Is the cultural difference between the United States' more cutthroat form of employment and the "salaryman" idea in Japan an issue in the transition? Does it apply to our industry?
I'd say its in transition on the whole, but especially in IT. Massive companies like Sony, Toyota, Nissan, etc. still have a lifetime employment structure, but once you get hired to any company here, it's still real hard to get fired.
Answering your question would really take a small essay because the answer is yes and no for SO many reasons.
EDIT: I think I misread your question the first time. It can be difficult mostly because firms here are used to having employees who are generalists, work in every part of the company through the years, and become upper management who have a much needed knowledge of the whole company. In the west in general, we focus on one area and change companies to grow our skills in that field. This is a problem because its really hard to change companies in Japan and Japanese employers often want you to learn new skills to work in different areas of the company. In short, it's difficult to become a specialist in Japan without sacrifice (usually salary). But there are many new technology companies that are trying to change that pattern.
So even if I take my full 30 days (or whatever it is) of vacations. Be in the office only 9-5 and encouraging co-workers to do the same, to get a life, etc... I still won't be fired? :)
Also a difficult question. Getting fired is possible here, but there are major repercussions for the business. If your hours were 9-5 and you had 30 days of vacation time you could take a year, no one would say anything if you did what are your rights as an employee. But if someone asks you to stay late and you don't have a good excuse, or if you take vacation days during times that are known to be busy periods, the repercussions are much more social rather than financial. The office gets dark, and they might move your desk into an undesirable area (they used to call it the window seat for some very grim reasons). There are worse things than getting fired.
But, also because of this system, if you do lose your job, it's extremely difficult to get another one.
That's what it was referred to because that's what many people did in the 90s. A lot has changed since then. Although still high, the suicide rate is much lower now than it used to be [1].
Ive read that as well, and it's pretty spot on/thorough. I don't usually agree with people when they talk about Japanese firms, but Patrick knows his shit. But everyone has different experiences here. It's nearly a mono-culture as far as business is concerned, unless you work for a foreign company that operates in Japan.
Recruitment firms are really picky here, most won't even consider you if you don't have JLPT N2 or above. They search for their candidates similar to the way US firms do (from what I've heard). Having key words on your linkedIn profile showing that either your interested in moving here, have a background working with Japanese people, or have the language abilities plus (nearly any) software skills, there's a good chance you'll get contacted.
Its actually the opposite. It is completely unnecessary for every day life. I know plenty of people here that don't speak any Japanese and get by just fine.
As far as working goes, it depends on the type of job you want. Most of the people I know with low Japanese skills are English teachers. Most engineering jobs require business level reading/writing/speaking since you often work in teams.
Any specific country ?
Even though there is huge shortage for skilled IT labor in USA, you have a better chance of finding another job in Australia / New Zealand region.
Would you be willing to write a general post on it? I don't agree or disagree with the idea of emigrating due to the election but it would be engaging to read - I don't see much stuff from people moving that direction.
Are there any country outside U.S. that pay more for software job? I've looked before, but I didn't find any, so you'll have to figure out a way to quantify quality of live improvement in dollar figures.
Yet is extremely more expensive in terms of cost of living.
It cheaper to fly to Los Angeles, buy Adobe Suite ( the old one when discs were still around) and arrive back to Australia rather than buying it in Australia.
There's tons of jobs in Canada that pay better then software jobs in North Dakota... But in pure dollar amount, you're not going to beat a Google or Facebook job in SV. Best you could do is work remotely for an SV company.
That said, remember that if you're an actual american citizen, they will tax your foreign income and a programmer with a lot of experience can hit revenues where they actually have to remit money to the IRS in addition to the cost of compliance (which can itself be significant.)
Expect to be paid less but that money will go further - e.g. if comparing with Silicon Valley, there are many places worldwide where you'll be able to afford a much larger, nicer home and more services while earning a much smaller dollar amount.
In general, there's a scale/tradeoff of this, and California is on one extreme of that scale - there won't be any country that will pay even more, with the possible exception of some Saudi contracts or similar niches.
