any entitlements then you're either paying a few EUR or are getting back a few EUR (so NET INCOME is higher than your GROSS INCOME).

I personally didn't use it because I believe in paying my fair share. As a high earner it's wrong to be a leech. Although I've since learned that the multi-billionaire families here have an even better deal (1% effective tax rate) that I've since changed my mind.

It is an extremely generous ruling which makes it possible for people who wish to migrate here with families to make the jump. You get to keep almost all of your money for a few years but are expected to use it to integrate and cover your migration costs (which it does).

The 30% ruling (now 27% ruling) used to be 10 years, it was lowered down to 8 years, and then it was lowered even further to 5 years, affecting retroactively people that arrived at the time it was 8 years (like myself).

The ruling, in its current implementation, gives foreigners 27% of their salary tax free, which for highest tax interval is close to 50. There is a maximum you can apply to though.

When you own a house you get a tax deduction from the interests you pay for the mortgage. For what I understand, that tax deduction is limited by your taxable salary, so I don't understand how the 27% ruling can be abused, since that reduces your taxable salary. I wouldn't be surprised though, the Netherlands have a ton of "optional" laws and tricks that allow people to "legally" evade taxes.

There is a common misconception that populist politicians exploit where they claim that the ruling is a subsidies for employees. This is not true, it helps the IT sector to hire people from abroad on the cheap side. eg. the only reason I'm here and not in Ireland is because of the ruling: The base salary in Ireland was way higher, but in NL with the ruling it was basically the same. After I arrived I noticed that I was lowballed hard compared to my native colleagues, and that continued on other job offers after I shared with them I was still in the ruling.

Finally, I would really think twice coming to the Netherlands today considering the ruling, with the current government it's definitively not guaranteed [1]

[1] https://www.dutchnews.nl/2025/02/omtzigt-takes-aim-at-expat-...

Depends where you go in Europe, but my strong impression is that the relative cost of living is very significantly lower than FAANG-like equivalent locations in the US (SF, Seattle, NY, etc).

Remote for the US is definitely still the best way to get the benefit of the difference though, and even with a lower paying US role in return that could be worthwhile.

Remote work visas for Spain and I think Portugal are designed for exactly that case and should fit the bill nicely if you have remote work. Alternatively if you can't get any, it gets significantly more complicated - finding a well-off-relative-to-local-cost-of-living local software job is quite possible in many many major EU cities, but will take time and require some adjustment en route (to local norms, paperwork, and languages) so the visa situation can be challenging. Doable but requires research and work.

1/3 seems underpaid. Good senior level devs in the DACH (Germany, Austria, Swiss) region can easily earn 85-100k€. Though you might need to get good networking, finding seniors is hard here, people stay at a job longer so most senior positions are not via application but referal or getting offered a job directly by someone in upper managment.

Generally quality of life and especially food is better in europe. Also people tend to get better work-life balance.

It's a matter of luck, connections and your own experience. While 180k in Europe is certainly very high end, 150k is not unheard of while 100k is quite mainstream. I know that official statistics show lower numbers but I speak from my own experience knowing how much my peers make.

There's certainly a gap between what companies show on the job ads and what they are really willing to pay for good candidates.

As pointed out in other comments, you get around 1 month of vacation. It is often possible to negotiate more vacation days in favor of lower salary or perhaps request a remote work. There's a lot of flexibility.

If you have any European ancestry, it's worth checking if you qualify for citizenship. I have Irish citizenship because one of my grandfathers was born there.

https://visaguide.world/europe/eu-citizenship-ancestry/

(disclaimer: I haven't verified the accuracy of that list)

I have checked this route out. I have German heritage, but it was before 1890 that they migrated, and records are spotty. The ancestry citizenship is only for immigration after 1920 or so.

I live in the Netherlands. With 11ye 100-120k is doable BUT the job market here is a bit shaky right now, it’s not the most amazing time to look for a job.

