Comment by bravura | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bravura | Hacker News Reader

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.

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.

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.

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