Compared to the Bay Area you'll pay 1/2-1/4th of the rent/mortgage and soon 1 EUR will be 2 USD, so I'd say it might not be so clear cut. Add in cheaper childcare and medical expenses. Also California taxes might actually be higher than German taxes (or at least in the same ballpark).
"Compared to the Bay Area you'll pay 1/2-1/4th of the rent/mortgage and soon 1 EUR will be 2 USD"
1 Euro is currently ~ $1.10 US. Are you being facetious?
I agree with you on everything else though. Everything in Berlin seems reasonably priced. And it seems like a good quality of life there for a city. People seem pretty relaxed.
I actually have some money in Germany that I was waiting to bring back until after the election, hoping for a Trump win and a collapse of the Dollar relative to the Euro, but some of the stuff I've read suggests that it might actual do better? I don't know...it's all a little confusing to me.
Definitely not the ceiling. I've been working here for five years and always earned more. Also if you're married they'll sum you and your partner's income and lower your taxes if your partner earns less. Good way to study or do non-paid work while the other earns for both of you.
Berlin is very liberal and open-minded, but learning Deutsch is a must...
Another thing that scares me away from west Europe in general - such low percentage of people owning houses/lands... Even in Berlin, most people with their families spend whole their life in apartments (not to mention a house with a backyard) that do not belong to them...
A man was walking along a river bank when he saw another man on the opposite side. "Hello!" he called out, "how do you get to the other side of the river?"
The man called out in response, "you are on the other side of the river!"
Fair point. I inferred OP was in the US, considering the US election that just ended and people were jokingly talking about leaving the country[1] to other places.
Appreciate the sentiment, but I think it's a false equivalence.
I was in Amsterdam for a week in June and I'm in SF today. I love both cities, but the difference is palpable. The US is experiencing a wave of xenophobia and outright hate right now.
I totally understand not wanting to be part of it.
--
Amsterdam is beautiful. It has more bikes than cars, transit that makes the Bay look embarrassing, and in my subjective experience, super nice people.
It's also a real city with a lot of interesting projects happening.
> The US is experiencing a wave of xenophobia and outright hate right now.
Were there actually any reported hate crimes, or is this just rumors and confirmation bias? People are definitely on edge today, but I felt it more from the Clinton supporters.
(I know of the swastika graffiti in Philly, but that could have been from either side.)
My wife is an instructor at University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Yesterday all faculty/staff/students got an email about a girl who was assaulted. She was walking down a street close to the university. Two white men (one in a Trump hat) pulled up next to her in a car, hopped out, hit her over the head with something then stole her hijab and wallet. http://www.theadvertiser.com/story/news/crime/2016/11/09/ul-...
From the depths of my heart, Fuck You. There are millions of us out there who can't leave. People of color, disabled people, co-workers, friends, family, loved ones. Leaving is failure. Leaving is cowardice. Leaving is making sure that those millions of people who aren't as privileged as you have even less of a chance to fix things. Do you really want your legacy to have been abandoning the US? Or do you want to actually try to fix something? This country is worth saving.
Oh I missed the part where it said what country he (she?) was leaving, or where he might want to go. Do you feel the same way about people leaving any country, wherever they might be?
That really depends on why they left. In this case I agree with OP, anyone who leaves the U.S. because of Trump instead of standing and fighting is a coward.
There's a difference. Something tells me that the original poster isn't someone who is leaving with just the shirt on his back and a letter from his brother.
First of all, where did it say in the OP's post that the question has anything to do with the U.S. election? Maybe it does, but that's irrelevant since it was not even hinted at.
It's relatively easy to Google for expat websites for any specific country. The salaries are generally lower, but so is the cost of housing.
Our company Smartly.io is also hiring. 3-year-old startup, 100 employees, 30+ engineers, profitable, some real scalability issues to be solved (already 200+ servers), and based in Helsinki. :)
For me, it's not worth moving. I was born here, and as a result I'm somewhat responsible for the actions my country takes as a whole. Moving doesn't change that. The grass looks greener on the other side, but other countries aren't really doing that well with human rights, LGBT issues, affordable housing, or constitutionally-protected free speech. No matter where you move, you're trading one bag of shit for another.