My wife owns a small recruitment company and they help with visas and relocations here. Let me know if you’d like to get in touch.

also interested in a contact. I seem to have an option to take a MVV or digital nomad equivalent visa and keep my current job in Netherlands. That's looking like the plan at the moment. It would be good to talk to someone about relocations though - logistics seems daunting sometimes. Pets , essentials, etc.

I'm interested in a contact. Not looking right now, but moving to Netherlands might be my goal next year

Something I think is shocking in Europe compared to the US is the way no one is willing to work more than their contract states and people complain if they have to stay like half an hour later. People don’t work outside of their work hours in Europe

LOL massive sweeping generalisation there. I’m European and have worked all kinds of overtime, sometimes willingly, sometimes coerced. You are aware “Europe” isn’t some monogamous state right?

I just think if you've spent time in Europe and you've spent time in the United States the difference is very striking, but fair. Probably overgeneralizing a bit.

You mean monolithic.

Both?

This isn't really true. It depends on the type of person you are and also in which European country you are in. In both Western and Eastern Europe I've had colleagues that would stop everything they do at 5 pm. and leave and colleagues that would stay with me until 8 pm. fixing a bug.

Others mentioned that it depends on the company, but in my experience it also really depends on the country. Paradoxically, it’s much more common to work overtime in Italy than in the Netherlands (where many people even work 32 hours a week)

>> no one is willing to work more than their contract states

I mean that's a crazy oversimplification. I work at a British company where we work with Americans a lot and it's not uncommon for people to work late at night just to stay in contact(even I did some work at 11pm last night to speak with someone).

>>People don’t work outside of their work hours in Europe

I'm curious how many people from Europe have you actually met. Working outside of your hours "just to finish that one spreadsheet that the boss is prodding me for" is extremely common everywhere.

I laugh at Americans mocking Europeans because "they're not willing to work hard" - two reasons:

1. Salaries are shit here anyways, and any additional money you make beyond say 60k (!) is taxed at 40% or higher. 2. For compliance reasons, if you spend more than 8h in the office between "badge in" and "badge out", HR will tell you to work less because the company will get into legal trouble otherwise. It is just prohibited and you will just create headaches for everyone including yourself.

Depending on which European country it's not necessarily forbidden. "Compliance reasons" may also mean "the company must pay overtime at the appropriate rate" and they just don't want to deal with that.

This must be based on company. At my previous position I worked with MANY Europeans (mainly Munich and London, but also Poland and France) and they all worked late hours to overlap US tzs. I was always so impressed by how little they complained about doing so.

Yeah, having kids and working till 23:00 perhaps ain't possible.

For Europeans and Americans;)

Typically you don't work straight till 23:00, you just might log back on later in the evening (perhaps after putting the kids to bed) to finish up something when you know you'll get quiet time, or to align with colleagues in the AMER or APAC regions etc.

Working remote from Europe in the US is like that, with similar hours

In the west part of the Europe, mostly around Benelux region you can safely land contractor job's with pay around 500€/700€ daily. In UK it's usually more. If I do the math for the higher end for lets say Netherlands, its numOfWorkingDays(255) * mdRate(700 = 178 500 € per year. Although I have no idea about their taxes.

Do not forget that the medical bills are for you as an American ridiculously low and you can live without car without any complications. Furthermore east are lower salaries but you cant land 70-80k contracting jobs with sometimes very little taxation.

The commonly-thrown-around figure for comparing contracting work to salaried work in the US involves multiplying the salary by about 3x to reach parity, since you have to pay your own employment taxes and health insurance, and to account for sometimes not having a full queue of work.

I guess that in the EU (and maybe .ch / .uk?), you wouldn't need to pay for health insurance as such, and I don't know whether they have this (barbaric, imho) notion of employment taxes, so maybe the number is closer to 1.5x, which would make 180k€ into 120k€ equivalent, which sounds quite good compared to OP saying that typical offers are around 1/3 of what they're making now.

