Ask HN: Countries easy to emigrate to, with tech opportunities? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Countries easy to emigrate to, with tech opportunities?

30 pointswinter_blue34 comments

What are some countries that are fairly open to immigrants, and have opportunities in tech?

Germany is fairly open to immigrants—depending on your nationality and education it can be quite easy compared to the US. And Germany's capital Berlin is Europe's tech hub with most career opportunities.

More infos about Berlin taken from another thread:

Top 5 reasons why you should move to Berlin:

1. Lowest livings costs with highest quality of living. Stay in gorgeous, perfectly renovated apartments in pre-WWII residential buildings with high ceilings, right in the middle of the center and pay a fraction of costs of any other capital (even cheaper than any Eastern European capital). No need for a car—Berlin has one of the densest subway nets and wide streets make biking fun. In addition, Germany has an amazing social health care system including health, unemployment and pension (when working as an employee).

2. A vibrant and fast growing ecosystem of smart people. A vast number of new software talents, founders, software companies and VCs are moving to Berlin, every day (Twitter, Google, Soundcloud, Early Bird and many more).

3. People here are open-minded, outgoing, mix well and international—no need to learn German, everyone speaks English! Making new friends is a matter of days. Visit tons of networking and startup events, every week.

4. Easy work permissions—Europeans do not need any and can work from day one and the rest applies for the hassle-free Blue Card.

5. Berlin's night life is unmatched, huge and changing every day (plus ridiculously cheap). Berlin has got some of the most dazzling, naughty, and original clubs on the face of the Earth.

(posted by http://urge.io)

Berlin is Germany's startup hub. I'm guessing Munich is where most of the developers are.

I think it's more spread out:

Frankfurt is heavy in the banking industry

Hamburg, Berlin and Munich are media and publishing hubs

Hamburg also has aviation industry, Berlin has most government agencies

Heavy industry and car manufacturers cluster in the south

I've always dreamed of moving to Berlin. I'm even learning German. But I'm not sure if getting a job in one of the startups there is the way to go for me. Would it be too difficult to open my own company?

Sweden has a pretty easy immigration path, is fairly friendly to immigrants, most natives speak English, and has a large tech community with not enough local talent.

Have you done work there? Your profile mentions Atlanta.

I moved to Sweden from the U.S. about 3 months ago, and it was a very easy process (I already had a job lined up here).

The hardest part is international interviews: they really want you to interview in person, and they really don't want to pay for international airfare to do it. The best way, if you can make it work financially, is to plan a 2-month "interview vacation" here.

Awesome!

Thanks for the reply!

How open is it to non-European immigrants?

I moved here from the U.S. The process was fairly fast and simple, and as soon as you have a work permit you get all of the social benefits. It only takes 5 years to get citizenship, too.

It's supposed to be fairly easy to bring a spouse (different or same sex), or even an "unmarried cohabitating partner" with you.

They even offer work permits for self-employed workers, though that requires quite a bit of extra paperwork (you have to proof self-sufficiency). I heard you can start a business here and request something like a 2-year grace period before you have to proof you are self-sufficient.

A friend of myne who recently moved to Sweden said it was quite easy to move there and get working papers. On the other hand though he said that most non Europeans/North Americans will have trouble getting working papers.

> non Europeans/North Americans

Did you mean: "non (Europeans/North Americans)" or "(non Europeans)/North Americans" ?

If you meant the former, does that mean that Sweden extends special immigration benefits to people from the U.S./Canada?

The former, they are preferential to western Europeans and Americans/Canadians

The easiest for a professional to immigrate to are Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These countries have a fairly objective, points-based system that allow capable educated engineers to immigrate within a reasonably short period of time. The only minus of their immigration policy is that they do not allow you to immigrate if one of your family members is sick.

Brazil fits the criteria. If it would be a wise decision, that's another story. Many Brazilians would like to emigrate to the US to work in tech.

Don't you need to speak Portuguese fairly well to get a longer visa (more than 90 days) in Brazil?

For any tech opportunity you would actually want to be involved in, everyone you work with will speak decent enough English for you to get by without Portuguese. This is pretty much a universal rule for software development and applies to most if not all software opportunities in any country. If you are going to work somewhere where many if not most of the team doesn't speak English, be very very wary of taking that opportunity.

I can count the number of great, productive software engineers I've met that don't have a decent command of English on one finger.

Oh, I don't mean to get the job, I mean to get the visa itself. I heard the Brazilian authorities required applicants to speak (some) Portuguese.

Tel-Aviv would be an excellent place, but it's only fairly open if you are Jewish -- otherwise, immigration policy is tight.

Stupid, I know.

Also, rocket attacks?

Well, there's that occasionally - but over the last 10 years or so, things have been relatively quiet.

I mean, would you recommend staying out of NYC because of 9/11, or out of Boston because of the recent terror acts, or out of Oklahoma after the McVeigh bombing, or out of Colorado after the aurora theater shooting, or out of Connecticut after the school shooting, or .... (I can probably go on for ten more paragraphs with references to just the last two years)

also there is racisme against the non jewish in Tel-Aviv, speacilly against arabs !

Tel-aviv is as tolerant as any major city gets, including towards Arabs. Outside of tel-aviv things might be different, but all in all, despite what you might read in US media, Israel is not a racist country (with the huge exception of immigration laws, where it is horribly racist, or rather religousist)

Thanks for the comments so far.

I just want to clarify that I'm non-European. I'm Indian, but have lived outside the country for most of my life. How open are EU states to non-Europeans?

I also hold a degree in CS from a fairly highly-ranked American university, if that makes any difference.

Scotland might be a good choice. Everybody seems to think our borders are pretty open.

There's a bit of a revolution starting with lots of startups popping up in all areas from motorsport and travel to energy and biotech.

I made this app a while ago that lets you search for jobs in multiple countries at once. Maybe it will provide some inspiration: http://leavethe.us

Any idea about Canada? Vancouver seems very interesting tech hub.

Its easier if you've a) gone to school there and b) have family/significant others that are Canadian. I'm on my second immigration attempt (the first one was nullified because I moved out of Canada and its a different process depending on whether you live in or out of the country).

Netherlands, Sweden are good candidates.

any africain country ?

Can you elaborate more? I'm considering moving to London to bootstrap my startup.

If you are a skilled worker (degree etc.) and have a job lined up the visa process is rather simple and painless... or at least as painless as these types of processes can be.

If you are going over with nothing lined up then the UK will be far less welcoming.

Not for non-EU citizens, unfortunately.

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