I'm mostly just curious. There is a lot written about immigration to the US but not too much about emigration from it. I agree that moving away doesn't really solve the problem and that despite our flaws I believe we have an advantage in many respects.
Democracy isn't perfect, and sometimes it means you lose. It means you need to talk to people who disagree with you and persuade them, and I think this cycle shows that the left hasn't been doing too well on that front.
Yeah, democracy seemed to work OK. The average american wants it to be illegal to not be a God-loving hetereosexual white man. And they elected someone who will make sure that laws get passed to move the country in that direction.
Work to change what the average American thinks. Declaring democracy broken is counterproductive, as the only alternatives have been proven to be worse.
Freedom for everyone means they have the freedom to disagree as much as you do.
It seems that message was lost on his supporters. I've seen scant evidence in interviews, polling, or personal interactions to indicate this pro-LGBTQ stance is shared.
No doubt. The Republicans have always been anti-gay. It's just that Trump done more than anyone ever has to bring them around on this issue.
I'll never forget the cheering and applause Thiel got from Republicans when he announced he was proud to be gay at the RNC. That was a pretty special moment.
He has a long record of being pro-LGBT and if he was going to backtrack on that to appease his supporters he would have done it before the election, not now after he already has their votes.
The reason you see people concerned about this is because most people assume Trump will defer to his VP on most policy stuff, and his VP is very, very anti-gay. The reason people assume this is that one of the other people considered to be his VP pick, John Kasich, told the press that when Trump's son pitched the job, he said that he could be "the most powerful vice-president in history" and that he would be in charge of both domestic and foreign policy.
Right, but you can take a foreign tax exemption or credit.
You can make a US tax free $100k in Hong Kong with the exemption. Going the credit route takes what you pay in local taxes and deducts that from what you pay in the US, so in European countries with high taxes, you still don't pay any more.
Not in all topics. I lived in 3 EU countries so far, and I'm preparing for another changes, probably the last one. I don't care about LGBT issues as it doesn't affect me. I mostly care about living standard, access to nature (parks, reservoirs, sea/mountains), high quality roads for motorcycling and IT infrastructure.
Countries I considered:
Malta - similar wages as in Poland, but smaller market, housing problem as in Germany, rent prices as in the UK. Great nature, I like nature.
Germany - language barrier, housing problems (in Berlin 30 people visit a house or flat to rent and landlord decides who will get it). Nice pay/(rent price + living costs) - I still could afford more in Berlin than in Bristol and Cardiff.
Austria - language barrier (not really German), even when job offer and interview is in English, job requires fluent German, as everyone in the office speaks German, so you don't want to be alienated at the very beginning.
Switzerland - extremely high living costs, you won't be able to afford to buy a flat/house after 5years of living there, I felt really poor when I realized I will financially struggle even to move there and rent a flat for few first months.
France, Paris - visited it and that's a no-go zone for me. Couldn't buy a ticket at international train station in English and German as cashiers speak only French. City is a ruin after allowing all refugees live on a street.
Now, I'm looking into Japan, Australia, Canada and Czech Republic. As op said, you're always dealing one bag of shit for another.
Seems most of your problems seem to stem from the fact that you are too lazy to learn the language of the country you want to move to. From your offensive tone with regards to the refugees I get the impression you would still be the kind of person to moan about immigrants not speaking english in the US too though, right?!
English* is not my native language, I was taught Germany at school, I lived there it was OK. I wanted to move to the UK, I learnt the language mostly myself. I don't have any more that much time and energy to learn Austrian dialect of German or remind German again. Yea, I'm lazy, but I can communicate in 3 languages.
Hey, I'm an Austrian and I'm sitting here in an office with a bunch of Eastern Europeans who have a hard time understanding my dialect. When things get rough, we just switch to English. Problem solved ;)
> France, Paris - visited it and that's a no-go zone for me. Couldn't buy a ticket at international train station in English and German as cashiers speak only French.