Chatgpt o-3 mini search returned: "At a 30% effective tax rate, your taxes would be about 178,500 € × 0.30 = 53,550 €, leaving you with roughly 178,500 € – 53,550 € ≈ 124,950 € net. At a 35% effective rate, taxes would be about 62,475 €, resulting in net income of roughly 178,500 € – 62,475 € ≈ 116,025 €."

For a health care you pay roughly 150€ monthly fee and 7% from your income but there is a income ceiling of €66,956. So for a case I presented in my first comment it should be roughly 3,600€ per year.

So I guess 112,5€k is net income with 178,500 being gross one.

the calculator I ran gave a similar ballpark for Netherlands : https://thetax.nl/?startFrom=Year&selectedYear=2025&older=fa...

potential visa workaround - incorporate abroad (i.e. self employed) and work remotely for US startup as a contractor (that is willing to work with timezone and culture differences to save costs). Even still there is a rate ceiling, startup jobs are gonna top out at 80k for overseas remote unless you have a distinguishing value prop, and non-startups don’t really have a good reason to hire overseas as the management/accountability issues really prevent this from scaling beyond early stage startup situations. my 2c as a US startup with overseas eng.

In the UK you can only do that for 2 years max before the company has to legally employ you. Other European countries might differ.

Like others have said, you have to wait for a position to open up in your target country. Compensation is often tied to location even domestically with FAANG. I don’t think most tech companies are going to let you keep San Francisco (hypothetically) compensation when you move to a country where they are paying much less.

Even the mid size cloud consulting company I work for (full time) hires from 6 different countries and the compensation structure is different for each. When I did work for Amazon remotely, comp was also based on location. I’ve seen the same from talking to people at Google.

Besides, most FAANG jobs require you to be in the office these days.

Why do you want to leave? I understand if you think America is in a long term decline. But my first thought is that as long as I am working and not dependent on the government for part of my livelihood - social security and Medicare - I should be fine.

I have seriously thought about and talked to my wife about moving to either Costa Rica or Panama once we retire.

My second thought is what is going to happen in Europe once they have to beef up their military spending as the US has shown to be an unreliable partner.

> My second thought is what is going to happen in Europe once they have to beef up their military spending as the US has shown to be an unreliable partner.

I don't understand, what do you think may happen? Do you think Europe will collapse because they have to increase their military spending?

All of the EU countries combined have a lower GDP and a higher tax burden than the US. If they have to then spend more, tax rates will go up.

The other issue is that it is going to be a painful process to decouple their economies from exporting and importing between the US. But that’s also going to be necessary.

How much of the worlds pharmaceutical discoveries come from research and the approval process of studies done by the US? Maybe things will turn around. But right now, there is an anti-vaxxer with no medical background in charge of HHS. They are already purging and editing medical studies.

It’s going to take 5-10 years to see the fallout of the US losing its place on the world stage.

I’m more concerned about the effects on Latin America. Flights are short and cheap to and from the US and I would much rather beef up my Spanish than learn another language from scratch.

> If they have to then spend more, tax rates will go up.

Speaking for Germany, which is also the biggest economy in the EU, this is not necessarily true. Germany has notoriously low, more or less no debt and a lot of room to shift the tax burden towards the very rich like wealth and inheritance taxes, which are pretty much absent right now. It's a "very rich country", but the median wealth is actually quite low, comparatively. Germany could easily mobilize many, many billions before touching income tax. Investing in military and tech will also create jobs and so on.

This whole tax comparison is tiresome, since the real question is about quality of life, not numbers. It's tradeoffs countries decided upon. Great if you can keep most of it, but also lose it all if you trip badly. And overall I am quite happy to get "robbed" by the government so people can afford a living without actually robbing/shooting me on the streets. Here is the stats on people shot dead by the police in all of Germany (~84M people): https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/706648/umfrag...

Not sure where you are going with the rest of the argument. Sounds like the US will suffer just about the same here. So, what's wrong with moving to Europe? By the way, there is a country speaking Spanish in Europe too ;)

Honestly, looking at the potential crisis ahead, I am very happy Europe isn't deeply dependent on the "service industry", but tangible products. And with ASML, Zeiss and the highly capable chemical industry in the EU, I feel like we are better set up, theoretically, to bring home chip fabs, than the US replacing all the highly specialized machine parts produced across Europe, which run power generation and research facilities. And If tomorrow FAANG would exit Europe, we may survive that too lol. But we do have to get our shit together, which isn't guaranteed.

