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Ask HN: FAANG employees who transfered to EU. How has your experience been ?

7 points by mav3rick ↗ HN
What do you like ? What don't you like ?

US health insurance sucks but at least FG insurance is pretty good.

Did you regret the lower salaries a couple of years after you moved ? Or enjoyed your time going to the Swiss Alps on the weekend :)

11 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 30.5 ms ] thread
emteycz
All the European offices are WFH now. The US offices aren't? My colleagues spread all over Europe once the quarantine kicked in here, some of them are on Asian beaches too.
chefkoch
How do you spread all over Europe if there is a quarantine? Also many asian countries have more or less closed its borders.
emteycz
You don't have to stay at your permanent residence address, just inside a house/outside where are no people.

Yes, some people are there since the closedown up until now.

maps7
Is there no data regulation issues in play?
emteycz
What data regulation issues? I don't know what you might mean.
maps7
GDPR has constraints on for data transfer outside the EU doesn't it?
emteycz
Employees shouldn't have access to unnecessary customer data anyways per the regulation. Maybe there is some work that can't be done without downloading data, which would maybe be forbidden if outside the EU, but ordinary programmers are okay IMHO.

In practice, there are tons of companies outsourcing customer support to India, entrepreneurs managing their ecommerce sites from Thailand, managers opening their Salesforce there, guys with Slack company accounts on phones etc...

2rsf
Not personally but I have worked there and knew a few colleagues.

One young, single (i.e. no kids), healthy, alcohol lover (really expensive in Sweden) didn't like it very much and returned to the US after a couple of years. He couldn't stand the boring night life of Stockholm, being an American didn't help getting friends and didn't understand why did he have to pay high taxes,

Another guy, middle level manager married with kids, obviously older, moved between Copenhagen, Stockholm and Prague and his worst complaint was the Danish weather.

Note that it is not that easy to compare salaries, especially in the more "Socialist" countries since your taxes buys you and your family a lot more.

jamil7
I also lived in Stockholm briefly in my mid twenties and really stuggled for the reasons you mentioned above, I found it really hard to meet people, seems perfect if you have a family though. I moved to Berlin after a year and a half of it and haven't looked back since.