Huh. I've lived in Paris for two years, freelancing, and I'm still not fluent in French. I get by just fine. Train tickets: I've never had that problem with cashiers, but you can always use a machine or buy a ticket online - there's always an English option. Same with ATMs, public transportation, etc.
> City is a ruin after allowing all refugees live on a street.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Refugees were mainly around Stalingrad metro station in northeastern Paris. The camp was cleared out a few days ago and people were sent to more proper accommodation. Probably people will set up camp around there again. If seeing refugees bothers you, I suggest you simply avoid that particular little part of this massive city. It doesn't make Paris a "ruin".
> France, Paris - visited it and that's a no-go zone for me. Couldn't buy a ticket at international train station in English and German as cashiers speak only French. City is a ruin after allowing all refugees live on a street.
What the fuck. I have been living in Paris for a couple of years and those are insane issues to have.
I have not seen an increase in the number of homeless people in the street (which is not too say that there are no homeless people in France)
All the automatic ticket machines can display their text in english.
The state of the city is roughly the same as it was when I arrived.
I think that would work, locking yourself to a certain area of a city just to avoid seeing rest of the city. I would not like that. I didn't like Paris because of that, and that's my final opinion.
I can't pretend to know the whole city but no I am not locked in any particular area.
Of course there are shitty parts in the city (and even more just outside of it) but I have not seen any huge change this past year
It is true that unless you are only in USA for 30 days of the year, you will still have to pay income tax in USA. I've been in Asia this year, working as remote freelancer and because I had to come back for about 6 weeks to deal with some business stuff, I won't be able to claim the foreign income tax excludion. I'll also have to pay the ACA penalty (still cheaper) because I cancelled my health insurance after leaving USA. But living in Asia has been a great experience and I would recommend it. However, time zones between here and west coast are weird. I'm either waking up at 5am or staying up til 12am if I have to do a call.
There is a lot of demand here for skilled developers, most positions are not for startups, but established business.
Software developer salary is typically lower than in the US, but then again, cost of living (as far as apartment rent goes(in Oslo)) is lower than in SV. C#/Java back-end salary usually range from 600,000 NOK (73 188 dollar, at the low end, not much experience, poor resume) to 1,000,000 NOK (121 980 dollar, senior).
The average developer salary in Oslo is at 106k (dollar). National average is 82k, most attractive jobs, and salaries, tend to be in Oslo.
At least in the beginning, and for many companies. International hires is common. There are quite a few offices where English is the official language, as well. You can see that a lot of ads on the site is in English.
Not merely a lot (in Sweden, anyway) - I'd say the vast majority of Swedes are fluent in English; of course more or less so but I don't think I've ever met a Swede who couldn't at the very least hold a basic conversation in English.
And that goes for authorities too. Had a non-Swedish partner for a few years who always communicated in English in all interactions with Sweden's governmental services - no problem. All important government websites are available in English. Knowing Swedish isn't even a requirement for citizenship.
So while knowing Swedish is certainly very beneficial and recommended, you can certainly get by without it, and work for many interesting companies (at least as a developer).
I lived in Denmark for 5 years and yes, it has been like that.
However, all the paperwork you will need to handle will still come in the official language, not in English. All contracts and legal documents will be in that language as well. So not knowing at least the basics will handicap you severely.
I have learned enough of Danish to be able to read the paperwork and do some basic writen communication. That's really the minimum to get you by.
Spoken Danish was a bit too much - the saying that Danish is not a language but a throat disease is not far from the truth!
I'm in Norway, and it is similar here. Not all industries are so kind to non-Norwegian speaking applicants, but government and everyday life usually isn't an issue. Half of the official paperwork has English as well as Norwegian - and English transcripts and official documents are OK to turn into the government without further translation.
That said, as soon as I started getting some actual Norwegian language skills, it improved.