* yeah, I know that salary is not attainable in Europe, I'm ready to say goodbye to that as long as I can live decently without scraping by.

* Your guess to my reason for leaving is accurate. I've also wanted to see Europe for awhile, and was planning to go relocate and travel there before 2024, the recent issues in the news just provides another reason.

* in Europe, I have less of a chance of getting shot by police, better healthcare, and more walkable cities that I can get to on a weekend getaway. I'm all for that.

From what I am seeing, the compensation vs cost of living is worse in most parts of the EU than it is the US.

I’m a Black guy so I get your mistrust of police. I grew up on NWA and “F** the Police”. But even I wouldn’t make life decisions based on that.

And is healthcare “better” in Europe or more accessible to everyone? In other words, is it that much better if you have decent health insurance through your employer?

While the salary will be lower, the cost of living in Europe is much cheaper than in the US. You also get much more via the social services and safety net (Public transportation, public health care, better worker’s rights and protections). In Europe there is also a much better mindset around work and it’s place in your life. Leading to a much better work life balance.

The “US” is a big place. There are plenty of places in the burbs of major cities that are affordable.

"Europe" is far too general to say much. Even within the EU, you will find CoL differences in the order of 2-3+x, very, very different cultures, developer pay, developer jobs (do you want a high-octane unicorn job or work for a small outsourced IT service?).

Maybe you don't know and fair enough, but it feels like a good start to make it more firm. You mention somewhere you want to stick to English, I certainly don't recommend moving to the UK right now. I don't know much about Ireland, but it's worth expanding your search. English is the lingua franca of software anyway and for the job it will be sufficient anyway. But you would really need to learn some local language elsewhere. It's also not as hard as it sound, people in Europe (mostly...) are very supportive and patient with foreigners trying to learn the language.

FWIW, Poland is worth looking at and not mentioned much on this thread. So long as you don't mind living 300km from Russia+Belarus.

The Netherlands should be quite easy, as there is a special agreement between the USA and The Netherlands.

https://ind.nl/en/residence-permits/work/paid-employment-res...

From my experience in Germany exclusively (after being half a year in the US). I can't speak for other countries, which may have friendlier visas for contractors working for foreign companies (like Portugal).

- The salary issue you are already aware. - Germany is pretty straightforward for visas/permits, meaning the requirements are clear and if you fill them, you are in, no arbitrariness. - Companies don't need to do anything related to the visa (though many don't know that). You apply yourself once you have a contract and is pretty easy. There's also a work search visa for people with your experience level. - Last time I had to deal with the immigration office they were taking so long I had to pay a lawyer to expedite the process. - The Germans have a much more relaxed attitude to work. The stats I read said 30 avg sick days per year, which wouldn't surprise me. At my last job there was always someone either sick or on holidays. On the other hand I had a supervisor who every Friday after noon would go grab a beer and bring me another one. - Here was the first time in my life that I had time for real side-projects. - I have 10yoe and had been out of a job for the last year. Friends in other industries also had difficulties. IDK whether it is because of my specific skills or the not-so-good economic situation. - German culture is quite credentialist. This is in contrast to US culture (I guess anglo-saxon in general?) which I feel is a more pragmatic "show me what you can do". - Contractor work is not straightforward. You have to have your main clients in Germany to apply for a freelance visa. Once you are a permanent resident it is easier, but there are laws related to disguised employment contracts. In general everything related to laws and taxes is more convoluted.

My main concern would be the medium and long term outlook, mainly economic but social too. As someone else mentioned, the economy has been stagnant for years, not really growing since 2008. One has to wonder why, given the good infrastructure, huge integrated market, qualified workforce, and lower salaries and cost of living, which would be a competitive advantage, you see the US decidedly in the lead in the tech industry. This is not so much of an issue if you're not here for the long run, though.