My wife and I spent two weeks in Sweden (well, two of those days were spent in Oslo...), and we only encountered one person who didn't speak English. He was a pizzaman/bartender in Nynäshamn, and luckily all the dudes sitting at the bar translated for us in drunken semi-unison :)
(Honestly, though, we probably would've gotten along fine without the translators, as we'd spent a couple months with Rosetta Stone before traveling... we were/are far from fluent, sure, but good enough to order a pizza, I'd imagine ;) ).
I know it was a joke, but we might actually be hiring someone to do scheme development (in Sweden, not Norway). We started as a mostly delphi shop doing software for smaller private healthcare businesses. Most of our internal tooling evolved started as one-off scripts I wrote in guile.
Our business grew to deliver huge installations on tens of thousands of computers, and our internal tooling grew as well. We have well over 100k lines of scheme. Since it works well, we don't really want to invest in porting it. We tried rewriting our macro system in python, but it was god-awfully slow, and ended up being harder to read. With scheme, we can just rely on syntax-case to de-construct the macros, which is not only fast but also easy to extend.
I am from Sweden and basically everyone here (except some immigrants) speak english very fluently. You would have no issues living in any Nordic country with only English.
I worked at a pretty international company before where there was several individuals whom had lived in Sweden for several years without even bothering to learn the language.
Don't be that guy or gal though, Swedes don't like it when you live here for years without learning anything. Norway is the same, same with Finland and Denmark.
You are welcome, if you ever consider moving I could probably give you some tips of potential employers!
I've been strongly considering moving since spending a semester abroad. Any potential employers or leads you think I should consider? Email's in profile so feel free to pm
I am actually in the making of a swedish job site for developers. But you will have to wait for that one though.
Otherwise, you can search for your language of choice at https://www.arbetsformedlingen.se/. I am sure lots of jobs will turn up, at least in Stockholm. What you want to do is probably to use Google Translate on that webpage or something because their english version sucks ass.
Sometimes English is enough to get through a workplace at times - a lot of tech jobs have English speaking workplaces, for example. Outside of some industries, however, learning the language is nearly required. Socially, however, you'll likely find you'll want to learn the local language.
English does get you pretty far, however, and a lot of folks speak English to varying degrees.
NA being so diverse I'm not sure which city I should compare to, but compared to the larger cities I'm not sure it's considerably more expensive, in terms of rent alone. E.g., NY is more expensive than Oslo.
Rent prices in Oslo haven't boomed in paralell with the real estate market, so it's not that bad. And opting for something outside the city-centre, but still just a short commute (10-20 min by train/metro), is always an option.
Those of you who live in SF, how accurate are the rent numbers here? For Oslo they seem about right.
Durham isn't some tiny village or one-horse town. It's part of the North Carolina capital metropolitan area; on the edge of the Research Triangle Park (where there are tons of jobs); in near proximity of 3 reputable research universities, offering first-class medical, engineering, veterinary, and agricultural programs, among others (Duke, UNC, and NCSU — thus, the "Triangle"); home to an international airport; birthplace of Clojure, while Epic Games and RedHat Headquarters are just down the road in Raleigh, and GamebaseUSA is just across the road in Chapel Hill, while hundreds of companies, many of whom you've heard of, either call the Triangle area home or have major satellite offices in the area. It's got mild weather, a fantastic craft beer scene, great culture, and frequently makes it on "Top 10" lists for quality of life and business climate.
Starting salaries for junior software engineers start at around $65-75K, but within 3 years in the industry, I was already earning 6 figures — and that money goes a long way in the area due to the low cost-of-living.
I visited Oslo last week, and I have to say that its one of the best cities I have ever been to, people are very welcoming, streets are clean, everything is almost perfect.
Have you been to any other European cities at all for comparison? For example I think Barcelona is a very clean and welcoming city, so is Amsterdam come to think of it.
In my experience, Nordic people are extremely polite, but not really welcoming. They do not actually care about you as a human being, they just care about a nice, polite interchange. Going from that politeness to something more is hard. YMMV.
I've also heard about these cool guys from RelocateMe.
Apart from a diverse number of IT jobs (http://relocateme.eu/jobs/), they also provide comprehensive relocation support to candidates and their families.
237 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 247 ms ] threadEDIT: I think I misread your question the first time. It can be difficult mostly because firms here are used to having employees who are generalists, work in every part of the company through the years, and become upper management who have a much needed knowledge of the whole company. In the west in general, we focus on one area and change companies to grow our skills in that field. This is a problem because its really hard to change companies in Japan and Japanese employers often want you to learn new skills to work in different areas of the company. In short, it's difficult to become a specialist in Japan without sacrifice (usually salary). But there are many new technology companies that are trying to change that pattern.
[1]https://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/no-of-suic...
[1] http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/
そうして来月のN2試験に集中しないと問題になります。
It must be imperative in daily life, but how about in the work environment?
If you're looking at maximizing dollars, it's hard. But no amount of salary in the Bay Area will give you decent public transit.
https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/u-s-...
"Your worldwide income is subject to U.S. income tax, regardless of where you reside."
Your best scenario is to work remotely for a US company while living in a low cost of living country.
https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/fore...
Misleading.
You are compelled to file taxes in the US. It's quite unlikely that an American living abroad must actually pauy tax on foreign-earned income.
https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/fore...
It cheaper to fly to Los Angeles, buy Adobe Suite ( the old one when discs were still around) and arrive back to Australia rather than buying it in Australia.
That said, remember that if you're an actual american citizen, they will tax your foreign income and a programmer with a lot of experience can hit revenues where they actually have to remit money to the IRS in addition to the cost of compliance (which can itself be significant.)
In general, there's a scale/tradeoff of this, and California is on one extreme of that scale - there won't be any country that will pay even more, with the possible exception of some Saudi contracts or similar niches.
1 Euro is currently ~ $1.10 US. Are you being facetious?
I agree with you on everything else though. Everything in Berlin seems reasonably priced. And it seems like a good quality of life there for a city. People seem pretty relaxed.
Berlin is very liberal and open-minded, but learning Deutsch is a must...
The man called out in response, "you are on the other side of the river!"
The man on the other side responds: "Don't ask me. I was born here."
I think it was just pointing out a semantic flaw in the post: OP forgot to say where he lives, so we don't know what "abroad" is in his case.
[1]: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canada-s-immigration-website-cr...
I was in Amsterdam for a week in June and I'm in SF today. I love both cities, but the difference is palpable. The US is experiencing a wave of xenophobia and outright hate right now.
I totally understand not wanting to be part of it.
--
Amsterdam is beautiful. It has more bikes than cars, transit that makes the Bay look embarrassing, and in my subjective experience, super nice people.
It's also a real city with a lot of interesting projects happening.
I'm very tempted
Were there actually any reported hate crimes, or is this just rumors and confirmation bias? People are definitely on edge today, but I felt it more from the Clinton supporters.
(I know of the swastika graffiti in Philly, but that could have been from either side.)
You can't behave like this to other community members on Hacker News, no matter what's going on and no matter what they say.
It's relatively easy to Google for expat websites for any specific country. The salaries are generally lower, but so is the cost of housing.
Our company Smartly.io is also hiring. 3-year-old startup, 100 employees, 30+ engineers, profitable, some real scalability issues to be solved (already 200+ servers), and based in Helsinki. :)
For me, it's not worth moving. I was born here, and as a result I'm somewhat responsible for the actions my country takes as a whole. Moving doesn't change that. The grass looks greener on the other side, but other countries aren't really doing that well with human rights, LGBT issues, affordable housing, or constitutionally-protected free speech. No matter where you move, you're trading one bag of shit for another.
It's weird.
Democracy isn't perfect, and sometimes it means you lose. It means you need to talk to people who disagree with you and persuade them, and I think this cycle shows that the left hasn't been doing too well on that front.
The problem in this case is that that's terrible.
Freedom for everyone means they have the freedom to disagree as much as you do.