If you are working at bigco and want to transfer to EU:

* You persuade your manager that this is okay and name the country.

* BigCo Inc. terminates you and BigCo Lda. or Srl. or whatever there subsidiary in that country makes you an offer letter.

* Your base salary in the new offer is 1/3 less, because "the cost of living" is less. If you ask them if you should do 1/3rd less work, they give you a puzzled look. If you ask them if they discount their prices to customers in low COL countries, they will get mad.

* The non-cash part of your compensation (stock, etc.) should not get impacted much, except that when you get taxed you'll pay more tax. Money isn't everything and you're obviously contemplating this move for other reasons.

* You will accept the offer and follow the immigration procedure of your new country. BigCo will have immigration lawyers they retain to ensure they can hire the candidates they desire, for example you.

* You will chill for a little time, maybe a month, while the immigration process goes through.

* Congratulations, you now have a work visa, benefits, and all the privileges that being a legal employee in that country confer upon you.

Slightly worse are arrangements in which you work through a subcontracting company, don't get benefits, and/or have to fight for the visa yourself.

The other ideas you are contemplating probably don't work, and if you don't understand why you should ask a chatbot not HN.

* my Co isn't outside the USA so your idea won't work.

* It's not about the money, I'm looking at moving for other reasons. I'd like to live reasonably without scraping by though. I heard COL in Dublin, Ireland and Netherlands was comparable to Seattle , WA. if this is true, and taxes are higher, my goose is cooked. However, on considering Cost of Living, I think I have it distorted a bit since the average wage is 55k in Dublin , and Google says it can rent out a decent 2 bedroom apartment, and live comfortably.

* Netherlands is facing a housing shortage, not sure if it's decent to move there.

* it looks like pay in FAANG does drop with country.

* I know the other ideas won't work - A work visa is required. Digital nomad possibly, or a Work Search Visa, but that seems more risky.

(I moved to Ireland from the US)

There's a housing crisis in Ireland too. A 2-bed in Dublin in an alright location is 2k+. Here's rents in Dublin: https://www.daft.ie/property-for-rent/dublin-city

Capital Gains in Ireland is 33%, income tax is high, and the quality of life isn't as high as mainland Europe. Just look at those apartments. Depressing.

If I were you I'd move to the Netherlands. The no-tax year is unbelievably good, nl is less car-dependant so you get to live a different lifestyle, and it's easier to tour around the rest of Europe. Ireland isn't even in the fucking Schengen!

do NOT move to Dublin. It's essentially the only major city in Ireland and the only reason people have offices there are for tax reasons. The CoL alone will blow through any salary they can offer you there. Amsterdam is quite good, it's easy to live outside the city and commute in to a bunch of international firms in Zuid

And now you are in another country completely dependent on your employer in the US for your livelihood. The same set of companies that are laying people off left and right. I would much rather be in the US looking for a job if I got laid off than in another country as a US citizen.

You seem to be unaware that worker protections against layoffs can be much stronger in many European countries.

[edit: Also, you can always move back to the US and get a new job.]

It takes me about 6 weeks to find a similar job on my job hunts. Another remote US job while living remotely via digital nomad visa seems like the way to do it. Another route would be to go to Netherlands, and if a layoff did happen, do DAFT entrepreneur visa and work the shiz out of asking businesses for contracts to do web development , build infra, database inventory, and such. I feel confident this is a good plan so far.

* and yes, moving back to the US is a possibility should all else fail.

Have you looked for a remote software developer job during the past 2-3 years? Every application gets thousands of applications and it’s almost impossible to stand out from the crowd. Those were my “Plan B” jobs when I was looking both last year and the year before. I was able to find remote jobs quickly both times for my Plan A jobs[1]. But I have specialized experience for the type of jobs I was looking for.

It has never taken me more than a month from looking for a job to finding one and that’s been across 10 jobs since 1996 and 8 of those were post 2008.

The second problem is that a lot of companies, especially BigTech companies, are forcing either a hybrid or full in office schedule.

The third problem is that most companies aren’t set up to hire people from just anywhere

[1] Plan A jobs were strategic cloud consulting jobs where I work with sales to get clients and then lead the projects. These days, even AWS Professional Services (former employer)and GCPs departments are requiring their “field by design” roles to be in the office when they are not at a customer’s site.

I think you missed my point. One of the reasons it's difficult to get good employment with an EU-based company is because it's also harder to terminate you.

Germany: Requires extensive justification for firing, works council approval, and mandates reinstatement for wrongful termination. Employer bears heavy burden of proof.

France: Must prove "real and serious cause," follow strict procedural steps, and provide mandatory tenure-based severance. Special protections for worker representatives.

Netherlands: Unique system requiring pre-approval from government agency or court before any dismissal. Heavy emphasis on severance.

Italy: Article 18 mandates justified grounds (economic or disciplinary) for firing. Court-ordered reinstatement common, especially in large companies.

Belgium: Requires detailed dismissal grounds and long notice periods up to 15 months. Mandatory outplacement services.

8 YoE Principal SRE, I found a large firm in the Netherlands to sponsor and pay for me and my wife's relocation from California. My TC is around ~260k EURO a year. The job market is a lot smaller, but because of this any firm that needs good up market skills will pay 2x-3x local dev salaries. I'm on an HSM visa, which has a path to permanent residency in 5 years. We mostly moved because we wanted to travel more, the quality of life improvement over living in the Bay Area is massive.

One underappreciated aspect is, if you are a U.S. citizen you are required to pay taxes on your worldwide income. So, in the EU, I file two tax returns. One to the country I live in, and one to the US.

In practice there's a tax treaty that let's the u.s. recognize the taxes I pay where I live and don't have to pay the u.s., but I still have to file. It gets so complex I pay someone who specializes in u.s. and "e.u" tax situations.

It's really not that complicated, just FEIE and FBAR. No one I know takes the tax credits unless they have a rental property in the states and want to offset some future taxes from a sale or other income stateside

Zurich, Munich, couple other cities often have higher salaries. Switzerland can also have low taxes which can boost your income, too, if living there interested you.

It's almost impossible to move to Switzerland if you're not an EU citizen. Intra-company transfers are pretty much the only option.

It's easy to move to Switzerland, you just need to be very wealthy.

In which case you would be living it up in Monaco instead of asking about jobs.

They did ask about remote work. Some US tech employees would be wealthy enough to move to Switzerland without a job. It's like, 7 figure US wealth you'd need, not 8 figure or above.

Look at levels.fyi for an idea on how much you would make in Europe. Last time I checked an L5 at Amazon Berlin makes about 100k. (dont bother converting because right now EUR == USD, the GBP-USD rate is a bit higher)

The best of both worlds is if you get a contractor role based in the US with a US salary and live in Europe. You will still get the higher tax rate and as a US citizen pay taxes in the US. The Netherlands has a way to self-sponsor your visa, it's called DAFT.

What's the reason that you want to relocate to Europe? It's not looking good right now. Our economies have been stagnant for years, morale is low, division seems to increase, and there is a lot of cognitive dissonance regarding Russia and the new US presidency.

I'd keep the job and look for places with remote worker visas. Or start a company and get an entrepreneur visa. Being locked into a single company isn't great, in any country. Also Europe's pretty small, you can live in a small town, halve your living costs and still only be 30 minutes from the city. Or just live in a tier 2 city which will still have a good lifestyle.

I think I'd be interested in revisiting this idea. I'm working remotely. I would switch to night-shift in Europe. tier 2 city would need to have decent internet. I'm assuming its common... I'd need to check into Dublin, Ireland or somewhere near Netherlands for tier2 cities. https://www.reddit.com/r/travel/comments/1bhvxkh/2nd_or_3rd_...