I'll never forget the cheering and applause Thiel got from Republicans when he announced he was proud to be gay at the RNC. That was a pretty special moment.
He has a long record of being pro-LGBT and if he was going to backtrack on that to appease his supporters he would have done it before the election, not now after he already has their votes.
You can make a US tax free $100k in Hong Kong with the exemption. Going the credit route takes what you pay in local taxes and deducts that from what you pay in the US, so in European countries with high taxes, you still don't pay any more.
Still have to file though.
Bit of a weird statement. There are a lot of countries in the world and plenty of them do far better than the US on these issues.
Countries I considered:
Malta - similar wages as in Poland, but smaller market, housing problem as in Germany, rent prices as in the UK. Great nature, I like nature.
Germany - language barrier, housing problems (in Berlin 30 people visit a house or flat to rent and landlord decides who will get it). Nice pay/(rent price + living costs) - I still could afford more in Berlin than in Bristol and Cardiff.
Austria - language barrier (not really German), even when job offer and interview is in English, job requires fluent German, as everyone in the office speaks German, so you don't want to be alienated at the very beginning.
Switzerland - extremely high living costs, you won't be able to afford to buy a flat/house after 5years of living there, I felt really poor when I realized I will financially struggle even to move there and rent a flat for few first months.
France, Paris - visited it and that's a no-go zone for me. Couldn't buy a ticket at international train station in English and German as cashiers speak only French. City is a ruin after allowing all refugees live on a street.
Now, I'm looking into Japan, Australia, Canada and Czech Republic. As op said, you're always dealing one bag of shit for another.
This comment is beyond parody.
English* is not my native language, I was taught Germany at school, I lived there it was OK. I wanted to move to the UK, I learnt the language mostly myself. I don't have any more that much time and energy to learn Austrian dialect of German or remind German again. Yea, I'm lazy, but I can communicate in 3 languages.
>This comment is beyond parody.
Agreed, your comment is funny :)
Huh. I've lived in Paris for two years, freelancing, and I'm still not fluent in French. I get by just fine. Train tickets: I've never had that problem with cashiers, but you can always use a machine or buy a ticket online - there's always an English option. Same with ATMs, public transportation, etc.
> City is a ruin after allowing all refugees live on a street.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Refugees were mainly around Stalingrad metro station in northeastern Paris. The camp was cleared out a few days ago and people were sent to more proper accommodation. Probably people will set up camp around there again. If seeing refugees bothers you, I suggest you simply avoid that particular little part of this massive city. It doesn't make Paris a "ruin".
What the fuck. I have been living in Paris for a couple of years and those are insane issues to have.
I have not seen an increase in the number of homeless people in the street (which is not too say that there are no homeless people in France)
All the automatic ticket machines can display their text in english.
The state of the city is roughly the same as it was when I arrived.
For anyone wondering I was also exaggerating a bit about Malta and Switzerland.
Berlin has a lot of very nice green spaces, and excellent infrastructure.
Oh and also, they just got themselves a left+left+green government.
http://jobs.goabroad.com/
http://www.overseasjobs.com/
Easy Expat < This site contains international classified advertisements, discussion forums, and job listings for expatriates all over the world.
281 java positions, 182 c#, 91 c++
New ones coming in every day.
There is a lot of demand here for skilled developers, most positions are not for startups, but established business.
Software developer salary is typically lower than in the US, but then again, cost of living (as far as apartment rent goes(in Oslo)) is lower than in SV. C#/Java back-end salary usually range from 600,000 NOK (73 188 dollar, at the low end, not much experience, poor resume) to 1,000,000 NOK (121 980 dollar, senior).
The average developer salary in Oslo is at 106k (dollar). National average is 82k, most attractive jobs, and salaries, tend to be in Oslo.
If nothing else you will need to communicate with the authorities constantly - immigration/work permit matters, insurances, health care, etc.
So don't expect English to carry you far unless you know at least the basics of the local language.
And that goes for authorities too. Had a non-Swedish partner for a few years who always communicated in English in all interactions with Sweden's governmental services - no problem. All important government websites are available in English. Knowing Swedish isn't even a requirement for citizenship.