* Digital nomad visas only last 1-2 years. I assumed I'd need something more if I were to pick up my life and move somewhere... I suppose I could just live on the edge and not forget about renewing? Netherlands has an MVV thing, but it's tied up in some paperwork. There's a list of digital nomad places on Google, such as Spain. I'm wondering about renewal though, is 1 year stay enough? should i place my bets that it is renewed?

* the Netherlands MVV: https://localnomads.com/digital-nomad-visa/netherlands/#rene...

* Norway's Digital Nomad:

https://www.etias.org/blog/norway-digital-nomad-visa The digital nomad visa can be issued for up to two years and it can be renewed while living in Norway at a local police station.

* Holy cow this idea could work! Technically fulfilling the idea to keep my job and remotely work.

> tier 2 city would need to have decent internet. I'm assuming its common...

I mean, can't speak for everywhere in Europe, but we have a place in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere Czech Republic. And the internet for ~30 Euros is better than my $100 CAD internet in Canada... Cell coverage across the country also better than Canada.

As for the digital nomad visas, a lot came into existence during Covid, so the rules are ever changing, and vary country to country (lots of things like immigration and healthcare are handled by each country, only some rules span the whole EU)... I think some countries allow you to renew indefinitely though (CR definitely does, France too, don't know about all of them though)...

Sort of related question: If you are a dual citizen between US/EU, and have made the move to the EU from the US, how was your experience?

TLDR; visit this link: https://immigration-portal.ec.europa.eu/index_en

American living in France for 5 years. Previously worked in NYC startups earning a similar salary to you. Made lots of mistakes that, if I had known better, I could've saved myself some time and money. That being said, I am doing far better financially even if I make less on paper and I just bought my first place (unthinkable in NYC). I work as a software contractor technically, though I work full time for an American company.

Your first question is what your longterm goal? Permanent relocation or experiment for a few years? In other words, where are you planning to retire? You want to make your social security payments to the correct country. Your tax paperwork will stress you out for the first few years if you don't figure that out.

In either case, I'd suggest you try to keep your American job and go fully remote. You don't need a work visa if you don't work for a European company. But if you move permanently, you should do the paperwork to replace your American employment contract with a European contracting company like I did. It's more paperwork but earning an American salary in Europe gives you a significant purchasing power advantage even if you pay more in taxes. The real killer is the paperwork. European bureaucracy sucks.

If you don't keep your American job, you should apply for jobs before moving ideally. Most EU countries have reasonably low bars for skilled worker visas. Spain and France I know are very simple. The Netherlands are a bit more confusing. Regardless, you roughly need an offer of 50 000 € and a college degree to get one.

EDIT: saw discussion about housing shortages. France has tons of housing (https://pap.fr). I had a two-bedroom apartment with a balcony in Paris proper for 1 900 €.

Following.

Which EU country specifically?

EU or Europe - two different things. But yeah, you can't just turn up and take a job - unless you've got the right to live in the country you're interested in you'll need residency and work permits. What languages do you speak fluently enough to work and socialise?

Actually it's super easy for any EU company to sponsor a so called blue card, the salary requirements are laughably low. I think the reason why so few companies do it is because they're simply not aware of its existence

Indeed, if OP equates EU to Europe, but doesn't answer the language question. IME so few companies do it because there's little demand. The east of Europe is relatively poorer (in pure financial terms) than than west, and it's far easier to hire people from those countries who are already in the EU/Shengen than outside.

English primarily. I have high school Spanish - I can converse and get along okay, but I'm rusty and depend on translators heavily.

Well the UK is the obvious one, but that's not in the EU. I believe the Netherlands sometimes also uses English as it's language of business (apologies if incorrect), but I'm not sure where else.

I was thinking Dublin, Ireland , but also open to other places like The Netherlands.

taaxes?

I'm doing some budget calculations. I have 43k USD left over per year if I stay put in USA. If I move to netherlands, tax looks to be about 77k euros per year. So that means I would be in the negative 34k -_-

doable, and if I kept my job and pay with a digital nomad visa, still decent. Worth it. https://thetax.nl/?startFrom=Year&selectedYear=2025&older=fa...

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