So while knowing Swedish is certainly very beneficial and recommended, you can certainly get by without it, and work for many interesting companies (at least as a developer).
However, all the paperwork you will need to handle will still come in the official language, not in English. All contracts and legal documents will be in that language as well. So not knowing at least the basics will handicap you severely.
I have learned enough of Danish to be able to read the paperwork and do some basic writen communication. That's really the minimum to get you by.
Spoken Danish was a bit too much - the saying that Danish is not a language but a throat disease is not far from the truth!
That said, as soon as I started getting some actual Norwegian language skills, it improved.
(Honestly, though, we probably would've gotten along fine without the translators, as we'd spent a couple months with Rosetta Stone before traveling... we were/are far from fluent, sure, but good enough to order a pizza, I'd imagine ;) ).
Our business grew to deliver huge installations on tens of thousands of computers, and our internal tooling grew as well. We have well over 100k lines of scheme. Since it works well, we don't really want to invest in porting it. We tried rewriting our macro system in python, but it was god-awfully slow, and ended up being harder to read. With scheme, we can just rely on syntax-case to de-construct the macros, which is not only fast but also easy to extend.
I've dabbled in scheme, though I'm most proficient at Clojure.
I worked at a pretty international company before where there was several individuals whom had lived in Sweden for several years without even bothering to learn the language.
Don't be that guy or gal though, Swedes don't like it when you live here for years without learning anything. Norway is the same, same with Finland and Denmark.
You are welcome, if you ever consider moving I could probably give you some tips of potential employers!
But regarding employers, I don't know that many in Gothenburg but you could look up Fast2 maybe?
Even police refuse to go there.
I am actually in the making of a swedish job site for developers. But you will have to wait for that one though.
Otherwise, you can search for your language of choice at https://www.arbetsformedlingen.se/. I am sure lots of jobs will turn up, at least in Stockholm. What you want to do is probably to use Google Translate on that webpage or something because their english version sucks ass.
And the Duolingo app has Norwegian, too. :)
English does get you pretty far, however, and a lot of folks speak English to varying degrees.
That said, loved Norway when I visited
Rent prices in Oslo haven't boomed in paralell with the real estate market, so it's not that bad. And opting for something outside the city-centre, but still just a short commute (10-20 min by train/metro), is always an option.
Those of you who live in SF, how accurate are the rent numbers here? For Oslo they seem about right.
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...
If the rent prices for SF specified here reflects reality, then any other living cost in Oslo is easily offset, comparatively.
That said, that is -drastically- higher than rent in the rest of the country.
Compare Durham, NC, for example: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...
Durham isn't some tiny village or one-horse town. It's part of the North Carolina capital metropolitan area; on the edge of the Research Triangle Park (where there are tons of jobs); in near proximity of 3 reputable research universities, offering first-class medical, engineering, veterinary, and agricultural programs, among others (Duke, UNC, and NCSU — thus, the "Triangle"); home to an international airport; birthplace of Clojure, while Epic Games and RedHat Headquarters are just down the road in Raleigh, and GamebaseUSA is just across the road in Chapel Hill, while hundreds of companies, many of whom you've heard of, either call the Triangle area home or have major satellite offices in the area. It's got mild weather, a fantastic craft beer scene, great culture, and frequently makes it on "Top 10" lists for quality of life and business climate.
Starting salaries for junior software engineers start at around $65-75K, but within 3 years in the industry, I was already earning 6 figures — and that money goes a long way in the area due to the low cost-of-living.
If you are interested in the startup scene, the best recruiters would probably be Talent Army
Very good for medium-long term consulting gigs in Europe
Please contact me (email in profile) if you're interested in moving out here.
I moved here last year, as an internal transfer. It's been pretty good overall.
http://relocateme.eu/jobs/
Also StackOverflow Jobs has a number of openings across whole world, many of them with salaries.
However some big companies with lazy HRs mainly put job offers on their own websites and nowhere else.